And so it begins

2018-09-01
PA, OH, IN, MI

Friday night I loaded up the car with all the stuff I've packed. No doubt too much of it will never be used, and yet there will be stops at various stores to pick up the stuff I should've packed instead. But it's not like I'm not going to outer space so I'm not too worried about getting it right. I will just make sure I have my camera and I should be all right.

And so the trip begins. The first day was just a travel day heading west. I hit the road at about 8:00 AM right on schedule and stopped at the local gas station because it rained so hard the day before. Friday I checked the weather during that rain and it was supposed to stop overnight, so I just said that I'd wait. While getting gas I realized that I had forgotten my itinerary. With such an auspicious beginning I felt that I was on a roll. I went back to the house and picked up the paperwork so I would have something to plug into the GPS. Then I hit the road at 8:30 AM right on schedule.

I cleared Pennsylvania and Ohio and made it into Indiana and then headed a few miles into Michigan to find a hotel. The detour was precipitated by the Notre Dame - Michigan game (Notre Dame won and I expect hungover drivers as I go through tomorrow) so I spent the night in Coldwater Michigan. That's the perfect name for a town in Michigan; it's pretty much surrounded by water (which is part of the reason that it has the most lighthouses of any state) and it's cold for most of the year.

I'm driving on Labor Day Weekend. As a big holiday weekend, it has some pluses and minuses. The most obvious negative is the police presence. There have been dozens of officers out; many more than you'd expect at the beginning of a month. And they all seem to have something to do. I am sufficiently patient that they haven't influenced me much so far, except for the usual slowdown whenever they are spotted. I will continue to exercise my cruise control.

On the flip side, most construction projects are sidelined. While there are no shortages of orange barrels especially in Ohio, many of them are off on the shoulder. I have seen several signs mentioning projects starting on September 4. Really big projects like in Wisconsin still slow things down a bit, but most of the way has been relatively clear with no single lane restrictions.

Miles Driven: 574 in 9 hours