My bring-along book for this trip has been the majestic Names on the Land, by George R. Stewart. I won’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of this man, but there have been several aspects of our world that he was directly or indirectly responsible for. In 1941, he wrote a novel more or less from the point of view of a massive storm quite similar to the historic storm of a few weeks ago, sweeping in from the Pacific and raging across North America.
Twelve hours on the road, ten hours driving. The headwinds dropped, the land levelled out, and we maintained much higher speeds for longer stretches. Today was much more like our old roadtrips, and giving ourselves an early evening yesterday was a big part of today’s success. More massive windmill farms. More pickups driven by cowboy hats. More mountains. Then no mountains. The Rockies tack north and west up the continent, so after our first brush with them, they disappeared again for most the afternoon and evening.
As we drove north to pick up I-80 outside Cheyenne today, we finally returned to a familiar roadbed after many days on I-70 (which we had only driven on once before, and then only much farther east). But we couldn’t quite remember how familiar I-80 was. So we began counting it up, and eventually ran up a tally of most of our long roadtrips. This is what we could remember:
We are in Salina, Kansas, hoping to make it somewhere near Denver. After a few days on the road, we have better on-the-ground numbers of our daily progress, what we do, what we can do. And, with great sadness, we have decided the California leg of our journey will have to go. After Salt Lake City, we’ll bank north onto I-84 and head straight for Warrenton. (But we comfort ourselves in knowing that the Bay Area is a long weekend away now, rather than a costly transcontinental flight.
Hello from a Starbucks in Independence, Missouri. We are making both better and worse time today than yesterday. Better because the roads are smoother, straighter, flatter. We also topped up Hestur’s tires because they’d been looking low. It’s much more reponsive now, and we can maintain higher speeds. Worse because there is a high wind cutting across the highway, and with less to break it, we’re weaving around a bit.
Well, we made it. Cambridge, Ohio. Our first really full day of driving. Too much of it after dark, however, so we’re planning an early departure tomorrow so we can pack it in not long after dark tomorrow evening. We want to make it as far into Illinois as we can; St Louis would be ideal. Pictures? Amusing anecdotes? Are you kidding? Maybe tomorrow.
We only made it as far as eastern Pennsylvania Saturday night, and we decided to stay two nights and really rest up. We really needed it. The truck needed a little repacking, and we needed lots of naps. The Martin Guitar factory is just up the road in Nazareth, so we’re going to go up there to snoop around for a while before hitting the road around lunchtime. There are guided tours every day, too.
We made it: we got on the road with a van packed literally to the roof. Did we say we’d hit the road by 10? Well, we did. 10 PM. It is three in the morning. We are in Bethlehem, PA, at a Comfort Inn (there was no room at the manger). That bad joke is about all I have energy for. We plan on sleeping in, so look for more lively accounts of recent events (and more bad jokes, no doubt) tomorrow.
A week from this evening, we hope to be in a hotel somewhere in Ohio, our first day’s drive behind us. We’re aiming straight for St Louis on I-78 & I-70 to follow (if only for a while) portions of the original Oregon Trail. (missing picture) Rather than banking north on the west side of Missouri, we will continue straight for Denver. Only then will we head north, picking up I-80 to take us through Wyoming and on down past Salt Lake City.
Meet Hestur, our main transport for the upcoming emigration: It’s a 1999 Ford E150 Econoline. We’re the second owners. The original owner bought it to continue moonlighting his plumbing business even though he had already more or less retired. It is in excellent shape because he hardly drove it, and treated it very well. More pix will follow, clearly displaying the space in the back and the shelves and cubbies for plumbers' gear.