Today's Topic: Ohio Turnpike Service Plazas

The state of Ohio has the nicest Service Plazas (some states call them Rest Areas) that I've ever seen in my limited travel experience. Here is a picture of Mr. Trucker entering one.

These service plazas have fuel islands outside; while inside they contain a plethora of services, including free showers, TV lounges:

Gift/convenience stores, information counters, a game room, and a food court with all kinds of extremely high priced items, including, of course..........

You thought I was gonna say McDonalds, didn't you? We spent the night in our truck at the service plaza in Vermilion, OH. There is also a service plaza that we passed up which is named for Commodore Perry, who started the group The Commodores. He is a cousin of Steve Perry, the lead singer from the band Journey. So see, you got your history lesson for the day, as well. Here's another educational fact: Apparently the Rock & Roll hall of fame is in Cleveland. Who knew?

Cleveland

Mr. Trucker says this is all related to the song "Cleveland Rocks", which is apparently the theme song for the Drew Carey show. Driving through Cleveland we saw sights such as:

Think this sign could be any bigger
or more obvious?

and:   

Don't know what this is but it had
visual appeal

Anyway, we started the day in Ohio, spent about two minutes in Pennsylvania (cut across the northwest corner) and now we're in New York. It has threatened rain all morning and finally started raining in earnest about 30 minutes ago, which is a shame, because upstate New York is very beautiful, full of old farmhouses and vineyards. 

We should be in our destination just outside of Syracuse by late afternoon. Our delivery appointment isn't until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow, so we'll just have to cool our heels at some truck stop for the evening. Sometimes these truck stops are within walking distance of places of interest and sometimes they're not. When I went out with Mr. Trucker in July, we stayed at a Pilot in Erie Pennsylvania, which LOOKED like it was within walking distance of something, so that night we went out for a a walk. We kept trudging on and on thinking: "I'm sure there's something over that next hill" and before we knew it we had walked 3.8 miles. The reason I know it was 3.8 is because we ended up taking a taxi back to the truck. It was about 97 degrees that day and I was exhausted, plus it was dark by the time we were ready to go back. Mr. Trucker probably could have made it back to the truck on his own, but he'd have had to drag me the whole way. 

Strange sounding town name for today:   Ashtabula, OH. 

And if anyone knows how to pronounce the town of Conneaut, OH, please enlighten the rest of us! 

Over...