Day 6: Journey from Chicago IL - Ann Arbor MI

It was kinda rainy today. I wake up early and somehow manage to find a starbucks around the corner. The city is still abuzz from Lollapalooza and apparently still reeling from Lady Gaga's performance last night. I personally didn't care too much for lady gaga.. i was in desperate need of caffeine. Aaron's condo is right next to the subway tracks and every 30 min the train would come by, jolting me awake. I eventually managed to get to sleep, at what time? I don't know. But I do know i felt pretty sucky this morning. So yeah.... I load up on coffee and do a bit of blog updating. 


Aaron arrives at about 10 ish. I load up my stuff into the Escalade and off we go to pick up the bikes. After a quick McDonald's breakfast, it was time to say goodbye. According to the weather, there was a very slow east moving system that seemed to be hovering over Chicago. If it take off now, i should be able to power though the rain and emerge at the other side of the system by the time i exit chicago. I got my rain gear on and off i go to beat the rainclouds. Looks like the plan worked. By the time i reached south Holland, the torrent had backed off to a trickle and by the time i reach Gary, it's dry. Taking Aaron's advice to NOT stop in Gary, i go on to Porter IN before i finally stop to get my raingear off and to finally gas up. 


Up till now i never really knew how many MPG i was getting out of my steed. I figure now that i am in familiar territory and that gas stations seem to be pretty regular along the route, that this would be the best time to get an actual number for MPG. So i gas up to a full tank, and off i go. The miles tick by and by the time i reach battle creek, the little yellow light with the gas pump starts flashing. I look at my trip meter and it reads just about 150 miles. I pull into the next gas station and fill up. The pump tells me that i just added 3.473 gal to my tank. So.... 


150 miles / 3.473 gal = 43.19 MPG!!!  (Hah! Take that Yukon Denali!!!)


But yeah.... I call Tony to reassure him i am still alive and am on my way, and i'm off on my final leg of this trip towards Ann Arbor Michigan.