January 1 - Day 12 of fly and drive trip to Oregon - Canton Ohio to Victor NY (home)

 The last day of my travels was a relaxing end to the journey.  I took a variety of OH roads North and North East of Cuyahoga Falls (25 miles north of Canton) eventually crossing over into PA on OH-5 which became PA-58 at the border.  From there I went mostly on US-322 until I got on I-70 to hurry into Erie where I tried unsuccessfully to get a Pr-arrival COVID test.  From there I took the Southern Tier Expressway (I-86) East for about an hour to Randolph NY where I bought a tiny bit of gas and lunch then north on various NY highways to come home through Ellicottville, Freedom, Pike and Geneseo.

My only photo from that day was a boring shot of I-86 (it's often boring and empty).

It was great to get home safely.  This trip accomplished a lot of goals.  Most importantly, I saw my family in Oregon.  In terms of road trip, I got to see a lot of wild winter high peaks in Wyoming.  I revisited a favorite park in Nebraska and covered all or virtually all of Nebraska and Iowa on US-20.  I had a deluxe relaxing day in Sioux City which I had never visited before.  I had an exciting winter hike in Iowa's Backbone State Park, tried a loose meat sandwich in Dubuque and then made it into Illinois.  After spending the night in IL, my ambitions for more adventure and endless driving waned and other than Skyline Chili and chocolate store near Indy, I pretty much just stayed pointed towards home. Still, other than the most built up few miles outside Indy, I stayed off Interstate through the rest of Indiana and much of Ohio.  After my overnight in Canton I used a mixture of roads including more interstate than most of the route before it but still avoided every single toll road and bridge from coast to coast and covered a lot of new ground on US and state highways.  Frankly, it was the kind of trip that I could only really do alone because most people would not have the patience for so many miles and so many random routes.

I got home about 3:30 PM which gave me 2 full days of rest before work starts again on the 4th.  I was relieved to return the lovely Mercedes A220 which I can heartily recommend for anybody looking for a really top notch small luxury car.  It's AWD was a huge asset on this mostly snowy and icy trip.  The standard stereo was easily the sonic equivalent of most non-luxury cars upgraded systems and the MPG I achieved was remarkable, averaging about 37 MPG.  There were so few complaints I could come up with for this car that they will seem silly...  The seat belt anchors don't adjust.  The sun visors don't slide or have an extension.  The cruise control was abrupt and herky jerky when making changes to the set speed.  I'm not sure why reducing speed can't be done by coasting like most cars do rather than braking or engine braking or whatever this car did but it did wear on me somewhat.  Lastly, putting only USB-C ports in the car seems like a really lame attempt to be hip or future ready but provides no obvious benefit and required buying a special iPhone cable.  And in general, the dash computer and settings were more complex and showy than they needed to be but that is a standard 'feature' on most luxury cars and at least the complexity left you with multiple ways of doing things.  In the case of this system the CarPlay screen could be controlled from the steering wheel, from the touch pad between the seats or by touching the screen directly.  That's the kind of choice you don't get in a non-luxury car but it's also just more to learn and deal with.

I hope everybody gets a better 2021 than their 2020.