Day Trip to Chicago

Signs along Interstate 88 in Illinois mark the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway. Officially designated as the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway, whatever it is called, it is one of the better-maintained, low traffic roads in the Midwest. I made a day-trip to Chicago using I-88 on Tuesday. Partly because of that highway, a day trip to Chicago by automobile is possible.

I drove all the way from Big Grove to the DeKalb Oasis without stopping. The DeKalb oasis was constructed at milepost 93 in 1975, prior to the route’s designation as I-88. Our family has been stopping there since we lived in Lake County, Indiana in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Besides clean rest rooms, gasoline sales, and multiple fast food vendors, what I appreciate is the long circuit a walker can make around the indoors perimeter of the building. It is air conditioned and great for stretching after a long time sitting in an automobile. I also use the stop to consult maps and plan my final drive into Chicago, a necessary step for good navigation into the city.

The tolls in the highway’s name are now paid without stopping. A driver sets up an account on line, cameras take a photo of the license plate, and the charges are automatically billed to credit card. It is a pretty slick deal. I wonder how the labor union felt about losing toll-booth attendants with this convenient automation.

Apparently, once a person is a Chicago commuter, they are always a Chicago commuter. Listening to the rapid-fire WBBM radio traffic report “on the eights,” I picked up an accident near the Park Ridge exit close to Touhy Avenue, right where I was going. I made my exit from I-294 on Balmoral Drive and finished the drive on back roads. Why yes, I feel pretty good about it and was on time to my destination.Years of commuting into Chicago sticks with a person.

Farmers were harvesting corn and beans on Tuesday. A lot of soybeans were already in the bin, based on fields I passed. Combines in the field were harvesting beans 4:1 over corn. With temperatures in the upper 80s and no rain, it was a good day for it. The erratic levels of the Mississippi River are causing headaches for soybean farmers. This is go time for soybean barge traffic and low water levels slow traffic. A majority of exported soybeans normally move on the river in October and November.

I couldn’t live in the Chicago area again yet a day trip was pretty satisfying. I don’t know how many more such trips I will make. If they are like yesterday, I won’t mind making them.