Operation Bandicoot, Day 10, July 19.
Now if you’re favorite stretch of highway is flat and straight…
With the Chicagoland portion of our trip complete, this road trip was winding down. But we still had one major stop to make. So, we said our good-byes and left Crystal Lake around 9AM. Our goal for this day was Dublin, Ohio.
Our travel route followed a more direct northern route than the trip out. The side trip to Dayton took us slightly further south than a direct route would have, especially in Indiana. The GPS package was putting us on what looked liked secondary roads for much of this leg of the trip. I was a little concerned about that until I looked at satellite images. Most of them were US highways with two lanes of near Interstate quality, so my worries were groundless.
The travel itself was easy and smooth. At least it was when it wasn’t raining! Somewhere between Gary and Fort Wayne, we found ourselves in the middle of a thunderstorm that rivaled the ones I’ve seen in Louisiana or Florida! For some reason, the Midwest tends to get nasty thunderstorms during the early to mid afternoon during the summer months. Lisa refuses to book airline flights that depart or land during summer afternoons because these frequent storms translate into frequent delays and cancellations. She and Caitlin once got stuck in Charlotte (North Carolina) for almost two days because of this.
It was along US-30 that we saw row after row of huge, wind turbines. Apparently wind power generates a lot of electricity for this region. Does it generate enough to power every house and business in central and eastern Indiana? Unlikely, but I’m sure it helps. Some people find these huge turbines a serious eyesore, and don’t like them. Personally, I didn’t find them any worse than the massive grain elevators that peppered the landscape. And besides, renewable energy sources are a good thing. Right?
The photo above is very similar to what we saw. This particular photograph was actually snagged from Google Maps. According to them, it was taken by a one Chad Elly, in May of 2015. These turbines are along US-30, near Townley, Indiana, just a stone’s throw from the Ohio state line. Mr. Elly had far better weather than we did. When we went through it was overcast and drizzly, thanks to the recent deluge. But these are the same turbines, and the same cornfields, that we saw in July.
And speaking of cornfields, I was reminded of a passage I overheard in an audio book Lisa got from the library. It involved a faerie, or some other supernatural type of man, who was teleporting around this very area, trying to avoid capture. That’s all I remember of the scenario, having not listened to the entire book. But the passage went something like this:
Until this day, I didn’t fully appreciate the joke.
Anyway, we reached Dublin around five in the afternoon, had a quiet dinner, and settled into our hotel for the night. Once again Michael was more interested in exploring the hotel than sleeping, but such is the way of things. Fortunately we all got some good sleep, because the next day was bound to be a busy one.
Next: Ohio wild life
The opening quote is a line from the Joel Mabus song, Hopelessly Midwestern.
The paraphrase from the audio book is from a novel by Karen Marie Moning, though I don’t recall which one, and since Lisa is asleep I can’t ask her right now.
