How I spent my summer vacation.

[Silver 2]

I thought that some people might find my trip across the country interesting so I did a little write up.

A quick update for some regulars and lurkers. On Sunday night before I headed out to BRC I noticed a message from Black Rock Ric basically threatening Cryptofish. I left him an invitation to meet me first and even offered my beer cooler if I was not around when he showed up. I told him where I would be and I pretty much look like my picture, and I was the only guy in Hushville that matched my description -- I checked. Well, surprise, surprise, he never showed up. Hell, I even postponed my ride out to the Man. Maybe we are free of him now.

Driving to Burning Man, or how I spent my summer vacation

I drove from Vienna Virginia to Burning Man this year and afterwards picked up my parents in Sacramento. I visited relatives in California and drove my parents back to El Paso before heading home. The following are my observations from the trip. Some the things I mention here are things I have known for years and others I discovered on the trip. This was my first cross county trip in about 19 years.

Observations:

There are too damn many people in this country - I knew this years ago and it is worse now. ZPG! ZPG! - gave up on Zero Population Growth when we got our birthrate down and then opened the borders, nobody listens to me.

U-HAUL, if I ever rent one of these puppies I will not even fire it up without at least one 800 number for emergency service. I saw a lot of dead or ailing U-Haul?s and some of them were way out in the boonies, i.e., Green River Utah is way out in the boonies.

Favorite town names, Silt CO and Bucksnort TN. One thing you might notice as you drive down the road is that people have no imagination, town names are repeated everywhere.

Mane and Tail, a hair conditioner made for horses, works really well after a week on the playa.

Favorite highway warning sign: "Eagles landing on roadway". This was in Utah.

It is 2,843 miles from my house in Vienna to Reno to Hushville.

There are lots of ratty looking people in the city; but if you really want shopworn people you need to head for rural America.

Econo-Lodges are not econo.

If you really want to confuse someone in a casino ask where the nearest bookstore is.

Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were really green; they must have gotten a lot of rain lately.

A State by State guide:

Maryland is boring and is close enough to home to not even get my notice.

West Virginia is about 300 miles of right and left hand turns to get about 100 miles in a straight line. Road way workers are the best protected in the country and gas is expensive. Oh, and I have found Homer Simpson's Springfield, it is Huntington WV.

Kentucky, cheap gas and good roads, it was getting dark when I hit there and that's about all that impressed me.

Indiana, shoddy is the word that comes to mind. Very, very old 'Road work ahead' signs scattered here and there.

Illinois!, it's much better than Indiana; to be fair, it was late and night and I did not stop until East St. Louis.

Thus ends the first day.

St. Louis MO gets its own special mention. If I knew then what I know now I would have continued through St. Louis at night. The inner part of St. Louis needs serious urban renewal or a real good fire. Its suburbs go on and on and on.

Missouri has the most billboards of any state; possibly of all the other states combined. My personal favorite was "Dentures in a Day", though the one in St. Louis "Its yard sale season, order your yard sale kit TODAY!" wasn't bad. The most disturbing billboard (and there were many of these) was "Feeling sick? Think it was something you ate? Call xxx-xxx-xxxx.". There are two XXX adult 'bookstores' within 10-15 miles of each other and they start competing not far from the state line. When you finally get near them one tries to trump the other with a billboard advertising "Live nude girls"; I am fairly broad minded but the alternative disturbs me, I personally would think the qualifier 'live' would not be needed. Missouri had the only full service gas station I came across.

Kansas, I enjoyed driving across Kansas. Once you get past Topeka the road is empty and excellent, the view is not obscured and you can see forever. The westerning sun filtering through the clouds was very pretty. I came across an A&W Root Beer place that still has the drive-in intercoms. In Western Kansas I hit a head wind that dropped my gas mileage from 20+ to 15+.

Colorado, the Eastern Slope, is just West-Western Kansas. In Denver if you push most of the way through the city you will find some cheaper motels, don?t bother with the one whose sign that states "$17.95 a night", unless you have reservations it is $46 a night. I stayed at the Motel 8 across the road for about $44 and got a paper and breakfast.

Thus ended the second day.

Colorado continued; I-70 through the mountains and later through Glenwood Canyon and into Utah was the most scenic part of the trip. The mountains were beautiful as usual and Glenwood Canyon was really great. If you ever do this drive take your bikes, there is a bike path that follows the Colorado River for miles. The scenery continues all the way to Grand Junction where it peters out and you enter Utah.

Utah, - Eagles landing on roadway - I looked for them but never saw any. This part of the ride was not much to talk about for the first 100-150 miles but I did pass through some beautiful scenery within 100 miles or so of Salina. This included some great formations and well placed turnouts. If you are on 70 and want to save about 70+ miles of driving you can cut north on Route 50, this is a good two lane road about 30 miles long that cuts directly to I15. No matter which way you go don?t buy gas near I70 in Salina, drive about a mile towards town and save 15-20 cents a gallon.

Once you hit I15 you have a choice. You can go north to Salt Lake City and hit I80 or you can go south a bit and take Route 50 more or less straight across Nevada. It is probably 150-200 miles further going north but will that will take you less time than taking Route 50. I took Route 50; this is marked on some maps as the loneliest road in America. As far as I can tell they are right. I started driving on 50 about 8 at night and in the 28 miles to Delta Utah I saw three cars, after Delta in the 95 miles to the Nevada border I saw the lights of about 6 cars/trucks. In Nevada it really thinned out.

Nevada, if I ever take 50 again it will be in daylight, there are parts that are straight and good for 80 and then there are lots of little mountain ranges and signs that really mean 35 around curves (while going down or up hills with 6/7 degree slopes). Much of this drive was not fun. I made it to Ely Nevada, checked the distance to Reno and told a store/gas station person that I would push on to Austin NV. He said "Oh, you don't want to do that! Stay in Eureka.", wise words. Oh, and while I was pumping gas in Ely I got to watch some hunters saw up an elk. There are two motel/hotels in Eureka, pick the first one on the left if you are coming from the East, from the West it would be second on your right; trust me on this.

Thus ended the third day.

The drive was much more pleasant in daylight and when I got to Austin I saw why the man in Ely told me to stay in Eureka; after seeing the motels (two) in Austin I know that I would have slept in the car. The rest of the drive to Reno was the usual desert driving and not notable. The loneliest road in America lived up to its name, in about 400 miles of driving from Delta Utah to Fallon Nevada I doubt that I saw 80 cars moving or parked (this includes Ely and Ely accounted for 20/30), I passed only one car and was passed by a cop doing 100+. In Reno I bought water, some last supplies, met about 15 friends by accident and was taken out to dinner. I had been corresponding with a newbie about camping and Burning Man and this was a thank you.

Thus ended the Fourth day.

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BURNING MAN ? I am not even going to try to describe Burning Man
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On Monday the 6th of September I drove back to Reno; on the way I bought and ate some Indian tacos (good, not as good as mom used to make but good). I spent most of the evening sitting in the tub reading and soaking and putting conditioner on my hair.

California is still California; it gets a bit more crowded every time I go there. I visited relatives and did some things with my parents.

I was on the road again.
Highway 99 used to be stop and go and lots of lights so I would drive out of my way to go over to I5, you don't have to do that now; 99 is just as good as I5. We cut over the Tehachapi and wended our way to Needles. If you are going through Needles check out the Wagon Wheel restaurant, it has the best chicken fried steak I have eaten in years (first Needles exit going east). We cut down to Blythe on CA 95, next time I will use AZ 95 through Lake Havasu. Wait until you are in Arizona to buy gas.

Thus ended the Fifth Day.

Arizona, if California does not convince you that the country has too many people Arizona should. The stretch between Quartzsite and Tonoph is nice and empty but way too soon the houses and people begin. Phoenix starts 30 plus miles west of Phoenix and the way it is going people will start saying 'Phoenix-Tucson' like they now do Dallas-Ft Worth. There is very little empty space between Phoenix and Tucson. If you are on I10 going to or from Tucson you will see signs for 'The Thing', stop, buy an ice cream and check out the best junk shop and tourist trap I have ever seen.

New Mexico, its only about 150 miles across New Mexico to get to EL Paso, so I don't have much to say, I did see a dead bobcat east of Deming and while I did not stop there this time Old Town Mesilla is worth a look see.

Thus ended the Sixth Day.

El Paso; didn't do much in El Paso, hung with my parents and did a quick shopping trip to Juarez. El Paso is the only place that I know of that has Mexican fast food places with margaritas on tap (frozen and $9 a pitcher) and live music.

On the road again.

TEXAS was really green for this time of year and the place still is not too crowded. Empty country, good roads and few cops; it was a good drive over all. Fort Worth stretches out to Weatherford now which is depressing, next stop Cisco. Anyway I made it all the way across Texas plus 30 miles to Hope Arkansas.

Thus ended the Seventh Day.

Arkansas, the Super 8 had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, cool, I dropped three bucks into the tip jar on that one. I don't know why Prez Bill worked so hard, there is a Washington just 8 miles from Hope. There seems to be a little known federal law that requires at least 20% of all operational 18 wheelers to be in Arkansas at any one time, the road was packed with them. I still made good time even with the road construction around Little Rock.

Tennessee, there is a pyramid in Memphis, I have no idea what that is about but there it is. Yeah, I know about Memphis Egypt, don't think they have pyramids there though. My main impression of Tennessee was traffic and cops and cops and traffic. I saw more cops in Tennessee than all the other states combined. Nashville wins for rush hour traffic, for you California types it is much worse than Sacramento. It's a pretty state when you can relax from looking for cops and keeping from being hit. It was not too late when I hit Knoxville so I made some calls and pushed on to Virginia.

Thus ended the Eight Day.

Virginia, my home for the last 27 years, has the biggest speed trap in waiting that I came across. I81 has top speed of 65 and it drops to 60 in a lot of places. Not too many cops but the low speed limit makes you nervous. After a while I gave up and just cruised and looked at the mountains and cows. It was not far into home and I pulled in at around 3:30 in the afternoon. Then I got to work shoveling out the house; I have a 17 year old who was home alone for almost three weeks.

The end.

[M Joe Boss]

Are you from El Paso or do you r parents just live there now????

[Silver 2]

Spent my high school and college years in El Paso, I was a military brat before then and lived all over. I lived in Houston for a while before I moved to Washington.

My parents retired in El Paso, as a good choice of being between the California relatives and the Texas relatives but not too near either set.

[Icepack]

Next year just take I-80 all the way! And have 2 drivers instead of 1. You'll make much better time. The speed limits go up as you get further out west, and there are good truck stops on 80 too.

[M Joe Boss]

I was born and raised in El Paso, went to IRVIN ANDRESS and PARKLAND. been in portland for 10 years. I really miss the food .

[Silver 2]

M Joe Boss, I went to Burgess and I don't think that Parkland was even built back then. I am about 20 years older than you are.

Icepack, I know about I80 but just for grins I tried to drive as stright across the country as possible. As for a second driver, well let's put it this way; I have an almost ex-wife and a 17 year old son, I had not had any peace and quiet for years and really needed it.