Way to go Ohio

We drove through Illinois and Indiana yesterday. We did make 700 miles progress and are only 1000 miles from Skowhegan.

We stopped for dinner in South Bend, Indiana last night. Found a Venezuelan place, Mango Cafe. I recommend it if you are ever there. Our waiter, who it turns out had been checking out our rig through the window, followed us out to inspect our trailer. Turns out he has been looking for one like ours. He is a follower of the band Phish and he and friends camp at each concert site during the summer tour. He has been to CA, most notably Redding, to follow the band.

Mealtime brings up a problem. It is near impossible to find decent food anywhere near the interstate. Most restaurants, other than fast food, are 5 to 10 miles off the turnpike. There are just very few services for travelers. I know I’m whining but the peak of excitement each day is mealtime and finding good food is important just to fight off the travel boredom.

We managed to find a decent pet friendly hotel in Montpelier, OH. The usual vanilla hotel, adequate at best. One hotel to the next, all the same. If your eyes were closed between hotels, when opened you would not know you had changed locations. We enjoyed a fine free breakfast in the well appointed hotel dining room (is the sarcasm obvious?) this morning. The food was bad but portions were big.

On the road by 8am. More Ohio turnpike which is incredibly expensive. And slightly confusing for someone from a freeway state. The system is interesting. When you get on the turnpike you must take a ticket from the tollgate. When you pull off you need to feed the ticket into the tollgate and it calculates a toll. Feed in cash or card, usually card due to high cost. Our exit toll was $26.60. This is the definition of highway robbery.

The only good thing about the Ohio turnpike is the rest stops. These are state run facilities. Very nice buildings with humongous bathrooms, vending machines, quick serve restaurants and a gas station. No toll to pay getting off or back on. Nice.

Off to Pennsylvania. It seemed like we drove for an entire day to get through Pennsylvania. But we did get out.

New York was next. Quick trip through except for all the road work. Upstate is quite beautiful. We stopped in Newburgh for dinner at a good local place on the highway. I should mention how hard it is to feed all these dogs in a parking lot. There is too much going on and they have trouble eating. The poodle has given up and stopped eating altogether. Whatever. She will eat eventually.

Next came Connecticut. The roads in that state are in terrible condition. There are potholes everywhere and my tires always find them.

Massachusetts was pretty boring. Of course we hit her border at midnight so there was no traffic and I am unable to report whether the drivers there deserve the nickname Massholes.

Finally got to Portsmouth, New Hampshire at 230am. Staying in another non descript (dump) motel. At least They are dog friendly. It is now 305am and I need sleep. We covered 850 miles today with 150 tomorrow and we will be there. Only one stop required at the New Hampshire State liquor store. I can hardly wait.