Fear and Self-Loathing in the MidWest

I started from State College late morning and blew through the rest of Pennsylvania, determined not to stop until I hit Ohio.
That may have been a mistake.
I planned my first stop for Sandusky, where the Cedar Point amusement park is. I really just wanted to see the damn lake. The idea of a lake you can't see across is still pretty novel to me. I'm not even used to an ocean you can't see across -- I grew up looking at Long Island across the sound.
But the road there was a horrifying mess of Chili's, Days Inns and tourist traps. (Although that convention center/indoor water park/zoo/spa looked pretty cool.) So I turned around and tried to find a more tranquil spot on the water. That I did, at Catawba State Park on a little peninsula that serves as, it seems, nothing but a place to fish or get on the ferry to some of the Erie islands. I watched some locals fish for a while and kept moving. But not without stopping at Cheese Haven, which I had seen signs for for miles. They advertised 125 different kinds of cheese! with cool old-fashioned signs. The inside was .... disappointing. This coming from someone who calls cheese the food of the gods. Sure, they had tons of cheese (and wine and candy and salami) and free samples. But the samples, besides being set out in little buckets with no - no - toothpicks, were pretty awful. Maybe they had better cheeses, but wouldn't they put those out front?
And so I moved on, cheeseless but with its awful taste in my throat. I took Route 2, an entirely flat, entirely straight road from Sandusky to Toledo. Saw a nuclear power plant. Saw a million bait shops, one of which was called The Happy Hooker. Used cruise control excessively.
And then came Toledo. For some reason I just barreled into it, knowing which road I would take out of the city but having no idea how to get there. And that, friends, is how I got excruciatingly lost in the ghettos of Toledo, Ohio.
But I did see some cool big boats.
Once I found a highway I took it to the Ohio Turnpike. This, you may remember, is contrary to my original plan of avoiding interstates, but at that point I was frazzled and just needed to get the hell out of Toledo.
I kept driving for a few hours, thoroughly depressed by the overcast skies, a rest stop an hour from the state line and my basically unsuccessful romp through Ohio.
That brought me to South Bend, Indiana, where I am now sitting on a bed in the Motel 6. My plan now is to shower, gas up and head for Chicago, which is a little less than two hours away. I'll go to Minneapolis, and my next roommate, tomorrow.