Tis morning.
It’s amazing how sitting in a car for twelve hours feels just like going to the gym for two hours…
Well, time for me to pack up the circus and hit the road again. I think I’ll get a McBreakfast on the way and I should clear St. Louis by 10:30-11:00.
Here we go again. 🙂
Well, here I am in Indiana at a hotel for the night. Things were starting to get a little fuzzy so I figured some sleep was in order.
By the way, I highly recommend “Baymont” hotels… Cheap and free broadband too!
Anyways, the trip has been fairly uneventful so far. I left FBerg at about noon after stopping by the shop for the parting ritual.
I also recommend MP3 head units… One CD full of MP3s played from FBerg to the middle of Kentucky.
The only harrowing part of the trip so far was when the oil light flickered in Louisville Kentucky and as I didn’t want to destroy my nice new engine I had to pull it over the first place I could find… Which was no where near a gas station.
Fortunately Zeze was able to locate and enlist some nice folks in Louisville to come to my aid.
It turns out that the engine in the Toyota can, at high RPMs, pull oil from the PCV system and burn minute amounts… Well apparently 1000 miles at 80 MPH or so consumed about two quarts. Which is a lot when the engine only holds 3.5 quarts.
No harm done though. I got the car off the road and shut down quick enough to prevent any damage and after giving it two quarts of oil, it’s a happy camper again. I need to check the oil every time I gas up though, just to make sure everything is ok.
And with that, I’m off to bed. I’m 3.5 hours from St. Louis and I want to be there by noon…
Tell everybody I’m on my way
New friends and new places to see
With blue skies ahead yes
I’m on my way
And there’s nowhere else
that I’d rather be
Tell everybody I’m on my way
And I’m loving every step I take
With the sun beating down yes
I’m on my way
And I can’t keep this smile off my face
‘Cause there’s nothing like seeing
each other again
No matter what the distance between
And the stories that we tell
will make you smile
Oh it really lifts my heart
So tell ’em all I’m on my way
New friends and new places to see
And to sleep under the stars
Who could ask for more
With the moon keeping watch over me
Not the snow, not the rain
Can change my mind
The sun will come out, wait and see
And the feeling of the wind in your face
Can lift your heart
Oh there’s nowhere I would rather be
‘Cause I’m on my way now-
well and truly
I’m on my way now
(I’m on my way now)
REPEAT
Tell everybody I’m on my way
And I just can’t wait to be there
With blue skies ahead yes
I’m on my way
And nothing but good times to share
So tell everybody I’m on my way
And I just can’t wait to be home
With the sun beating down yes
I’m on my way
And nothing but good times to show
I’m on my way
Yes, I’m on my way
Well, cross-referencing the projected weather phenomenon along my proposed trajectory is leading me to theorize that I should get underway this afternoon.
I’ll know more in a few hours… If I do get on the road today it’ll be around noon which should get me most of the way through West Virginia by nightfall.
Either way I’m packing now, doing my last load of laundry here, and burning a few CDs full of MP3s for the trip.
This is going to be fun. 🙂
Took the Toyota on a test run for a few hours down I-95 and across some Virginia back country. Everything seems to work as advertised and that puts me one step closer to Friday morning.
While I was out I stopped by a few more towers; Post Oak and Rhoadesville.
Ok, back to work…
Well, today should mark the last of the things I need to accomplish physically at work. I got almost everything finished yesterday and will finish up the rest of the performance web site today.
I guess I’ll be burning a few CDs of MP3s for the trip today. 🙂
Ok, the new stereo is installed and working…
Zeze gave me a hand which made the whole process go much faster. The ‘yota now has a Sony CDX-R3300 head unit and four new Pioneer 3 way poly speakers; 2 6.5″ in the back and 2 4″ in the doors. It sounds really good too. 🙂
The ‘yota also got two new front axles today as the front tires wouldn’t balance and it was shaking a bit at highway speeds… It’s nice and quiet now, rides real smooth, and is a real joy to drive. I’m pretty impressed with the Toyota actually.
Tomorrow will be another day closer…
Well, it’s looking as if my weekend will be quite busy when I get back… Between dinner at this really good Thai place with Aryntha and Rai, a screening of VanHelsing with the whole crew, and the million other things that will be happening I might not get to sleep till some time Monday. 🙂
The stereo in the Corolla was put off till today. I might go for something a little better than el-cheapo. I’m still juggling finances to see what my limit is.
I figure if I’ve got to spend several days in the car, I’m going to enjoy it.
On SecondLife the Goon infestation seems to be ebbing… The Lindens (administrators) went for the carpet bomb option and just IP banned the lot. Though rumor has it that the SA Goons are planning to DoS attack SecondLife now. Joy…
Well, we’ll see how it goes.
I have to get breakfast and get to work. Have a great day out there folks!
Ahh, the end of another day… I’ll be spending the rest of the night in the garage installing an el-cheapo car stereo for the trip…
Now, where’d I put that soldering iron?
Ok, so I didn’t wait till tomorrow. I just got back from the DMV and everything is a go on the Toyota. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it has a new engine and drive train and it’ll zip down the highway at 80+ with no issues.
Other than that, it’s raining here. I got to play with how the Toyota performs on wet roads, which it does just fine… Probably thanks to the $300 worth of new tires.
And with that I think I’ll pack up here at work and head for home in about ten minutes…
Well, I’m now the proud owner of a 1994 Toyota Corolla. I just switched the insurance over and tomorrow I’ll be spending the day at the DMV getting the tags and title.
This definitely puts me at more ease about the upcoming trip… The Honda is a great little car, but on the highways around here it’s little engine just doesn’t make enough horsepower to keep me from ending up as a bug on some semi’s windshield. That and it has a hard time with the little hills around here, the mountains of West Virginia would be rough.
Well it looks like I’ll be taking the short route home. After talking with everyone who has an opinion on the subject it seems to be the best course of action.
I’ll also be heading out of here Friday morning and attempting to clear the VA border before the weather turns bad on Saturday.
It’s 1709 miles, or slightly more than two round trips from London to Edinburg for those of you in GMT-land… In Kansas I will literally go that distance without seeing a major city.
If the Honda craps out it’ll be in the mountains of West Virginia or in the barren wasteland of Kansas. Both places are close enough to the ends of the route that help should be available. But I don’t foresee any problems with the Honda… Sure, it’s got over 170,000 miles on it, but that’s nothing for an older Honda.
And with that I’m going to head upstairs and box up all of my art and other paperwork.
Take it easy out there…
I’ll be so happy to get back to Colorado…
Speaking of Colorado, I have two courses plotted… One takes me along I-64 to I-70 somewhere near Kansas City. That route is the least expensive and quickest; 1713 miles and roughly $82 in gas. If I only drive 9-10 hours a day and stop twice, I can leave here Friday morning and be in Denver Sunday afternoon… Of course I tend to drive non-stop once I get going so I could conceivably be in Denver Saturday morning…
The other route follows the first transcontinental microwave route along I-80 through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc… It’s a 2200 mile trip and will cost me around $200 in gas. That route is far more interesting, but it’ll also keep me on the road till Wednesday or Thursday as it’s mostly back road, 30 mph, travel. I’ll also wind up spending about $400 in hotels. I also have it on good authority that I-80 is best travelled in a tank or other armored vehicle with artillery capability… It’s a rough drive.
Right now my feeling is that I just need to get my butt back to Colorado, curiosity be damned.
Feel free to comment on this. I’m curious what other folks think.
Well, yesterday was a complete bust. It seems that folks in Pennsylvania have little regard for historic monuments…
The day started off pretty well with me managing to get Zeze out the door at 7:12 and on our way. With traffic being exceptionally bad even on two lane back roads we wound up far enough behind the clock at our first stop, OMPS, that we passed it up in favor of the more historic towers in Pennsylvania.
We made it near the first site about seven minutes after my route plan said we should thanks in part to some asshat in an old Chevy C-10 that was overloaded with these huge rocks, who couldn’t push the truck faster than about eight miles per hour in a ten mile stretch where we couldn’t pass him… This was in West Virginia so it was to be expected, but still annoying.
Once we started up the back road that wound up the mountain to the site we ended up stuck behind a dump-truck full of asphalt that couldn’t get going faster than about eight miles per hour… Well, with the blind curves and hills we couldn’t see over, Zeze still decides to pass the truck which, with the general disuse of the road, goes off without a hitch till we approach the first flagman…
PA DOT had decided that yesterday was a good day to rip up the road we needed to use to get to the site… A road that might have seen a dozen cars a day.
So, not able to get to Sideling Hill we pressed on to Clark’s Knob…
We arrived at the top of Clark’s Knob after an hour of putting across a non-maintained forest road to discover that the concrete tower that was Clark’s Knob was simply not there… About 100 feet from the GPS coordinates for the tower there was a ten foot square concrete pad surrounded by a chain link fence, but no tower. There were lots of other communications towers on top of the knob and I figure the old AT&T site was demolished to clear the path for some cell phone system.
Ok, we figure that we’ll check the next site and if it’s a bust too, we’ll just bail and go home. No need to trek clear across PA if there’s nothing to see…
We drive down the PA turnpike for another half an hour, paying $2.60 to do so, and eventually come to the location where Hallam should be… Yes, should be. Where it sat is now a private driveway and a house. Damn human infestation… About a half mile from the tower site we saw some AT&T horns on a type-a tower, but we were so frustrated we just returned the way we came.
We headed home through Baltimore MD, right past the place where the Yacht used to sit, then stopped in Woodbridge for gas and dinner at Chili’s.
All in all the trip was a bust… We did get to see some nice scenery in PA though, specifically the view from Clark’s Knob which was worth the trip as it’s PA’s version of Lookout Mountain in Colorado.
And speaking of Colorado, one more week till my triumphant return to the Rocky Mountains! The Honda has been getting the complete “fiddle with it” from the rice doctors down at the performance shop for the last two days and I think it’ll be in the best condition it can be for the trip.
Ok, in “Roadtrip 1” I took Zeze on a beginner level tower hunting excursion to a few sites located within a few miles of home and also within a few miles of a major highway… These sites weren’t anything too special, just your common Long Lines relays.
“Roadtrip 2” introduced Zeze to intermediate level tower hunting as we trekked across the deeps of Maryland looking for elusive GEP toped towers and major cold war switching centers.
“Roadtrip 3”, which is scheduled for 7am tomorrow, will show Zeze advanced level tower hunting as we cover over 700 miles from West Virginia though Pennsylvania and into New Jersey. We will be hunting several of the original concrete towers of the first transcontinental microwave route which ran though Pennsylvania, into New Jersey, and ended in New York… Major telecom history here.
We will be armed two cameras this time; my EX-Z4 and a Sony MVC-CD500. I’ll have my Garmin eTrex Legend on hand for positioning and mapping.
We will start off with a non-transcon site called OMPS which is in the north west corner of Virginia. OMPS is unique because of it’s multiple towers and the amount of traffic it handled in it’s day.
From OMPS we will head north and find Sideling Hill, Clarks Knob, Waggoners Gap, Hallam, New Holland, Thomas Hill, Wyndmoor, and Buckingham which are all in Pennsylvania. We will also be going a bit north east of Buckingham to Martinsville, the one Transcon site in New Jersey, before stopping for a well earned reward of White Castle burgers about two miles from the site.
From there, as it’ll be around 7pm, we’ll head back south to the townhouse. Our projected arrival time will be 11pm… A full day.
I’ll post the results some time Saturday from work. 😉
I took the Honda out for a bit of a test drive this morning; you know, put it though it’s paces… There was also the little fact that I get up at around sunrise, Zeze doesn’t get up till about a half an hour before we need to be at work at 10, and I get bored easy.
So off I went in search of the Fredericksburg Sprint long distance POP (Point Of Presence).
Well, I found it and it’s another interesting piece of telephone history…
Ok. The new bearings for the Honda are installed and it’s like having a new car!
I also gave Dan my two week notice today and he was not only ok with it, he’s also rooting for me… He said it was obvious I was miserable here with everyone I know being out west, heck, my whole life being out west.
We worked out the beginnings of a deal where I will continue to do graphic art for him from remote and he’ll continue to pay me a small sum to make sure my transition is as smooth as possible. Now, there’s nothing definite here, but it’s a big help to know that he’s not upset about me bailing.
So, over the next two weeks I’ll be busy getting everything here set up to be worked on from there and finishing up as much as I can on the projects that are pending.
It’s amazing how my outlook on things has improved since I finalized my launch date. I now get up every morning with a smile as I’m another day closer to getting the hell out of here.
The new bearings for the rear axle on the Honda should be in today and installed. Once that is done I’m going to see if I can get the AC in the car fixed for free as well… I don’t really *need* the AC for the trip, but it’ll be nice later in the year when Denver gets around to being punished some more and it’s 100+ in the shade.
Which brings up an interesting point: You know how everyone says, “But it’s a dry heat”? They’re right. It got up to about 78 here the other day and I thought I was going to die… The air got so thick with humidity it was hazy and it felt like it was in the mid 90’s. No amount of sweating works as you’re already wet and there’s no way to evaporate to cool off as the air around you is wetter than you are, which makes breathing without gills difficult at best.
It was truly miserable.
An interesting aside to all of this misery is that the swampy rain-forest atmosphere here is really good for plants. All kinds of plants. And as it’s spring the plants are all having plant sex… Zeze’s burgundy colored Lincoln was a nice mucous-green yesterday after work due to all of the pollen… You can see it floating in the air as a fine mist.
Ick.
I have to breathe that!?
Ick.
Then there are the bugs… Virginia has the insect market cornered and they don’t like it out side any more than you do. So it’s a constant battle to keep the outdoors, outdoors. The mosquitoes here can suck a small child dry in seconds so -no one- is outside near sunset for fear of their life. Then there are the “noseeums”… Some microscopic biting black fly that burrows into your skin, causes big red welts, and travels in packs…
Ahh, highlights of a Virginian summer…
And people live here.
Ok, I’m having the rear axle bearings replaced on the Honda in preparation for what is being billed as “Geek-Trek 2004” later this month: My drive back to Colorado.
See, I have what is probably the second coolest laptop on Earth now that Apple released the 1.5Ghz Powerbooks today, and it has really cool 802.11G wifi built in. I also have a nice digital camera which interfaces to the laptop very easily. What does this mean to you, the innocent reader? Well, I’ll be journalling, posting photos, making voice commentary and posting my GPS position on a neat map during this trip.
This will also be a very Zen Road Trip as I plan to take my time and explore a bit of America in the 1500 miles between here and there. No hurry, no worry… I’ll probably take a lot of older, pre-Eisenhower routes to get from here to there as well simply because you can’t really see “America” from the 12 lanes of I-70.
I’m sure I’ll encounter lots of neat stuff!
So, in around two weeks, be sure to check out “Geek-Trek 2004”.
Well, here it is, Sunday, and guess where I am? Work…
Dan has suddenly decided that the full page add for the phone book needs to be done in black and white rather than color… And the press date is Tuesday.
So I have 3 days to do a weeks worth of layout… I just wish the man would stop, focus for a second, and make up his mind.
He’s driving me crazy… His whole “start somewhere near the end, then jump to the beginning” style of doing anything is enough to drive the pope to drink.
Oh well. I’ll be out of here sooner or later; probably sooner rather than later at this rate.
