2013 road trip–by the numbers.

Accountants love to measure and analyze stuff, whether meaningful or not.  So here are a handful of numbers relative to the trip.

Miles traveled:  9066.4, driveway to driveway.

States driven through:  27.  In order, they were:  UT, CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, ND, MN, WI, MI, NY, VT, NH, ME, MA, RI, CT, PA, DE, MD, WV, OH, IN, IL, MO, KS, CO

Countries driven through:  Two.  Eh?

$ spent on gasoline:  $1531.11.  Ouch!

MPG:  23.7  This is an estimate, but is based on an average price of $4 per gallon of gas (less in MO, CO, KS, lots more in MI, CA and the east), resulting in about 383 gallons to cover 9,066 miles.

Nights away from home:  36

Nights spent in Residence Inns:  15

Number of times Lola melted down:  Only one, with the scary can in the cooler in VT.

Number of days Lola was nervous:  Three.  The two days driving on CA1 and the return on I-70 through the mountains.

Number of days Maddie was nervous:  Three.  Same days as Lola.

Number of times K willingly checked our location on the map:  None…I said “willingly.”

Hours I spent on hotel elliptical machines:  28 2/3

Pounds of physical books K brought along:  Unknown, but at least 40.

Weight of a Kindle (also brought along)  10.2 oz.

Amount of time K spent on social media from the passenger seat.  Incalculable.  I felt like the parent of a teenager, ready to take the damn phone away from her.

State with the highest beer consumption per capita.  North Dakota with 45.8 gallons per capita.  (I said it’s a boom town).  Second ranked is….New Hampshire??  Top 10 rankings are here: http://247wallst.com/special-report/2013/07/09/states-that-drink-the-most-beer-2/3/

Number of 12-oz beers I consumed.  No idea, and no interest in estimating.  Some things are best left unexamined.

Home, sweet home.

Mads is glad to be back in Utah, keeping the house safe from lizards.

Summary.  Days 32-37, August 2-7.  Travel from Baltimore to Kansas City to Utah.

Details.  This was the grueling part of the trip without a doubt.  Travel time 36+ hours, 2,300+ miles, all on interstate highways.  Bleah.  So here’s a brief summary.

Baltimore to Indianapolis, August 2.  An early start (5 AM) to get out of Baltimore before rush hour.  Mostly warm and sunny early, cloudy and rainy as we approached Indy, 10 1/2 hours plus stops.  Nasty traffic in Columbus, OH bringing us to a stop a few times.

Lunch at a nondescript I-70 rest stop in OH.

Indianapolis to Kansas City; family visits in KC, August 3-5.  The Saturday drive seemingly meant less traffic, as I-70 was relatively tame for the eight hour drive.  Visited both families, ate Pizza Shoppe Pizza, Stone Canyon pasta and (finally) some actual home cooking (thanks, Martha).  Got the Lexus a much needed service late in this long trip.  Did a 22-mile run starting at 4 AM Sunday at the Park Hill High School track, running in circles just like old times.  What fun!

Kansas City to Grand Junction, CO August 6.  Ahh, the crown jewel of the entire trip.  Thirteen hours (plus stops) crossing Kansas and Colorado.  Actually, Denver is the halfway point between KC and St. George, but stopping here would make for two ten hour days.  So we generally opt to drive to Grand Junction to get about two-thirds of the trip out of the way on the first day.  But it’s a real sumbitch each time.  This was a 4 AM departure, so we got through Denver by 1 PM or so (local time).  Nothing real noteworthy about this leg of the trip, other than the fact that my ass was tired of sitting by the end of the day.  And I finished off the Boulevard Wheat brought from KC.  The big liquor store in Grand Junction doesn’t carry Boulevard products, so I brought some Mirror Pond ales back to UT.

The Gals sparring on the last night in the hotel. Maybe they sensed something?

The rocket scientists knocked a ball under the bed.  Of course, there was no way they could fit under the bed to retrieve it, but Goldens are no Aussie Shepherds in terms of intellect.

Grand Junction to St. George, August 7.  This is actually a pretty drive, and I-70 is lightly traveled in eastern UT.  Hell, nobody lives there, so it makes sense.  A 5 AM departure, so we arrived home before noon.  The house is still standing, and one of our friends who had been checking on the place left us some muffins, salad, dog treats and other stuff.  Thanks, April!

Initial reflections on a long trip.  It’s best to let a trip like this sink in before drawing any conclusions about whether it was “fun” or not.  Certainly parts of it were no fun at all–the driving parts of the last few days uniformly sucked.  But lots of it was good.  Seeing Monterey and Kalispell again.  Seeing coastal Maine for the first time.  Being surprised at how nice the Burlington, VT area is and all the history in Providence, RI.  Seeing a modern day boom town in Williston, ND.  Places I won’t likely revisit include the upper peninsula of MI.  The vastness of the country is again driven home (no pun intended) by crossing eastern MT, ND, KS, etc.  There’s lots of corn in Indiana, BTW.

I asked K whether I should just throw away the US atlas and the road trip books.  We agreed that would be premature.  Actually, I’m sorta thinking about an early fall trip up US 89, maybe to Jackson, WY and Yellowstone and maybe a stop by Bryce on the way back.  But I think I’ll enjoy the desert sun for a bit first.

Down the Seaboard.

Summary.  Days 30-31, July 31-August 1.  Drive from Providence, RI to Baltimore, MD, sightseeing in Baltimore.

Details.  As noted in the prior post, the sightseeing portion of the trip is largely over, and now it is traveling long distances mixed in with family visits.

The devil you know…..While the specter of the I-70 drive has been looming the whole trip, I’ve been sort of unconcerned about it….hell, we’ve driven KC to B’More and KC to Utah (and back each way) before, so those devils are well known.  What wasn’t known was the drive down the eastern seaboard.  Until it was upon us, that is.  The drive from Portland to Providence took us down I-95, the primary artery running down the seaboard.  It wasn’t all that bad, at least until we hit Boston.  The ever-reliable GPS (against which I’m apparently powerless) took us through the middle of Boston.  What a mess.  It was the middle of the day, so traffic was likely not all that heavy, at least by comparison to the rush hours.  We only came to a complete stop a few times, so maybe that’s a victory.

This experience got me sort of concerned about the trip from RI to Baltimore, which goes through the New York City area.  I talked to a guy in Providence who told me how the NYC stretch could be a real parking lot, and suggested a couple of alternatives.  I read a bit about the NJ Garden State Parkway, in which posters suggested the “Park” portion of the name was appropriate, i.e., traffic stoppages were apparently pretty common.  So in contrast to my sheep-like following of the GPS in past days, I concocted my own route largely bypassing the NYC area.  This route basically took I-287 across the Tappan Zee Bridge north of the City and continued a bit west into NJ.  It was a good 30-40 miles out of the way, but was designed to avoid the worst of the NYC metropolitan area.

So, we started off about 6 AM, an early start but late enough to (hopefully) miss rush hour.  The first part of the drive was pretty nice, with trees lining the interstate and moderate traffic.  Within about 50 miles of the NY turn off onto I-287 signs of trouble began to appear–overhead electronic signs warned of an accident ahead.  The GPS screen started showing the same thing, with the mechanical voice providing a verbal warning.  We took the suggested detour and…..ran into another wreck on CT-15, the alternate route.  Probably 30 minutes lost in working through this, but I got back on my I-287 route, with the rest of the NYC-area drive open and uneventful.

While not the motivation, my alternate route through NY/NJ missed a bunch of toll roads.  However, I still spent $14 on tolls to go with an equal amount the day before.  And the NJ Turnpike section of I-95 was one of the messiest, ugliest stretches of interstate you can find (and that is saying a lot).  On the other hand, I did sort of hear the Sopranos theme song in my mind on this drive.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDkCiUhHCc

Lunch stop on the NJ turnpike. The rumble of machinery, idling trucks and interstate traffic noise provided an appropriate backdrop to the uninspiring scenery.

Family visits.  The point of stopping in B’more was to see Sara and meet her friend Chris.  We did both on Wednesday night, meeting at Hamilton’s Tavern in B’more for dinner.  Amazingly, I took no pictures!  But it was fun, and the Gals were (mostly) good.  On Thursday, we had dinner with Sara and her friend Lisa.  This time I took pictures.  We went to Iggy’s Pizza in the Mt. Vernon (I think) neighborhood.  A very pet friendly restaurant, where dogs are allowed indoors.

Golden convention at Iggy’s–Balley (unrelated, on the left), Lola and Maddie.

Pre-dinner family picture.

K and Sara at Iggy’s.

Sara and Lisa at Iggy’s.

Culture and education.  In all the times we’ve been to Baltimore, we’ve never visited Ft. McHenry.  This is the location of a battle during the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to compose the poem that would become the Star Spangled Banner.  It was very interesting and inspiring in its own right.

Cannons at Ft. McHenry National Historical Monument.

Gals on the outside looking in at the National Monument.

Beer(s) of the day(s).  Watermelon Wheat (yes, really) from Hamilton Tavern in Baltimore and Sam Adams’ Latitude 48 IPA from the White Marsh liquor store.

Uber-obnoxious vanity plate of the day.  “SWANKY-1” on a Hummer.  A Hummer.  Speaks for itself.

Next up.  The I-70 odyssey begins.  Baltimore to Indianapolis, IN, to Kansas City, MO to Grand Junction, CO and finally home.  A day at a time.

History lessons.

Mentor and protege in downtown Providence, RI.

Summary.  Days 28-29, July 29-30.  Drive from Portland, ME to Providence, RI, sightseeing in Providence.

Details.  The original schedule for July 28 was a drive from Hancock, ME to Providence.  But the early departure from Hancock changed this to a short three hour drive.  So we spent a bit of the morning looking around Portland, primarily at the Eastern Promenade, which occupies the farthest eastern portion of Portland’s peninsula, and contains a beach, park area and views of Casco Bay.  July 29 was spent sightseeing in Providence.

Lure of the water.  One thing evident on this trip is the way that water lures people.  Oceans, bays, lakes, doesn’t matter.  If there is a body of water, people will flock to it.  We were on the walkway along the Portland bay on a cloudy, misty 68-degree Monday morning and there were people sitting / walking on the beach, looking for shells, kayaking, etc.  This is all fine for those that enjoy, it, but it’s not my thing.  Mornings along the coasts are frequently foggy and moist.  Lakes mean humidity and mosquitoes in the summer, and “lake effect” winter snows in northern locales.   Now I remember why I moved to the desert.

Portland beach on a cool, cloudy Monday morning. Apparently clothing optional, at least for these little kids.

History in Rhode Island.  The visit to Providence reminded me how much interesting history is in evidence in our east coast states.  The first place visited was a National Memorial to Roger Williams, the founder of Providence in 1636 (!).  Williams was a champion of religious freedom and the separation of church and state, something the nut jobs in the Middle East should embrace.  Williams named the city in honor of God’s “providence,” while he personally died penniless.  A visitors center and a nice green space highlighted the Memorial.

Green space in the Roger Williams National Memorial.

Eight foot tall hydrangea in the green space. Mine never looked like this.

Downtown Providence also features the “Independence Trail,” a 2.5 mile loop which highlights historical sites in the city and is marked by a green line painted on sidewalks.  (The Williams Memorial is contained within this loop).  We followed the Trail for a bit, constrained by canines panting in the 80 degree temps.   There were many items of interest.  I liked the story of the Gaspee http://www.gaspee.org/ considered one of the events leading to the Declaration of Independence.  There is also the first Baptist church in America, dating back to 1638 and established by Roger Williams, and a number of historical memorials.

First Baptist Church in Providence.

Lots of historical stuff to see–I’d forgotten how much fun that is.

Next up.  The dread of the I-70 drive grows with each day.  After the visit to RI, the sightseeing on this trip is essentially done.  Heading to Baltimore next (our third visit there this year) to see Sara and meet her friend Chris.  It’s always fun to see the kids, so that will be OK.  But then the 2,300 mile drive back to Utah begins.  Fortunately, it’s broken up at about the halfway point by family visits in Kansas City.  At this point, we can put away the GPS–the directions are real simple.  Drive I-70 west until it ends by turning into I-15.  Get off I-15 at exit 8 in UT, and we’re just about home.  Looks easy on paper.