Sleeping Over - Cleveland to Chicago

Camping was the initial plan for lodging when we talked about this road trip. The goal was low-cost, low-commitment. Logistically it didn’t really make sense when most of our traveling was going to be after the baseball games, in the middle of the night. We decided to just stop along the highway between cities, and attempt to bargain our way into a good night’s sleep.

Our first attempt was between Cleveland and Chicago…on the Indiana Turnpike…1am, just south of Sturgis MI. It was Amish country…5-6 hotels, a gas station and LOTS of corn fields. We started with the Holiday Inn Express…with hopes of negotiating a good rate and enjoying free WiFi and a hot breakfast. The girl at the counter was out for a smoke and asked a great question at this time of night, in the middle of nowhere…”are you guys looking for a room?”. The answer was “yes” (actually we had a few other answers, but we were being polite.) She said they had none, which we doubted to ourselves as we got back into the car to drive to the other side of the highway to try the Hampton Inn. Neither parking lot was full…but we soon found out there was no room in the inn. Apparently there was some sort of race out there in those cornfields…the 2 nicest hotels were all booked up. We tried the 3rd nicest…a Best Western. They had A room…but no room for negotiate their over priced rate for 1am just south of Sturgis MI. Good thing for us there was the Travel Inn right next to the Best Western.


This is the place you see in the movies…park your car right in front of our room…the manager drives a golf cart and lives in the “office”. You actually get a room KEY…with the diamond shaped fob with your room number on it. We didn’t negotiate…we were just happy to find a place we could shower, watch Sports Center, lay our heads and charge our electronics for the next leg of our journey.


Peace – Izzy