The Lakeland

5 May 1999, Wednesday
Started: Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 8:50am (Eastern time)
Reached: Pewaukee, Wisconsin, 4:40pm (Central time)
Miles: 481 (859 cumulative)
Route:
	Ohio - Cleveland, Toledo
	Indiana - South Bend
	Illinois - Chicago
	Wisconsin - Milwaukee (Pewaukee is its suburb)
Interstates: 90, 271, 480, 80, 94, 294, 894

Started in Srinivas's car, with him driving first. Once we got out of the
town, there was not much of a traffic. We saw lots of plowed fields with
patches of thick bunch of trees. Sometimes, it was like an island of
trees, surrounded by the brown fields all around.

There was almost a continuous line of trucks on the road. We saw some
minefields near Toledo, OH. Don't know what the product is. The sky turned
cloudy soon and light rain started. We soon entered Indiana, "Crossroads
of America". Indiana is quite flat. We saw some cows on the roadside.
We also saw signs for Amish farms. Also saw the exit of University of
Notre Dame, and its College Football hall-of-fame.

We saw signs along the highway that read: "Emergency stopping, 2 hour
limit". We couldn't figure out what that implied! What do you do if you
cannot move within 2 hours, say because you ran out of gas? Or does the
state of Indiana guarantee that your emergency, no matter what, will be
resolved within two hours? 

In Indiana, we crossed from Eastern to Central time zone, which is one
hour behind Eastern. As we neared Chicago, the traffic became heavy. We
had to pay a few 40 cents toll. It was like feeding a bottomless pit!
Surely reminded me of New Jersey!

There were lots of trucks near Chicago. But the "cars only" lane was much
faster. Even in a 55mph zone, everybody was speeding. Some trucks were
going at 80+ mph! (~150 kmph). 

The cloudy weather soon changed to bright sunshine, and we had to don our
sunglasses. The rest areas in Illinois are called "Oasis"! As we crossed
into Wisconsin, we could see that we had entered Lakeland. There were
lots of small trees in marshes and small ponds in-between. Later Bipin, our
friend, claimed that Wisconsin has more lakes than Michigan, which claims
to have 10,000 lakes!

We had to face a bad traffic-jam South of Milwaukee. Pewaukee is located
about 20 miles West of Milwaukee. We reached Bipin's home about 4:40pm,
Central time.

Fortunately Ashwini, Bipin's wife, was at home. She called Bipin at work.
We caught up lots of things. We had not met since the last two years.

We then visited Lake Pewaukee and Lake Michigan. I did not realize how big
Lake Michigan was until I saw it! The huge water body chilled us.

Ashwini had made really nice koshimbir, and I had my second hardcore
Marathi dinner in two consecutive days! Pewaukee had a thunderstorm that
night, and it was raining in the morning when we got up. Ashwini packed us
with Pohe, tea, and *home-baked* muffins. As it had chocolate chunks, I was
more than happy!