The Dude and I, Old West Style |
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| Introduction |
This is the summary of Dan & Andy's brief 2008 marathon road trip, through 3950 miles of north america in a 92 Toyota Paseo... It only lasted 9 days, but we did not pay to sleep once, and the 97 gallons of gas only cost $383.55. My car, which I named Heidi (because usually Heidi's are hot, and my car was constantly overheating), got a respectable 40 miles per gallon.
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| Day 1 |
We left the OC at 1pm, and Andy's wife Josina gave us a 'We support OC sheriff deputy' sticker for the car. Entering LA, all the cars are gangsta gangsta, and we start to fear for our lives and make a mental note to take off the sticker asap. We took the 101 north, which is pretty once you hit santa barbara, since from then you drive along the coast, and through the rolling california hills. We stopped at Avila beach, which is outside my alma mater, and ate raw ramen noodles with tuna. We arrived in San Francisco at my old house at 8:30, and no one was there. We ordered pizza, and waited... Finally my cousin Sandra and came home, and Gordy too (downloader extraordinaire). We chatted a little about the most recent conspiracy theories before sleeping in the attic. Gordy burned us some mp3 cd's for the road.
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| Day 2 |
Headed out at 9am, across the SF bay. Decided to stop in Berkeley to buy a t-shirt at the 't-shirt orgy', and realized I forgot my wallet in the attic. So we returned to San Francisco. When I arrived, Maggie was there, which was a good surprise, because we had played some phone tag to no avail. We had lost 3 hours, so it was just a pop in. It started raining in Weed, California, which turned into a deluge in Oregon. Once we made it through the mountain pass, it cleared up, and we decided Oregon was by far the best state we'd been to so far on the trip, other than California. But it was really green, the green you associate with words like verdant and lush. It is the end of spring-time here, so we picked just about the best time to go. We stopped at night in Grant's Pass, ate some cold soup in a car wash, and slept in the car, in a residential area.
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| Day 3 |
We woke up at about 6 am, and left before the town woke up. In Eugene, I called Sierra, my friend from university, who lives in Portland. She was too busy working to meet, so we just stopped in the OMSI parking lot, looked at the Wilammette river, and I finally got out of the driver's seat and handed the car over to Andy. We drove to Olympia, where Andy's dad's friend from Costa Rica lives. We had coffee and chatted in Spanish about stuff, and were advised to take highway 20, which was a good choice. We made it to Seattle as the horendous city traffic was hitting, and found our way through the strange numbered roads of Kirkland to Douglas and Sheleen's apartment. We got there at 5:20pm, but realised Doug had forgot to give us the apartment number. So we knocked on one door, and then looked down to see 2 'Go Away' mats. They didnt know. We went to the leasing office, and they wouldnt tell us. Finally, Doug sms'd back the number, cause he was in the middle of a meeting. He got home 30 minutes later. We won the 'first visitors' prize, so Doug treated us to $5 footlong sub's at Subway, and returned to the flat, drank some wine, talked until 1 or so, and slept on a nice bed. We listened to some kwaito on the internet. the real phezulu ama goga kwaito music.
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| Day 4 |
We left Doug's at 9, and headed over the floating bridge to seattle. We decided to go to the mountains instead of Seattle, and skipped the city. Highway 20 called itself the portal to the 'American Alps', and it was very impressive, definitely a highlight of the trip. We stopped to eat ramen & tuna at Diablo Lake, which was amazing. We also stopped in Williams, an old west town, and bought throwing knives, which entertained us often, as we practiced killing wooden 'bears'. We made it to a town called Twisp, and looked for a camp. We saw some guy who looked cool, and decided to stop and ask him where camping was. Instead, he asked us for a lift back to Twisp, and said that he had lost his friends while boating the river. He reeked, and asked us to turn down the music, so we were quite happy to get rid of him, and leave him to his crisis. Twisp was horrible, because the people were all fat and didn't make sense. So we carried on to Okanogan, and had the burger king whopper $1.49 special in Omak. We tried to drive uphill to some campsite, and the car overheated. According to the map, there was a town Loomis, 6 miles away. So we started walking. A guy in a pickup truck picked us up, said his name was Hal, and he gave us a ride to Loomis to buy engine coolant. Unfortunately, there are no services in Loomis, and so he took us on his errands, and then brought us back to the car with bottles of water to pour into the radiator in the meanwhile. He showed us a nice free campsite alongside Spectacle Lake, and we drove there, ate hot soup, and drank a $1 bottle of white port, as the sun set.
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| Day 5 |
We woke up at 8, packed up and went back to Tonasket, which was at least a small town, instead of a hamlet, and bought 2 gallons of anti-freeze/coolant. We replaced the contents of the radiator (by pouring out the old contents into the parking lot), and the townsfolk nearly arrested us. The store owner asked an old lady 'is that anti-freeze?', 'yep', 'i'll take care of this', and went to speak with the sheriff. A lady came out with cleaning materials, and chided us as we bolted. Crossed into Canada, 'oh youre from california, ey?', They asked 20 questions about having guns. 'firearms? no. hand gun? no. machine gun? no. hunting rifle? no.', etc... When asked why we were in Canada, Andy said it was the 'idea of Canada', to have gone there on our road trip. They looked at us with disgust. They didn't take too kindly to people who don't take to kindly. We traded some dollars to loonies in Osoyoos, and drove on. We bought the ingredients of a big sandwich at Grand Forks, and stopped at the gayest rest area in the world, with playgirl magazine pages strewn across the landscape. The car died on the next hill, which was 5700 feet tall, and luckily there was a river next to it. So we filled water bottles, and poured it on the radiator. It died on the next hill too, and this time there was a waterfall, luckily. We returned to the USA through Porthill, Idaho. We were treated like terrorists. No one was friendly, except for the guy at the window, who let 50 other people enter the country while we sat there having our car searched, and our pockets emptied. The car was a mess, but it was a mess where we knew where everything was. They moved my stuff around, opening bags without closing them again. assholes. We ate ice creams, and stopped at an elk farm. We bought some elk steaks, and grilled em up on the barbie. unfortunately, the guy didnt thaw it well, so we ate raw bloody elk with our hands before going to camp in bear country. The lady there gave us some moose meat from the night before, so we ate two new animals that day. hooray. We tried to go camp in Smith Lake, but the car overheated again. We waited, throwing knives at things and decided instead of sleeping on the road, we would drive back down in neutral, and carry on. We went to the bar on the border of Idaho and Montana, and ordered some drinks. I got Moose Drool, a fine local ale. They didn't get many foreigners there, so they took a liking to us. Tammi the bartendress traded me killer white russians for a R20 note, and Roy the lumberjack told us about how serious he was that he would find me in africa. Another guy, Ron, just got back from Mexico, and gave us his national park annual pass! For those who don't understand the significance of this, some guy we just met gave us a piece of plastic worth $50. Tammi let us sleep in the parking lot, and so we did.
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| Day 6 |
We were told about Lolo hot springs, which was probably a nudist spot, by the way they all sniggered, but when we got to Lolo, it turned out the hot springs were 30 miles in the wrong direction, so we carried on. We circled Missoula, pumping trance music in the traffic. Montana was cool. They had only Ron Paul signs (a libertarian candidate, who will not win the election), and the scenery was awesome. We carried on to Pipestone hot springs, which turned out to be some po-dunk lie, and continued to Lewis & Clark cavern national park. We got there after the rangers closed for the night, and left at 5 am without paying. We ate hot soup.
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| Day 7 |
We drove south to Yellowstone West entrance, mosied through at 45 mph, saw bison in the road, elk, pika, marmots and more! We stopped at the 'Fountain pot fumaroles', and then waited 80 minutes for Old Faithful to erupt. We stopped at West Thumb, a vast frozen lake, and then left Yellowstone for Shoshone country. Then we went to Thermopolis, the world's largest mineral springs, and swam around in the public (geriatric) bathhouse, which was free, probably because it makes your clothes smell like rank hydrogen sulphide for ever. It was hot at least. At Lander, we bought 64 oz jugs of microbrew, and slept in the city park, eating hot soup. I ran over a prairie dog by accident. It was the most horrible moment of the trip. he basically ran right, left, then right, and then thud*crunch sound... and then we both went 'OOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' for an hour. I had the most vivid dream in my life that night, where I was driving down a steep 45 degree road, then blacked out. I was then at a house, and I was telling friends that I didnt know how i got there. They listened intently as I said I didn't know if I was dreaming, then some marilyn monroe looking girl I've never seen before, said 'well if its a dream, then you can do whatever you want'. but i didn't know, so i just sat there, carrying on as though I was awake.
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| Day 8 |
We packed up and drove down. We were going to Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park, but with the way the car was overheating, Andy convinced me to end the trip early, and do some hiking later. We changed the plan to go to Arches National Park in Utah. But when we got to the Utah border, the car was overheating, and we stopped behind some empty visitor's center, and used their hose to cool down the car, and wash it while we were at it. We decided, ok, screw it, lets just go home. so we backtracked to the highway at 50 mph, and continued on the main, flatter, highway into Utah. Coming into Salt Lake city, we said to each other how crap it all was, in Utah, but then secretly we both knew it was a pretty awesome city. It was a bit smoggy, and vast sprawl, but it had snow capped mountains surrounding it, and a salt lake, as one would expect. We realised Utah has the second worst drivers in the world, Cape Town taxi's taking 1st prize. When in Fillmore gas station, we asked where the nearest KFC was, and he said 100 miles away. heh. it was night, so we went to some national forest camp site, and again camped in some national forest. Andy was afraid the drunk Utopians would drive us over, so I repositioned the car, and assured him they wouldn't. But then as soon as we got in the tent, this car pulled up and stopped, and we heard footsteps walking around the tent. I decided fuck this, and got out to confront the asshole. But there was no one there. Andy freaked out, and we both got in the car. Andy said we had to leave, and after 15 minutes, I was sort of convinced, because he was going to drive. We told the guy at the gas station, and he said, well he'd never heard of that, but 100 years ago, a man made 2 concentric stone rings on the old hill, and was never heard of again. Reading Jim Butcher, i know that's to keep summoned magic beings from killing you. So i dunno. It sounded like the allies from the Don Juan books. But it was the sound of feet crushing grass, definitely moving around our tent. freaky. Everyone in Utah drove with their brights on. inconsiderate mormons!! We made it to Zion national park, and slept in the car, at a trailhead bench.
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| Day 9 |
We woke up super early, with 5 hours sleep, and drove around a little, and then headed on to the main Zion park entrance. It was pretty cool seeing the largest sandstone mountains in the world, for free. We stopped at almost every stop on the propane gas bus route, and did a '20 minute hike' in about 3 minutes. We spent 5 hours there, and decided to drive home. Las Vegas was hot as hell, like seriously unbearable heat, and the car overheated as we were finding parking in the MGM Grand. One minute more and Heidi would have died. We spent 2 hours there, I played one game of video poker, and lost a dollar. I had fun at the bill breaking machine, converting my 20 dollar bill into 20 ones. I bought some trinket presents, and got some water. They carded me for water. (Can I see your ID?). I said I didnt believe him, and he said he's serious. So I gave it to him, mumbling about being old enough to drink water. We drove back to California at 8pm, and it was good.
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