Day 132 - Detroit to Niagara via OH

As we left Dearborn, Fin had a request. He wanted a photo in front of the old fashioned Ford garage which had now been turned into a bar / restaurant. We let him have his fun although he did look funny against the old fashioned cars and gas pumps.

We picked up Interstate 74 which took us through Michigan and across the border into Ohio. Along the way, we saw quite a few different car factories. Most of them were Ford Factories although we did see a Jeep one too.

More old fashioned looking McDonalds

 There is a huge bridge somewhere

Not a lot to see on the interstate - literally!

Once we crossed the border to Ohio, we picked up Scenic Highway 2 from Toledo to Sandusky. Looking at the map, we thought this scenic route run alongside Lake Erie and we expected to get some scenic views. We didn't see much of Lake Erie other than a little inlet which we cross over a bridge, the route took us through farmland and past a couple of factories located on the edge of the lake.

We drove through the town of Sandusky. We were expecting a farming community style town but there was actually a lot going on here including a lot of green space and gardens and quite a few different family activities.

At Sandusky, we then picked up Scenic Highway 6. This route moved away from the farmland and ran closer to the lakeshore. We still didn't see much of the lake due to the number of houses blocking the view in the towns we went through.

We stopped off in the town of Lorain where we had lunch at Jackalope Lakeside. The restaurant had a second floor outdoor balcony and it was lovely to sit in the sun (the temperature was just over 80F but it felt a lot warmer due to the humidity) and watch the boats in the harbour. We finally had our lake view!

After lunch, we decided to hit the Interstate and get to Niagara Falls. It was starting to get late and while we would have preferred to take the scenic route all the way, we didn't want to get into Niagara when it was dark.

We've been asked a few times on this trip why we didn't take the route from Detroit to Niagara Falls via Canada which would have been a lot shorter. There are two reasons we didn't do this. Firstly this is the Most Epic Road Trip of America, and not Canada, it would feel like we were cheating. Secondly, we would be hitting Ohio during our drive around and if we went via Canada, we would miss this state out.

The Interstate was pretty boring, so boring, Lee let me drive for most of it. The only part that did get a little interesting was when we hit a state line (we went from Michigan to Ohio to Pennsylvania and finally New York) and when we went on one toll road where we misunderstood the piece of paper we were given and thought we were going to have to pay $15 for driving on a terrible road. It turned out only to be $3.15 when we reached the toll booth thankfully although maybe with $15 per car they could fill in some of the potholes!

We arrived at our hotel in Niagara at 7:30pm. After a long drive, we had planned to have a quiet night in watching storm Florence on the TV and eating the left over wings and ribs but there was a Blues Festival on and we couldn't help ourselves, we just had to check it out. More on this in the next blog!