Today I had an easy and pleasant drive from Michigan City, Indiana, to Cleveland, Ohio; from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie; across northern Indiana and Ohio just south of the Michigan Line. Us 20 passes through farmland and small towns, and dodges around the city of Toledo, rising and falling across gentle hills and running straight ahead for miles. Along the way, I learned a few things.
There is a significant population of Amish in north central Indiana. They move, hurry even, along the sides of the highway between the farms and the towns in their horse drawn buggies, often with small trailers full of goods or kids, or a young man on a bicycle coming up behind. The wide shoulder of the road provides ample room for the wagons, and the automobiles pass by respectfully.
Saturday in the summer brings people out into the small towns. Today I passed through two street fair celebrations, in Fayette and Oak Shade; and drove through the Saturday busy streets of small, clean, appealing cities like Maumee and Lakewood that ring the cities of Toledo and Cleveland like aprons. Traffic moved smoothly along mostly good pavement and broad streets.
There are surprisingly few places to stay along US 20. I started looking for a campground as I approached Oberlin, but didn’t find any place to stay until Cleveland, and then I almost missed the Days Inn because 20 passed by the rear entrance rather than the front. It would seem that travelers along 20 are anticipated to be hungry and need gasoline, but not to sleep.
I also came to the realization that if one has acquired a map for each state one has passed through going in one direction, then one doesn’t need a new map for each state when passing through them again in the other direction. Unfortunately this revelation did not become manifest at the Iowa/Illinois border or the Illinois/Indiana border, but only when I was already a third of the way through Ohio and had not yet found a new state map.
I didn’t say that my discoveries were all significant.