{"id":1647,"date":"2021-05-07T17:51:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T21:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/?p=1647"},"modified":"2023-05-08T15:56:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T19:56:49","slug":"road-trip-to-chicago-day-one-commute-deep-dish-pizza-and-turtle-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/road-trip-to-chicago-day-one-commute-deep-dish-pizza-and-turtle-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip to Chicago Day ONE \u2013 Commute, Deep Dish Pizza, and Turtle Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This post is an additional post to the <a href=\"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/road-trip-to-chicago-from-toronto\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"201\">Road Trip to Chicago From Toronto &#8211; Four Day Itinerary<\/a>. Day Two details can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/road-trip-to-chicago-day-two-around-millennium-park\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"233\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Day One focuses on the drive from Toronto to Chicago, our first Deep Dish pizza experience, and Turtle Racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"itinerary\">4 Day Road Trip Itinerary &#8211; Toronto to Chicago and Back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As a reminder, here is our 4-day itinerary:<\/p>\n\n\n<div id=\"footable_parent_1626\"\n         class=\" footable_parent ninja_table_wrapper loading_ninja_table wp_table_data_press_parent semantic_ui \">\n                <table data-ninja_table_instance=\"ninja_table_instance_0\" data-footable_id=\"1626\" data-filter-delay=\"1000\" aria-label=\"Toronto to Chicago Road Trip 4 Day Itinerary\"            id=\"footable_1626\"\n           data-unique_identifier=\"ninja_table_unique_id_969048545_1626\"\n           class=\" foo-table ninja_footable foo_table_1626 ninja_table_unique_id_969048545_1626 ui table  nt_type_ajax_table selectable striped vertical_centered  footable-paging-right ninja_table_search_disabled\">\n                <colgroup>\n                            <col class=\"ninja_column_0 \">\n                            <col class=\"ninja_column_1 \">\n                    <\/colgroup>\n            <\/table>\n                    <style type=\"text\/css\" id='ninja_table_custom_css_1626'>\n                        #footable_1626  {\n    font-family: ;\n    font-size: px;\n    }\n\n    \n    #footable_1626.ninja_stacked_table > tbody, #footable_1626.ninja_stacked_table {\n    background: transparent !important;\n    }\n        \n                        <\/style>\n                \n    \n    \n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"experience\">Our Experience with Day One<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>6:00 AM &#8211; Leave Toronto<\/li><li>9:30 AM &#8211; Stop in&nbsp;Windsor to eat at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yelp.ca\/biz\/a-dogs-breakfast-windsor?osq=Dog%27s+Breakfast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A Dog&#8217;s Breakfast<\/a><\/li><li>12:00 PM&nbsp;&#8211; Find the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and cross the border.<\/li><li>5:30 PM&nbsp;&#8211; Arrive in Chicago!\n<ul>\n<li>We checked in at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yelp.ca\/biz\/a-dogs-breakfast-windsor?osq=Dog%27s+Breakfast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ohio House Motel<\/a>&nbsp;and ordered delivery from Lou Malnati&#8217;s<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li><li>8:30pm &#8211; Take an Uber to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/big-joes-chicago\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Big Joe&#8217;s<\/a>&nbsp;to watch some Turtle Racing (<strong>note<\/strong>: Turtle Racing only happens on <strong>Fridays<\/strong> so plan accordingly!)<\/li><li>12:30am &#8211; That&#8217;s a wrap for day one in Chicago<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">****Maria&#8217;s Tip &#8211; Weekday Vacation Start? Leave at 6:00 AM from Toronto to Avoid Rush Hour in Toronto, Windsor, Detroit, and Chicago! SUPER WIN****<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our first day of the trip began on a Friday. My friend recommended that we start at 6:00AM to avoid conflicts with rush hour traffic times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By leaving at 6:00 AM, you are able to leave <em>before <\/em>most of the working commuters heading into Toronto make their way onto the highways. From personal experience, the Toronto morning commuter rush starts at 7:00 AM and doesn&#8217;t end until well past 9:30 AM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 9:30 AM, we had arrived in Windsor, where it was recommended we take a quick breakfast break to avoid the tail-end of the cross-border morning commute. Similar to the Toronto morning commute, the cross-border traffic peaks from 7:00 AM and lasts until 10:00 AM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then as an added bonus, the distance from Detroit to Chicago is about 4.5 hours, and even if you take a couple of bathroom pit stops, you should arrive into the core of Chicago no later than 4:30 PM &#8211; before the congestion from the evening commuter rush really picks up &#8211; leaving you with enough time to relax for the evening with still enough time to explore parts of the city before calling it a night. Because we got lost and lost time, we ended up arriving in Chicago at 5:30 PM instead &#8211; hitting congestion head-on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">****Maria&#8217;s Tip &#8211; If you aren&#8217;t comfortable driving long distances but want to expand your experience, offer to drive more familiar roads first &#8211; like&#8230;. driving on the Canadian side instead of the American side****<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m really excited to write this as it&#8217;s something I&#8217;m pretty proud of &#8211; I doubled my 2-hour driving threshold! I can now drive for FOUR HOURS without quitting. As someone who doesn&#8217;t drive much beyond the weekend trips to the grocery store, this is a monumental step for me. Sure, my butt was sore, but I did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>24 hours<\/strong>&nbsp;before our trip, our <a href=\"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/airbnb-host-cancelled-us-last-minute\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"272\">AirBnB host cancelled on us<\/a>, so Ohio House Motel wasn&#8217;t actually our first pick but it worked out<\/li><li>We got lost trying to find the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, and our conversation with the border control officer was longer than usual<\/li><li>We loved the Turtle Racing experience so much<em>! <\/em><strong>Our favorite experience in Chicago by far<\/strong> &#8211; check out the video below so that you can enjoy the excitement with us<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"turtle-racing\">Turtle Racing at Big Joe&#8217;s (video)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Turtle Racing at Big Joe&#039;s\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ywGw8PBSYdc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And that concludes our first day of the four-day road trip to Chicago! You can head back to the general itinerary guide again by clicking here, or head on over to <a href=\"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/road-trip-to-chicago-day-two-around-millennium-park\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"233\">Road Trip to Chicago Day TWO &#8211; Around Millennium Park<\/a> for a more detailed account and experience of the next day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post is an additional post to the Road Trip to Chicago From Toronto &#8211; Four Day Itinerary. Day&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"USA"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/DSC_2288-1024x679.jpg",1024,679,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Maria","author_link":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/author\/maria\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":43,"name":"USA","slug":"usa","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":43,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":33,"count":8,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":43,"category_count":8,"category_description":"","cat_name":"USA","category_nicename":"usa","category_parent":33}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syderoad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}