Prelude to trip: We started planning the night before. Mookie asked me if I wanted to go for a little drive with him. I still had an almost indeffinate amount of time off from work, so I thought it'd be cool. Mookie went into (pizza delivery) and asked if he'd still have his job if he took off for a while. He said they told him to talk to them when he got back. One of our biggest problems with planning so far was that a few days earlier, Mookie's car was crushed when strong winds blew a tree over on top of it. His insurance was going to pay for a rental car while his car was being fixed, so we decided to take his wife's minivan. Still hardly a plan as to where we were going, so just for the heck of it, I emailed (the night before leaving) a few friends and other chainmailler's around North America to let them know we might be passing by. Only person that responded in time was my friend Laurie in Portland, OR. We still did not have much of a plan yet, we knew we were going to Quebec City (some friends and I tend to do that at least a couple times a year), and maybe over to Montreal becuase we had never been there before. I think we sort of joked about going to Vancouver or San Fransisco. The next morning we ran into my sister while buying some supplies at the grocery store. She asked us where we were going and we told her we were going to Vancouver, and made up a story that we were on a mission to save the world from West Nile Virus. I think it was the night before that I saw a news raport about WNV. It showed a map of the US and part of Canada showing how far WNV had spread. It showed that it had spread from east to west halfway across the United States, but according to the map, it was staying completely south of the Canadian border.. so I made up a story (it developed more every day we were on the road) that we were off to Vancouver to find the cure to West Nile Virus.
Well, that's about it. We finished buying food and were off on the road by about 2:30pm. Mookie kept a sort of journal of what happened each day. Also, every hour I wrote down where we were and sometimes what % of gas we had, as well as a few other little notes, travel expenses, and a few other random notes which were usually the product of road madness (road madness.. sort of like Ren's space madness if you've ever seen the space madness episode of Ren & Stimpy)... and maybe some other notes stuck in with the words "additional notes" stuck next to them. Place names with a (?) after them are ones that I could not quite read because of messy writing. The numbers with % after them, or anything like that is how full our gas tank was at the time. I have no idea if this information will be useful to anyone for any reason, but maybe it will be so here it all is. We should have also included the number of miles traveled each hour to make it a bit more useful. Maybe next time.
So, let us begin...
Well... We're off on our adventure. After packing up and buying supplies we visited Heidi (mookie's other half) at work (Wendy's) and ate lunch. Then we hit the road heading for Quebec.
Arrived in Quebec late in the evening. The streets were crowded with people. The Festival of New France was ending tonight. There were people wandering around in colonial garb. The money changer was closed but there was a guy and a girl performing at the end of Dufferin's Terrace juggling and doing acrobatic kind of stuff.
Decided to just have a beer and hotdog at La Troubadore then go to sleep. The same girl that was there when Dweezle, Dickey and I came up two years ago was there. She just got promoted to manager and was very excited. She loved Dweezle's maille.
Food & Supplies: $50
"Throggizoid is coming for US" -mookie, trying to fall asleep
Dweezle saw a giant bat in La Troubadore
Dweezle's "Hourly" Log
2:30 -Departed
3:30 -Supplies fully Stocked
5:00 -Charleston
6:00 -Sapling
7:00 -Border Crossing
8:00 -Departed Border
9:00 -St. Joseph
10:00 -Quebec City
We got up today and headed towards Montreal
Made it to Montreal, drove through downtown. There was a lot of construction detouring and slowing down traffic. We decided to just pass through without stopping.
Passed the "Seldom Seen Rd." tonight.
Stopped in a church parking lot to sleep.
Gas: $23
Dweezle's Log
9:00am -Departed Quebec
10:00 -on 20 west
11:00 -Rest area on 20 west
11:30 -Refuelled
12:noon -St. Julie
1:00pm -Beaconsfield
1:45 -Purchased Map
2:00 -Cornwall
4:00 -Arnprior
5:00 -Petawawa
7:00 -Chaulk River
8:00 -Duex Rivers
8:15 -refuelled
9:00 -North Bay 100+%F
10:00 -Hagar 100%F
11:00 -Nairn Center 98%F
12:00 -Spragge Center 80%F
1:00am -Thessolon 63%F
2:00 -Echo Lake 50%F
2:10 -stoped to sleep @
Got up a little earlier than we intended to, but I wasn't tired so we decided to head out. Weather was overcast, looking like it could rain. Sure enough, it started raining pretty hard, but it died off pretty quickly. There are a few spots of sun as we eat lunch now, but it looks as though it will stay cloudy. The road has gotten quite hilly and we've seen many piles of rocks on the cliffs beside the road in the shape of little people.
We saw our first (of this trip) moose today standing off to the side of the road watching traffic
We lost the radio again this evening and instead of listening to a MD just sat there in silence. After about an hour of the radio scanning through frequencies the Canadian equivilent of NPR popped on loud and clear. There was a cool story just starting about a Canadian anthropologist/ethnobotanist, so we listened to that and the time seemed to fly by.
Stopped at a gas station to sleep
note: Never give car keys to Dweezle!
soda: $1.50
Dweezle's log
9:30am -Departed Sault Ste Marie
10:00 Refueled
11:00 17 north, 100+%F
12:noon 17 north, 100+%F
1:00pm Duberville, 89%F
3:00 Marathon, 60%
4:00 Ter?ace Bay, 39%
5:00 Nipigon, 100+%
6:00 17 west, 100+%
7:00 Sunshine, 100+%
Change of Timezone
7:00 Upsala, 90%
8:00 17 west, 75%
9:00 Melgund, 55%
10:00 Vermillion Bay, 37%
11:00 Kenora, 100+%
Got up and had our first hot meal since La Troubadore. Kinda cloudy and rainy. Hopefully it'll clear a little. It's been kinda cold, too...
Manitoba. Saw wild turkey on side of road. Passed some sunflower farms too. (in Dweezle's scrawl)
A few spots of rain throughout today. Some times very heavy. Most of the day was through flat open prairie which stretched to the horizon. Toward evening we entered rolling hills that undulated like green ocean waves.
Looked like hobbitland. saw very long trains transporting military vehicals. -Dweezle
a very large fox dashed across the road in front of us tonight.
After stopping in Calgary to refuel and call Heidi we continued east (editors note: I think he meant west, not east) for a while. We stopped at a truck stop about a half hour out of town. I wonder what the horizon will look like when we wake up, more rolling hills or giant stoney mountains.
"Your silence frightens me. I'm trembling like the sunflower on the prairie..." -some guy on Canadian Public Radio, said with an Austrian accent...
Dweezle's Log
9:00 Departed Kenora
10:00 1 west
11:00 Winnipeg, 98%F
12:noon Elie, 87%F
1:00pm 1-west, 60%F
2:00 Virden, 30%F
3:00 1-west, 100+%F
5:00 Qu'Appelle?, 88%F
6:00 Belle Plaine, 69%F
7:00 Chaplin, 38%F
8:00 Swift Current
9:00 Piapot, 100+%F
10:00 Alberta, 99%F
Entered new time zone
10:00 1-west, 82%F
11:00 Basano, 53%F
12:00 entering Calgary
1:00am Calgary
1:45 Stopped in Cochran to sleep
Woke up this morning with a chill in the air. It's very cloudy to the west, but the sun is shining through in the east. The Rocky Mountains loom ahead of us in the distance.
Got off track in Banff where the road that is 1 west turns into 93n and 1 west turns into another road called 1 west. At 10:00(am) we turned around on 93, headed back to Banff/Lake Louise to look for 1 west. OOPS, nevermind... -Dweezle
These mountains are very large.. can't see the tops of some of them just by looking out the window, have to actually put my head outside the car to see the tops sometimes. Water in the streams up here is a strange blue-green color, or maybe it's the streambeds that are that color. Lot's of copper in the water? or some other mineral? -Dweezle
Made it to Vancouver tonight and turned left towards Seattle. Crossed the border and turned in our papers. We stopped at a rest area shortly thereafter.
Additional notes by Dweezle:
We think that being two smelly humans living in a van and driving across the country for five days during the tailend of summer helped us get back across the border in Washington with little hassle. "any fruit, vegetables....?" *pokes head into driver's side window to look into back of van*--*sniff-sniff*--*nose wrinkles up* "okay, you can go now"
Mookie called our friend Johann to see if there was anything we should do while out here. he said to piss on a redwood for him. I think he also called Heidi again and I called Laurie to let her know we'd just crossed back into Washington and might actually make it down to Portland the next day.
Sometime during our drive, our story about searching for a cure for West Nile Virus evolved a bit more. We had to get to British Columbia and find the perfect blend of coffee and tea. Must I explain why the perfect mix of coffee and tea would be found in British Columbia? well I'm not going to. anyways, we'd have to mix up several cups and take them out into the woods, where we would set them equally spaced on a log. The fresh brewed aroma would attract a Sasquatch, who would choose the proper one (he'd intuitively know what one was right to kill off his infestation of fleas, ticks, and lice.. cause he just knows crap like that, and his choice brew would also be lethal to the West Nile masquito... or so we thought. our plot developed a bit more later on, as plots sometimes do)
Dweezle's Log
9:00 Canmore, 100+%F
10:00 93n Backtracking to 1w
11:00 Somewhere in the Rockies, 95%
12:noon Redgrave, 85%F
Changed time zone
12:noon Glacier Park, 75%F
1:00pm Stopped to rest in
2:00 naptime, that's
3:00 Leaving rest spot and
4:00 Salmon Arm, 42%F
5:00 Chase, 30%Fuel
6:00 Savona?, 100+%F
7:00 Spences Bridge, 100+%F
8:00 Frasier Canyon, 100%F
9:00 Chilliwack, 77%F
10:00 Vancouver, 52%F
11:00 Surry, 41%F
Bright & sunny 100 miles north of Seattle.
Called Johann and left a message w/ woody.
It was slow driving most of the day; the traffic was very heavy all around Seattle
We made it to Portland... what a lawful city. the whole thing is a grid divided into four quadrants with rows of sequentially numbered avenues and collumns of streets with names in alphabetical order. They are also mostly oneway streets in alternating directions.
Well, we went shopping, took showers, checked our email, and Laurie is cooking us dinner. I'm about to total up our expenses thus far and settle up with Dweezle since I've paid for it all so far. Then I'll plan our route from here. We'll be heading out tonight when the traffic will hopefully be less.
Dweezle's note: Laurie and I tried to get him to decide to stay in Portland for a day to take a break from driving, eat real food, check out Saterday Market, rest, etc.. but he was getting a bit manic to get home to his wife and find out if he still had a job. we had parked in the parking lot under the grociery store a block away and laurie said we prolly shouldn't park there over night so we went back and picked up the car. Mook and I went and got the car, drove around downtown portland for an hour or so looking for a place to park. noplace to park and the crazy homeless people were getting the Mook real agitated, so we went back to where we were parked before. end of Dweezle's note.
Mookie-- We decided to head out tomorrow at noon. I was feeling very restless, so I drove around outside the city for a while. Dweezle and Laurie wandered around in the city. I slept at a travel stop in Troutdale. Gonna go meet Dweezle at noon tomorrow.
I HATE DRIVING AROUND BIG CITIES.
Dweezle-- Laurie and I wandered around downtown for a couple hours. had my first experiance with the max/trolly-bus-thing. we couldn't find the 24hr Church of Elvis. Lots of statues and fountains in seemingly random places along the sidewalks. Much nicer than I'd ever expected a large city to be.
Dweezle's Log
10:00 Lake Samish, 26%F
10:30 Refueled @ Mt. Vernon
11:00 Everett, 100+%F
12:noon Tacoma, 100+%F
1:00pm Olympia, 98%F
2:00 Castle Rock
3:00 Kalama, 78%F
4:00 Portland... found Laurie
5:00 Took a shower! Yay!!
6:00 shopped and sat around
7:00 Ate dinner
8:00 Washed clothes and bought supplies for next part of voyage
9:00 Looked for parking
11:00 Cruized around while Dweez and Laurie wandered the town
Clear and sunny today. had breakfast at Micky Dee's
I'm sitting in the park near Laurie's planning how to get to San Francisco. I'm sitting in the shade of two gigantic trees and there are several homeless people also sitting or sleeping here. Also many rats scamper about in the shade and among the ivy. They're a dark brownish grey and very cute. A man came by with a young huskey; she was very curious and pretty. reminded me of Tommy's dogs. a lady came and sat down in the shade to eat her lunch right where several rats had been scouring the grass for food. All the rats have disapeared... I wonder if she knows of them. Now she's gone and the rats are back. Well, it's about time to go get Dweezle.
Dweezle writes: "Traffic to heavy along coastal route south so we've decided to go back to 5. would have been nice to see the coast but not at 25mph"
Lots of thick smoke, like fog at times. must be the forest fire.
well, we found ourselves a huge Redwood to piss on for John.
Encountered Paul Bunion and "Babe" the ox. Dweezle wrestles Babe's giant nutsack then paul stepped on him
stopped and slept that night on the side of the road.
Dweezle sez: the paul bunion statue was like the one in Bangor, in that it was large and fiberglass, but painted and standing differently. Babe was similar in size, prolly could have driven a small car under it, if not for the *ehhm*, large spherical parts hanging from the underside. earlier that morning before meeting back up with the mook, laurie and I went down to saterday market, walked and rode the MAX there. I wont even start going on about what I might have to say about saterday market, but it would only be good things. returning on the MAX from saterday market, some guy in a uniform got on and sat in front of me. I just kind of sat there wondering what the patch on his shoulder meant, and some lady commented to him that she hadn't seen one of him on in a while. next stop, laurie said it was our stop and we got off. she said the guy in the uniform was a fare inspector.. so I guess your only allowed to ride the MAX if you've purchased a pass, or if you don't get caught without one. she had one, but I was completely ignorant of their existance.
Dweezle's log
11:00 arrived back in Portland
12noon met back up with Dweezl
1pm Departed Portland
3:00 Wilsonville 100%
4:00 Brownsville 100%
5:00 Metz Hill 88%
6:00 Wolf Creek 67%
7:00 Cave Junction 50%
8:00 Entered Redwood National Forest
9:00 Crecent City 100%, refueled
10:00 Humboldt(?) Lagoon
11:00 Eureekah 100%
12am Garberville
Bright & sunny, hot & haze (smoke?)
Drove through some more redwoods and got to San Francisco around noon.
stopped to eat supper at a Jack in the Box; food was very good but service was slow.
Got to Vegas. Parked after cruising the strip. Gambled at Excaliber, won $10 on $5 slots. got some $1 and $5 coins. Saw a dead person on the side of the road. Wandered around the Luxor... not in that order.
Drove for several more hours then stopped at a tourist info center in Mesquite.
Dweezle's log
10:00 departed Garberville
11:00 Round Valley, 75%F
12noon Boonville, 50%F
1pm Pataluma(?), 30%F
Refueled
3:00 Oakland, 100%+
4:00 Patterson, 100%+
6:00 Avenal, 75%
7:00 Wasco, 50%
8:00 Tehachepi(??), 23%
9:00 Mojave, 100%+ (refueled)
10:00 Barstow, 100%+
11:00 Zzyzx, 98%
12am Primm, 75%
12:30, Got to Las Vegas
3:00 Byron, 40%
4:00 Stopped to sleep in Mesquite
Bright and sunny again and looking to be very hot.
Drove hard throughout the day. Started out very desert like and moved into mountians.
The mountians quickly gave way to plains after Denver, very smelly plains.
Dweezle took a zillion pictures of the desert.
The plains in eastern Colorado and Nebraska are very windy and very smelly.
Stopped to sleep at a gas station near Lincoln
Dweezle's notes: Mook forgot to mention this day's most interesting event. Dweezle died. I don't really remember any of it, just that it was sometime after dark in Nebraska when I woke up from some sort of unconcious state to take my hourly note of location and percentage of gas we had in the tank. Mookie said that first he just said something like "hey, wake up, time for the log". no response. so he said it a little louder. no response again. tapped me on the shoulder and said it again. nothing. I guess he tried shaking me or something, still nothing. so he turned on the inside light and I was sitting with my head slumped slightly down and to the side as though I was sleeping, but said that my eyes were open, just staring off at nothing. so he hit me in the shoulder and yelled something at me and I just sort of sat up slowly and said something like "huh?". So that was this days big exciting thing that I don't quite remember but prolly wont forget about.. the first time I know of in this lifetime that I've died. I think it was the smell of Nebraska that did it to me.
Dweezle's log
changed time zone
11:00 St George, 100%+
12noon Cedar City, 100%+
1pm Joseph Monroe 78%
2:00 Salina 100% (refueled)
3:00 70 East, 100%
4:00 Cisco, 78%
5:00 Grand Junction 60%
6:00 Hanging Lake 26%
8:00 El Rancho(?) 100%
9:00 Wiggins, 85%
10:00 Sterling, 50%
12:00 Hershey, 100%
Changed to Central Timezone
2:00 Lexington, 80%
3:00 Grand Island, 52%
4:00 Stopped outside Lincoln
Hazy and overcast; warm
Drove hard again all day. made it to Pennsyltucky.
Plains early then lots of city driving. A lot of Construction around Chicago.
stopped to sleep at a rest stop just inside PA.
That's it for Mookies notes for that day.
exciting things Dweezle remembers from this day...
We were someplace after dark, at a gas station.. according to our logbook, it must have been Misawake(?). anyways, standing there outside the van pumping gas or washing windows or something, and we saw a very large preying mantis sitting on some part of the gas pumping area. Dweezle (who sometimes speaks in the 3rd person) went over to look at it and it hopped down to the ground. Pulling McDonald's cup out of somewhere, he held it down in front of the little creature and it wandered on in. One step closer to completing our secret mission of curing the West Nile Virus, we capped over the top of the cup and took our precious little Throgizoid Beast on our way with us.
Dweezle's log
12noon Omaha, 100%
1pm Atlantic, 87%
2:00 Des Moines, 62%
3:00 Victor, 25%
3:20 Refueled & ate
4:00 Omaha City, 100%
5:00 Bettendorf, 100%
6:00 Henepin, 90%
7:00 Joliete, 73%
Time Zone Change
9:00 Indiana border, 50%
10:00 Misawake, 100%
12:00 80/90 East, 100%
1am Comodore Perry Reststop,
2:00 Lorain, 68%
3:00 Warren, 40%
3:20 made it into Pennsultucky
Clear & sunny and hot
Was very tired this morn; wandered around rest area for a while and fealt better.
Got back into familiar territory and the time went by quickly
Home! Yay!!!
Dweezle's notes: nothing exciting today, except for getting back in Bangor. Started seeing familiar places in PA, as we went east along part of the route we used to take to get to Pennsic (big SCA war in western PA)
Dweezle's log
10:00 80 east, 100%
11:00 BuBois(?), 100%
12noon Bellfonte(?), 90%
1pm Danville, 70%
2:00 Wilkes-Barre, 38%
Refueled
4:00 Danbury, 100%
5:00 New Britian, 93%
6:00 Charlton, 77%
7:00 Marlborow, 63%
8:00 Portsmith, 37%
Refueled
10:00 Augusta, 100%
10:17 Bellsqueeze Rd.
Sunday, 11th of August 2002
Expenses &
Additional Notes
Gas: $19.25
Beer & food @ La Troubadore: $20
Parking: $6
(bangor)
4:00 -Ate lunch & Gassed up
(brewer)
100% Fuel
100% Fuel
99% Fuel
w/ papers for 3 week stay
86% Fuel
73% Fuel
Monday, 12th of August 2002
Expenses
Map: $6
Soda: $1
More Gas: $28
63% Fuel
50% Fuel
30% Fuel
100% Fuel
100% Fuel
98% Fuel
3:00 -Bearbrook
85% Fuel
63% Fuel
47% Fuel
Stopped to rest & eat
6:45 -departed Petewawa
36% Fuel
20% Fuel
Sault Ste. Marie
Tuesday, 13th of August 2002
(He might lock them in the car...)
Expenses
gas: $18, $26, $27
soda + cigars: $7
50%F, fluid check okay.
2:00 White River, 80%F
(refuelled)
Thunder Bay
Refuelled, sleep
Wednesday, 14th of August 2002
Expences
Breakfast: $7
Gas: $19, $20?, $26
Bread & Snacks: $5
8:30am Got up & ate breakfast
(100km w of Winnipeg)
100+% Fuel
Carberry
Refuelled
Cigarette lighter not working
4:00 Br??dview, 100+%F
5:30 Ragina
Refuelled.. 100+%F
refuelled & called Heidi
Thursday, 15th of August 2002
We stopped for lunch at a rest area, near Redgrave I think. There was one of those blue mountain streams there.. I thought about swimming across it. instead we just ate lunch, checked fuses, and left. Stopped to rest for a bit in revelstoke, Mookie slept but I wasn't tired. It was very hot in the van and dusty outside, so I went to check out some cliffs on the other side of the parking lot. nothing too exciting really.
Expences
Gas: $26
Soda: $1.50
cheap day!!
8:15am Departed Cochran
Fluid check okay
100+% Fuel
10:10 Backtracking our backtracking
25km out of Lake Louise
Lunch! Checked fuses,
Cigarette lighter fuse blown
Revelstoke, 65% Fuel
when I'm a viking
crossing Columbia River
(unrecorded Refueling)
Friday, 16th of August 2002
Expenses
Soda: $1.50
Gas: $20
Supplies: $18
9:30am Departed Custer, 30%F
Stopped for lunch @ BK
went in some info center about Mt. St. Helens
Saturday, 17th of August 2002
gonna gas up, look for a fuse and go get Dweezle.
Expenses
Gas: $23
Icecream: $5
More Gas: $25
10:00am got up & ate breakfast
2:00 Yam Hill 100%
7:30 Entered California
8:15 Pissed on a redwood
9:30 Dw wrestled "Babes" bollocks
12:20 stopped for night in Garberville
Sunday, 18th of August 2002
Expenses
Gas: $25
Golden Gate Bridge toll: $3
More Gas: $23
9:30 got up, ate
2:00 San Rafael/San Francisco
5:00 Mendota, 90%
6:10 Spotted our 1st cactus
12:30 - 2:30
Wandered around Vegas
2:30 Left Vegas
Monday, 19th of August 2002
Expenses
Gas: $24
more gas: $15
gas again: $24
even more gas: $19
9am Departed Mesquite
refueled
set clocks ahead to mountain time
6:30 refueled
7:00 Leadville, 100%
11:00 Julesburge, 100%
Tuesday, 20th of August 2002
somewhere around Chicago, a tire fell from the sky, or so it seemed to me. I wasn't paying much attention, prolly just sitting half asleep or staring at the dashboard when out of the corner of my eye I noticed some sort of unexpected movement a ways in front of us. It seemed to be a tire falling from the sky. It landed in the middle of the interstate, bounced a good thirty or forty feet into the air, bounced on the interstate a couple more times, then bounced and rolled off to the side and into the ditch. Mookie just seemed to ignore it, as did all the other cars. it did not hit any of them. He said it fell off the top of a van that was a ways up in front of us and it's first bounce could have cleared an interstate overpass. The van it fell from was loaded inside and out with stuff. A lot of the stuff ontop looked as though it might also fall off. we made haste to pass him and he looked as though he had no idea he'd lost his tire off the top.. looking as though he was very much into whatever music he was listening to, or having some sort of mild convulsive fit.
Expenses
Gas & oil: $21
more gas: $22
gas again: $20
Tolls: $8.30
11am Departed
refueled & ate dinner
11:00 Lagrange, 100%
near Freemont, 85%
stopped for the night.
Wednesday, 21st of August 2002
Expenses
Gas: $20
more gas: $19
gas again: $21.50
Tolls: $8.30
More Tolls: $0.60
9:00am Got up & departed
9:30 Breakfast & Refueled
3:00 Matamoras, 100%
PA/NY border
9:00 Scarborough, 100%
10:26 Snakeroot Rd.
10:55 Arrived in Bangor