Fort Wayne!

[skyscraperpage17]

The drive between Dayton and Toledo is also pretty awful.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I've only done it once, but we really enjoyed it on a trip to Galena. Love the rolling hills as you get further along.

galena and its environs are the southernmost extension of wisconsin's driftless area, and it's not what i'm talking about.

that area up in the extreme NW corner of illinois is quite pretty and scenic, as far as farm country goes. it reminds of the english countryside.

i mean it's definitely not the swiss alps or anything, but it might as well be compared to the rest of pancake flat illinois.

i'm talking about heading out west to the quad cites and beyond on I-80. hours and hours of giant 2,000 acre rectangles of corn! corn! corn!




a typical scene of galena countryside (most of illinois looks nothing like this):


source: http://www.outdoorhomeandgarden.com/...commendations/

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yep, the drive from cincinnati up to chicago takes you straight-across the corn belt.

i've done it many times (i have relatives down in cincy).

the drive from chicago to st. louis is even worse.

Indy to St. Louis on 70 is another nightmare of unrelentingly flat topography (until you get near the Mississippi River valley)

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Indy to St. Louis on 70 is another nightmare of unrelentingly flat topography (until you get near the Mississippi River valley)

chicago to st. louis on I-55 is the same exact thing, just an hour more of it!

and when you've already sat through four hours of corn, who doesn't want to sit through a fifth?

i think what we're establishing is that illinois is really the worst of the worst when it comes to the mind-numbing sameness of the cornbelt.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

The drive between Dayton and Toledo is also pretty awful.

The drive through Ohio is pretty awful.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

chicago to st. louis on I-55 is the same exact thing, just an hour more of it!

and when you've already sat through four hours of corn, who doesn't want to sit through a fifth?

i think what we're establishing is that illinois is really the worst of the worst when it comes to the mind-numbing sameness of the cornbelt.

dazed truckers hit these appalachian-like grades in southwest st. louis county after 8 hours in the cornbelt or whatever and like immediate crash.

https://goo.gl/maps/iz1C7zQBUt42

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by JManc

The drive through Ohio is pretty awful.

I blame that on the aforementioned fact that state troopers are at nearly every damn mile marker along the interstate. You want to get through Ohio quickly, but unless you want to make it from one end to the other without getting your license revoked, you have to go the speed limit...

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

I blame that on the aforementioned fact that state troopers are at nearly every damn mile marker along the interstate. You want to get through Ohio quickly, but unless you want to make it from one end to the other without getting your license revoked, you have to go the speed limit...

the drive through ohio is fine. perhaps thats because i'm used to I-55 in illinois, I-70 between st. louis and denver...

[Buckeye Native 001]

It's a little more varied than Indiana (and probably Illinois, but my only experiences in that state involve the drive between Chicago and Madison) but you don't see a real noticeable difference in topography until you get east or south of Columbus

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

It's a little more varied than Indiana (and probably Illinois, but my only experiences in that state involve the drive between Chicago and Madison) but you don't see a real noticeable difference in topography until you get east or south of Columbus

all of the cities are so much closer together once you get to indy and on east, so the geography feels less severe. i also spend more time along the ohio valley and I-64 than up along I-70, which of course is loaded with hills. north of there is more like most of illinois, of course....like an illinois laid on its side (indiana and the flat part of ohio put together).

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yeah it is a nice perk.

and if someone wants alpha city access, but isn't quite ready to settle for a southbend or kenosha, milwaukee fits that tweener zone perfectly. it's big enough to be a real city, but it's so much more user friendly for day-to-day living than a giant clusterfuck like chicagoland. and amtrak has 8 trains a day each way to get you to and from chicago for when you want to scratch that big(ger) city itch.

cost wise, milwaukee is still extremely reasonable. you could buy this modest, but well-appointed bungalow in bayview (a great neighborhood along the lake about 2.5 miles south of downtown milwaukee) and literally walk to the beach and all of the other amenities of bayview, all for the low, low price of $175K!!!

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2...?fullpage=true

Milwaukee definitely seems cool. I'm not sure how the job market is but I'm sure it not too bad. My sister lives in white fish bay also.

[cannedairspray]

If we're talking bad drives, is there anything worse than Omaha to Denver? The only saving grace, in my opinion, is that it's soooo empty and wide open, so unrelenting, and so long (8 hours) that there's almost a zen quality to it. I was only able to make the trip once by myself before the age of smartphones (I had a flip phone but there was no internet on it, of course, and not a lot of service, period). It was almost meditative in its solitude, which is rare on the US interstate system for that long. An entire day barely moving the steering wheel right or left other than to get off to get gas or food or use the bathroom. Nothing to see except for soybeans and corn and the random cars (but mostly trucks) around you. Just you and the radio, and you need to find a station every hour or so. You get tired to constantly trying to find music you like, or talk radio that isn't church, so sometimes you just turn it off and are left alone with your thoughts, trying not to get hypnotized by the road.

I guess I might've made it sound kinda romantic there, but it really does suck out loud.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yep, the drive from cincinnati up to chicago takes you straight-across the corn belt.

i've done it many times (i have relatives down in cincy).

the drive from chicago to st. louis is even worse.

Yea, Chicago to St. Louis or Indianapolis is the worst for me. or Chicago -Des Moines.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

see, my attaction to a place like fort wayne or spokane, or i dunno, salem oregon is the exact inverse. i like the idea of being within the vicinity of the big city but at the end of the day living in mayberry. but not in a actual suburb of the big city, a totally separate place within reasonable driving distance. im like an urban voyeur i guess....

You might be interested in a place like River Falls, Wisconsin. Technically it is part of the Twin Cities metro, but in reality it is a small college town in western Wisconsin that is surrounded by farms and hills. It is about an hour's drive east of downtown St Paul. Eau Claire and Menomonie are larger versions that are a little bit farther east. I'm sure there are other towns like that in the Midwest.

[Chef]

I've driven between Upstate NY and various places in the Midwest too many times to count. If you drive from Utica to Minneapolis pretty much everything from Cleveland to Madison looks the same. That whole section is boring but there is no part of it that stands out as the worst. I like driving west across the Great Plains. I've done Minneapolis to both Rapid City and Denver. In both cases you start to feel like you are leaving civilization. South Dakota and eastern Colorado are both so empty that they make you feel tiny. Stretches are as empty as northwoods wilderness but are all treeless horizon. It is definitely a zen environment.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

I blame that on the aforementioned fact that state troopers are at nearly every damn mile marker along the interstate. You want to get through Ohio quickly, but unless you want to make it from one end to the other without getting your license revoked, you have to go the speed limit...

Is this only an east-west thing? I can't think of a place that more aggressively polices traffic for such a long stretch than the Ohio turnpike. I don't recall I-75 or I-77 being as bad but I haven't driven either of those through Ohio since I was in college a decade ago.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Is this only an east-west thing? I can't think of a place that more aggressively polices traffic for such a long stretch than the Ohio turnpike. I don't recall I-75 or I-77 being as bad but I haven't driven either of those through Ohio since I was in college a decade ago.

Generally the Turnpike and I-75 are bad for troopers. I-70, I-77, and the others 7s are generally light.

And while I agree the drive from Dayton to Toledo / Cincinnati to Columbus aren't my cup-of-tea...they are FAR better drives than Chicago to St. Louis or anywhere west of Indianapolis in the aforementioned cornbelt. At least you'll have random trees, random towns every 5 miles, a Popeye's at a TA, and slight hills on any Ohio interstate route. Good luck getting that from Omaha to Denver.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

It's a little more varied than Indiana (and probably Illinois, but my only experiences in that state involve the drive between Chicago and Madison) but you don't see a real noticeable difference in topography until you get east or south of Columbus

That's true and it gets really pretty in the Cincinnati area but from Columbus up to PA border via Cleveland...is so boring and going NE to SW through OH makes for a long as drive.

[Centropolis]

border to border driving across illinois may be worse than driving across kansas (kansas has the beautifully stark flint hills, and some other areas)...with the exception that the payoff is sooner in illinois if you are driving to chicago from say st. louis. however, it's a funnily similar experience...the landscape becomes increasingly stark before before you get a potent visual that your journey is coming to a close whether its the chicago skyline (well or the refineries/bridge nearing joliet) popping into view from a good distance, or the first glimpse of the rockies well east (and higher than) of denver.