Mountains Ohhh Yeah

Driving due west out of Denver I felt glad to be leaving. Freeways, McMansions and McTownhouses look out of place in the Denver setting. I left the I-70 near Empire and drove to Winter Gardens through some great mountains. In some places the snow was piled up twice the height of the car. I think I was lucky that the roads I drove on were open. I crossed and recrossed the continental divide many times today. At the moment I think I am on the Atlantic side.

From Colorado I drove into Wyoming via Grandby, Rand and Saratoga.

Looking back into Colorado

Wyoming is like a geology lesson for giants. The vegetation is quite thin coming out of winter and soil is as bad as Australia leaving the strata bare to see. I think I can see from where the name Yellowstone is going to come from. Tonight I am in Lander where i am staying at the Frontier Lodge. The people are really nice.
I am trying to figure out what to do as Yellowstone park is not officially open untill Thursday and that's at the weathers  mercy. Each state has some good road condition websites like Wyoming's so I just have to keep hitting F5.
Not much really happened to day but it was one of the best days. I drove though some of the least populated and beautiful parts of the country. It was the most similar to Australia - Wyoming that is as we don't really have a Colorado equivalent area. One thing I hope in my future is that I never get exposed to as much Country 'music" as I am now. THE corniest lyrics combined with crappy electric slide guitar, how they can make such a good instrument sound so awful is beyond me, to make probably my most hated form of music. Every gas station or restaurant or hotel foyer plays the music. It sounds like the same song repeated ad nauseum
Some more photos:

Up the Rockies

My laptop won't connect to the hotels wireless so its the mobile till I sort that out. I am in Denver Colorado after trying to drive up Pikes Peak. Got to about 3700 meters but the road was closed for the last bit. "Be open in 1 or 2 days" said the cheerful entrance attendant taking my 10 bucks. Great.
Stayed the night at Dalhart in North Texas. I finally made it to a Man Versus Food featured venue but I can't disclose the name as they charged me for the meal. ;) kidding Duffys The Cherry Cricket although it wasn't a "Challenge" venue. Great burger. Standard "1/2 pound Cricket Burger" with fresh jalapenos, blue cheese and bacon. Nice! Every other one has either been packed solid or closed or in an insane location that is impossible to get to at the times I have gone past without excellant local knowledge. There were 4 featured in Amarillo and all were closed excepting the 72 ounce steak challenge. I didn't feel like eating that much meat and then driving for hours... Hard to drive on a freezing cold night with the windows down - otherwise asphyxiation may occur.
I realise now I made a mistake with Colorado. I wanted to see mountains damn it! and I am still on the edge of the prairie with mountains in the distance so tomorrow I am going to get up amongst them proper.
Interstates are at 75 mph in Colorado. Petrol is the cheapest I have seen it. Is there a long lost and missing Bush brother who is Governor here?
Steve these may be the planes then that got smashed:

The Mustang looked fixed up:

 A12:

Submarine:

Missing Stuff - Alabama to Texas

I just reinstalled the Wifi driver on my laptop and magically I connected to the motel next door.
After the big arsed battleship in Alabama I headed along Interstate 10 with all intentions of at least going through New Orleans but it was close too sunset and I didn't want to leave myself too much of a drive the next day to Fort Worth - about 900km's. So I went on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain through Baton Rouge and onto the I49. Almost falling asleep at the wheel I saw a sign to Bunkie, Louisiana that had accommodation on it. the interstates change in character from state to state. It seems every 5 miles there's at least 5 fast food outlets, 3 gas stations and 3 hotels along the gulf coast but when you get off that you could be on the Federal highway driving past Lake George at 3am. Now MattB gave me some great advise as I left, which I won't repeat here - at least until I leave the country :)  but is true. I was in the wrong neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks at 12am, I headed to the other side into a much nicer place and came across a 120 year old heritage listed hotel which also had a pumping nightclub/party in it. That from a 40 gallon drum on fire in the street only a few blocks away. At this stage the plan was executing nicely.

The next day I found out the hotel was mostly booked by a clan that dates back to the 1600's in the US but goes back further than that in Europe. I read some of the speech and background info over breakfast. The names of some of the luminaries where quite startling including a former president. Really interesting stuff.

After around an hour of passing through some really nice country, Louisiana was unexpectedly beautiful, this happened:

That's the front right and back right tyres respectively. I thought I must have hit something on the road as they both occurred simultaneously and scared the shit out me. This was roughly just before off  ramps at Derry. With only one spare I decided not to  swap one out and headed along highway 119 (the bridge was out on highway 1 ) into the deep south. Asking directions I found out Natchitoches was the best bet for a tyre on a Saturday so limped there at 25mph although the front tyre went flat with 10 miles to go. One and a half hours later I was back on the road. My navigation software said I could make it with 20 minutes to spare to The speedway in Fort Worth. I pushed the car to between 70 and 80 mph for about 4 hours. The I20 is the busiest Interstate I have been on so I was weaving around a bit. Then this happened:

In the second shot that's a good view of one of my new sandals and the POS tyre brand that almost killed me twice. Luckily I had put the new rubber on the front and moved the old tyres to the back. When I say "old" they were brand new supplied by the dealer in Iowa and looked great. I don't think I amazingly hit 2 bits of road litter on the same day that stripped chunks of rubber off the tyres - and they are not retreads, and that type of incident has never occurred before in my driving history. That's 3 out of 4 tyres and it was now right on 5:45pm and the race started at 6pm. So I still had most of the greater Dallas and Fort Worth area to negotiate with a ticket burning a hole in my soul. Dallas is insane. There are freeways everywhere. I would almost begin to suspect that some oil baron had got into power and pushed the state and city into an end game that profited his family business ... oh wait...
3 wrong turns and probably an hour later I got to the top of the stairs with a corn dog in one hand and a beer in the other intime to see the cars come past in a slightly staggered order indicating I was a few laps after a restart. Wow. I had pins and needles for 3 laps as the sound and spectacle is really amazing. I Am not the biggest race fan but can appreciate a spectacle.

I slept in the car last night in the largest car park I have ever seen. I thought I may be the only one but there was an army of RV,s and pickup truck campers. 1st thing is to get tyres so I am out the front of the Natianal Tire & Battery store nearest the speedway. After yesterday I want to have new rubber all round. It was great seeing an Aussie in the race. The other sports I have watched I have not had as much involvement. I wont say the reult but it was good racing. Today I am going to see where JFK was shot if possible.


I havent had internet access in my hotel nor data on my phone but have some other updates. I went to the Naval aviavtion Mueseum in Pensacola and USS Alabama in Mobile

Driving Mr Cameron

I can't seem to move posts around so will have to over write.

I am on a mission to find a good coffee. With no included breakie at last nights hotel I was on the hunt for something better than the usual fair. I stopped at 3 towns and walked them trying to find a cake/pastry shop and/or a coffee shop. No avail.
Don't drive into Pensacola from the North. Its an uninterrupted strip from hell. The air base is huge. The on base golf course looked great. There were so many planes it was hard to take it all in. I was a little disappointed in they didn't appear to have an F-18 or derivative nor a Phoenix missile. I asked after the Phoenix and was immediately included in a conversation that marks me a geek in 2 disciplines. There was a lot of fog but drove out the west gate along the coast through light traffic until the cross roads and hit a solid stream north back into Alabama heading for Battleship Park, Mobile. What a playground :)

I did the 3 tours and was blown away. Its a South Dakota class battleship and was never really upgraded post WW2. Its been preserved really well and has some interesting on ship displays. I wish I had more time but did the turbo version of the tours. It's a days worth. Best thing on the Alabama was going into the magazine storage and just walking the ship. AWESOME! Even better, and I almost missed it, was following the sign to the Submarine and entering the shed full of planes. P51-D Mustang and  F14,15,16,17!,18 and an SR71 or A-12 to name the ones that really blew my mind.

Out of the two museums/displays I preferred the Alabama.

6 states in a day

Damn post didn't save :(

From the Super 8 I went across the Mississippi down to a town called Cairo. It was where I was trying to get too the night before but turned back as the family orientated motels on the interstate changed to porn shops then strip joints. I am so glad I turned back because it was the most rundown town I have seen. There are buildings in different states of collapse in the main street. Cairo is above the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and was a key strategic point for the civil war. I was hoping to cross the bridge back into Missouri but it was closed with no apparent reopening date. So I went across the Ohio bridge which was built in 1938 and into Kentucky.

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It wasn't far to Tennessee from there through some really nice country on the back roads. I could tell I was in the bible belt when I saw a van with pictures of a 3 foot high fetus on the side like that in 2010: Odyssey Two and some reallly creative right for life slogans like "shake my hand don't kill me".... The driver looked like a modern day pilgrim.
I finally double downed in Ripley :) took 25 minutes for the "sandwich" to cool down before I could take a bite. I like them.
Route 51 to Memphis and past Beale Street however I didn't really feel like I was going to like it so kept going. I got out after 2 hours and had my first exposure to a full southern accent. After a few goes I could do away with the sign language.
I can't remember exactly where it started but by a town called West Point there were churches everywhere. One place had 4 in a row on the right side and more on the left. They must have been desperate for clients because they had deals like "between 7 and 10 all you can eat and Sermons". Out the front of one was what appeared to be a grown up Fat Albert and family. I don't think it is very ethical.
I stayed in Thomasville, Alabama. There were a lot of tradesmen around. My car was dwarfed by the F1-2-350's and Elderado's in the car park.

Down the Mississippi

Today started with a trip to Oreily's Auto Parts for some oil, spanners, leads, Armour Guard etc. The car must have been in a shed for awhile and had a fine dust all through it. After awhile it felt dirty so I gave it a quick detail and liberally sprayed WD40 on anything that was made of metal and moved. I think the engine really needed a good run as it is going really well now. I am more confident driving. it's not so much when I am on the road I was hesitant but coming up to intersections because they have some really weird rules. My mantra is "your right if your on the right". The four way stop and the flashing four way stop sign and the logic of their placements are a complete mystery.

I got pulled over again today. This may be the start of a regular experience :( This was back in Illinois after driving through Beardstown ... not every one had a beard. He seemed agitated and said "I have been driving this beat for 30 years and I know what an Iowa state Temporary transit permit looks like."
Me: "I got it frum the Butler County Treasury office in Allison, Iowa".
Him: "So not from the DTO - That thing looks like it was printed on a printer yesterday!"
Me: "It was..."
Anyway he was in his car for a full 5 minutes and came back and said "well it all checks out just fine". And then we talked for another minute and I drove off. He was quite nice in the end. To his credit it is just a piece of white letter sized paper with some numbers and letters printed on it in landscape mode taped to the back window.

I had my first experience with a huge interstate interchange crossing the Mississippi into St Louis right next to the big arch. It looked like a packet of half cooked spaghetti sticks thrown on a table. I basically had to do the equivalent of trying too park next to the Sydney Opera house coming from north Sydney in peak hour. I made it but there was no where to park. Some guy was writing tickets in a frenzy so I didn't hang around for too long. St Louis near the river looks like the set for a post apocalypse first person shooter game. Throw in some Zombies and it would make a good back drop for a living dead movie - well just add a little more makeup to those that are already there and change their gait and your good to go.

At least 20 times today someone has made a comment on the vehicle whether it be at the lights, doing 70 miles an hour down the interstate or at the Gas station. All positive. The last was just before I got to the hotel at 10:30. I must have cut someone off, well I didn't believe I did but they thought I did and that's the important bit. They high beamed, me stayed on my arse for 3 blocks and 3 different streets. I looked behind and it was a car full of black guys with caps all at different angels. After awhile hey pulled up alongside and made the universal window down mime. The question I heard above the duff duff was "Is that a 67 or a 68?" I said "67 - first in the series" the driver said to someone in the back "I told you fool!" and dumped it and drove off.

Tonight I am staying at the Super 8 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.