:: Trying to keep track of it all... ::

:: 7.30.2004 ::

Notes from the Road (warning: a bit long)

Trip body count:
2 birds
1 snake
3 Monarch butterflys
about 10000 bugs

Trip stats:
6 days driving
total mileage, 3800
700 miles longest day
435 gallons of diesel
120 gallons of regular gas
$71.55 in tolls
23 bottles of water
2 skeevy hotels

Ohio most dead bugs
Ohio worst highways
Montana best highways

It takes 3 days of driving from the east coast to get anywhere interesting.

Chicago looks icky from the highway.

Up until we got past Chicago we were sure that the fabled "wide open highways" of the U.S. were just that, a fable.
Then we found them. Wide and open. Not a strip mall for hundreds of miles and exit signs that have just a number and "ranch access" on them and go directly to a dirt road.

Lots of friggin' corn. Who the hell eats all this corn?

Really hot and humid until we got about mid-midwest. then it got cool and dry.

The midwesterners love their waterparks. Guess 'cause theres no ocean nearby.

After Chicago the highways turn into those stupid poured concrete highways. You know the ones that go "thup... thup... thup... thup" as you drive over them.
Except that in a big 25 foot moving truck with a full trailer with a jeep on it the "thup thup thup" turns into "bang bang bang" and I got so jostled I felt like I was going to throw up.
Here let me help you visualize this:
Remember when you were a child and you got bounced up and down on somebodys knee, or perhaps you yourself have bounced a child on your knee, that was about the same force of bounce I was experiencing.
Now imagine that kind of bouncing for about 1500 miles.
Now imagine trying to drink coffee for 1500 miles while being bounced like that.
Needless to say I was not amused.

In Ohio or Wisconsin or whatever we passed a "Traffic Paint Test Area". This was basically a section of Route 90 where they let the Dept. Of Transportation guys go nuts with the line painting truck. There were zig-zags, and lines and dashes, and curly cues it was crazy looking. I had a great mental image of the DOT guys out in the middle of the night drinking and whooping it up and painting highway lines all over the place. hee hee...

When we reached "the west" the speed limit jumped up to 75. I think mainly to taunt me since I was stuck at 60.

I had to find a new radio station about twice a day, and when we got to the midwest it became increasingly more difficult to find any decent ones. I did however have my choice of bible, farm report, and country music stations.
When I was able to tune in a decent rock station, I found that they all had monosyllabic tag names that the DJ would say in a loud aggressive voice before going to commercial.
Stuff like: "98.2 THE CROW!"
In addition to the crow there was also the bear, the snake, the wolf, the lion, the laser, the eagle, the bomb and the blaze. Not sure why a radio station would want to identify with a crow, but whatever...

In South Dakota we passed a giant billboard advertising the worlds largest pheasant. I knew after we passed it I should have pulled the truck over and taken a picture, but there was just no way.
Too bad, 'cause it was hilarious.

When we hit South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, all the Honda's, Nissan's, Toyota's and VW's disappeared. Big trucks, SUV's and Caddilacs were the order of the day. Buy American and buy big dammit!!

Anybody out there live in Phosphate Montana?

Trying to get diesel fuel is highly frustrating. At the truck stops and giant rest areas, you have to go to the special diesel pumps for trucks. The pumps are filthy with fuel, and they drip all over your hands, and on the side of the truck so you end up standing in giant puddles of diesel fuel to fill the tank. I was sure my shoes were going to melt before we got halfway across the country.
These pumps are also in the frigging dark ages as far as convenience goes. Theres no pay at the pump so you have to walk all the way over to the shop (which is acres away from the pumps) and give them your card and tell them which pump you want turned on and then walk back. Each pump has two nozzles, one on each side of the truck, but only one has a display and they both have individual pump numbers. So if you tell them pump 21 but you need to use the nozzle with no display, thats actually pump 22. But only sometimes, and of course the number stickers have long melted off from diesel spills.
The tank on my truck was of course on the wrong side. So I always had to use the pump with no display. To use the secondary pump you have to turn on the pump with the display and then lay the nozzle on the ground and go around and use the pump on the other side and hope you told them the right pump number in the shop.
And of course there are no signs explaining any of this, so clueless people like me end up standing around with a fuel nozzle in our hands looking like total dumbasses. I dont know why the truckers stand for it. It could be so much easier and cleaner.
Maybe they dont care. Or maybe it gives them a laugh. Whatever...

When we got to somewhere in the midwest, I forget where exactly I stopped at another truck stop to fill the truck up with Diesel. I got all set up at the pump and started pumping the diesel and what was coming out of the nozzle was bright green! Like the color of coolant!
I stopped pumping in a panic and kinda looked around, then went into the shop to see what the hell this green stuff was. The people in the shop thought I was crazy.
(Insert your own Jethro voice here) "Duh, all diesel is green."
"Um, no its not, diesel is pink."
"Nuh-uh only for tractors."
OK, so apparently on the East Coast all diesel is pink, and in the midwest, truck grade diesel is bright green and farm grade diesel is pink. Great, thanks for telling me. I almost pissed myself thinking I had just pumped some foreign substance into the fuel tank on the rental truck.

In Ohio, Wisconsin and PA there were tons of cops out on the prowl. When we hit "the west" they all vanished and the speed limit jumped to 75 mph. Didnt see one single cop in the 650 miles it took us to cross South Dakota.
And with the 75 mph speed limit, nobody was driving excessiveley fast, and there wasnt a bloodbath of car wreck carnage on the highway. I'd say that people were driving about as fast as they do on the east coast (75-80), except now that the speed limit actually reflected how fast they were going, it was legal.
So no need to hide cops everywhere to pull people over. Made a lot more sense to me. And probably saved the state a lot of money.

OK thats it.
I highly encourage anybody reading this to try a cross-country trip. This was my first and I found it amazing. It really gives you a much more global sense of our country and of the continent we live on. The changes in terrain and climate and local color is fascinating. And the fact that we have these broad ribbons of highway that go for thousands of miles, really gives you a sense of Eisenhowers vision when he came up with the idea for the Eisenhower Interstate System. I mean we traveled one highway (Rt 90) from its start at mile 1 in Boston to its absolute end 3400 miles away in Seattle. It really is something.

:: Zachary 8:23:12 AM [+] ::
...

Oh man, too much stuff...

I gots a ton of stuff to write about, but no time to do it. I'll get to it in bits and pieces, I promise. In the meantime here are a couple of recent pics:


Me and the cat sacked out on the couch after a hard day of unpacking and moving furniture. I mostly moved the furniture, he just kinda acted as foreman. Still a tiring job though.


This is a pic out of our backyard area at, I swear, 10:15 PM. The sun sets ridiculously late here on the furthest west fringes of the Pacific Time Zone. You can just see Bellingham lit up across the water at the very bottom.


I just took this pic walking back from a swim at our pond up the road. This is a view across Hales passage looking towards Bellingham and Mt. Baker. This view is literally 50 ft from our house. Can you believe it?!

Ok, thats it for now, I've got lots of notes from our x-country trip, and all kinds of other stuff to impart, but for now you'll just have to be patient.

:: Zachary 4:11:45 PM [+] ::
...