Mark Christian's blog

A day of two halves. The Professor travelled incognito from SFO to JFK with the masses on a rammed overnight flight. Arriving sleep deprived he found that due to Virgin Atlantic only having one flight out of JFK that day the lounge, and baggage checkin, would not be open till 2pm.

The Professor cut a somewhat bedraggled figure sitting on his suitcase from 8am till 2pm. It took the Virgin Checking staff a full hour to set up checkin (hands up who knows that often airlines share checkin real estate and completely set up and dismantle their operation). The checkin staff treated the early checkiners with general disdain. When finally they showed pity 5 minutes early: “you can start queuing now sir”, followed by “oh sir you should have told us you were flying upperclass …”. Their mistake was immediately recognised and fixed. The hover pad arrived for the Professor and he was ushered off to the lounge for a shower and change of clothes.

We leave the Professor snoozing after eating his cheese and biscuits, on his 5th glass of champagne, and two clubhouse burgers the heavier.

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To be frank I am ready to come home. All energy reserves pretty much depleted. Despite being 5371 miles from London I am unable to avoid domestic duties and received via Skype instructions from Shermin to buy two packets of Chips Ahoy cookies (I think Leandra our niece brought some with her from the USA when she came a couple of weeks ago). I had no idea how to discharge this duty but when driving about in the morning I had a brain wave and searched “places of interest” in the copilot GPS database and found the nearest Safeways. 10 minutes later I was in the supermarket, 2 minutes to locate the “cookie” isle (note not the biscuit isle it really was the cookie isle), and job done.

Apart from that I had a cliff side walk, a drive down the coast, and treated myself to a trip to an Apple store where I resisted the temptation to fill my boots with Apple gear at $ prices. I did buy a dock/stand for my iPad, and very nearly got a bluetooth keyboard, but in the end was not sure I wanted the aground of a US keyboard layout.

Hertz drop off was a doodle, it was so busy cars were arriving like honey bees at a hive. They did not even inspect the car. Now just have to sit a wait for six hours for AA 18 to JFK departing from gate 57.

Day 8: 28-July-2011 end Total miles: 241

Seven days and two hours, 3290 miles, a whopping 97 gallons of regular unleaded gas later the Professor completes his insane road trip by reaching the Pacific Ocean:

with all four limbs and his sanity intact. Burning that much gas has contributed 843 kg of carbon dioxide to global warming.

The final 241 miles of the journey was uneventful. Interstate 80 all the way through Reno, Truckee, Sacramento, Vallejo, over the Carquinez Bridge, through Berkley, over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. Final stop Pacifica.

The weather has changed completely. Blustery, low 60′s.

There was still plenty of nice scenery though, but the traffic was a nightmare once about 50 miles from the coast. Going the other way it was even worse.

Ian asked for a live webcam, Steve mentioned The Doors. With the limited field kit I have I was able to produce the following rough edit. Final cut needs my full studio.

Warning this is rated 18 as Jim Morrison’s lyrics to An American Prayer are post the watershed:

movie

Day 7: 28-July-2011 end Total miles: 259

Well today I did battle with the Nevadan desert sun – and pretty much fried my brain. Baking hot, dry air, and mile after mile of desolation. One reason why I wanted take this route was to find somewhere I could get some idea of what it would be like to be the only human being on the planet; and today I found such a spot.

I saw a sign leading to the Hickson Petroglymph recreation area. I was the only visitor and wander ed down the trail leading to a viewing platform – this chunk of rock:

On top the view was the following:

360pan

The most alone I have ever been – and will probably ever be. Tricky to take a self portrait but sort of managed it:

The site itself was quite interesting.

Also check out this incredibly well camouflaged lizard;

The 200 miles or so of desert that remained only took me through two towns, Austin and Fallon. The landscape was if anything more desolate than the half of Nevada I had already covered. I am not sure if these snaps can convey how vast an area it is. I am now in Sparks have the Sierra mountains to cross and am then I am in California. I think I will drive all the way to the coast tomorrow.

Day 6: 27-July-2011 end Total miles: 310

A mere 310 miles today. I am so far ahead of schedule I can now take my time. The wasteland starts right after I leave Fillmore:


In the next 250 miles you pass through three towns: Delta, Ely and my stop for the night Eureka. Between Delta and Ely you pass into Nevada and as you leave Ely you are officially on the loneliest road:

The extra miles I did were the result of a detour to visit the Great Basin National Park. You can drive to 10,000 feet up Wheeler Peak, and then there are some hikes. I chose a 3 mile one that went around two small lakes. This involved a small additional climb of around 500 feet. My lungs are not used to breathing air at 10,000 feet and the climb made me huff and puff, and feel a bit light headed. To make matters worse at one point I thought I had got the trails confused (you get a very small scale map at the visitor centre) and I had visions of getting lost on the mountain, but in the end found my way back to the car park.

After spending several days on my arse it was excellent to be able to stomp about on a mountain. And yes it was high enough for there still to be snow around as evidenced by my shoe in some:

These 2 chaps where running down the middle of the road to Ely, I guess they are wild but seemed very happy to come up and investigate the car when I stopped:

Final highlight of the day was driving toward yet another dangerous looking electrical storm:

Finally some more photos. Unfortunately uploading is really slow on the motel WiFi so only a selection.

Day 5: 26-July-2011 end Total miles: 505

Without a doubt the best day so far. The storm had cleared and I was on my way by 8am. The US50 crosses the Rockies passing through Salina, Gunnison, Montrose and when you are through you reach Grand Junction. 250 miles of mountains and passes. The view was spectacular and I even got out of the car for photo opportunities. Early in the day I experienced my first of several “pit” toilets. Amazingly, whilst gross in concept they do not smell at all.

I even saw a couple of brave, fit, very tanned cyclists – one on a racing bike and one touring with panniers.

After Grand Junction the US50 joins the I70 which means 75 mph speed limits so I thought: “let’s carry on and get a taste of the desert”. And the next 200 miles through the desert in Utah simply blew my socks off. I stopped at various viewing spots for more pics – I even for the first time on my holiday got the DSLR out. Those photos are too big to upload to the blog though.

By the way another first today: in Grand Junction I had to stop for the first pedestrian I had seen crossing the road on a crossing. Actually it looked like a small collection of pupils and a teacher.

So finally I am ready to travel the road that prompted me to do as much of route 50 as I could. That being route 50 throughout the Nevada desert, the so called loneliest road in America.

Here are some snaps of my day:

Day 4: 25-July-2011 end Total miles: 523

Another awesome day behind the wheel. 523 miles through the plains of Kansas to Canon City Colorado and the start of the Rockies. I thought it was going to be slow as the US 50 went down to single lane for much of the way. How wrong I was: flat straight roads, a town every 20 or 30 miles, very light traffic and a speed limit of 65, upto 70 or 75 when a dual carriage way. When you enter a town the limit drops, 55, then 45, then in bigger towns 35 or maybe 30. Then on the way out the speed limit increases similarly. The roads are for cars, not predestrians or push bikes. The only exception is school start and end where the yellow school buses become king of the road, limits collapse to often 25, and you are not allowed to overtake a school bus if it is stationary.

By the way in the last 1978 miles I have seen 4 adults riding a push bike, 2 kids playing chicken with the traffic on BMX bikes, and one mother out walking with a child on a small kids bike. That’s all.

My route from Emporia took me through Wichita, Pratt, Dodge City, Garden City, Lamar, Las Animas, La Junta, Pueblo and finally Canon City. After Pueblo the Rockies started to dominate the sky line, it was clearly pissing down with rain over then and I saw one enormous bolt of fork lightning.

What do you do if you have three trucks and only one driver:

The most I have seen is one truck pulling three. And when I sold my Eriba caravan maybe I should have brought one of these instead of the fold down one I got:

Dodge City:

I even got stuck for 5 minutes at a set of road works:

The heat remainder – high 90′s – but no longer humid. Everything started to go brown:

First glimpse of the mountains;

Chain motels seem to be in the seedy part of town:

Day 3: 24-July-2011 end Total miles: 595

A major psychological barrier passed today 500 miles – the roads just opened up and I reached a grand total of 595 miles. To put this into perspective that is almost as much as driving from London to Sheffield and back, and then doing it again.

I seemed to have entered some zen like state where I am cruising along vast concrete roads in a world of green trees and crops. I now know where all the sweetcorn comes form. And the roads just got bigger and wider. At one point when passing around Kansas City I was on a road where four major highways where sharing the same space and each had five or more lanes – it was not even possible to count them.

I have not at anytime felt drossy – something I was very worried about. I think this is due to a combination of not eating much, and taking one Sudafed 12 hour which contains 120 mg’s of pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. These were recommended by Mr Liney as a legal cognition booster, and are a decongestant. Amazingly they have also pretty much cured my hay-fever caused constant sinus pain and mucus buildup so I am taking them for legit medical reasons, the mental boost is just a side effect – or is that the other way around?

The heat and humidity are relentless 90 to 100 degrees always. Lots of squashed animals on the road. Killed one bird that flew up into my bumper, clipped the wing of another.

Went past some of the longest trains in the world – measured one at 1.5km long.

I was told I would be passing through parts where all you would hear on the radio was people reading the bible. I decided to test the theory and it was correct – but we are in 2011 so the preachers have we sites that are promoted at the end of the “show”.

Every town has it’s own water tower by the way. I saw one that was a giant 8 ball – but it was not positioned well for a in flight shot.

Route from Bedford Indiana was US50 into Illinois, I64, I255, I270 around St Louis into Missouri. Then back on US 50 to Kanus City, and then onto Emporia on the I35 which is the new US50 and a 75 mph speed limit with a minimum speed of 40 mph – so no dawdling.

Forgot to mention the route. I am mainly following route 50: an A road rather then the interstates that are the equivalent of motorways. In places it is single lane and slow but in others as wide and fast as a motorway. I am ignoring the bits of “old US 50″ (not enough time) and will divert onto faster roads to avoid big cities and to make up time if needed. My target is around 350 miles per day, so at 850 after two days I am ahead of schedule.

In West Vigina I passed through Clarksberg, and Petersberg – mainly mountains but giving way to hills. In Ohio I went through Athens and at Chillicothe I diverted south to take the 104 and 32 to go round the bottom of Cinciniti. The I275 took me briefly into Kentucky, then Indiana, and then back to US 50 passing through North Vernon, Seymore and finally to Bedford.

The world started to flatten out a lot in Ohio, and everything is so green.