Positively summerish today. I don’t mind. But then again, I have an indoor job, and was fairly busy this Tuesday in May, so I didn’t have much time for the deck until after dinner, a fine chicken curry whipped up by the chef of the house, which isn’t me.

Back on Friday, such summer-like conditions were merely a longing, since rain alternated with drizzle and back again with rain, all at a charming 50 degrees F. or so. I had the day off and had agreed to pick up Ann in Normal to bring her home from ISU for the summer. One down, three to go.

I decided not to drive there by the most direct route, despite ours being a time of elevated gas prices. The most direct route is I-55, once you’ve reached the southern reaches of metro Chicago.

Instead, I took I-80 a few miles west to its junction with Illinois 47, then headed due south on that road for a short ways, until it meets I-55 in Dwight. You know, just a little variation in the route. Before I got to that point, I needed to use the rest stop on I-80 just northeast of the town of Morris, Illinois. I noticed this curiosity there.

Columbus has a memorial highway? Is that supposed to apply to the entirety of I-80, which runs from New Jersey to northern California? That seems unlikely, but there’s scant mention of it online, at least as far as I’m willing to burrow. None, actually, except a Change.org petition about a different road named for the Genoese navigator in Connecticut.