Day 12: Chicago, Illinois to Toledo, Ohio

The original idea was to get up early enough to miss traffic and to go through any hard neighborhoods while everyone was asleep. But between the wonderfully comfortable featherbeds and Chicago Blue the night before, getting out the door by 7 was out of the question. Instead, we woke up at 7, packed our things and went downstairs to Café Des Architectes for breakfast. After scanning the menu, and still feeling the effects of the cheezborgers the night before, we decided to order the continental breakfast, a basket of bread, croissants, and viennoiseries (pastries) served with juice or coffee. Although the breakfast dishes I saw served to the mostly francophone guests in the restaurant did look delicious, I think the continental breakfast is the best deal by far. The basket is chocked full of tasty offerings. The strong coffee is served in an individual French press with the cream and sugar at the table. We lingered over our breakfast and chatted about the places we had been and what we still to come. The leisurely service probably would have let us stay longer if we had the time.
But for this day, we did not have the time, so we packed up our things, checked out, and drove on. We drove back through the gridded streets of downtown, back to the Congress Parkway and I-290. This allowed us to pick up Route 20 exactly where we had left off. We moved our way through the suburbs, heading south first and then east. As we moved east into the southern side of Chicago, we were fully expecting to find ourselves in a war zone. I don’t know where we came up with this idea. TV. Rumors. Imagination. But there was no war zone, only a neighborhood. Not a wealthy neighborhood and not a white neighborhood, but a functional neighborhood. Although I might have been uncomfortable walking the streets at night, I felt perfectly safe in our car in the middle of the day. As we left Illinois, we moved into Gary, the last link to Chicago’s hard industrial past. We passed the BP Refinery and slogged our way through miles of road construction. The fumes were oppressive.
After we moved away from Gary, it was amazing how quickly the rural landscape returned. Before we reached South Bend, we were again hemmed in by fields of corn and soybeans. As we reached LaGrange and Middlebury, we noticed the traffic suddenly come to a crawl. I leaned out of the window and looked up the berm of the road to see an Amish buggy trotting along on the side of the road. Suddenly, the signs of northern Indiana’s Amish country appeared to be everywhere: men in straw hats working in the fields, Belgian workhorses grazing in pastures, a massive restaurant-lodging-bakery-shopping-wholesale foods complex called Das Dutchman Essenhaus. We also saw curious signs of modernity. Although we saw several families traveling in buggies, we saw many individuals traveling on pretty sophisticated recumbent bicycles. As we absorbed the scenery, we listened to two local activists from San Francisco engaged in a vitriolic debate over a new plan to incorporate bikes into the city’s traffic plan. It was odd to listen to all the thinly veiled attacks on “self-righteous” bikers and “ignorant” drivers, while watching bikes, station wagons, and buggies peacefully and safely share a major road.
Around four we crossed the Ohio border, looking for a bite. We stopped at Spokes Family Restaurant in Pioneer. Spokes Restaurant was in a small building at the intersection of US 20 and State Route 15. The cashier sits immediately to the left of door, in front of an open kitchen and a small counter where four old men in suspenders and trucker hats perch on barstools. To the right, there were two rooms with several booths and small tables. Entering an establishment like this can be a little daunting. When Aaron and I stepped inside, we suddenly felt all eyes on us. We got the feeling that everyone else in the restaurant knew each other and knew that we didn’t quite fit. It didn’t help that we didn’t immediately realize that this was a seat yourself kind of establishment. For an awkward moment, we stood in the doorway, looking at the locals looking at us. However, this moment was fleeting, and we moved to a table in the dinning room. The Spokes Restaurant was about everything you look for in a roadside stop. Simple, tasty, inexpensive sandwiches served with potatoes prepared in every way you can think of. Our waitress, a cheery woman with curled blonde hair and glasses, was quick and friendly. And there was pie. Fresh strawberry pie with massive chunks of fruit and topped with a stylized swirl of whipped cream. As Aaron and I were diving into it, I overheard two men in the booth behind us chatting about our dessert, “Wow, that looks really good. I think I want some of that.” I turned and smiled “Oh yeah, you want some of this.”
We got into Toledo, our stopping place for the evening around 6:30. Wary of our GoogleMap directions, we carefully navigated off of Route 20, onto Central Ave and then Monroe, and then we began scanning the signs for Collingwood. As anyone who has worked their way through an unfamiliar city knows, the street signs are visible before they are legible, and it’s easy to think you’ve got the right street when you find some matching letters. Looking for Collingwood, we passed Glenwood. Then we passed Robinwood. And then—surely, this must be it—Scottwood. And then, as we approached Parkwood, Aaron cried out in exasperation “Oh, come on!” Finally, we turned onto Collingwood. As we moved through the beautiful but slightly faded buildings in Toledo’s Historic Old West End, we came upon an SUV with a tire cover that read, upside down, “If you can read this, please turn me back over.” Spending several hours a day driving, we’ve taken a great interest in amusing car art, so we decided to try to get a picture of the rarest beast, an SUV owner with a sense of humor. However, just as capturing a good shot of the bison proved to be harder than it looked, the driver of the self-deprecating SUV had something of a lead foot and took off as soon as the light changed. Our efficient little Corolla strained to keep up, as we raced through the quiet, historic streets. After screaming past our B&B, we finally recorded the quip for posterity.
We backtracked down Collingwood, and arrived at the Mansion View Inn, a B&B owned by the Toledo Historic West End Neighborhood and run by a member couple. The house is an enormous brick Victorian with gingerbread trim coated in slightly peeling white paint. It is full of impressive dark wood paneling, crafted with the kind of attention to detail that has become prohibitively expensive in all but the most extravagant homes. Our room had a queen bed with a satin cover, shelves and tables packed with antiques and other curiosities, and a private bath with a deep clawfoot tub. The decorative touches were plentiful and steeped in history, but there were also hints at the personalities of the managing couple. Their two cars were parked in the back lot, one with the license plate DOOWOP and the other with PAX ROX and both covered in rainbow and Obama campaign stickers. Interspersed in the National Geographic Magazines and other light reading were openly liberal books critiquing the Bush Administration.
After we had settled in, we decided to go out to see the city a bit and get a bite to eat. the manager who had checked us in, provided us with a print out with descriptions of and directions to their recommended restaurants. We chose a nearby Italian American restaurant. As we followed the directions and found a place to park, I noticed that we didn’t see any people walking around on the sidewalk. As we entered the restaurant, I was taken aback by the emptiness of it. Granted, it was 8 on a weekday night, but there were a couple of business people having drinks at the table outside, a well-dressed couple apparently out for a celebration in the corner, and the clapping of a few devoted fans in separate room listening to the live musical act. As we sipped our drinks under the eerie mural of the New York City skyline prominently featuring the Twin Towers, we watched the waitstaff bring out desserts, frame them in front of a small background, and take pictures for the next menu, but it was slow enough that this didn’t slow down the service at all. As we nibbled on some of the most average pepperoni pizza in all of creation, I leaned into Aaron and whispered, “This place is creepy.” He looked confused. “Where are all the people.”
His expression shifted from confusion to amusement. “What do you mean where are the people? We’re in Toledo at night. There are no people.” I readily admit that Toledo got the short shrift on this trip. It was overshadowed by the fact that we were going to be in Cleveland the next day, having a party with family and friends. Had we been able to stay longer, we would have probably gone to the Art Museum, which is one of the best in the country, or paid homage to Corporal Klinger, Toledo’s favorite fictional native son. But, sadly, all we saw of Toledo was its all but abandoned nightlife.