What I did on my Summer Vacation!
or... things what I saw along the way [sic]
...a report from the road posted 7/12/2008.
So far... 2500+ miles, not quite half way yet.
I managed to get a nice truck driver to go out of his way, roll down his window and shout at me... and this is before I got out of Georgia. He used a colorful phrase that I'd rather not write down but in general he seemed to think that I REALLY fond of my mom (nod nod wink wink) and that he thought I was not playing for the home team.
I have taken a tour of the USS Drum, a WWII submarine that is dry docked in Mobile AL. My advice to submariners: Watch your head! And now a question... The fairbanks-morse diesel engines that power the sub are upside down from any engines that I have seen before. The crankshaft is on top the pistons below that and the valves below that. WHY? and HOW DOES THAT WORK? It seems that they would be constantly flooded with oil coming from the journal bearings above them.... HMMMMmmmmm...
UPDATE! OK, so I looked up the fairbanks morse submarine engine and discovered something that is hard for me to believe... what I saw was indeed an upside down engine but that is only HALF of the engine! It's really like two engines that are connected cylinder head to cylinder head. Why? Don't really know... probably more horsepower... details can be seen in great detail in the document I found at: http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/diesel/chap3.htm#3D
So far I have been through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, TEXAS, TEXAS TEXAS, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Arizona, Utah and then California.
I have seen a road runner, two chipmunks, two prairie dogs, an elk that looked like it had a hangover, a couple of scroungy squirrels, a dead snake, a few deer and a dead skunk.
I have been in a long line of cars, in the desert, in the sun, waiting for a friendly Navajo fella in a plywood shack to take my $10 after explaining why my national park pass didn't work here and that I could drive through the monuments in the valley in my own car and that it would take a couple of hours but considering what I was driving he wouldn't suggest it, I could take their bus or that I could ride a horse and that I could come back closer to sunset.
I have seen many Navajo hitchhikers.
I have seen the Navajo power generating station.
I have bought stuff at a Navajo trading station that has been open since the early 1800's.
I have seen a dry lake that was full of water.
I have driven over snow in the road in JULY.
I have seen one Z4 and one Z3 and about a million or so Prius.
I have stayed in a motel that was not managed by a nice person from India.
I have discovered that Death Valley is subject to flood and that it has another reason other than its intense heat to be called Death Valley. It is a dead zone. No cell service... though I doubt Ronald Reagan was aware of that fact when he was their spokesperson.... too busy hauling borax with mules I guess
NOTE: These writings are occurring on this Google page as they occur to me and as I have internet access. Right now, I'm in Montana at Bob's Little Big Horn River house, in the living room, while Pat reads and I wait for Bob to come in from Hardin with the inflatable so that we can go fly fishing while staring at the river and the monocline across the river... today is Monday July 21 so we have been on the road for 2 weeks.
I called my relative Randy (he's really my Uncle but since he's only 9 months older than I am it seems a bit ridiculous for me to call him Uncle Randy but, well, there you have it... my relative Randy) while driving through Oregon. I caught him at Martha's Compound (no big surprise there!) and he related to me that he, Martha and his long time friend and someone else (maybe his long time friend's wife? girlfriend?) had gone to North Carolina for the Fourth of July and that, never minding the speeding ticket they got while being lured into the deadly tourist speed trap so popular with the Commerce Georgia police, they had had an excellent time. He said that he had while on this trip, in fact, bought and worn a pair of boating shoes, a pair of Bermuda shorts and a t-shirt... with a pocket! AND that he had not worn his boots. The first part of this is hard to believe, the latter is nearly impossible to believe! But, I have it on his good word (and on Martha's as heard in the background, that these things had actually occurred.
While driving down through the Columbia River Valley we passed a group of 4-5 bighorn sheep casually grazing within 10 feet of the road.
The Wilderness Cafe is halfway along the lewis and clark trail... up on route 12 which runs from Lewiston Idaho through to Montana by way of the the lolo pass . Good food, local color, beautiful scenery... perfect open-top sports car kinda driving. People fly fishing. Deer staring. Light waning. Water falling. Creeks converging. Campfire smoke floating through the air. Very nice. Very nice indeed.
OK, so there is a lot of wheat grown in Washington state. A LOT of wheat. Not many people in the eastern part of the state, but there's a lot of wheat! Turns out that a 2 seater sports car like my BMW M roadster is not only capable of 140+ mph but it also can make an excellent fishing car. You may ask how this could be the case since my flyrod, even taken down, will not fit in the trunk. HOW THIS IS THE CASE: After driving through miles of wheat and driving into the night, the next morning I walked in front of the car. Seems I had collected quite a lot of excellent fishing bate (as Alley of Alley's Grocery maintains it is spelled... but then again he sells Dope so, who knows? For the uninitiated and the otherwise shocked... Dope is CocaCola in Lakemont, GA lingo) as the lower grill was jam packed with what seemed to be a day's fishing's worth of grasshoppers. I also learned that the upper two grilles, the ones on the hood that make the trademark BMW statement are really just there to make a BMW statement since there was no fishing bate to be found there.
Dropping down interstate 15 from Arizona into Las Vegas at night is impressive. It's dark, can't see much because 1) the speed limits are ridiculous for the roads so you gotta pay close attention to the road and 2) it's dark. Round a corner and a valley... an ocean of lights appears out of nowhere. I say to Pat. What's that? She says: Los Vegas. I says: No, can't be. The sign says Las Vegas, 14 miles. You can't see that far. She says: Las Vegas. Look there. See the Las Vegas strip? I says: (well, probably shouldn't say what I says at this point but suffice it to say that I was surprised and amazed) Anyway, seems the air is clear enough to see 14 miles. Amazing. I guess Georgia is so humid that there's enough water in the air to effectively be peering through a couple of feet of water over 14 miles... this might tend to blur things a bit.
Thursday, July 30, 2008
Today is July 30. I know this because I kept a receipt from where we ate in Nebraska... a "Nebraska only" kind of place called Runza in McCook, Nebraska where I ate a Runza with mushrooms and Swiss cheese. I had to look at my calendar to see that it's thursday... we have been on the road a long time and today was one of the longest. Yesterday, Wednesday, was really long too.
We started two days ago in Regina (it doesn't rhyme with jelly beana) Saskatchewan, Canada... just south of Saskatoon (gotta love those names...and wonder where they came from too). Drove down through North Dakota with a dash through the North part of the Teddy Roosevelt National Park (the south part is 60 miles from the north part of the park... strange)
Made it all the way to Rapid City, South Dakota... tourist mecca of South Dakota, at least that's how it would appear. Nearly everything was booked... and there were TONS of motels there. It's like, well, a tourist mecca. Admittedly it could have had something to do with the fact that the Sturgis Motorcycle rally was starting in two days and that Sturgis is right next door. Anyway we got a room (their last!) and were regaled by muffler-less harley davidsons driven by dentists from Dubuque and accountants from Albuquerque all night long.
Gotta love the creative person who decided that the Mount Rushmore National Monument would be free for the public to enter but when you get there they charge $10 for parking. OK, so this seems kinda reasonable except when you are a person who spent $80 for an annual pass to all the National Parks... but apparently not an annual pass to park in all of them. This kind of shuck and jive is familiar to anyone who has attended college and paid for it. Tuition used to be "the amount of money you will give us to allow you to come here and take classes and participate in student campus stuff. Now there are "activity fees" and "wellness fees" and "parking fees" and "technology fees" and "matriculation fees" and "diploma fees" and, well, you get the drift... Can't legally charge someone for something? No Worries. Make up a new something and charge them for that!
v
Turned around at Mt Rushmore.. you can't do a u-turn... you gotta ask the nice park person how to leave without paying. Not so at the Sitting Bull Mountain carving we went to next. Not so in that they weren't nice about it and they wanted $20 to get in. We managed to get some pictures anyway since you could both of them pretty well from the road. The lady at Sitting Bull kinda sneered when she saw that I had my camera in my lap...
July 2x, starving and it's 6pm and the only hope is a place called The Frontier Travel Center Burgers: state&BowmanXXX
Walked into the center and found a hot case full of burgers and tex mex all labeled and priced. Behind the counter is a big guy flipping burgers. This is a big guy... I don't know that much about football but this guy looked like a linebacker or at least an X-linebacker... dressed like a biker. He had an american bandana on his head, an earring or two in his ear and a spatula in his hand. Among the labeled burgers wrapped in foil were the "Frontier Burger" "Cheese Burger" and "Bowman County Burger". I asked Mike (don't really know his name but he looked like a Mike to me) The "Cheese Burger" seemed straight forward so I asked "What's a Bowman County Burger". He looked up from the grill, looked at me looked back at the grill, scooped up one of the burgers on the grill and turned to me with it... "It's this, and a bun... 3 bucks" at which time he flipped it back on the grill. What about lettuce and tomato? That's a deluxe and it's $1.50 more. What's a Frontier Burger? It's got pepper jack cheese and some jalapenos and it bites back.
I took a Bowman County Burger and a deluxe kit. This was a real burger. Not a prepackaged deal. It was a 3 inch in diameter, 3/4 inch thick hunk of meat on a bun... and it was terrific.
v
Great burgers, real fried chicken and 50 card packs of Yatzee score cards... the Frontier Travel Center... how great is that?
OH... even better... the entire place is lined with elk, deer, buffalo and elk heads.
In Regina while drinking coffee in the morning I struck up a conversation with a couple from Calgary where I was exposed to Canadian humor...
[Canadian] - So... have you been to Moose Jaw?
[gullible American] - No... Where's Moose Jaw?
[a Canadian who is delighted that I have taken the bate] - About 6 feet from its ass.
Kahlotus, Washington on the way to Pullman from Richland, WA, next stop, Palouse Waterfalls.
Kahlotus is in the middle of nowhere. If you doubt it, get a map and look. We had traveled through miles and miles of wheat fields. This is where I noticed the bug slaughter wrought by the lower part of the grill of the scooter. Kahlotus, a small town that had seen far more prosperous days... judging by the main street occupied by deserted store fronts some time in the 1930's.
Kahlotus, a place where I am certain there were at least some people lived... though we saw no one save two tourists who had stopped at the public bathrooms. Kahlotus, the place where we found ourselves low on gas, so low that it was really uncertain that we could make it to another city to get gas. Kahlotus, the place where we searched for a gas station... "Certainly the people who live here must buy gas here... it would take a half of a tank of gas to get to the next gas pump and return home." Having driven past a huddle of buildings and above ground tanks that looked for all in the world like an abandoned place where people once kept their tractors, on the second pass, I noticed something that looked like a gas pump. It was... but there was no building with cold drinks and lotto tickets... in fact there were no people... at all. I drove up and stared at the pump. It was a gas pump and it had premium gas and it was not badly priced... but there were no people and the pump wasn't a "pay at the pump" pump. Then I noticed a small box at the side of the pump.
It had a card slot and some typed instructions taped to it. This was a "pay at the pump" pump! I got out of the car, followed the instructions and waited for the modem (yes, dial-up modem) to screech its little message to "the bank." The bank apparently liked what it heard because the pump suddenly came to life. I filled the scooter with low priced premium and off we were to Palouse waterfalls. Pictures of the pump were taken to prove this account to be accurate.
MORE about Runza
More about buffalo
More about the stench of nebraska feeder plots.
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