Fun facts and figures

Whilst whiling away the scintillating hours spent in transit at the coming airports I thought I would compile some stats
For starters I am 4 hours early at Seattle Tacoma International but they have free WiFi.

Distance:

14305 Mi

23022 Km

Fuel:

659.86 Gallon(US)

2497 Liters

Avg Distance per day

I found a useful tool a while ago that gets around the flat Mercator projection distortion that makes Canada look ridiculously large and Greenland as big as Australia. Whilst the 2nd largest nation on earth, Canada is not as large as these maps suggest. I put in the basic outline of the drive which can be seen here: or in the comparison below.

Rough drive outline

Over laid on Australia

It would be good to invert the latitudes and normalise them to the southern hemisphere but then the map would only show a lot of blue and white - white being the generic colour used in Google maps for Antarctica. It still amazes me how far "north" Canada and the USA are in comparison to Australia and any large land masses in the southern hemisphere.

Last days in Oregon and Washington State

The drive across from Boise, Idaho to Washington was really scenic. The country side reminded me of the area around the Wurrumbungles, NSW. The whole west coast is experiencing a dry spell and it looks it with brown grass and tinder dry forest. I drove into the mountains west of Bend, Oregon and stayed the night in a rest area in Oakridge. Next day was a big drive through varied types of forest and National Park to the Columbia Gorge. On the way was spectacular volcanic mountains that form part of the Cascade Mountain range. It was raining slightly but I was told by locals that the rain was a good thing - this in a part of the North America which has the highest suicide rate in the country mainly put down to the inclement weather. Last time I came through here they had late falls of snow with a low cloud base so I didn't get to see much and a lot of the roads were closed. I was determined to see Mount Hood so parked in the car park at the Timberline Resort reading a book hoping the clouds would clear up.

Mt Hood from the south

2 hours later the clouds parted so I could see the summit. I was above the cloud layer so the view was quite good of the surrounds but not good enough to take pictures.

After this I drove to the town of Hood River on the Columbia Gorge doing the usual stupid deer dodge. They are more suicidal than kangaroos and at least as stupid. This place is awesome

Colombia River and Gorge

The weather was great with only small clouds in a blue sky

Mt Hood from Hood River town

Mt Adams

Mount St Helens

I was surprised that the forest around Mt St Helens had not recovered as much as what I thought it would. I don't think the trees here handle fire and complete devastation as well as Eucalypts - it has been 34 years and there are still a lot of bare areas. This was a great day driving through forest with excellent weather. I ended up at Mt Rainier although the peak was covered with cloud. I waited on the south side called Paradise Valley for the cloud to clear but it didn't and only gave quick views of the summit.

That's fine because the next day was cloudless. I stayed in a Rest Area on the South west side of the park. It was fenced in with barbed wire topped cyclone fencing and I imagine this was to keep the bears out. I did not want to get mauled on the last night in the car so felt safer here than in the National Park camp grounds

Sunrise, Mt Rainier

The drive up to the north side of Mt Rainier was spectacular. I was a little pissed at paying the park fee the day before when a lot of the south side roads were closed and the pit toilets absolutely reeked but this made up for it. The road ends at a place called Sunrise and it is truly awesome
I drove back out through Chinook pass then wasted about an hour and a half trying to get through a national forest to make a short cut. It looked good on the map! The road was one of those that steadily gets worse and worse going from a nice 2 lane tar surface and ending up in a rutted 4wd path at the top of a pass and a fireplace over looking the valley. I am sure I could have got through in the Defender to the next valley and National Forest but didn't want to risk any scratches or damage on the Jeep. At least it was scenic... After retreating back down the valley the GPS kept telling me to back track back past Mt Rainier to Seattle but I hate that and so went north East to meet up with the I90 which enters Seattle through the Snoqualmie pass which is enormous and worth the drive. This part of Washington now looks like Nevada - last time whilst not "Lush" it was at least green and semi arable.
That pretty much ended up driving the car inter city for me.

Idaho

In Boise, Idaho tonight.

It took me about 7hrs to drive 120Miles... Idaho is really rugged. Hopefully I will get some time to up load some GPS files in the morning. I lost an hour with the change to mountain time

Catch-up and Skagway

Coal Train at Torrington, Wyoming - 5 engines up front and 2 pushers! My guess is these would be from the Powder River Basin :)

I hung around the "Golden Triangle" for an extra day and then drove to Skagway, Alaska from Haines Junction, Yukon. Each time across the border is a time zone change so it is confusing. I am also a little sick and tired of customs staff asking "Where did you come from today" when it has to be the most obvious question they could possibly ask someone driving out of what is basically a  cul-de-sac. The drive was awesome and it was only a little cloudy. Skagway is about the same size as Haines, Alaska but is lot more tourist orientated. There were 4 large cruise ships and one small but expensive looking one in port so the strrets were full of window grazers. The airport was were I thought it would be and I drove straight there, went to the front counter and asked how to book a scenic flight. The staff were so helpful and called one of the operators who was landing from a scenic flight in 15-20 minutes and taking off in 25. Within 25 minutes of arriving I was on the runway taxing!
The flight goes South West out over Haines and to Glacier Bay were we circled around.

Very scenic! On the way back I was thinking it would maybe worth a hike around Haines but then we spotted about 10 bears and I decided it was not worth it.

Skagway

Even the drive out was awesome. I staid the night in a Rest Area on the Alskan Highway with about 3 trucks, 2 RV's and a caravan.

Next day was a big drive down to Stewart, BC which borders the last bit of the Alaskan pan handle. This drive was made up of huge valleys and really, really long beautiful lakes almost the whole way. The peaks were often snow covered, coming down to pine forests ending in crystal blue lakes. One of them is formed by the Yukon river and is the longest distance up river traveled by Salmon to spawn. An incredible journey.

I will need more time to make a new post as the Salmon Glacier was close by Stewart and this blew me away. Tonight I am staying in a relatively seedy hotel in Prince Rupert, BC after another awesome drive which is at the end of the Skeena river Valley.

North West

In Haines, Alaska tonight.
I looked at the weather forecast and decided to gamble on a scenic flight over Denali and so booked it online and then drove down to Talkeetna.
Alaska I have now found out is 1/5th the size of the lower 49 states. This makes the seemingly short drives shown on the comic book style maps from the tourist centers quiet a lot longer than they seem. It rained most of the drive with a fairly low cloud base obscuring the mountain ranges that I should have seen.
Next day I woke up and it was completely fogged out but I still drove the 20km's to the airport and it was actually sunny. The flight was on!
Mt McKinley is the highest peak in North America

The flight included landing on one of the glaciers

Alpha Team going in!

Delta Team touching down

The flight was awesome. I think the afternoon flights were cancelled due to the bad conditions so it really was lucky. I finally got a decent coffee in North America. Talkeetna is a bit of a hippy place and the local bakery - Flying Squirrel Cafe actually had decent beans and someone who knew how to operate the machine! Amazing.
The road south took me through Wasilla.

Parked out front I had this nagging feeling someone in a stars and stripes bikini was drawing a bead on my forehead with a high powered rifle but that may have been a passing fantasy.
Anchorage was completely forgettable but the road to Homer followed the waterline and was basically mountains going into the sea.

looking across Cook inlet

 Unfortunately the weather in Haines is too wet and windy to fly today or the next few days. Very disappointed as this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been

Big Update II

This post seemed to get stuck in draft mode somehow:

The weather has been great... up till now so I am holed up in the mining town of Butte, Montana hoping for no clouds.
Yellowstone was pretty good though not really my thing. I went in the East exit, Drove out and back in the South exit and then exited the North East exit. To be honest the best sights are from the exits as they all contain huge canyons draining the uplift. The super volcano is really to big to see from the ground.
People stopping, blocking the whole road to take pictures of Bison gets old really fast so I used the horn a lot to get out.

Old Faithful

The drive out of Yellowstone was a bit of an anti climax with solid cloud blocking all views

 Had some real issues with my cash. There are 3 Bank of America atms/branches in Colorado, None In Wyoming or Montana it seems. The 3 in Colorado are all in within a few kilometers of each other  in Denver which is really helpful. Thanks for that. So I had to get raped in Fort Collins and hit up a local atm after driving around wasting time.
I wasn't going to do it but I ended up heading north through Wyoming to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse.... there is a lot of work to do on Crazy Horse to fulfill the vision.

 Wyoming is utterly fantastic to drive through off the interstates. The road passes some of the main energy arteries for the US - huge coal trains traveling to destinations across the country. After the flat horizons of the great plains and mid west its a relief on the eyes to see some topography. These are photos from the SAC museum in Nebraska

Foyer of the SAC museum

Hanger I

"Back lot"

Avro Hawker Vulcan

I had to ask around to get the location of the secret door marked "Do not open. Alarm will sound!" from the young guy to get to see the back lot. The old grouchy guy who sold me a full price ticket with 40 minutes to closing time did not seem too want to tell me.

Fun in Alaska

I didn't end up finding a hotel in North pole. I found a 24HR truckie stop and called it quits for the night. Breakfast was good at the Hilltop Truck Stop and I got back in the car with the intention of driving as far along the road as I could get. I was not sure if it was open to the public as the Jeeps GPS kept saying the route contained "restricted access" roads - whatever that means . It is about a 1500km return trip along the Dalton Highway which was built along with the pipeline to bring Oil back from the the Alaska North slope and Prudhoe Bay. It is often spectacular but mainly a winding dirt road with big trucks moving large items.

I was exceptionally lucky on the way in as I had sunshine all day.

This did not last. I did not expect much at the end of the road except large oil production facilities and that is what I found. There is an amazing array of equipment which all has had to traverse the highway to get there. I was seeing it in mid summer and it was cold and bleak.

The next day it was very cold and windy. The nice snowy mountain pass was now a blizzard which turned to sleet and rain later up the road so I only stopped once and that was for fuel and crappy coffee at Coldfoot - and this photo taken by Arctic Circle Lady near where the highway crosses the Yukon river.

it is raining steadily

I think she was from the local tourist association as she also gave me a certificate. Hopefully the bad weather does not hang around for too long. I think I have been exceptionally lucky so far so I hope it holds.

Quick update

In, of all places, North Pole Alaska. Its been a long drive through amazing terrain. Out the front of a Safeway store looking for a hotel. My 1st since Montana. The laptop is having big issues connectong to wifi. I thpugjt for awhile that fast food outlets had wised up and were building faraday cages into all buildings to stop the leachers!

Canada Oh Canada

Made it from Glacier Mational Park to Cranbook, BC. I had to get some money out amd this was the first listed bank.
At least they use metric here but still drive on the wrong side of the road... Too bad they dont play cricket but they would probably be crap at it!

Michigan State

The Ford Rouge/Dearborn factory tour was really interesting. The complex keeps going beyond the far stacks which I believe were an onsite steel mill

The best car on display in the Henry Ford Museum was this one by far!

1968 XR7-G

On the way back into Detroit city the Jeeps inbuilt GPS decided to take me too West Woodward street. After pulling off the freeway and noticing the smoking ruin of a house, the car driven into a pole and left there and the houses crumbling to the ground in disrepair I was stabbing the "lock doors" button with my finger and turning down the East Woodward road. The road ends right at the Tigers stadium where I paid $25 for parking and went to the pub

My Jeep in the foreground

Play ball!

I am not really a baseball fan they but they do put on a good show

I am however a fast track NASCAR fan and Michigan is the fastest

Jeff Gordon turning right for the 1st time in the day

Scribing a new line on the track

Great time! The sound of the cars is phenomenal. I had stumped up extra cash for the Budweiser Acceleration pack but it was not really worth it.

I was feeling pretty good after the race and so headed the 300 miles literally due south to Dayton to a rest area 25 miles away from the Museum of the United States Airforce. In doing so it meant I wasn't going to Chicago or crossing Lake Michigan in a jet cat to Milwaukee but I thought it was worth it.
I was inline early and got may name down on the "presidential Hanger tour" which is on the active air force base. A bus took us to the hangers. One has the ex-Airforce One type planes including Kennedy's that took him back to Washington after the assassination. The other hanger was the Research-Experimental. It basically houses billions of dollars invested in, at the time, bleeding edge technology. The show case for me was the Mach 3 bomber

it completely dwarfs the F-23 Black Window underneath (it which itself is larger than an F-15) and an AN-12 (SR-71) parked to my left parallel to it. It is hard to take photos as the planes are jammed in there and the lighting is not the best

They do intend to build a 4th hanger in the public museum to house all these Gems. It really is a unique display.

Post Haste

Left Ottumwa for the Strategic Air Command museum on state roads. These were more direct and definitely more interesting than the interstate but slower overall. The SAC was good with some unique air craft on display. I am now in Stirling Colorado after doing 80 miles an hour for about 7 hrs. I have now been through two time zones in two days. On entering Colorado we went through the most intense lightning display I have driven through and then got hammered by some heavy rain.

Exit Pennsylvania

I am going to update this with pictures,  a grammar check and spell check on when i get laptop access.
Exited via the south bank and a place called Primanti brothers. The sandwich tasted pretty good but was a patty not steak so will have to check what it was supposed to be.
I am in the  Detroit Beer Co enjoying a Hefeweizen or more before the game. I have a pretty awesome ticket it seems and looks to be a sell out judging from the number of people approaching me to see if i was selling tickets - this is 3hrs before the gates open.
I followed the Ohio river for a fair way northish before going towards Kent. The state university there was the scene of the May 4th 1970 shooting of students during a peaceful anti war protest. It has been a place i have wanted to visit for some time but i am not even sure why however it was as thought provoking and symbolic as many war memorials i have been too. the incident was commemorated on campus with a moving tribute. This part of Ohio is really beautiful with many small towns white boarded houses heaps of flags and pickups the dominant car species.
After that i headed to the shores of lake Erie in the Cleveland downtown area and then to another  rib joint. Pictures on the wall of  luminaries such as Charlie Sheen (im not sure he knew what city he was in from the picture) Samuel Jackson and the late Robyn Williams.
(picture tobeuplaoded)
These were amazing ribs!
I slept in a rest area somewhere between Cleveland and Toledo, woke up and drove to the GM building on the lake front of Detroit. With so much time to spare i decide to save a day and see the Henry Ford museum. This is the product of another eccentric billionaire industrialist but quite different to Carnegie's. The closest parallel i know of in Australia is the Museum of Australia on the old hospital site in Canberra. There is no real focus other than 'America' and that would seem enough as it was very interesting, in particular the massive steam engines of many different types. Not sure if Ford was the original curator but some of the stuff was awesome and probably not on display anywhere else. There was also some mundane stuff like an  early 80's Honda Civic.?? Bu t i think i 'get it ' in that this was an important car literally and symbolically, post oil crisis.
I also went on the rouge factory tour where Ford spits out 1200 F-150's a day. This was really interesting as we had an elevated gantry walk around the main assembly line. I also confirmed that yes Cougars were made in this complex so it is like i have been to my cars delivery ward  B-) ...... :X

Steel City

The reason for going to Dayton Ohio was for the Museum of the United States Airforce located on Wright-Patterson Airforce base. It had an enormous number of aircraft on display and some real rare ones like a B2 bomber and what they took pains to not describe as "Two Mustangs fused together" but in reality looks completely like two mustangs fused togther

Not! two Mustangs joined at the wing

There are 3 long 'sheds' split between the major war epochs.
My favoutite was always going to be the Cold War section

that's a mock up Shuttle in the background

 Unfortunatly for me the plane I really wanted to see, the Mach 3 XB-70 Valkryie is on display in what they call the Presidential Hangar which is located on an active part of the Airforce base and accessed by tour only. Bookings open at 9am on the day so I will have to see if I can come back to check it out.Regardless I spent about 5 hours in there, literally not realising how long it was until I got back in the car. Coming out of the AFB onto the I70 the traffic stopped and we spent about 40 minutes in a slow shuffle covering about 2 miles. I had run out of cash by this time so was looking for a Bank of America atm but there wasn't one found on any of my maps (Open Street Maps, MS Map Point 2013 and the inbuilt Jeep GPS) except for the CBD of Pittsburgh. I had heaps of fuel and some Muesli bars so was not too worried and decided to aim for a Rest Stop on the way to sleep the night.

Next day I kept on the inter state until it veered north to Pittsburgh. I decided to go east onto local roads and hit one of the rivers that lead north to the city. The road follows the river closely and passes some crazy industrial complexes. Steel mills, coal handling facilities and some sort of chemical plants. I am sure they could not be built with today's regulations

After finding a hotel I went to the southern bank which gives a great outlook of the city and too me anyway was made famous by the film Jack Reacher in which a car with the bad guy drives west along the road followed by the camera in a helicopter

The view is superb. I am sure a documentary could be made, located only in Pittsburgh, on the evolution of the steel bridge as there are many examples and if a major archetype does not exist in present day Pittsburgh would have been replaced by an existing bridge.
I was lucky - my hotel was in walking distance of the Carnegie Museum whose founder was one of the major industrialists of the US and for a long time owned a huge percentage of the steel industry. I am happy to say I got my Dinosaur fix :)

The T-Rex behind is real bones. The other is a cast from another fossil

Carnegie Museum

The Carnegie was an unexpected surprise and really worth it. The animal displays were the most life like I have ever seen.
After that I caught a bus down town and checked out the sites. It is a pretty city and one I would like to live in (If I got one of the apartments on the South Bank with the awesome views) however there were 5 stabbings last night so it has a got quite a few issues.
Behind me is the start of the Ohio river at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers. In front of the water fountain was a historic fort.

It has cooled down a lot from the steamy coast and 'The South' so is a lot more pleasant at night. Last night in Pittsburgh it got into the high 40's which is fairly unseasonal but doesn't worry me. I like it. So far the weather has been brilliant with for the main, sunny days and maybe a few hours of rain at most. This may change as the Detroit area and the North East states have had some heavy flash flooding. I am on my way to see the NASCAR race in Michigan on Sunday so am hoping it will remain fine and I do not miss the race.