Saturday, Aug 21:

For being a main highway between Marathon and Fort Stockton, it was a very quiet place. For the three hours I was taking photos, only three cars passed by. There was a strong breeze that really cooled things down, to the point I needed to be in the sleeping bag. Nearby I could occasionally hear packs of coyotes howling at each other. The moon was pretty bright, giving the land a white glow. Unfortunately this glow made the star photography hard, despite fiddling with exposure settings the moon was just too bright. I saw several bright green meteoroids burn up (Leonid?) and a few faint satellites pass.  Firing up a constellation app on the iPad, I learned & saw where Cassiopeia was for the first time!  It was so nice here I decided to just spend the night on this little turnoff, and hope nobody stopped to bug me.

This day started by waking up at a rest stop on I-10 near Ozona, having gotten pulled over the night before on the way out. I wanted to visit Big Bend again, but wasn’t sure where I wanted to go.  In Marathon I pulled over at a little visitor information center. Thumbing through a random travel guide, a statement caught my eye:

“Highway 170 between Presidio and Lajitas, was designated by National Geographic as one of the most scenic drives in North America”

I knew this was exactly where I wanted to go, so I headed over through Alpine and Marfa and down to Presidio. On the way there I brushed with a thunderstorm and got to see a lightning show off on the distance. The temperature swung greatly from 100 F to 75 within the storm and back to 107 when I got to Presidio. This is a odd town to me. One fork in the road leads to the Mexico border, the other leads to the main street. It’s very hot, lots of shoddy gravel lots and junked up trailerhouses.

As soon as I left Presidio on FM 170 I ran right into the middle of the thunderstorm. The highway was underwater in places due to flash flooding. I was in a downpour, getting hit by little hail occasionally and the wind was very gusty. Basketball sized rocks were washing off the side of hills into the roadway. I was afraid there would be no scenic viewing on this trip, but after a few miles I was able to push to the other side of the storm and it was clear again.

FM 170 really is a great scenic road. It’s endless dips and in very good condition. It runs right along the Rio Grande, up a few hills, and surrounded by canyons and large mesas. Mexico is often just a few meters away. There’s even the leftovers of a movie set from Uphill All the Way that I wandered about. It was kinda sketchy when I saw fairly fresh footprints in mud on the riverbank.  I imagined illegals or drug mules hiding out in these prop buildings, and I was unarmed 20 miles from anywhere, so I left. Back on the road I stopped top of the tallest hill to take photographs. While I was there the wind kicked up and I was being sandblasted by little particles and rocks as I walked around. Afterward I wiped my brow and noticed I was completely covered in sand. Fortunately, this was the last of the freak weather I encountered.

Lajitas is another odd town on 170. There’s a nice looking hotel and the “Lajitas Boardwalk”, this little strip of well kept stores that looks completely abandoned. At the other end of town is a general store, a fire department and the town hall. That’s it. I’m not even sure I saw any homes!

From there I traveled into Terlingua/Study Butte and onward to Big Bend. I drove through the park to the Chisos Mountain Basin area.  I had no idea there were campgrounds, a general store and a little motel here. It is a really nice area! The sun was almost down, and the storm was beginning to catch up with me. It was cloudy and cooled off again. You’d see lightning and it would make this wonderful thundering sound as it bounced around in the mountains around the basin. Otherwise it was completely quiet. This area also serves as trail heads for several peak trails, including to the tallest in Big Bend, Emory Peak.

At the southwest end of the basin is a giant notch called “The Window” where the basin drains. There’s a great little trail from the parking lot out to a viewing area where you can just sit and look at the canyon. You really couldn’t go wrong here, everything in this area had a great view of it. There were plenty of chairs and picnic tables, plus many of the lodge rooms faced it. A side note, the room rates are pretty steep ($100+) and spartan (no tubs, no A/C in some), but if you just want a place to collapse and shower after hiking, they’re perfect. I’d probably recommend it, I definitely recommend the location.

Because of the impending storms, lack of rain gear, and it being too cloudy to see stars I decided to leave Big Bend. When I got to Marathon I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do and had my crisis of choices which lead to stargazing.

Sunday, Aug 22: I woke up at 10 AM to a warm breeze blowing through the windows of the truck. I survived the night without getting robbed and murdered or having any visitors. It was still quiet, I remember hearing only two cars pass by as I was waking up. I was hungry and went back to Marathon in search of food. I actually recall seeing a few places to eat, but there was one, Marathon Coffee Shop that had a little crowd on the front porch that gave it life. I had a turkey sandwich and coffee (serve yourself), both were great. On the counter was a large pickle jar as a “Texas sized” tip jar that made me lolz. There was a postcard rack with a cute sign chastising e-mail by saying there’s nothing more precious than a handwritten note.  I of course was sitting there uploading photos to my iPad. The camera kit, btw, is a great add-on.

After I finished lunch, I decided I didn’t want to get home so early so I sat out to wander. Against what I didn’t want to do last night, I drove back into Alpine for no reason. I took a few photographs and hit up Sonic. The weather was so lovely, clear, and moderately warm. It was fantastic to have the windows rolled down and listening to the stereo the whole way home.

Despite the fuss I make of not wanting to go home at nights, it certainly feels nice right now to shower and sit down. I think if I do this again, I need to find some better constellation and satellite tracker apps for my iPad+iPhone. The random free one I installed was certainly instantly useful and helped me find Cassiopeia, but kind of annoying to use. I never was a Boy Scout nor finished Astronomy in college, so I have no idea what I’m looking at at night and want to know!

This weekend lead me on a last minute trip to Houston, and ultimately to New Orleans. The drive surprisingly wasn’t bad, roughly 500 miles and takes about an hour longer than it does to get to my parent’s. I-10 going east is certainly much nicer scenery than it is going west, more green and actual trees. An overnight stay at a Beaumont rest stop, and I made it to NOLA about noon. I had no idea Lake Pontchartrain was so huge!

The first thing I did was wind up in the Lower 9th Ward (“L9W”) which was completely under several feet of water back during Katrina. I have no idea what this neighborhood actually looked like before, but there’s not much to it anymore. Street after street of lots that have empty foundations, overgrown weeds, or a house with some sort of major damage. Everything is either brand new or completely busted up, and it’s all for rent. On the west side of the ward, there were some designer houses that went in. These were on high stilts, came in floral colors and had many solar panels installed.

"Commercial license since 73, No job BP"

Next, I went down to Venice to see what was going on with the Gulf oil spill. I didn’t really know what would be a hotbed of activity (apparently I wanted Port Fourchon), I just picked the southernmost road I could find. Along the way I saw the Naval Air Station, with a F/A-18 perched out front. Next was Empire Marina with several fishing boats, several with yellow oil boom on-board. One boat had a large sign that said “Commercial license since 73; No job BP“. Lots of BP hate around here, many signs calling for prayer for fishermen.

Venice had quite a bit of activity, and it looks like it’d be busy without the oil spill. Several oil and fishing companies are represented here. There was at least one large parking area for response workers and dozens of temporary trailer homes. Several heliports are here, and they all appeared to be launching flights to take workers out. Deep into the bayou were several private company work yards and harbors. Each company had people in tents manning the gates, the occasional sheriff’s deputy, and shuttles to carry people to/from heliports and town. BP’s lot had a flurry of bus activity and even had state patrol parked out front. From here, it was a mere 68 miles to the MC252 well out in the gulf.

Also parked out in the Mississippi River is the TMT A Whale, a giant oil skimmer. This has been in the news a lot lately as it’s been going through trials. Last I heard it was decided to be too big, so I guess now it’s idling away its time here. I also saw the white observation airship floating around. I never saw any oil here, much less any coastline. One needs a boat to get out in the water to see things.

The parish sheriff’s office is hardcore here. Highway 23 is well patrolled by deputies, and they have a large presence in Venice harbor. They were escorting several wide loads down the road. Near the company yards, they have an intense little tactical compound of office trailers. It even features a shipping container turned into a jail (called “Jail-to-Go”). I found out later that apparently BP was using inmate labor in the cleanup, so this portable jail was to help assist if there were any problems. I wish I had taken a photo, but I was afraid winding up inside it.

Back to New Orleans, I sat out to find a nice quiet dinner and found myself fighting with the French Quarter at 5 PM on a Saturday evening. I had no idea where to go or park, and some of the parking was quite expensive at $25/day. Cars and people everywhere. Eventually I gave up and parked at the aquarium.

It was crazy hot this weekend and I didn’t really think ahead enough to bring shorts or linens. I was thoroughly drenched in sweat as I walked down Bourbon Street, ducking in wherever I could that was air conditioned. I spent about six hours wandering up and down and across the quarter. Overall it was a great experience taking photos, eating and drinking, and people watching. There’s certainly a large number of attractive blondes here!  I think the bead throwers have really lowered their standards since there was virtually no nudity. On the food side of things, I tried an alligator po-boy (which was huge) and cannoli at some Italian place.

By midnight I was thoroughly filthy and tired from walking around and sweating so much. Being what it is, there’s not many places to sit down and people watch without being in the middle of a bar, so I decided to leave. The iPad told me if I wanted a cheap motel room, I needed to look by the airport. $55 later and I was down for the night. In retrospect, a wise tourist would have planned ahead to get a motel room first (in FQ or near the streetcar line) in order to clean up and have a convenient place to crash later without thinking about it.

Sunday morning I had planned to go back to the French Quarter to see a giant cemetery. By 11 AM it was already 95 F so I quickly ruled this out and decided that was a trip. After breakfast I drove across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. I didn’t know how large the lake was exactly, so I was impressed when I saw that this was a 21 mile long bridge. It was neat to be in the middle and not being able to see the west/east shore and just barely able to see the north/south shores. From here I drove back to Austin and arrived at 8:30 PM.

More pics on Flickr.

Monday, June 28: Monday morning I departed for Boston for the flawless, epic road trip. There was a storm system rolling in on the east coast, so both legs of the trip were delayed for a couple of hours.  While waiting at the gate at EWR, some old woman was getting irate at the gate attendant for the delay and demanded to know “just what kind of storm is causing the problem?”  The rep was a bit befuddled and answered “Ma’am, there’s major thunderstorms all up and down the east coast. You know, lots of lightning and wind gusts make things unsafe.”  She huffed, turned and went away.

I finally arrived at BOS around 8:30 in the evening. Jordan picked me up, we had dinner and crashed for the night.  It felt weird being back in Boston, a city I’ve been to a few times now and who knows if I’ll ever set foot there again.  No furniture was left at Fight Club house, so I was trying to get comfortable on the hardwood floor by laying on a pillow and my jacket in front of a box fan in front of an open window. This basically reminded me of laying in camp at Burning Man.

Tuesday, June 29: Right at 8:30 AM we hit the road. We decided to just follow I-90 the whole way.  This had the advantage in that I got to see upstate New York for the first time.  Driving across Massachusetts and New York (and most of the mid-west) was pretty uneventful. Lots of road, lots of trees, even more toll plazas, and endless 65 MPH speed limit. Niagara Falls was a mere 16 miles away from Buffalo, but this really wasn’t a sight seeing trip.

Before we got to Toledo, Jordan gave me a quick manual transmission lesson in a rest stop parking lot.  Of course the first thing I did was stall the engine a couple of times, but finally got the hang of it enough to take over driving.  We stopped for dinner at a random sane sounding restaurant in Toledo that came up on the Garmin StreetPilot, this sketchy sports bar-turned-BBQ place that had more televisions than patrons.  I was adoring the Ohio accent of our friendly okay-looking blonde waitress, Destiny. With a name and accent like that she sounded like a cliche 24/7 diner waitress from a movie, but was still too young to be jaded on life. Outside of the restaurant, I think Jordan had a little moment where he realized everything he owned was now sitting in the parking lot. I thought it’d be a really good idea to park on a truck stop scale to see just how much his life and trinkets weighed.

Wednesday, June 30: Sometime after midnight I pulled into a ghetto section of Chicago to get petrol.  People were loitering all over the place and some aggressive hag at the gas station sat down next to me as I pumped gas, wanting to know why I wouldn’t give her any money. She had a laugh at me when she walked away as the tank overfilled and sprayed out gasoline. Rolling onwards, 4 AM and the sun was rising over Wisconsin.  I was hoping to find a good place to take a sunrise picture, but it never presented itself.

Around 7 AM I crossed the Mississippi River.  I had now been up for 24 hours and was getting very drowsy. Jordan took over and I promptly passed out for a while. When we neared the South Dakota border, it made me smile to see the “Welcome to Minnesota” sign that I tagged back in April during the Austin-MN-Austin trip.

Up until South Dakota the lack of A/C had been fine.  As the day went on, it got sunnier and hotter.  The strong gusty wind didn’t help, it felt like we were being blasted by a blow dryer.  After many hours of rolling grasslands and many signs telling us the remaining distance we finally reached Wall Drug.  This is an interesting tourist trap, and after baking in the sun I see how their gimmick of free ice water to get people to stop really took off. Half the town seems to be devoted to the Wall empire.  In fact, take Jackson, WY, replace the high-end wares in all the endless tightly packed stores with tourist trinkets, put it under the ownership of one family, and you’ll sort of have Wall Drug. I saw a group of people in cycling gear and overheard them say they were cycling from Seattle to New York, which was amusing since we were driving the opposite.

I took over again after Rapid City, SD. We decided if we made it to Billings, MT that night we’d be making excellent progress. By Sheridan, WY I was getting sleepy again so we just crashed at the nearest hotel.

Thursday, July 1: The next morning I continued on into Montana. Montana was pretty, but there’s so much of it that goes on for hours and hours much like South Dakota.  We passed through a brief rain storm which made the plains prettier and cooled things off, the only time we saw rain until Washington.  We stopped in this little middle-of-nowhere town named Alberton to stretch out. Not much to it. Both ends of the town were exit ramps to I-90.  The city hall was a double-wide and they had a quaint little bakery.  The “farmer’s market” consisted of two pop-up canopies with one selling hot dogs and the other selling handmade necklaces. Some woman was there playing a harp.  Another guy was walking down the sidewalk from the promising local bar, beer in hand, dog following at his side.

Things started getting interesting in Idaho.  The mountains really opened up and the road got twistier. Chugging up one side of a mountain in third gear at 50 MPH, barreling down the other side at 83 MPH.  We finally hit Washington sometime around 8 PM, just six hours left!  By now both of us were equally tired and I traded off yet again. Jordan was a champ and finished the rest of Washington after downing coffee and a handful of snacks.  The state really does turn into desert nothing-land after Spokane. Passing over the Cascades at night in the rain made for good anticipation of death.  Are we going to skid out of control? Where does the road curve into? Oh no it’s all plunging downhill!

Friday, July 2: We finally arrived in Redmond on Friday morning around 1 AM. 3,108 miles and 48 hours of drive time. This is roughly the distance of my AUS-WY-AUS trip, just five hours longer. Clementine gave all she could, but her four cylinders barely carried us up the hills.  I wished I had taken more photos; there wasn’t that much that caught my eye (especially on the east coast) and for the rest I was either driving or asleep. Looking back at it four days later, I just don’t remember large swaths of the trips.  I know I was there, I know what parts I was awake for, but it’s all just a blur.

Driving stick wasn’t so bad.  I certainly had a few times where I somehow skipped a gear and had a couple of starts in 3rd gear.  I still cringed every time I let out the clutch when going into first gear, wondering if I’m doing it correctly or going to stall out. Other than that, I rather enjoyed it and could see myself owning an auto with a manual transmission if I had to.

The set of photos that I do have are up on the Flickr.

This also conveniently fills in a lot of the northern portion of my squiggle map. I realized that doing this, I’ll have traveled in almost every state of the lower 48. The only thing that will be left is Vermont, North Dakota, Kentucky, and West Virginia. These are odd, I don’t know when I’ll ever visit them. Any air force kids out there who can get me a tour of Minot AFB so I’ll have a compelling reason to visit North Dakota?

I’ve been really burned out here lately and was in desperate need of changing things up by getting out to visiting the crew in the PNW on Friday. Coincidentally, this was the same weekend that Alex flew to BOS to co-drive with Hilary across country (see: here and here). A smarter person would have put off the trip for a week, but boredom and wanderlust was getting the best of me. So, I only got to hang out for an hour or two with Alex before he left (sorry!).  Afterward, we swung by to visit JP & Gwyn.

On Saturday, Victoria and I kept ourselves occupied by driving down to Paradise.  Of all the dozen or so times I’ve been to SEA, I’ve never been out to Rainier yet.  It was exciting to see how huge everything was there.  Huge mountain, huge trees, huge drop-offs on the side of the road with no guard rail.  There was also still several feet of snow on the ground.  Behind the visitor center was an open snow field which the masses were playing on.  We got the idea to go climb up a ridge to get a better look of the Muir snow field where all real adventures start. My feet were cold from the snow, and due to the clear sunny day I was drenched in sweat from the knee up after the hike.  (Victoria notes this as well in her post on Adventioneering.)  It was a fantastic view, and revived my interest in climbing to the summit.  It’s also worth noting that during this trip I got to experience one of the few Sonic Drive-ins in the SeaTac area and enjoy my 44 oz iced tea.

Sunday we spent running errands, experiencing Trader Joe’s, having posh apartments and condos pointed out to me, feasting on donuts and lounging around the apartment. Later that evening we had awesome thai birthday dinner for JP.

Flying back was practically an adventure on its own. I’ve never taken a red-eye flight, much less on a work day, and wasn’t sure how well it’d work. Victoria dropped me off and I left SEA at 12:30 AM.  Despite a completely full plane, middle seat, with a upset toddler right next to me I managed to sleep in some capacity the whole way to Houston.  However, I didn’t realize my flights overlapped until I landed.  My AUS flight boarded at 7:00 AM, and I got off the SEA flight at 7:20 AM.  I took off on a sprint with my backpack from C terminal to E terminal and was one of the last two people on the plane before it departed.  That’ll wake a person up in the morning!

I survived the last leg and got into Austin at 8:30 AM, then made it into the office at 10:00 AM to start a whole new week.

Photos from the Paradise trip are available on Adventioneering’s flickr feed.

I’ve been wanting to wander around Wyoming for a couple of months now and finally decided to go last weekend.  No real planning, the only requirements were to see Jackson Hole and some big mountains. Friday morning I took my truck to the mechanic to have the transmission and differential fluids changed.  I picked it up that afternoon and after work I went home to grab some cold weather gear (highs of 35 F were forecast there), then started driving.  I went up through the panhandle and crashing at the usual I-27 rest stop near Plainview, TX around 1:30 AM.

Saturday, May 29: For whatever reason it was a fitful night of sleep and I finally gave up trying to sleep at sunrise at 7.  Ultimately before arriving in Denver I’d have to stop at two rest stops to take naps because I was so tired.  At some point I actually debated calling off Wyoming and go back to do silly things with my friends in Denver instead.  I decided I was “so close” and kept on going.  When I hit the Wyoming border, my motivation and excitement level jumped.  I hopped out of the truck to take a photo at the border sign and realized it was super windy and cold due to a storm front rolling in. It was quite a contrast to the smug and hot weather I just left!

The drive across Wyoming on I-80 was pretty uneventful.  The whole area is this flat rolling grassland which sort of reminds me of a decent high school softball field — not particularly magnificent, but not covered in weeds, rocks and bare spots. As a coworker summed it up, it’s just a notch above the scenery in West Texas on I-10.

Once at Rock Springs, the approach to Jackson is exactly like that of Burning Man, “turn north on I-80 and drive through nothing for 100+ miles”.  By now it was after 11 PM and very dark.  The road got windier as I went, having to concentrate that I didn’t drop off into the black darkness below.  Around 1 as I was about to enter the forest, highway 191’s pavement completely ended, turning into a rough one-lane gravel road. This was the Road of Bones (Jungo Road) happening to me all over again!  Fortunately there were less death defying experiences this time and it was over in a few miles.

Sunday, May 30: Sometime after 2 AM I rolled into Jackson after 18 hours of driving from the Texas panhandle. A quick cruise through town and seeing all the rustic wood facade buildings made it apparently this was clearly a fancy resort town. I crashed in a Motel 6, hoping to get a decent night’s rest.  My plan was foiled by the rowdy kids next door who were desperately banging on the door+windows to get the attention of “Cynthia, you bitch!” most of the night.

Sunday morning I got my first look of the town in the daylight.  The very first car I saw on the road was a Maserati Coupe. Then I found out there was a Four Seasons ski lodge there.  This, on top of what I saw last night, was all starting to make sense now. Clearly there was a lot of yuppie ski dollars flowing into this place! I also realized why it’s called Jackson Hole: the entire town of Jackson is in a valley rimmed by mountains.

I had breakfast and wandered around the town square for a couple of hours. The “town square” area was really nice, almost out of a movie set. Being surrounded by mountains definitely helps!  I saw that there were quite a few higher end shops there, art galleries, jewelry stores, and restaurants.

There’s a certain stereotype of Wyoming people I established long ago, that of black felt hats and long duster coats.  Turns out that stereotype was pretty true, I saw lots of people walking around Jackson in black hats and long coats. I guess they’re pretty effective at staving off the chilly air while being fashionable in a west sort of way.  Once thing I noticed about WY, the “bucking horse and rider” icon was on practically every sign.  Texas has our Lone Star, they have their horse.

I calculated I needed to leave by 2 PM in order to reach Denver by 10, so I headed outside of town to see the Tetons.  I immediately saw the National Elk Refuge and was taken in by the scenery.  A couple miles down the road was an even bigger surprise, which was full on white capped mountains.  Magnificent.  This made the whole drive worthwhile.

The further I went, the more I liked what I saw.  It was chilly which added to the allure somehow.  There was always something new to take pictures of.  When I got to Moran Junction I entered the actual Grand Tetons National Park area.  This took me even closer to the mountains and right into the thick of the forest.  People were fly fishing in the water below the Jackson Dam, others were having lunch on the shore.  I saw several people out on bicycles and a few more on horseback.

I was in awe at how pretty all the scenery was.  I’m already plotting how I can go back for a week. I would love to go hike up a mountain or go horseback riding all afternoon. One thing I didn’t realize was that the major ski area is just over the pass in Teton Village. This will give me more to look at the next time I’m there.

After a full morning of sight seeing I left Jackson.  This also gave me the opportunity to see the pass in the daylight, what tried to kill me the morning before.  That night I stopped through Denver and had a cup of coffee with Steve to catch up.  I kept on going and spent the night at a rest stop near Pueblo.

Monday, May 31: At daylight I was up on the road again, making it to Austin at 10:30 PM. Denver to Austin in one day is quite a haul and this two hour head start from Pueblo didn’t make that much difference.  While I was thrilled to have seen so much beauty in Wyoming, I was equally glad that I was finished driving.  I wanted to kneel down and kiss the floor in my apartment!

The complete set of pictures are available on the Flickrs.

The numbers

Overall, it was 3,027 miles and 43 hours, 14 minutes of driving. This was by far my most ambitious weekend road trip ever and I don’t think I want to repeat it anytime soon. I’m definitely flying into JAC next time!

According to NASA:

• STS-132 (Atlantis) May 14+
• STS-133 (Discovery) Sept 16+
• STS-134 (Endeavour) November

Beyond this, it’s all unmanned rocket flights to launch various probes and satellites. I’ve been in a space mood lately, so it’d be good to go visit the Cape again.  I swear I wish I was alive in the 60s to work on the Gemini and Apollo programs. I’d love to go to Houston to have a beer with Gene Kranz at learn how things were done.

On a fun end note, the last time I was at Cocoa Beach as a kid I sunburned my back so bad I blistered. I was whimpering so much in pain I got kicked out of the motel and had to sleep in the van. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson for this time.

7:00 PM Friday – Leave Austin.  Drive up I-35 to Fort Worth to Oklahoma City, arrived at a rest stop south of Wichita, KS at 3:00 AM.

Saturday morning at the rest stop there was a group of three blue Corvettes with receiver-mounted C.B. antennas, something you don’t see every day. I met up with them later on the way to Kansas City. Never did get to see who was driving.

It wasn’t until Kansas City that I finally decided where I wanted to go.  The Garmin calculated arrival times in Minneapolis at 5:45, Sioux Falls around 4:00. I’ll probably never have a reason to go to South Dakota, but I’ll likely fly to MPLS to visit my peeps there, so that was that. Up I-29 I went.

I was accumulating Gowalla stamps, so it was natural to swing over to Omaha to get one for Nebraska. Omaha also has Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway, which is headquartered in Kiewit Plaza.  It’s located in west downtown, which seems rather, well, old.  Not much going on here.

From here it was a quick jaunt up to Iowa, arriving at the border around 1 PM.  The nice old lady at the Iowa visitor center was a fountain of knowledge, dropping morsels of information at every sentence, and urged me to come back and spend more time in her wonderful state. Admittedly Veisha was happening right now and Steve was visiting in Ames too, but I was set on my goal to go further north.

3:50 PM, it was weird rolling into South Dakota. I finally realized how far away from home I was. IA and SD along I-29 remind me a lot of the Texas panhandle.  It’s flat, very lush and green, and tons of agribusiness is clearly happening.  This time of year, the farmers were doing controlled range burns to get rid of last year’s crop cruft.

Nearly two hours later I finally arrived in Sioux Falls, SD. I never ventured into the city proper, but followed I-229 up around to I-29. From there it was about 10 miles over to the Minnesota state line.  According to GPS, the visitors center wasn’t actually in MN, but the next exit to turn back west would put me on MN soil. The weather felt weird, there was a slight cool breeze yet very warm and sultry. I took a couple of quick snaps at the Minnesota sign and turned around to head back to Austin. In retrospect I had time to linger around longer and/or at least find a cheeseburger there.

On the way back, I was lured to the lights of downtown Omaha, so I stopped back in there again.  The “new” part of downtown was pretty, and they had a sweet pedestrian bridge over the river.  Apparently the prom was happening, as there were many fine ladies in fine formal wear loitering around the Qwest Center. There were lots of college kids wandering up and down the riverfront. I think I’d like to visit this city again to wander around myself.

I arrived in Kansas City at 2 AM. Having been on the road constantly for 16 hours and 700 miles it was time to crash in Lenexa, KS. The next morning it was time to make the final stretch back to Austin.  The rest of the trip was uneventful.  I got back home at 10 PM.

Total mileage for the trip was 2,272 miles with an actual driving time of 31 hours, 33 minutes.  I’m now confident Minneapolis is possible in a weekend, but there would be no time to do anything there. This trip already had a frenzied pace; there was no lingering over a cup of coffee at breakfast (or even breakfast for that matter), few photo ops, no twelve hours of sleeping in at motels, no setting the cruise at 70 MPH. Just sheer out and back driving with lots of loud music. I had a blast and would totally do another trip like it!

Aftermath

BM affected me a bit on the personal level this year. We always giggled at the “welcome home” mantra, because “home has running water.” This being the 4th time, BRC did feel like home. I really wanted to be there. I was glad to be there. It felt great to get out and mingle with random strangers. I’ve been completely frustrated with work lately and I was ready to leave it behind for a while. Last year, I was really regretting not going. After I got back this year I was hell bent on hanging onto the thought that there are good people in society. Ultimately that faded away as the real world took over. It almost makes me want to run out and work for DPW or get involved in some big art project.

Every time I’ve got back, I’ve always wanted a box of solid playa to play with or at least show people exactly what it is. By the end of the week I’m usually coated in the stuff, taste it, smell it, and don’t want to have anything else to do with it. This year, the first thing I did was scoop up and fill two Tupperwear containers to store. During the week I picked up bits of moop to put into one of the containers. I had intended to mail this to Michael/Alex/Victoria when I got back as a “wish you were here” gift since A&V were moving back to Seattle and couldn’t be at BM. I never got around to it, so I guess the novelty is kind of lost four weeks later.

I’m torn about the idea of towing a RV to Burning Man. On principle it flies in the face of radical self reliance and felt somewhat dirty to have. It was a complete pain in the ass to haul out there, expensive in both gasoline, rental fees and extra time. There’s still the need for a shade structure as a common area. Staying holed up in an RV and not mingling with the other BRC citizens is lame. Keeping hot dogs and bacon cold is still possible with ice + cooler.

We noticed a lot more RVs this year, in particular bus-sized motorcoaches. Along the 5:30 arm closer to ‘C’ there was a line of 3-4 of them parked bumper-to-bumper. It was disappointing to see and I think offered a preview of what was to come. On one hand it walled off areas, on the other hand some people don’t like random people wandering through camp. I’m told that bitching about RVs (especially since I brought one myself) is soooo 2003. I guess that’s that.

On the plus side, it was totally awesome to have a shower with running water (albeit still a navy shower to save water), a mostly dust-free bed, and a fridge+freezer for meats. Between three of us using the shower, I just about went through all 35 gallons of water. I never got used to waking up in the morning in a bed and realize the playa was just outside.

I think if I return with an RV I’ll have to come up with a solution for the grey water. Hauling all of it off the playa seems silly when I can evaporate it. People have gotten clever with plastic kiddie pools, the top of a plastic picnic table, metal mesh and a pump. If I were really smart, I’d figure out a way to use greywater as a feed to an evaporative cooling system for coolers. (Not for people cooling, as I don’t want to be bathed in atomized bath water.)

Solar worked beautifully. I rigged up Enron II to the RV’s batteries since the refrigerator had fans that needed to constantly run, along with coach lighting and the water pump. Each morning and at noon I’d go rotate the panels into the sun. At noon I had no problem generating near capacity. As I expected, I didn’t have many other things that required electricity. A couple of small fans was about it. Before I wired up to the batteries directly I tried plugging the RV’s shore power into my big inverter to charge the batteries that way. It didn’t like my modified sine wave too well, the electrical system had a buzzing sound to it. The inverter had fans on it which sucked playa in. I haven’t disassembled it yet to see if it’s a rusted mess yet.

The big idea that Alex and I cooked up was to build a really big Rubik’s cube to put on the playa. Mechanical was too hard to solve, so something electronic on a pedestal with remote controls. Lo and behold, somebody did that this year. I stopped by and chatted with the designer for a while. It was all PLC-driven with three controls for the three axis. They went a lot of effort to design the thing, even said they wrote a Java simulator for their PLC code so they could see how it looked and play it on the computer first. People I talked to said it was very difficult to work since you had to memorize what was on the far sides of the cube, and relay instructions to the other players. I hear somebody solved it late Saturday night after the burn, to much fanfare.

After getting back, I was really interested in Papa Legba’s OpenBTS project. They weren’t there out of the goodness of their heart to provide open SMS, they were really there to test a commercial platform they’re working on that they couldn’t test anywhere else. The whole idea is to develop an entirely new, very low cost platform for providing GSM voice service in developing countries (e.g. in Africa). They do this with software-based radio devices (USRPs) with a GSM protocol stack (OpenBTS) serving as a GSM air interface. Then they use Asterisk on the back end to terminate and route the calls with SIP. While on the playa everyones’ ordinary GSM-capable phones would communicate with their BTS, regardless of your phone’s carrier. Once you registered via SMS, you could text other Legba users. If you were lucky, you could make 30 second voice calls.

I went into full radio nerd mode for a solid week after this. I was reading everything I could about their project, USRP hardware, and how GSM works. I’d really like to tinker with this after the project gets a little more mature. Reading the bios of both Harvind and David, they’re not ordinary phone hackers. Harvind has a Ph.D in EE, David a Masters in CS, both have a decade or two of signal analysis experience as DoD contractors, and are accomplished programmers. If something breaks, I couldn’t figure it out anywhere near the degree they get into it. Still, running my own little isolated cell network certainly has novelty.

We were wondering what happened to Kamikaze. When we first met him in 2006, he was working for DPW. In 2007 he was working for the airport and had just gotten run off. He’s an interesting fellow to say the least. He’d pop into camp every day or two to visit. He seemed pretty down after the airport ordeal and wasn’t quiet his crazy self. Thirty minutes of googling, I finally found his profile on Tribe.net. He’s an avid blogger and apparently gets around, still in his trusty Suburban. He very recently went back into the Air Force, stationed up by Wichita Falls, TX, working as an avionics tech. Sounds like he’s given up on going to BM. It also turns out he has an attractive daughter our age. Who knew?

I hear the other Adventioneering peeps are planning to go out for 2010. As always, I’ll believe it when I see them in Gerlach. On a side note, I discovered yesterday that playa dust will turn a cast iron skillet into a rusted mess.

In a fit of three-day planned spontaneousness, I drove to Denver this weekend. I left work at 7 PM on Friday and hit the road. The V1 managed to save me three times on 183 before I even got to 183. It was well after dark by the time I passed through Sweetwater and I noticed something peculiar; as far south and north as I could see were a set of red warning lanterns flashing in unison. At first I thought it must’ve been lights along a really long runway, but as I got closer I realized it was a huge wind turbine farm. It stretched for several miles to the north as I traveled to Lubbock. I later found out from Steve that it was one of the largest installations in the world.

By 2:30 AM I was ready to call it a night and stopped at a rest stop just south of Plainview to sleep. When I left Austin it was 95 F, so I paid no mind to bring a jacket. As the night went on, the temp dropped into the upper 40s making for a chilly, sleepless sleep in my truck. Sometime after 6 AM I woke up to see the sun just starting to peek over the horizon. Started the truck to warm up for a bit, and took a solid catnap.

Back on the road, I drove up to Plainview in search of breakfast. I was hoping to find some dirty cafe with grumpy waitresses, but lacking one of those I settled on IHOP instead. I picked up a copy of the Plainview Daily Herald and remembered what part of the country I was in. The top story was about how ethanol was driving up corn prices and hurting the region’s beef producers; the op-ed section carried a large syndicated column from Ann Coulter; then there were three pages devoted to religious news. In other words, very red.

It’s interesting to see how seemingly sudden the terrain changes in comparison to state borders. The northern end of the Texas panhandle gets flat with virtually no trees, just fluffy white grass and irrigated fields. Within a couple of miles before crossing into New Mexico, mesas start cropping up. Then as you cross into Colorado, the mesas suddenly turn into mountains. I passed the familiar turnoff to the Great Sand Dunes at Walsenburg on my way north. Colorado Springs is a very pretty place, the mountains are much closer to the city than they are in Denver.

I made it to Steve’s around 4 PM on Saturday. As we were at MicroCenter, Steve gets an obscure txt message from Sam. He later realizes Sam is on his way from Minneapolis. We head downtown for a dinner of pizza. Downtown is considerably different than from when I was there in 1998-1999. There was no train then, there was no 16th street mall. The Qwest building was still there, but it didn’t seem as omnious as it did back then.

We made our way down to Adam & JoLynn’s, who I haven’t seen in a while, I think since I sold my company four years ago. Helped assemble his new grill, had some yummy burgers and hung out for a while. Not too long after returning to Steve’s and crashing, Sam showed up.

Sunday we wandered around downtown a bit and had breakfast. Afterwards Steve and I bicycled back downtown from his place. I’ve forgotten how nice it is to ride on dedicated, concrete bicycle paths like KC and Tulsa had. Here in Austin we have either gravel trails for non-road bikes and highways. Lots of nice blondes and redheads on the path. Downtown we ended up at a park on the river, where people were practicing with kayaks and wading in the water. It was a nice ride, perhaps either the altitude or the pace made my lungs hurt later, but I still felt great.

Meanwhile Sam had made his way downtown while we were there riding. After we all returned, we took the train downtown for dinner. After the ride I was pretty wiped for whatever reason. A burger and several iced teas helped somewhat.

Monday morning I packed up and headed home. In the panhandle I took a slightly different route to Dalhart which lead me smack in the middle of rolling ranch land. It was such a great feeling being out with the land, miles from any other structure, in the direct sun and warm wind. Between the trip up and the trip home, I don’t know how many Sonic iced teas I drank. Well into the double digits. The trip home felt amazingly fast. I made it back home in 14 hours, 5 minutes.

I had a realization about west Texas. Everyone thinks it is desert emptiness, but to the contrary, there’s a lot going on out there. A few clusters of oil pumping jacks here and there, cotton fields, wheat and corn fields, grain elevators, cotton gins, cattle ranches, cattle feedlots, wind turbines; it’s very much a busy area of production.

One especially interesting thing I noticed was at Lubbock airport. There is a FedEx facility there and they have what appears to be a small fleet of Cessna 208 airplanes. I had no idea they flew such small planes. I can’t imagine what they’re used for, unless it’s quicker to fly a plane to some areas for priority overnight delivery than driving a truck.

Overall I’m glad I went. With gasoline prices topping $4.00/gallon in Colorado, it was more expensive than I was estimating. Nevertheless, tt felt great to be back out on the road seeing the land, and get out of Austin. I could’ve flown for less, but I would’ve missed out on a fun roadtrip.