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.
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