The Interstate System was designed by civil engineers who looked for cost saving ways to construct them. Many freeways were routed through level river valleys above flood stage and canyons that divided mountain ranges to keep excavating costs low. The Midwest section of I-94 is no exception. Starting at Port Huron, Michigan, and traveling west to Billings, Montana, this 1,555-mile-long section follows the terrain plowed out by glaciers. At the Canadian border, it skirts the southern outwash plain of a meteorite impact site (see FORMATION OF THE GREAT LAKES 1-20) and wraps around Lake Michigan as it collects traffic from cities totalling over 10 million people. Going north along the level shoreline, it then turns west at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and climbs the gentle Niagra Escarpment on its way to Madison. It passes through Lake Country dotted by glacier potholes,
filled with water. The highway is pierced by the Kettle Moraine landscape, and it meanders around many north/south facing drumlins. At Madison, it then travels north as it rides the very edge of the glacier advance. Looking east, 1 can see low rolling hills that have been dramatically softened by bulldozing glaciers and turned into farmland. To the west is land untouched by the ice rivers and shows humped up hills covered in trees wherever it is too steep to farm. This southwestern section of the state is known as the driftless area, and this Interstate rides the path right at this intersection. As it skirts around an ancient, hard rock mountain known as the Baraboo Range, it then turns northwest at their foothills and moves into Minnesota. Rock islands of Sand and Limestone pepper the area as the Interstate meanders through them. These civil engineers knew enough about geology to
construct a rapid highway system using the forces of nature to dictate the path of least resistance. Most travelers have fast food feces stuffed into their pieholes and are totally oblivious to this fact.
Torked Truth 