I made a one-way road trip from Des Moines to Philadelphia last week. Among other things, this provided me with 1100 miles worth of observations while driving east, with all but the last 100 miles or so on Interstate 80:
* Iowa gets stereotyped for flat terrain, but across the fruited plain east of the Mississippi River, it's actually much flatter through the northern parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. I suppose this is due to the proximity of the Great Lakes, but I never hear anyone refer to Ohio being flat.
* Once you cross the state line from Ohio into Pennsylvania, it suddenly gets hilly, and you spend most of the road time crossing the Allegheny Mountains, then the Pocono Mountains. A much more scenic drive, but a much more difficult drive.
* Although I missed the toll roads in Illinois the lead to Chicago, it was all tollways through Indiana and Ohio. Why? The roads weren't any better in those states. I was particularly discouraged about this in Indiana, a not-so-populous state that can't possibly need toll/road money any more than Iowa, which has no tolls on I-80.
* Did you know that there's an RV / Motor Home Hall of Fame and Museum along I-80 in Elkhart, Indiana. Again, why? This was the most memorable, cheezy site of interest along the way.
* It's no surprise that traffic was thick near Chicago, even mid-day. But the worst of it was eastern Pennsylvania. Once you get to Allentown, it's high traffic the rest of the way, because for some reason millions of people choose to live on a tiny section of America on the northeastern seaboard.
* Thank you to Google Maps, and Waze, and any other tech app that helps people with directions and traffic. It's hard to remember how people could successfully made epic drives with only paper maps at their disposal.
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