Pay Toll Here

Place: Burger King
Lunch: Texas Whopper (no tomato), onion rings, Dr. Pepper

Oh no!  Who do I choose...Edward or Jacob???  HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!  Actually, I have no idea which crest represents who, so I choose the one that has totem pole-like images.  I win a Crossanwich.  How very Native American.  I rub off the other crest to find it would have won me NOTHING.  You SUCK Team Other Crest!

BK is having a Twilight contest.  You have to collect groups of game pieces, much like McDonald's Monopoly game. The game pieces are represented by the goth characters from the movies.  I wouldn't mind winning that Volvo XC60, but there's no WAY I'm eating enough BK to bother.  Actually, it looks like you can also win the Volvo instantly.  Or you could win $100,000, buy the Volvo, and pay the taxes on it.  That would appear to be the correct plan of action.

The promotional tray liner is covered in angry goth kids.  Why isn't anybody in Twilightville ugly? Oh wait...Leah's ugly.  Carlisle's pretty ugly.  Edward and Riley are ugly.  Actually, Edward and Riley appear to be the same person.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE WAY HOME FROM NEW YORK...I stopped at the toll plaza on the west edge of Ohio, handed the toll taker my money, and she said "We can't accept Canadian coins.  Do you have an American penny?"

Seriously.  A PENNY.

Without saying a word, I fished out an American penny and swapped her.  As I started to drive off, she muttered "It's not my fault".

(I later used the Canadian penny at a bp station.  Consider that my protest against the oil spill...I stuck bp with an apparently inferior Canadian penny.)

The irony here is that the New York Thruway toll booths actually ENCOURAGED Canadian money with a ten percent discount if paid in Canadian funds.

Toll roads are highways local tax payers were too cheap to pay for, so politicians force poor unsuspecting travelers to pay for on the fly.  Very popular out east...I paid a total of $22.15 in tolls between Victor, NY and Chicago coming home.  Greed-hungry politicians nationwide are always wanting to turn existing highways into toll roads, so I can only assume massive corruption and kickbacks are involved.  All of that crap is supposed to be paid for through gas taxes, so just raise those.  Or stop using gas taxes to pay for non-related crap, as some groups have accused.  Jeepers.

What I really hate about toll roads are the unmanned exits that demand exact change, making it impossible to pay if you don't happen to have enough coins (they're always like 50 cents and they don't take bills).  Chicago is notorious for this.  Their 'alternate' solution is you can go to their toll website, note your license plate and the date and time of the offense, and pay the toll with a credit card.  Yes, I once paid like 65 cents on my credit card via their website.  Stupid.  Just stupid.  If you can't be bothered to staff the things, you shouldn't be charging tolls.  Then there's Denver, where they have toll plazas every few miles instead of at the exits, so you're constantly having to stop and pay for another leg of your trip.  Freaking ridiculous.  (Thankfully, there's almost no reason to ever use Denver's stupid toll roads.)

Anyway, when traveling around Chicago, make sure you keep a roll of quarters in your vehicle, unless you're going to do this enough to bother with an E-ZPass.

Toll roads often have an electronic pre-pass you can put in your car, avoiding toll takers completely.  You drive through the reader lanes, and they either bill you or you maintain a prepaid balance.  Most states from Illinois eastward use a common one called E-ZPass, which will work in every state that accepts it.  I don't travel those states enough to bother.  I DO travel the Kansas Turnpike enough that I have their K-TAG.  It's a small adhesive thing that sits behind the rear view mirror and is completely invisible to the driver.  The days of big, bulky metal contraptions are gone, baby.

There are advantages to traveling turnpikes, the big one being 'service centers'.  These are super rest areas with gas stations, restaurants, and convenience stores.  No exiting off to some town, just jump off and jump on.  And they're typically staffed 24 hours, so they feel a lot safer in the middle of the night.  The negative is that they often...not always...tend to do a little price gouging.

Turnpikes also tend to be in better shape than the interstate system...or at least they SHOULD be, being maintained out of the perpetual fund generated by tolls.

The Kansas Turnpike also has an advantage of its own...aside from the I-70 stretch, it has lighter traffic. Since I-35 runs south of Kansas City to Emporia, few people (aside from those seeking Topeka specifically) travel the stretch between Topeka and Emporia, so it tends to be a quiet, less stressful drive.  Even the stretch between Emporia and the Oklahoma border feels less traveled, though I don't know how that traffic is bypassing it.

You know what would be awesome?  If a state without tolls started charging tolls JUST to cars with license plates from states that charge tolls on THEIR highways.

"But my car's a rental! I'm not really from there.  The plate just happens to say I'm from there!"

Look, punk. In any war, there's an acceptable loss ratio.

Long Summer Drive

Place: Sheetz
Lunch: Meatball sub, garlic Fryz, Pepsi

I have no idea how they make these garlic Fryz taste so good...but they do.

What a perfect day for a patio lunch, and a little blog writing.  It's just gorgeous.   I'm on the road heading home after what will have been a week-and-a-half long combination work/personal trip.  Should be back tomorrow.  The loop trip has taken me through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.   Weather has largely been favorable, save for a torrential downpour between Galesburg and Peoria...the kind where people park under the overpasses and even SUV's hydroplane.  Nasty.  The drive last Sunday from Florence (y'all!) to Webster was crazy hot and miserable.

Western New York is just beautiful.  Our vendor is in the village of Victor, whose business district is right out of a small-town romantic comedy.  Cute buildings, cute homes, cute businesses being run out of cute homes.  All surrounded by lush greens and big shady trees.  Very quaint.  Sort of Pacific Northwest without the rain.  Two convenience stores, both crappy.  Tim Horton's became my breakfast routine.  The Holiday Inn Express we were booked at was ridiculous. While waiting for the others (who flew in), I sat in the lobby and listened to the desk clerks quote $130-$140/night over the phone in between conversations about how much they hate their jobs.  Oh, and the maid had left me a present...half-used soaps in the shower from previous guests.  What I would give for Marriott to put a Spring Hill Suites in here.

Tonight is South Bend, where rumor has it they have a real functional Del Taco.

Then home to the cats.