Today was the last day, leaving Chicago and heading back to the D. I got up, met Peter downstairs for the standard motel breakfast and we planned our route. We decided that we would go into the city to get near the water, then grab the 80/90 tollway out through Indiana to I-69, then I-69 north to US-12 in Coldwater. From there we could do the very familiar ride east on US-12 back to Ann Arbor for Peter and back to the D for me. We figured that since it was early Sunday morning traffic in the city wouldn’t be bad and we could get through on the bikes without having to sit idling in traffic. We packed up the bikes, stopped to gas up, and left. I made sure to put a bunch of singles in my rain jacket’s outer pockets so that I could grab them easily with my gloves to pay the tolls.
Peter took us into the city on the freeway to Addison Street and we headed east through the city to Wrigley Field. It was nice riding through the city on an early Sunday morning…very little traffic, just some people walking around getting their newspapers and bagels or whatever. The sun was coming up over the lake and things were starting to warm up a bit. We passed Wrigley and got over to Lake Shore Drive and headed south. There were a ton of bikers (the bicycle kind, not the motorcycle kind) riding on Lake Shore. We didn’t think anything of it until we got closer to downtown. Turns out the day we thought wouldn’t have much traffic was the day of some sort of race or marathon (bicycle and running). Downtown near the water was packed. ARGHH!! On top of that, they were doing construction so they had gone through and ripped up the asphalt which made the road surface a treacherous set of grooves for miles. It was worse than the grates on the Mackinac Bridge. ARGHH! So much for planning! LOL
It took us 20-30 minutes to get through the crowds and the traffic…we were going to stay on Lake Shore but it was so bad we both instinctively decided to get on the Interstate ASAP so we cut it short and got onto the I-290 spur outbound. From there it was the standard leaving-Chicago-on-the-freeway route. Skyway, the whole bit. Nothing major, just some freeway riding. We got into Indiana and it started raining. We pushed on down 80/90 through Indiana, pretty much soaked but not very cold. We stopped for gas and a pee break at a service plaza and kept going. The scenery was nice, the ride was uneventful, but it was day 4 and I think both of us wanted to get home. We got onto I-69 and powered north to Coldwater, getting there about 1:30.
We had lunch at a Chinese buffet, gassed up, and got onto US-12 for the ride home. I followed Peter to his place, I wanted to make sure he actually got home safe so his wife wouldn’t be angry at me. LOL I was going to take the back roads home but after all the rain in Indiana I was kinda cranky so I opted for the freeway and rode home from there. Got home, hopped into the truck and drove over to the kennel to pick up dogzilla around 5 PM. She was so happy to see me and I was really glad to see her. It felt good to be home! Total mileage today: 310
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