Saturday, April 25
View Day 20 in a larger map
Saturday morning, we woke up on time! and packed for our trip. Sandy helped Ahmed make a breakfast of pancakes (approximately 438 of them) and omelets. Phuppu, Phuppa, and Selmaan came over bringing bagels, lox, and cream cheese to round out the meal. After breakfast, we said our goodbyes and left a little past our planned departure time of 10 am. We filled gas, picked up coffee, and were on the road by 11 am. We took I-79 north to I-80 and headed west.
Zahid's liked this sign. Sandy thinks Pennsylvania
needs help with figuring out how long the
highways in the USA actually are.
Shaker Heights
While heading west, we took a detour in Shaker Heights to see some old familiar sights. While Zahid slowed to a crawl in front of the Normandy Road house he grew up in, Sandy took some pictures. It was pretty comical because we were worried the current owners would come out with a shotgun or something, so Zahid was urging Sandy to hurry up while she barely had time to take even one photo.
Zahid’s childhood home
We also discovered that the “steep” hill Zahid used to skateboard down in front of his house wasn’t that steep at all. We got pictures of some other landmarks from Zahid’s childhood in Shaker Heights, once Zahid remembered how to get to those places.
Strongsville
From there, we headed to Cleveland, Sandy navigating while Zahid drove. We picked a route that we thought would be fast, but which in fact took us through some of the scariest parts of Cleveland. Eventually, though, we made it to a freeway and to Strongsville. Strongsville is where Zahid’s uncle Saadath, aunt Cheryl, and cousin Shireen live, and we had a nice lunch with them. They are coming to California in May, so we may get a chance to see them again soon.
We talked with them about our route going forward. Our plan had been to stop somewhere south of Chicago, and on the map, Joliet looked like a good candidate. Saadath and Cheryl counseled us otherwise, since Joliet is the site of a federal penitentiary! They indicated that we would be fine if we stayed near the freeway, but that it wasn’t otherwise a safe area. They also suggested we try Priceline.com in looking for hotels.
Indiana and Illinois
After lunch, we got on our way again, heading west on I-80. This route took us through Toledo into Indiana and towards Gary. Gary was a milestone because Sandy had previously driven all of I-80 west of that point. Reaching Gary meant that, on this trip, she had been on every part of I-80—not in one shot, as we did US-50, but it was still a milestone she had wanted to reach. As a practical matter, this also meant that we had no more reason to stay on any particular roads, and we could pick any routes we wanted to.
We’d originally intended to go south from Gary to visit our friends John and Mary in Champaign. However, John was working in Oregon and so we had no reason to go south. Based on that, as well as on Saadath and Cheryl’s advice, we decided to stay in Chicago itself rather than south of there. We also took their advice to check out Priceline.com, using a laptop tethered to Zahid’s Blackberry. Using the Name Your Own Price feature, we bid $40 for a high-end hotel, and our bid was accepted by the Hyatt Regency Woodfield, in Schaumberg, Illinois.
On our way up to the hotel, we stopped for White Castle burgers. Neither of us had ever tried the place before, and Sandy had heard negative reviews, but Zahid insisted on trying it. It turned out the food was bland and forgettable, and Zahid agreed to never disbelieve Sandy again. Ha!
We also took this opportunity to call Zahid’s aunt Shahtaj, who lives north of Chicago. Had we gone to Champaign, our route would have skirted Chicago, so we wouldn’t have been able to visit her, but our new itinerary gave us the opportunity to do so. We set up a visit for Sunday morning.
A brief word on Chicago drivers: scary. At one point in our drive to Schaumberg, there were five cars in our immediate vicinity—two of them swerving from one lane to the next, one tailgating us, one in the fast lane going 70 with their hazards on, and one tailgating them. Wow ... and Sandy thought NYC was bad! Ha!
We arrived at the Hyatt Regency and were pleased to find that Priceline had got a great bargain for us, as the hotel was clean and well-appointed, and we collapsed into bed around 11 pm after a great long day of seeing family and driving.
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