The Trip to Portage, Indiana

Tonight I need to be in Portage, Indiana for the start of training tomorrow. I have reservations at the Super 8 in Portage, and need to be there between 3 and 8PM. Of course I forgot the time change so I ended up leaving an hour before I really needed to.

Falcon would have paid for a bus ticket for me to get there, but looking at the two routes from Toledo to Gary, I would have been on the bus either over 7 hours, or almost 5 hours. I think a three hour drive in my car is way better than either option. The tolls weren't to bad, $2.50 from Maumee to the border on the Ohio Turnpike and $6.75 for the Indiana Toll Road, plus the cost of gas each way, works out to being worth the price. Falcon will give me whatever they would have spent for the bus ticket, I am sure it won't be as much as what I spent, but the time savings, and not being trapped at the hotel will be like gold to me.

The Ohio turnpike was nice to drive on as usual, but the Indiana Toll Road seems to have really dropped in quality since I last drove on it. Most of the lane lines were faded or worn away, half the time the only way you could tell different lanes was due to one being more recently paved than the other, so was darker. The more recent paving did not mean that it was any real improvement on the older road. Which makes me wonder how well this privatized public road will be maintained as they try and get their money back on the deal. Over all I would rate it as fair, since even though the surface wasn't to bad, it was definitly lacking in care and will need repaving over a lot of it, and again the invisble paving markings.

When I got to hte end of the toll road, I encountered a large back-up since they only had three cash lines open, and four I-pass lines (two for trucks and two for cars). Of course anyone that wanted to use those had to wait in the cash lines until they couldd reach them. I found that to just be a cost cutting measure that is trying to force drivers to get the pass to save time. It doesn't take into consideration the many drivers that only drive the road once in a while find cash a much better option.

Finding the hotel was quite easy, from talking to the instructors at Owens, it has been used as an overnight location for drivers for years. The age does show, the rooms are small, the carpets are worn, but it seems to be clean. I am rooming with another Falcon trainee, which was expected, but fortunitly he is a nice guy who is clean and human, unlike some trainees I have seen in the past. Of course to be fair, I have seen a lot of bad looking (and smelling) trainers as well.

Well time for some sleep, have to catch the van at 7AM tomorrow.