Ohio to Illinois, June 8th, 2009

I made it into Ohio on Sunday night having driven through the gorgeous state of Pennsylvania--with those great directions! I wish I could have taken some time to explore the area--it was getting dark on some of the pictures but it was so unlike the terrain in Florida and the corn fields of Illinois.

About an hour into driving on Monday morning and as I was coming around the west side of Cleveland, I had a blow out. I called AAA and they said to plan about 45 mintutes for assistance. But about 5 minutes later an Ohio state trooper pulled in behind me and told me he would have someone out in about 10 minutes. As he pulled away, he told me that there was a safer place to wait about a mile down the road. So, putting on his lights, I followed him down the shoulder to the emergency pull off to wait for the tow truck.

The tow truck driver was just as nice as the state trooper. He gave me written directions to the closest tire place at the next exit. The guys at the tire place got me right in and had replacement rear tires ready to go in about 15 minutes. Unfortunately when they checked the other back tire, I was missing TWO LUG NUTS!!! And once they got the tire off they found the reason for it--the studs were stripped.

Now, of course when I told my mechanic--ROD--he was upset because he thought he hadn't tightened the nuts enough when he did the last tire rotation. I told him I thought he had been caught trying to OFF me for leaving him so quickly on this trip!! The tire guy said "**it" happens and it was just lucky they caught it before the wheel fell off! (The funny thing is I know exactly when it happened--in Gainesville when Jodie and I were going to a craft show I told her it sounded like we had a rock in the wheel well. That show was at the end of March!)

The trip though Indiana to Chicago was happily uneventful. I did find out that my Illinois I-Pass transponder worked in Indiana too. That was nice. I took a chance on driving on I-90 through the city as was at the I-80 cut off at 2:45. I picked right. I didn't even have a slow down until I was on the western side on I-90 near Ohare. And then it wasn't too bad...at least it was moving.