Ridin' along in my automobile
It was weird to go to work the other day. While I have driven since I've been off, I've gone in the opposite direction, so taking my regular route to work isn't something I've done since March. It's amazing the changes that have happened in that time.
One thing that hadn't changed, and I'd forgotten to mention earlier, is that the Fabyan entrances to the Holmstad have been closed off. This happened while I was still working, so early March. The bridge construction starts right at that point, but if it was construction-related, those entrances would've been blocked off about a year ago. No, there are I think three, maybe four entrances that were sort of crudely blocked off by mid-March, and by now there are more official-looking signs saying to use the entrance off Route 31. I don't know if they have a checkpoint of sorts or what, but whatever keeps the residents safe. Don't forget that they've already had to deal with an outbreak already in the past year, thanks to the Legionnaire's disease situation of last summer/fall.
The bridge project is at least getting worked on again. It was supposed to have wrapped up last fall, but our unusually early snowfall prevented the completion. I think it was starting back up in mid-March, as I recall seeing signs that equipment was getting moved around, but then I stopped driving. Now, as I approached the construction zone, there was a marquee sign saying there would be a bridge pour on May 1 (last Friday; I saw this on Tuesday) and the bridge would be down to one lane. This must have been delayed as it didn't look like the concrete had been poured, and traffic seemed unaffected, but I'm very excited to see that we're getting close. I can't wait for the bridge to get back to being open.
The first gas station I pass is at Fabyan and 25. Gas was $1.99 when I went to work on Tuesday. It was that price at the other stations I noticed, but on the way home? It was $2.15. Bastards. Naturally, as soon as I got back to work, the price went up. They must have sensed my presence.
On to the Fabyan and Kirk construction. I'd seen a press release stating that traffic would be down to one lane at times starting May 4, so expect delays. Perfect timing, eh? I know that the construction restarted around the time I stopped working, and I was glad to hear that--it's got to be so much safer working on that intersection with so many fewer cars on the road. That's one of the few blessings of this situation. The new lanes on the south side of Fabyan have existed for a while, albeit unusued, and part of the current construction means all lanes on Fabyan are shifted over so the existing westbound lanes can get worked on, or at least the adjacent parkway can be. I think water mains are getting replaced over there and they need room to work. After having driven along Fabyan Parkway for 25 years, it is SUPER weird to be over farther than I am used to when I'm driving eastbound especially. It's a little disorienting in a way. It skews your perspective. I'll get used to it, I'm sure, although part of that southernmost lane likely will be a new right turn lane, which is super exciting for everyone involved. I will say this forever, they should've done this at least 20 years ago, but at least it's finally happening. I think construction is occurring through September; that's really not that bad considering they've had to reconfigure the intersection in some ways. Traffic did get down to one lane on my trip home on Wednesday, but it wasn't terrible; again, with traffic volume way down, it still was less crowded than it would have been with all lanes open normally.
East of Kirk, in front of the new monstrosity lurking on the south side of Fabyan between Paramount and Louis Bork Drive, there is a billboard thanking essential workers. The speed limit is fast there so I still haven't caught everything the board is trying to say, but thank you is enough. (There's a lot of words on there for it being a 45-50 MPH zone where 55-60 is the norm.) Down the street, into DuPage County, is the new Suncast warehouse. This building is huge. Like, bare minimum, a city block long. I keep meaning to watch my odometer to see how many tenths of a mile it is but I keep forgetting until I'm already past the edge of the building. Anyway, there were trucks in the loading docks the other day. There are so many docks that these trucks were nowhere near each other, really. I was thinking, you don't have to worry about social distancing in there since that place is so huge.
Over to West Chicago. Once you hit civilization as you get toward Joliet, you can see signs in the parkway letting people know that the couple fast food restaurants are still open for drive-thru meals. The Dunkin' Donuts at 38 and Joliet had been under construction that last week in March that I worked, and now I know why--it's been rebranded and is a Dunkin'/Baskin Robbins. There's a big sign now at the corner as well as on the building.
Once I get into Warrenville, things are fairly quiet since much of that route is residential. The old piano store at Butterfield and Batavia, there's been a big for sale sign there for years. It now says sold. The two houses immediately northwest of that parcel have also had sold signs hanging in front of them since around or just after the holidays. It makes me wonder what might go in there. The City of Warrenville marquee at the southwest corner of the intersection (in looking at a map, it's honestly just the south corner as the roads are both at angles) lists canceled activities. The little strip mall behind it shows that some sort of wine shop is slated to go into an empty space, though who knows when or if that'll still happen.
I don't think I mentioned the construction on Batavia where the road curves. There had been this bunker of a house at Batavia and 4th, this low brick ranch with small windows only up toward the roof. It was easily the ugliest house in the area. Sometime in the fall, around when I was taking Winfield due to the construction on 59, that house got torn down and a sign went up suggesting the parcel of land would be divided into I think four smaller parcels. I honestly didn't think the piece of land was that big. A new, two-story house went up before the holidays on the corner, and behind that--like, *right* behind--there's now a second two-story house. The buildings themselves are fine, but they're practically on top of each other. I'm not sure there's room for any other houses on the property but who knows.
Around the curve you have the little parking lot for the forest preserve, and I'm still kicking myself for not stopping and getting a picture of a particular tree last fall. It's very tall and half of it had changed color while half of it was still green. I've never seen that, divided right down the middle. Striking. We'll see if it happens again this fall; I'm definitely pulling over if that's the case. What I was waiting for was on the opposite side of the street, and when it came into view--it wasn't there! That would be my favorite willow tree, the one with the delicate purple flowers in the springtime. It never blossomed last spring, and it seemed like only part of the tree even greened up, so I suppose I'm not surprised. What was surprising was realizing that any trace of the tree was gone. I wonder if it was taken down shortly after I stopped working, because there's no hole in the ground and the grass seems like it's always been that way. …Okay, I went and pulled up Google Maps, because I wanted to realize where exactly that tree had been (the satellite image is from 2018 so it's still there, as well as the bunker house). I think I was actually looking at the yard for the house next to where it really was. All right, that explains why the lawn looks untouched. I drive by it so quickly that it's a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of thing, and I can only really see it if I'm southbound. Now I know where to look the next time I go by, but it's definitely gone, that's for sure. For the record, it's the house adjacent to the fire department and a big tree blocked the view of it if you're going northbound.
There's nothing especially new as you head out of Warrenville south, though there will be construction starting on Mill Street south of Warrenville/Ferry, which is good because that road is pretty pockmarked. Past that point, everything seems to be the same, but that's what's changed along my route in the past couple months.
One thing that hadn't changed, and I'd forgotten to mention earlier, is that the Fabyan entrances to the Holmstad have been closed off. This happened while I was still working, so early March. The bridge construction starts right at that point, but if it was construction-related, those entrances would've been blocked off about a year ago. No, there are I think three, maybe four entrances that were sort of crudely blocked off by mid-March, and by now there are more official-looking signs saying to use the entrance off Route 31. I don't know if they have a checkpoint of sorts or what, but whatever keeps the residents safe. Don't forget that they've already had to deal with an outbreak already in the past year, thanks to the Legionnaire's disease situation of last summer/fall.
The bridge project is at least getting worked on again. It was supposed to have wrapped up last fall, but our unusually early snowfall prevented the completion. I think it was starting back up in mid-March, as I recall seeing signs that equipment was getting moved around, but then I stopped driving. Now, as I approached the construction zone, there was a marquee sign saying there would be a bridge pour on May 1 (last Friday; I saw this on Tuesday) and the bridge would be down to one lane. This must have been delayed as it didn't look like the concrete had been poured, and traffic seemed unaffected, but I'm very excited to see that we're getting close. I can't wait for the bridge to get back to being open.
The first gas station I pass is at Fabyan and 25. Gas was $1.99 when I went to work on Tuesday. It was that price at the other stations I noticed, but on the way home? It was $2.15. Bastards. Naturally, as soon as I got back to work, the price went up. They must have sensed my presence.
On to the Fabyan and Kirk construction. I'd seen a press release stating that traffic would be down to one lane at times starting May 4, so expect delays. Perfect timing, eh? I know that the construction restarted around the time I stopped working, and I was glad to hear that--it's got to be so much safer working on that intersection with so many fewer cars on the road. That's one of the few blessings of this situation. The new lanes on the south side of Fabyan have existed for a while, albeit unusued, and part of the current construction means all lanes on Fabyan are shifted over so the existing westbound lanes can get worked on, or at least the adjacent parkway can be. I think water mains are getting replaced over there and they need room to work. After having driven along Fabyan Parkway for 25 years, it is SUPER weird to be over farther than I am used to when I'm driving eastbound especially. It's a little disorienting in a way. It skews your perspective. I'll get used to it, I'm sure, although part of that southernmost lane likely will be a new right turn lane, which is super exciting for everyone involved. I will say this forever, they should've done this at least 20 years ago, but at least it's finally happening. I think construction is occurring through September; that's really not that bad considering they've had to reconfigure the intersection in some ways. Traffic did get down to one lane on my trip home on Wednesday, but it wasn't terrible; again, with traffic volume way down, it still was less crowded than it would have been with all lanes open normally.
East of Kirk, in front of the new monstrosity lurking on the south side of Fabyan between Paramount and Louis Bork Drive, there is a billboard thanking essential workers. The speed limit is fast there so I still haven't caught everything the board is trying to say, but thank you is enough. (There's a lot of words on there for it being a 45-50 MPH zone where 55-60 is the norm.) Down the street, into DuPage County, is the new Suncast warehouse. This building is huge. Like, bare minimum, a city block long. I keep meaning to watch my odometer to see how many tenths of a mile it is but I keep forgetting until I'm already past the edge of the building. Anyway, there were trucks in the loading docks the other day. There are so many docks that these trucks were nowhere near each other, really. I was thinking, you don't have to worry about social distancing in there since that place is so huge.
Over to West Chicago. Once you hit civilization as you get toward Joliet, you can see signs in the parkway letting people know that the couple fast food restaurants are still open for drive-thru meals. The Dunkin' Donuts at 38 and Joliet had been under construction that last week in March that I worked, and now I know why--it's been rebranded and is a Dunkin'/Baskin Robbins. There's a big sign now at the corner as well as on the building.
Once I get into Warrenville, things are fairly quiet since much of that route is residential. The old piano store at Butterfield and Batavia, there's been a big for sale sign there for years. It now says sold. The two houses immediately northwest of that parcel have also had sold signs hanging in front of them since around or just after the holidays. It makes me wonder what might go in there. The City of Warrenville marquee at the southwest corner of the intersection (in looking at a map, it's honestly just the south corner as the roads are both at angles) lists canceled activities. The little strip mall behind it shows that some sort of wine shop is slated to go into an empty space, though who knows when or if that'll still happen.
I don't think I mentioned the construction on Batavia where the road curves. There had been this bunker of a house at Batavia and 4th, this low brick ranch with small windows only up toward the roof. It was easily the ugliest house in the area. Sometime in the fall, around when I was taking Winfield due to the construction on 59, that house got torn down and a sign went up suggesting the parcel of land would be divided into I think four smaller parcels. I honestly didn't think the piece of land was that big. A new, two-story house went up before the holidays on the corner, and behind that--like, *right* behind--there's now a second two-story house. The buildings themselves are fine, but they're practically on top of each other. I'm not sure there's room for any other houses on the property but who knows.
Around the curve you have the little parking lot for the forest preserve, and I'm still kicking myself for not stopping and getting a picture of a particular tree last fall. It's very tall and half of it had changed color while half of it was still green. I've never seen that, divided right down the middle. Striking. We'll see if it happens again this fall; I'm definitely pulling over if that's the case. What I was waiting for was on the opposite side of the street, and when it came into view--it wasn't there! That would be my favorite willow tree, the one with the delicate purple flowers in the springtime. It never blossomed last spring, and it seemed like only part of the tree even greened up, so I suppose I'm not surprised. What was surprising was realizing that any trace of the tree was gone. I wonder if it was taken down shortly after I stopped working, because there's no hole in the ground and the grass seems like it's always been that way. …Okay, I went and pulled up Google Maps, because I wanted to realize where exactly that tree had been (the satellite image is from 2018 so it's still there, as well as the bunker house). I think I was actually looking at the yard for the house next to where it really was. All right, that explains why the lawn looks untouched. I drive by it so quickly that it's a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of thing, and I can only really see it if I'm southbound. Now I know where to look the next time I go by, but it's definitely gone, that's for sure. For the record, it's the house adjacent to the fire department and a big tree blocked the view of it if you're going northbound.
There's nothing especially new as you head out of Warrenville south, though there will be construction starting on Mill Street south of Warrenville/Ferry, which is good because that road is pretty pockmarked. Past that point, everything seems to be the same, but that's what's changed along my route in the past couple months.