Notes from the road...

Ok so it was a LONG trek from Moorhead, MN to Medford, MA.

But, I MADE IT!

Days traveled: 2 

Miles driven: 1732.4

Entertainment: Baby Cy (by far the best!), my horrible singing, my stellar car dancing skills, and horrible radio between iPod sessions.

States: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts

Cities/Points of NON-interest (ggrrr - ok some of them were sorta cool): 

DAY 1 - Minneapolis, MN (Go Gophers!); Eau Claire, WI;  Madison, WI; Chicago, IL (at 5 PM rush hour...booo); Gary, IL; South Bend, IL (Go Irish!);  Toledo, OH; Sandusky, OH (woo hoo Tommy Boy)

DAY 2 -Cleveland, OH (crappy Major League movies); Erie, PA; Buffalo, NY; Rochester, NY; Syracuse, NY; Utica, NY; Albany, NY; and last but not least BOSTON BABY!!

Toll Roads: Flip

ping 10 million! WTF! Seriously people!

Hilarious 'Attractions' Skipped: Cheese Chalets, Mega-Super Adult World, The World's Largest Cord Museum, The Jell-o Museum, Wineries (no idea that PA and NY had wine!), Niagara Falls (ok, that would have been pretty cool to see)

STATE-BY-STATE details of the road (less traveled.....?)

Minnesota

Uneventful, typical drive to the twin cities.

Wisconsin

Ok, what is with all of the 'Cheese Chalets' here?! A lot of dead deer - more on top of minivans than the road...but both were pretty littered.  Tons of signs for fireworks as well.  To totally steal Archie's comment on all of the above items and WI in general, "I think they sit around and drink crappy beer, eat cheese, and blow stuff up.  Seriously, how is this state not next to Alabama instead of Minnesota."  Awesome Archie, and so true!!

Illinois

This is where the never-ending tolls began!  I hit Chicago at 5 o'clock rush hour on a Friday, that sucked pretty bad!  I did not realize that Chicago was THAT close to the Indiana border either. Oh and Chicago..you have GOT to get better about your signage..I mean wow!

Indiana

Gary, boring.  South Bend, awesome - I wish it would have been light out so Cyrus and I could have walked around the Notre Dame campus!   As for the radio stations...they seem to only have 80's stations/formats.  Don't get me wrong, I love 80's music, but come on now. The ENTIRE drive through Indiana was a giant set of toll roads, and the roads were in horrible condition!  How are you going to charge me $18.70 to drive on the most ghetto torn up road - what gives?! Plus, the speed limit is 60 MPH, rawr. Grrr. 

Ohio

Toledo, boring.  Sandusky, insanely industrial and smelly but famous because of Tommy Boy.  Cleveland, big and boring - reminded me of the crappy 80's movies made there.  Again, toll roads...booo.  Plus, what is with telling me I HAVE to have exact change and making the toll $3.67...seriously...who carries pennies.  Speed limit of 55.  So you pay to drive slow.  Even Nebraska is 75! RIDICULOUS!  Lastly, what the heck is Bob Evans?  They seem to be everywhere!

Pennsylvania

Short lived, only drove through a small part.  But Erie, well, Erie was....eerie ha ha

New York

Driving straight towards Lake Erie was pretty cool.  It looked like I was going to drive straight into it!  Tolls tolls tolls.  Buffalo was, hmmm...industrial, with a lot of Sabres stickers on cars which was pretty cool.  Roy Rogers, I thought he was just a sketchy cowboy, but apparently, it is a nasty fast food chain as well.  Who knew?!  The rest of NY was pretty uneventful.  Really flat, looked more like Iowa than I thought it would, that was a tad disappointing.  In general, the entire country east of the Mississippi needs to up their speed limits.  Driving 45, 50, 55, 60, and at most 65 MHP is not reasonable - come on now.

Massachussetts

ALMOST THERE!  Thankfully, the local boy (sorry, man) Aarron talked to me for the last hour or so which helped it go by fast.  He was laughing as I butchered the names of the cities I was driving through and gave me a bad time for talking smack about how wimpy the Appalachians were compared to the Rockies.  Then....I arrived in Medford, MA around 10 PM, unloaded the car and baby Cy.  I was home....  :)

And now for the pictures....( have not figure out how to put them in order yet or put captions...sorry, I will fix it later)