Pennsylvania!
We made it! My family probably thinks we're crazy, but we we drove from Chicago to Philadelphia in 13.5 hrs and still made it in time for the family BBQ on Friday evening.
The drive across Indiana & Ohio was very pleasant-a little boring to look at, but good straight roads, little traffic and nice rest areas. Then we hit Pennsylvania. Beautiful state, and much more interesting than the previous two, but crappy roads and construction everywhere! And of course we were more tired by then, and getting antsy about the car return. But we made it to the car place with exactly 3 minutes to spare (another 3 and the cost of the rental would have gone from $250 to $450). It was 6pm eastern time at this point, which is 1 hour before we would have been boarding the flight they wanted to move us to at O'Hare. So we were at the Philly airport about 4 hours earlier than we would have made it had we flown instead of driven. I call that a win.
We turned in our one-way rental and checked out a local rental, since my parents had convinced us it was better to just rent a car and take care of ourselves rather than wait around for rides. A quick and surprisingly painless stop at the airport to pick up our luggage, (clean clothing! at last) and then we were on the way to see the family, which was wonderful.
More details coming later, especially about the long drive, but for now I just wanted to let anyone who was concerned know that we made it and we had a good time.
The drive across Indiana & Ohio was very pleasant-a little boring to look at, but good straight roads, little traffic and nice rest areas. Then we hit Pennsylvania. Beautiful state, and much more interesting than the previous two, but crappy roads and construction everywhere! And of course we were more tired by then, and getting antsy about the car return. But we made it to the car place with exactly 3 minutes to spare (another 3 and the cost of the rental would have gone from $250 to $450). It was 6pm eastern time at this point, which is 1 hour before we would have been boarding the flight they wanted to move us to at O'Hare. So we were at the Philly airport about 4 hours earlier than we would have made it had we flown instead of driven. I call that a win.
We turned in our one-way rental and checked out a local rental, since my parents had convinced us it was better to just rent a car and take care of ourselves rather than wait around for rides. A quick and surprisingly painless stop at the airport to pick up our luggage, (clean clothing! at last) and then we were on the way to see the family, which was wonderful.
More details coming later, especially about the long drive, but for now I just wanted to let anyone who was concerned know that we made it and we had a good time.