Trip 7: Day 2 (Chicago, Gary, Lake Station, Syracuse)

Note: As usual, I'll have to post pictures later. I have them, I just don't have time to upload them now as they're on three different devices.

The flight ended up in at 7am, but there was no gate. The plane sat with its exhausted passengers at the end of a runway across a bridge from the terminal. 15 minutes later, we were told we had the gate, but it took another 10 minutes to get in the gate.
Now, the more complex part of the plan went into effect: take the inter-terminal train to its last stop, catch the "F" lot parking shuttle, and walk to the Sheraton, where I would use their free wifi in their lobby and eat a bit of breakfast while working.
That part worked out very well. The wifi was nice, no one really bothered me (I was worried that, since I wasn't staying there, that they would get weird about me sitting around there) and it was comfortable.
After working, I had to go get the car. To do that, I had to take a bus. Theoretically, this should have been easy: cross the street and catch the bus by the McDonald's. But they were resurfacing the street, and there was no way to simply just cross as the intersection was totally blocked by fresh tar and construction equipment. I walked through the Sheraton parking lot, and found a construction worker milling around, watching me as I approached. I said that I wanted to get across. "You want to go to McDonald's?" I said that I wanted to just cross to get to the bus stop. He led me over to where the construction ended, and I had to run across the road, avoiding traffic. Once across, there was no bus stop.
A younger guy with a backpack approached from the other direction and crossed the street to me. I asked if he was looking for the bus stop, but got a confused response that trailed off, so I asked again if he knew where the bus stop was. He said there was one behind him, but I then saw a man just up the street standing by the road, so I said I would try there. Once I got there, the man had gone back to his car, and there was no bus stop. I kept walking through the parking lots (there was no sidewalk) and, at times, on the grass, until I finally reached the bus stop I was looking for.
Just ten minutes late, the bus finally arrived, much more crowded than I had expected. I sat next to the only open seat: a younger white guy with long hair staring at his phone, as people on the bus tend to do. The other seats were covered with backpacks or were next to larger men who took up more than one seat. At the back was a group of guys talking loudly. A typical bus.
The stop was easy to find. I had researched it: after turning onto Elmhurst, get off in front of the trailer park, cross the street and walk to the car rental place. The car rental place was in a nice looking strip mall that, aside from the Budget office and one other office, was totally empty. This was not a particularly good neighborhood though. It was mostly industrial, with an emissions testing site next door and a landfill behind them. There were a few cheap motels, but the housing that was around did not appear to be aimed at Chicago's upwardly mobile. But I made it, got the car, and headed out.
Chicago's toll roads are a good way to avoid the congested city, but are annoying in how their toll booths are laid out. To pay a toll with cash, you have to get off of the freeway at each tollbooth, then re-merge into the main lanes. The right side of the main lanes is crowded with trucks on the Tri-State Tollway, so it's a constant battle to dodge and try to snake through the line of trucks to get back into the higher speed lanes.
And then, near the end of the tollway, there it was: US 6. Here, it was 159th Street. I had been on 159th Street before, and it was a dismal strip of low-rise commerce through mostly low-end suburbs. And here, at I-294, were some of the lowest end of suburbs, Harvey and Markham. Markham is relatively famous for its high murder rate while Harvey is known for being the home of the mall that was destroyed for the filming of the "The Blues Brothers" in the 1970's, and stood, damaged and falling down, for many years after. I had no interest in going back.
US 6 makes a loop around the tollway, joining Interstate 80 just a few miles later as it goes back to freeway, entering Indiana. The Indiana crossing has a blue sign that features the state's motto, "Crossroads of America." And it's especially appropriate here, as the landscape is just a mess of freeways, with Interstate 80/94 at times going to twelve lanes, mostly to accommodate all of the trucks.

The plan here was to visit Gary's brewery. I just had to. I mean, with the brewery fad, Gary is probably one of the last places you would expect a brewery to be, despite its 80,000 population. The brewery wasn't in Gary's really depressing downtown area, but it's slightly more healthy Miller Station section, on the city's eastern edge. To reach it, I decided to take a back way along a couple of roads that looked interesting. One of those roads was Clay Avenue, which made a straight run south from Gary into western Lake Station. Once the road entered Gary, it devolved into a series of potholes and poor condition pavement. It was so bad that I'll say that I have never seen a paved road in that poor a condition. This was, of course, because Gary just doesn't have money to pave roads, and this road, being in a random area, was a low priority. There was certainly traffic: I had to avoid people coming at me as they tried to avoid huge potholes. But, with the rental car, I didn't really car, and hit the bumps without a second thought.
At Miller Station, I parked in front of the brewery and walked a block over to get lunch at a pizza place. It was the end of the lunch special, and I was told that they would give it to me, but only sausage was available. The pizza was pretty good. The crust was excellent, but it didn't have enough sauce for my liking. Two slices and a soda only ran $6 though, so I can't complain too much about it.
The brewery was very good. The patrons were friendly, the atmosphere was pleasant, and the beer was good.

Past Lake Station, the Chicago suburbs finally taper of, and US 6 enters a more rural setting of corn fields and small towns. The lack of sleep and beer as catching up with me, and I had to pull off. At Walkerton, I pulled off at a McDonald's to get a coffee, but stayed in the car for a bit to listen to music. I fell asleep. I woke later, looked at the clock, and thought that I had been asleep for over a half hour. I thought it concerning that I had slept that long in a McDonald's parking lot, but went into the restaurant, bought a caffeinated soda, and got back on the road. I realized later that I had just entered into Eastern Time, and, somehow, the car's clock had reset, so it just seems like I had slept a really long time.

Back a year and a half ago, US 6 was closed for construction around Walkerton. The detour was 10 miles, but I ended up following traffic and a number of narrow, rutted county roads to wind up back at US 6 right past the end of the closure. This time, I thought it was too early for construction, but Indiana wanted something else. At the Bremen bypass, the bridge over a railroad track was closed, resulting in me having to go through Bremen. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, since US 6's original routing had it follow the route through town, but it added a bit of time to the drive.
At about 8pm, I finally arrived in Syracuse and pulled into the resort. After some time in the room, I went to get some food at the Back Porch restaurant inside the hotel. A year and a half ago, I had stopped at this resort, looking for beer from the Wood Boat Brewery, supposedly located at the hotel. I was told then that they had stopped brewing due to a conflict between the partners, but planned to brew again soon.
This time, the bartender had another story: they were brewing again, but they did not have them on tap at the time because they changed out their taps so often. I ate my salad and went to bed.

Trip 7: Day 1 (Monterey, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Chicago)

At the least, I'm in the nicer terminal. My previous stops in Las Vegas had been via Southwest Airlines, which put me in a crowded, overly lit space with too few bathrooms and horrendous carpet on the floor. This McCarran Airport is spacious, aesthetically pleasing, and even plays the Andrews Sisters on the speakers overhead.
Eight years ago was my first trip to Cleveland, and I've been back at least once per year since. That first trip in 2007 had me flying into Chicago, staying for a couple of days, then taking the train to Cleveland. The train leaves at about 10pm and arrives in Cleveland right at dawn in the spring. The Cleveland Amtrak station is not a station so much as it's a platform with a small temporary building. Clearly passenger train travel's glory days have come and gone in Cleveland. I walked up the hill into Downtown, following and chatting with a local guy who had taken the train after his flight was cancelled, and got some advice on what to see and do. This experience, a random guy being really nice to another random guy after a grueling train ride with no sleep, left me with a good impression of Cleveland, and the people there are one reason I go back so often.
This year, I chose to go during a larger Midwestern trip. Though I had originally booked a regular one-stop from San Jose on Southwest, it arrived at 1:35am, and I found that less than ieal. I found an American flight for $20 more that departed Monterey, but was a red-eye. Another trip to Cleveland with no sleep.
My arrival in Las Vegas was met with a phone call from the airline, warning me that the flight was delayed an hour and a half. We would be departing at 1:30am local time, and arriving at 7:30am Chicago time. The difference between that 2007 trip to the Midwest and this one is mainly that, while on this current trip, I have to work. I have meetings to call in to and coding to finish tomorrow morning. I can still make the meetings, but I'm not realizing that I probably should have kept that original Southwest flight that arrived so late, just because I probably would have had a better chance at actually making it in on time, and could then at least get a few hours' sleep in a comfortable Hilton family bed.

There's US 6 stuff in here somewhere. See, this is another US 6 trip. Trip number 7. I'm basically driving from Chicago to Cleveland and back over four days, with a full day in Cleveland. This will take me along a stretch of US 6 that I've only driven once, a year and a half ago. It's the section I had to skip on my trip across the country last year, as I had to drop south to Louisville and go back north to Chicago. So, practically a year to the day that I would have been traveling that stretch of US 6 between Hammond and Interstate 69 in Indiana, I will make it up over a full day.
The tentative plan is to leave Chicago (specifically, Elk Grove Village, just west of O'Hare, where I got a very good car rental deal that I can reach via one PACE bus from the edge of the airport property) at about noon local time, then drive to Gary. In Gary, there's an interesting brewery I'd like to check out (for one: it's in Gary, which is strange enough), and then I'll visit a pizza place that boasts free wifi and Chicago style deep dish (since I'm missing it on this trip). After that, it's off to the hotel in Syracuse, on Lake Wawassee. The hotel actually supposedly hosts a brewery.
A year and a half ago (November 2013), I went into the hotel bar both to check out the place as part of my trip, and to inquire about the brewery. I was told that they were not producing at the time due to some dispute between the partners (it's sad how common this is with small breweries), but the plan was to eventually start production again. Looking at their web site, it looks like they're producing again. But it all remains to be seen. At the least, the hotel bar has good beer on tap.
The next day, I'll drive all day to Cleveland. I took the day off of work so that I could concentrate (since I'll be well-rested) on US 6. I'd like to visit a brewery in Napoleon, Ohio, and may stop at Mad Anthony's tap house (the brewery is in Fort Wayne) in Auburn, just south of US 6.
On Saturday, I'll follow US 6 along the Lake Erie shoreline until it dips south toward Fremont, then continue on Route 2 to Toledo, where I'll overnight. I haven't spent any time in Toledo since 2010, when I stopped very briefly on my back to Cleveland from Detroit. Toledo reminded me somewhat of Rochester, New York, but I may just be confusing the two in my memories, so I'd like to see them again. Plus, since it's within 50 miles or so of US 6, I'm counting it as a US 6 city.

Trip 6: Day 1 (Santa Clarita, Canyon Country, Palmdale)

Throughout the 1950's, the Harbor Freeway was extended south from the Four-Level Interchange (the 101 & 110 interchange, that held that name even in the 1950's) into the area referred to as the "Harbor Gateway" - the strip of land between Downtown Los Angeles and the San Pedro/Wilmington neighborhoods (formerly independent cities) that allowed the City of Los Angeles to annex the Port of Los Angeles area in 1906 (by California law, a city's incorporation boundaries must be contiguous).
As the freeway was extended, US 6 was rerouted; originally along Figueroa through Downtown LA, it had made it to Santa Barbara Avenue (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard) along the current Interstate 110 by 1956. As it was rerouted, you can piece together what's already known about the affect the rise of the automobile and the freeway had on Downtown LA.
As we strolled along US 6's former stomping grounds this afternoon, a block from a farmers market, it was clear that the rebirth of Downtown LA, something that has been prophesized for decades by real estate developers, has happened. The hipsters have move into their lofts, opened their upscale markets, and are ready to price out the mostly Latino population that currently shops in the areas. In the meantime, it's a weird mix of art deco buildings serving as evangelical churches, housing Irish pubs and just being outright abandoned in their upper floors. Downtown's rejuvenation means that this, one of the last bastions of gentrification resistance (not by choice, but by simple rejection from those who would gentrify it) has finally lost the war.
While I waited for my ride at the bustling Union Station, three men came up to ask me for change (all for public transit fares, of course). LA's Skid Row, just outside the renovated Union Station driveways' reaches, still exists and may always exist. Even San Diego's equivalent has refused to be pushed out by the more gentrified, condo-centric "East Village" neighborhood. You can push the poor and homeless into smaller quarters, but you can't just price them out of your city.

The middle-class have taken the hint though, and have been priced out of both the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valleys. Cross Newhall Pass on the Sierra Highway, and you enter into the City of Santa Clarita. Once several unique unincorporated and mostly rural communities, the city was created in 1987 to fend off annexation threats from nearby incorporated areas (mainly Los Angeles). Now, it's the 18th largest city in the state, and the third largest city in Los Angeles County, just after LA and Long Beach. This part of old US 6 was used as the filming location for Steven Spielberg's "The Duel" and, despite the strip malls and brown arid hills line with newly-constructed trailer homes, you can still see it.

But I started with Arroyo Seco Parkway, now known as the Pasadena Freeway, heading north from Chinatown, through the Figueroa Street Tunnels. This is the oldest section of the Los Angeles freeway system. The tunnels were built in the 1930's as part of Figueroa Street, and have never been rebuilt. From there, I took the dangerous and congested off-ramp toward Interstate 5 north, and followed it all the way to the City of San Fernando.

San Fernando is an urban enclave - completely surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, but wholly separate. Demographics have made the municipality interesting: the white population, though mostly leaving the area decades ago, has begun to again move in, pricing out the mostly Latino population, as the city keeps a separate, higher ground from the surrounding low-end Sylmar and Pacoima districts of Los Angeles, which remain decidedly Latino. Sunday afternoon on San Fernando Road in the city brought out the town: people strolled passed the boot stores, jewelers and dollar stores, chatting with each other, and watching the drunk and just generally crazy men prowl the streets. Teenage girls ate candy from bags by their mothers, and little boys followed their parents as they ambled down the street, staring into shop windows. The only separating 2010's San Fernando Road from 1960's San Fernando Road is the ethnicity of the people.

Entering into Sylmar, the neighborhood degrades into an industrial waste of auto shops, recycling plants and partially open drug motels on the west side, while the east side is the old railroad track. This section of San Fernando Road was once both US 6 and US 99, and was the historic entrance to the San Fernando Valley.
Turning off onto the Sierra Highway while essentially in the median of Interstate 5, you cross the San Fernando River and begin the ascent over Newhall Pass. Wagons coming west once followed this route to enter into the coastal chaparral of the San Fernando Valley. In the 1860's, there existed what was known as Beale's Cut: a slice into Newhall Pass to make the ascent less steep. Beale was given permission to collect tolls, and the pass operated until 1910, when the Newhall Tunnel was built by the county. By then, vehicle traffic was too heavy for Beale's Cut to support anyway. The Newhall Tunnel existed up until the 1920's, when it also became clogged with traffic. The result was the more ambitious traverse of Newhall Pass that we see today, that involved a number of larger cuts into the mountains.
Today, Beale's Cut still exists, though it's on private property, behind a fence, and is not easy to even see. When I tried to approach it, there was already someone parked in front of the gate so my intention to get closer was abandoned. A bit up the road though, almost directly west of Beale's Cut, is a monument to both Beale's Cut and the Newhall Tunnel, which was just to the west. The placard for the monument is gone, so all that's left is the stone foundation, and even that is behind a chain-link fence. There was trash strewn around the old parking area, including a shoe on one side of the fence, and a different shoe on the other side. Traffic cruised by on the 4-lane road at a good clip, and I could imagine the pull-off where I was was a popular spot for speed traps.

 

Going over the pass, you enter the former town of Newhall. Originally a railroad stop, the town was one of several that merged to form the City of Santa Clarita and was now a sprawling, faceless suburban wasteland. The tract housing in the hillsides in the distance signaled the entrance to the Santa Clarita Valley, one of the fastest growing regions in California.

North of Golden Valley Road, Sierra Highway is a strip of condo and apartment complexes, and low-end retail. At Via Princessa, maps show an unusual ramp system leading on to CA 14 to the east. This was actually a planned part of CA 126. As it is today, CA 126 winds through Santa Clarita between I-5 and CA 14 but, in the 1960's, the plan was to route a freeway generally along the Santa Clarita River to connect the two highways. However, neighborhood opposition and lack of interest in funding the project eventually led to it being removed entirely from the plans. The legacy of the CA 126 freeway plan are these long ramps, and a grassy embankment on both sides of Sierra Highway, where the westbound mainlanes would have been.

  

Sierra Highway's intersection with Soledad Canyon Road has quite a bit of history, stemming from its important location as a suitable stopping point for traffic coming in and out of Los Angeles. Until the Antelope Valley Freeway to the east was completed, this was road that Angelenos used to reach the Eastern Sierras and Lake Tahoe. Nicknamed Solemint Junction for the meeting of Soledad Canyon to the east and Mint Canyon to the north, the Solemint Store operated into the 1950's as part general store and part roadside attraction. The business apparently saw much of Hollywood's most famous stars come through at one time or another, on their way to the mountains in the north. Eventually, like most places, it burned down. Today, there's no remnant of the Solemint store or the importance of the intersection, and the it's is now just another strip mall center, with a Yoshinoya and a Nissan dealership.

Solemint Junction in Santa Clarita

Past Soledad Canyon Road, Sierra Highway leaves CA 14's path and enters into Mint Canyon. The area becomes decidedly more rural and the road goes from 4- or 6-lane divided to 2-lane. There's relatively little traffic and the landscape is mostly larger lot homes and horse farms.

Three points of interest along the route that are more just interesting to know than to actually see.
The first is Tony Alamo Christian Church, the base of Alamo Christian Foundation, and headed by convicted child sex offender, Tony Alamo. It started as one of the many Southern California cult-like religious movements in the 1970's (the "Jesus Movement"), but, like most others, became much darker as membership grew. Eventually, Alamo relocated to Arkansas and began a publication and media business. By 1996, the IRS had revoked their tax exempt status, and, by 2009, Alamo had been convicted of ten counts of sex trafficking of minors. At present, it looks like the church may lose its land in the Santa Clarita Valley, as they owe several million dollars in restitution from civil suits filed by Alamo's victims after his conviction and sentencing. The church building still stands but is relatively unassuming in appearance.
The other site of interest is Sweetwater Springs Ranch. Named for the adjacent Agua Dulce community, the ranch was once a Western ghost town themed roadside attraction, built for tourists traveling on the Sierra Highway. By the 1970's, the Antelope Valley Freeway had been completed and sucked up the traffic, so the attraction closed. At present, it serves as a filming location, and still features some of the faux ghost town buildings, including the gold mine.
Just past the Alamo Church is La Chene. The iconic rock building was built in the 1920's as the expansion of a gas station. The restaurant opened 1980 after serving as a roadside diner through the 60's and 70's. La Chene is now a highly-regarded and popular French restaurant.

Sierra Highway south of
Escondido Canyon Road

Snaking through the rolling hills of the Agua Dulce area, you eventually again reach CA 14. For the next few miles, the old path of US 6 closely follows the freeway. At Crown Valley Road is the community of Acton, though much of the community lies to the south, and all that's at the intersection is a strip mall and a few fast food places. The Acton Metrolink commuter rail station is just a bit farther down, along Sierra Highway. The station building was designed to look like a building from an Old West town, a homage to the motion picture production that occurred in the area.

   

Sierra Highway again separates from the path of CA 14 at its CA 138 exit. Historically, the US 6 - CA 138 intersection was a bit farther east, and is now the intersection of Sierra Highway and Pearblossom Highway. To stay on US 6, one must now turn left at the traffic signal.
At the exit ramp is a sign for Pasadena. This is the Angeles Forest Highway. It rises into the Angeles National Forest and intersects the Angeles Crest Highway (CA 2).
Just after the turn, you enter Palmdale.

Historic US 6 sign in Palmdale

I don't know what I expected of Palmdale, but I had budgeted quite a bit of time there. For a city of over 100,000, I expected something. But I didn't see anything redeeming about the place. There are some new civic buildings in its tiny Downtown area, but most of it appears to go back and forth between tract housing or low-end trailer parks, and open desert. From what I could tell, Palmdale is a pretty awful town.

Trip 6: Los Angeles to Mojave

Sunday, I start my first US 6 trip in a year, all along a section of road that is no longer part of US 6. A previous trip had brought me out to San Fernando Road and the City of San Fernando (an urban enclave, surrounded by Los Angeles), but we didn't go north of San Fernando. This time, I'll start in San Fernando, follow the old road north to its intersection with Sierra Highway, below the I-5/CA 14 interchange. Sierra Highway winds through a couple of canyons east of Santa Clarita to reach the Antelope Valley, then goes in a straight line, following a railroad track, through the towns of Lancaster and Palmdale, before entering the desert and reaching Mojave. I'll stay the night in Palmdale then, the next day continue to Mojave, where I'll turn off and go to Bakersfield and begin the drive home. US 6's old route continues north as CA 14, but I have to cut west.
This is a one-way car rental trip, and the car must be returned on Tuesday by the time I rented it on Sunday. This means a less than leisurely drive across the mountains and up the Salinas Valley.