How Far Do You Think To The Next Gas Station?

Day 6 : 26th September 1996

“We have tapes, a tank of gas, it‘s raining, we‘re not wearing sunglasses and it‘s stupid hindered miles to Canada…..”

All be it a bizarrely American affair of sitting times and musical tables, breakfast in the (heritage i.e. pre Amtrak) diner of the Lake Shore was a pleasant enough affair and put us in good mood for a photo stop at Toledo. Amtrak actually describe this as a fuelling stop but it amounts to much the same thing and also allowed time to examine the small display in the ticket hall explaining the history of the station. Amazingly it shows that great American tradition of forward planning, for this Union station was built by the Toledo Port Authority in the 1950s to unite all the different Railroads’ passenger trains in one place; Just as America decided it actually liked going places by car and plane and the trains stopped running! White elephant, no, try thinking herd of them.

Photo stop at Toledo. Big station, few trains!

The remaining run was a mix of countryside and abandoned factories punctuated by a brief debate. Passing the line from Eastern Standard time to Central your watch goes back an hour. So, was it possible to live in South Bend, work some where on the South Shore and, technically arrive at your desk before you’d finished breakfast at home? We gave up.

Confounding those who nick name it “The Late Shore Limited” train 49 swung into Union Avenue and then reversed at alarming speed up to the bumping post at Union Station for an on time Midday arrival. Time for some food and a breath of air, it was across to Madison Station for the 1.30 Metra train to Jefferson Park.

Now thinking you know what you’re doing is a dangerous thing but reassuring as you’re ignorant of error. Emerging from the station we could see the CTA we needed to catch and headed in it’s direction, across a footbridge over the railway and a road, through the bushes at the back of a park, across another footbridge and back to find the CTA entrance was above the subway we had originally exited from. Tired and wet we headed for O’Hare airport!

At this point the “lack of common sense” element of this trip may start to become apparent and to see it a lesson in Geography. The American rail passenger network, then as now, pretty much runs out at Milwaukee. The Algoma Central Railway starts at Sault san Marie on the Southern edge of Canada. Glance at any half decent map and it doesn’t take Ranolph Fines to see that, be it miles, kilometres, inches or carrots per square ironing boards, IT’S A BLOODY LONG WAY! Sense would say “you’re at an airport, take a plane” OH NO! what can you see from a plane, we’d hired a car!

The Hertz desk offered a choice, Ford Taunus or Mercury Sable. Hmm Ford Taunus on Illinois plates, TOURISTS!!! We opted for the Sable. Paper work complete and making sure we’d crossed all the t s and dotted all the lower case j s we were bussed out in the increasing rain to what appeared to be a very shallow swimming pool randomly dotted with cars. Here we were introduced to our companion for the next few days RBM623.

To be fair to Hertz it was clean, newish, fuelled, everything worked and the mileometer didn’t indicate any recent trips to the outer rim of the solar system. We got comfy, selected tapes (we even had Bohemian Rhapsody, we were in Illinois after all) and with a lame reference to a film with some other guys with a tank of gas and a long way to go attempted to leave the parking lot. Then attempted again and eventually found our way out.

As Smurf attempted to make sense of the Hertz provided map we headed off into the rain. My job was to get to grips again with that tiresome American habit of placing all the bits necessary to control a motor vehicle on the wrong side of where the gear stick would be if it wasn’t up behind the steering wheel. This must have come from the same mind as those cardboard Amtrak food trays!

From this point things became a struggle and through no fault of Smurf. A point worth making here is that while America may be considered a highly developed country, IT’S MAPS ARE RUBBISH! No really, they’re awful. It’s been suggested that’s why America always sends it’s troops to the Far East and Asia as these have previously been visited by either the French or the British who do much better maps! This is one American policy that makes sense, after all, if you let your troops march round the States with a US map they could be over the edge of the Grand Canyon or up to their necks in Lake Michigan before they knew it. The map, of course, would still helpfully point out the location of the nearest McDonalds.

We plodded on along ever worsening and rain flooded streets, past gloomy industrial units and strange 25 hour corner stores until at last! Screwed halfway up a utility pole a sign with somewhere in the right direction loomed out of the rain and we described a wide left arc across six lanes of traffic onto a road that looked like it went some where. We had obviously made a miraculous escape as several other drivers waved and sounded their horns as we joined our new found highway, at least I think that’s what they did.

It was now a matter of pressing on to our overnight at Green Bay, even this wasn’t easy. Now if you drive in Europe you’ll have noticed that all lorries have some degree or other of spray suppression to keep down the water when it rains. This varies dependant on the country of origin as there’s no real standard. America has stolen a march on Europe here however by apparently setting a standard of absolutely no spray suppression. GREAT!

Even on duel carriageway, overtaking a truck is a process of mirror, signal and lo I walked into the valley of death etc, as you see nothing until you pass the trucks front wheel and emerge back into the world. Of course there’ll be another truck induced waterfall a couple of hundred yards further on.

Having apparently driven a submarine for almost 200 miles, the Mariner Hotel, Green Bay was a welcome sight for food, beer and bed!

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