Hey all,
Well I made it. An amazing trip it was to. I will have pictures for you. At the moment my computer is still in boxes. I hope to have it set up soon. Then if I can figure out how to post them to my website I will provide a link for you.
Some general impressions:
For those of you who have never done a cross country trip in the United States I firmly recommend it. The US is just huge.
In Moore's recent film Fahrenheit 9-11 he talks about the fact that states have had to cut back on the number of state troopers patrolling the nation's highways & waterways. I believe it. I drove major highways, the biggest being I-70 from Indianapolis all the way to southern Utah.
For quite sometime Ohio State troopers have been complaing about cutbacks but I did see two before I left Ohio and Cincy is maybe 20 minutes from the Indiana border. In Indiana I saw one state trooper. In Illinois and Missouri I saw none, zero. In Kansas I saw two state troopers. In Colorado, Utah and Nevada I saw none. Sad really.
Interesting thing, I stayed at Hampton Inns all the way. Whenever I checked in the night crews all had CNN on the main tvs in the lobby. In the morning all the tvs were set to Fox news
Okay onto the details
Day One, July 19th: Cincinnati to Effingham, IL, 250 miles
The white line nightmare...that is Indiana!
I didn't leave until late, until 3:45 EDT. Partly this was because of some poor planning on my part, partly this was because mom wanted some more time before I took off. This part of the trip was very pleasant. Mostly rolling hills until I had cleared Indianapolis. Nice weather in the 80s with low humidity. I reached Effingham at 7:00 CDT.
Day Two, July 20th: Effingham, IL to Topeka, KS, 410 miles
The rest of Illinois was very pleasant. I crossed the Mississippi and entered Missouri. I actually managed to pick up the BBC from an NPR station, I was in heaven. Then came Missouri, which from some unknown reason took me forever to get through. Took me a while to get through St Louis.
By the time I got to Kansas City it was hot, 101 degrees and very sticky. In case you didn't know they are currently trying to rebuild all of Kansas City, one piece of highway at a time. The AAA auto club had routed me on the outer loop I-435 to get around constructoin. Nice idea but didn't work. I left I-70 and got on I-435 and hit a wall of traffic. The right lane was closed and so everybody baked in their cars crawling along at 5 mph for the next 30 minutes.
Also in Missouri I almost got killed twice. Once it was almost death by Honda Civic. The posted speed limit is 70 mph. I was chugging along in the fast land when a black Honda Civic with Missouri plates barreled from the entrance ramp into the high speed lane and promptly dropped to 55 mph. Any closer and I could have changed her radio station for her. The second near crash was from a black trans am with Texas plates, but he almost killed several other people so I somehow felt better about that one.
I got to Topeka, KS at something like 6:30 CDT. Then I entered the hotel from hell.
My first warning sign was when the door to my room didn't work well, it kept rejecting my key. Then I went in search of the excersize room. Unlike the other Hamptons I stayed it, Topeka Hampton was a fleabag. An older hotel with no internal hallways, everything has to be accessed from the outside. So I went to the excersize room. The treadmill was being held together by one- ONE-bolt so I opted for the excerise bike. So I am chugging away on the cell phone with buddy of mine.
Lance: "How's it going Michael?"
Michael: "Good, and you?"
Lance: "I appear to be listing."
That's right my seat began to list off to right ending up at a 45 degree angle. Also pieces of the excersize cycle began to fly off. So I went to the hotel clerks and gave them the pieces. But wait there is more. The ice machine is located in outside breeze way that has no lighting, absolutely pitch black. I managed to find the Ice machine and it gave me all of two ice cubes.
I went back to my room, struggled with the door and got in. I opened the fridge and pieces started to fly out. The freezer did work. Then the power failed. Also all the plugs appeared not be grounded.
Day Three, July 21st: Topeka, KS to Denver, CO, 525 miles.
This was the big day that I feared, a long hall to be sure. Especially since I was driving by myself. I left Topeka about 9:40 CDT and it was cool and overcast maybe 81 degrees. Mentally it was tough. I passed Manhattan, Junction City and Salina. By the time I stopped at Hays, KS I was a bit depressed and daunted by the length of the road ahead. So I just tryed to pump myself up, just going for the next town. I didn't think about Denver, I just tryied to get to WaKeeney, then Oakley, then Colby, then Goodland.
I was making good time it was 70 mph speed limit in Kansas, with patches of construction at 60 mph. I entered Colorado and it became 75. When I got closer to Denver the winds really picked up. My car kept rocking back and forth.
I rolled into Denver and got to my hotel at 6:45 MDT. The hotel was fabulous and I ate at a really good Mexican place. I loved Denver. The town looks terrific, surrounded by mountains. Made me think what Denver must be like in January.
Day Four, July 22nd: Denver, CO to Richfield, UT, 316 miles
Starting out I thought this day was going to be easy compared to the 525 miles I had done the day before. Boy was I wrong.
Again, I left about 9:30. I got maybe 20 minutes outside of Denver when two things happened. One, my car handled like crap. The altitude was wreaking havoc with my car's performance I could do maybe 60 mph with my foot on the floor. Two, by the time I got to Silverthorne I had altitude sickness, bad. I was at 9,000 feet and was dizzy and nausated. I pulled off the road and sat at Wendy's for bit. Eventually I made my way to a pharmacy. The clerk took one look at me and handed my a pamphlet on Altitude Sickeness Awareness.
I got some Drahmine and Emetrol and sat around for maybe and hour, hour and half. I stared to feel bit better and I slowly, slowly make my way down I-70. By the time I got to Rifle, CO I was feeling much better. I hit Grand Junction, CO around 5 pm, MDT. I finally felt well enough to get something to eat. Between Grand Juction and Richfield the road became a much more lonely place, traffic thined considerably. There were several scenic spots where I stopped and took pictures.
I finally rolled into Richfield about 9:15 MDT. The hotel staff promptly informed me that all the restaurants shut down promptly at 10:00 pm! I don't know if this a remnant of the old Blue laws but half an hour later I was entering my hotel room dragging luggage and dripping Wonton Soup all over the carpet.
I got to bed around 12:00 am MDT.
Day Five, last day, July 23rd: Richfield UT to Las Vegas, NV, 316 miles
I slept in a bit and made use of the excersize room and hot tub before heading out. By 10:30 MDT I was on the road again. More mountains but only 4,000 feet up and I took my Drahmine before heading out, so I was in good shape.
I passed Beaver, Cedar City and St. George. I-70 ended and I got onto I-15 South. The temperature gradually rose. By the time I hit Vegas at 2:00 pm PDT, it was 112 degrees. Welcome to Vegas.
So I made it. I did it by myself with no help. I crossed 2,000 miles in my car, loaded down with stuff and got to see some incredible sites.
Tomorrow is the first day of work in my new home.
-LanceMan