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Sumiki

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  2. Sumiki
    My dad had gotten up around 6:00 in the morning and went to get our brakes checked out at the Durango dealership. It's fortunate that he did so, as he reported the engine light blaring at him every mile or so - a repeat of the oil-light false alarm we got outside of Kamloops, British Columbia. After a series of scares he got to the dealership, where they checked the engine (which has been knocking a little bit), the brakes, and the oil. They did an oil change and reported that everything was fine with the engine and brakes - the brakes sound strange and the engine is knocking simply due to the altitude. (Brakes apparently accumulate more dust at higher altitudes.)
     
    And boy, did we have altitude today. He got some intel on the over-10,000 foot Wolf Creek Pass en route to Alamosa from almost everyone he could, and learned that it was easier than the 10% grade of Teton Pass and didn't have nearly as many curves. It was, however, quite long and very high up - but their advice was to stick the car in third gear so we wouldn't have to ride the brakes.
     
    We left the hotel a little after 11:00, and stopped at Serious Texas Barbecue so for lunch. We rolled through Durango's historic downtown and saw a number of old buildings before getting out of the town and on towards the epic Wolf Creek Pass.
     
    Between Bayfield and Chimney Rock we hit the 6,000-mile mark and our trip odometer reset.
     
    We entered more forested areas and passed Colorado's Chimney Rock (the namesake of the town and also apparently a National Monument in its own right) and within short order had arrived in Pagosa Springs, the last town before Wolf Creek Pass.
     
    We entered the San Juan National Forest, but before we went over the mountain,. we stopped at a pullout called Treasure Falls. Run by the National Forest, the trail goes up a number of switchbacks before taking you over a bridge for a fantastic view of a large waterfall. We walked down to the rushing stream below it under a rock overhang and touched the frigid water before getting back on the trail and descending down the switchbacks to the car.
     
    Then we went over the mountain.
     
    The car was doing all it could to get up over the mountain. The grade wasn't really all that steep, but the altitude did a number on the engine's ability to combust fuel. We got to the top safely before pulling off the road to let the engine cool down. Conveniently, this was at the Continental Divide at 10,850 feet above sea level - over two miles high. The air was pretty thin and I got a bit winded just walking around. Trucks that passed the pullout were clearly having troubles going up and down alike.
     
    The engine did not overheat and cooled to a more normal temperature as we got back on the road, which we did earlier than we'd wanted to due to the beginnings of rain. It did nothing more than sprinkle, however.
     
    So we went down, and we just kept on going down. Alamosa is at roughly 7,000 feet above sea level - so we had to come down 3,000 feet from over two miles high.
     
    There were some curves - including curved tunnels through the sides of mountains. It seems like it'd be more trouble to build the tunnel than to just keep on blasting out the roadway. We eventually leveled out but kept winding around the sides of mountains before finally settling down into a valley, where we mostly paralleled a small, but rushing, river.
     
    We went through small towns on the way to Alamosa, but the big driving fun was over for the day. We arrived at our hotel at 3:20 and got checked in.
     
    (Our room features a locked circuit breaker, and I'm not entirely sure why.)
     
    The land around Alamosa is not part of the plains that define the eastern half of Colorado, as we're not out of the Rocky Mountains yet. Its flatness - and fertility - is due to the area being an ancient lake bed. After so many mountains, it's good to have some flat roads for a while.
     
    Equal parts hungry and tired, we ate at a decent local Italian restaurant in town. Their personal pizzas are good but filling, and we had our leftover pieces boxed to take back to our room for lunch tomorrow. (En route to the restaurant, we'd stopped by a local sports-equipment shop and rented two sand sleds.)
     
    After a few nights of not getting much rest, I'm looking forward to good sleep tonight.
     
    Tomorrow: we get up early to sled on the Great Sand Dunes, the largest sand dunes in North America.
  5. Sumiki
    I forgot to mention yesterday that my dad ran over a squirrel which was limping across the road. Another car, which passed by us, spooked it, and while he swerved to avoid it, the right front tire clipped it with a thud. Like many of its kind, it had a death wish, and we can only hope we served a purpose in putting it out of its misery.
     
    Today, we did some planning over delicious omelets. Originally, we wanted to go to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills as well as the Badlands, but since we're basically right between the two, we had to decide between them. Because we knew for certain how long Rushmore would take, we decided to see the Badlands today, stay another night, then see the other two tomorrow when we go down into Nebraska.
     
    On the way to the Badlands, we saw sign after sign after even more hilarious sign for the most famous tourist trap in America: Wall Drug. Why any drug store needs a massive dinosaur statue in front of it, or an art collection to rival those of some museums, I will never know. It's entirely possible that Wall Drug does not even have a drug store any more, though they advertise free ice water and five-cent coffee - except to honeymooners and veterans, when it's free.
     
    The Badlands are strange. I likened them to the Painted Desert which we saw around the Petrified Forest, but they are on a much larger and vaster scale. The prairie stops right where the Badlands begin, dropping down into massive stone curves and structures. We walked out into them, from marker to marker off of the trail. I'm glad I got as many pictures as I did, because I don't know how well I can describe it. The stone is like natural concrete, and takes a toll on your feet if you walk on it for too long. I rubbed on bits of broken-off stone and it basically came off like chalk in my hand. The ones that do not look like that look like swiss cheese concrete, as there are holes in them.
     
    The landscape itself undulates - every bit looks the same until closer inspection reveals it to look different. Walking out onto the Badlands is easily disorienting, and if they didn't have the yellow poles cemented into the ground, we might have gotten lost out there. Canyons just drop off out of nowhere, and mesas at prairie level jut up, featuring grass on their surfaces. It's easily discernible where the surrounding Badlands have been carved away from them.
     
    We walked around a few trails, including one that went up 200 feet in elevation around some juniper trees. I wish we could have stayed there for longer but the bugs were eating us alive. ("Look, some humans! Lunch!") The trees were beautiful, though, and kind of soft to the touch. My dad spotted a rabbit off of the trail - it might have been sleeping, since its breaths were barely discernible.
     
    Getting back to the car, we headed on down to a small store/restaurant near the park visitor's center. We ate at the table next to the one where, on a trek my parents made with my maternal grandparents well before I was born, my late grandmother put her half-eaten buffalo burger inside her purse. (I'm sure it didn't make sense then, either.) History did not repeat itself, however; my mom had no purse on her person. (She did not purseonify that statement. I think that it's a purseonal preference.) After that, we saw some intricately made, multicolored clay sculptures of various wild animals, as well as carvings made from bone, in the gift store. We bought none, but from my pursepective, I'm still amazed that people can do such things.
     
    As we wound our way out of the park, we noted two wild turkeys, two bighorn sheep that were unafraid of clamoring around on top of sheer cliffs, more absolutely adorable prairie dogs, and more deer and antelope. The only critter we didn't see a specimen of was the one species which we were warned about from the signs time and time again: rattlesnakes. This didn't stop us from hearing any, for as we walked along the boardwalks which some portions of the trails were made from, the grass along the sides would shudder with rattles all around. If you stopped, then the rattles would die down. If you walked again, then they'd start on up again. Despite all of this - which was very hard to miss - people still took their kids through the snake country off to the very edges of the cliffs - cliffs which are well known for occasionally giving way under pressure. It's stunning that some people are that dull.
     
    It was a little after 5:00 that we got out of the park, conserving what very little of the camera's battery remained for the last sight of the day: a Minuteman II missile silo, situated off a dirt road off an exit off of the interstate. We had gone by the visitor's center earlier, seen some memorabilia, and a funny sign which parodied the Domino's Pizza logo, but had a rocket on the logo as well as "Delivery in 30 Minutes or Less, or Your Next One's Free" - referring, of course, to the nuclear warheads contained within. They apparently allow people in the old silo now - but we couldn't get in. The park service had posted up a sign on the fence which told us to let ourselves in, but to remember to lock the doors behind us to keep the cattle out.
     
    This was all well and good, except for the fact that they didn't exactly provide a key. My dad and I struggled with it for a little bit, trying to see if the padlock was stuck, but alas, we could not get through. We got some good pictures from the outside before leaving, passing more signs advertising Wall Drug.
     
    Tomorrow: we see Mount Rushmore and the surrounding Black Hills, then make our way down into Nebraska.
  8. Sumiki
    We had a hard time getting to sleep last night, due in equal parts to excitement, over-tiredness, and altitude. After route planning for a bit, we eventually dozed off.
     
    I awoke at 6:30 and got my dad up - my mom had already awoken and was getting some things out of the car. We ended up leaving the hotel a little before 8:00 bound for the Great Sand Dunes.
     
    The roads there - especially Colorado 150, which leads to the park entrance - are ridiculously straight, continuing in the ancient lake bed valley where Alamosa lies. It was so flat that we could see the city in the distance, a good 20 miles away.
     
    I was expecting something like the White Sands of last year, but the Great Sand Dunes are unlike anything else. They seemed small from a distance, but we were a good four miles away from them. The curving peaks and solidified-wave formations of the dunes look like they jut up against the mountains behind, but they were not, as they instead jut out for miles ahead of them. While we could, at one point, see the entirety of the dunes, that was not due to their smallness but rather due to our extreme distance from them.
     
    We then officially entered the park and stopped at the visitor center, where they have a small interactive diorama with sand in it, and turning a handle changes the direction of the wind inside and you can sort of shape the mini-dune by wind direction. (It was probably intended for kids but we had great fun watching it do its thing.)
     
    We continued the route to the dunes and passed two very dark mule deer. At 8:55 we parked in the parking lot, which did not have very many people in it - definitely less than we had anticipated, as it's a cooler environment in the morning.
     
    Since I came in with White Sands experience, I expected something almost completely different from what we got - mainly the distance from our car to the first dune, which is a mile-long hike that feels like so much longer. It also crosses Medano Creek, which we had to ford sans footwear. The sand is not of consistent texture either, ranging from soft, mushy beach-like sand that sucks at your feet until you sink six inches down to bits of rocky clumps that dig into your feet. Most of the walk to and from the dunes were on the latter, and most of the dunes were of the former.
     
    After fording Medano Creek we kept trudging for what felt like the better half of forever. The 7,515-foot elevation got to us before we even got to the dunes. We went up and sledded down the first dune, which due to its small grade was unimpressive. We then spotted the next dune over, which we appropriately trudged up.
     
    I don't know how far down the hill was, but it was long and steep - perhaps 120 feet at the very least. We waxed up our sleds and proceeded to careen down the hill at breakneck speed.
     
    Of course, the way the boards are designed, it's incredibly hard to get any sort of balance, stability, or control. Any attempts at controlling the direction of the board led to immediate wipeout - first by my dad, who did a faceplant into some (thankfully cold) sand, and then by me, as my board got wobbly and stopped suddenly when one side dug into the sand. I didn't do nearly as good of a wipeout as dad; he got an enormous amount of sand out of his nose and ears, whereas I only had an enormous amount of sand in one ear.
     
    We sucked on our large water bottles and rested a good bit, as the sand dunes are incredibly hard to walk up. The kind of sand that the dunes are made of is very soft and you only stop when you get to a wetter kind of sand a few inches down, which - combined with the over-7,500-foot elevation - makes going fast hard. It's a good workout, though, and the slides down the dunes were totally worth the effort.
     
    (As far as dune slides go, my dad had the worst wipeout and the longest run while my mom nabbed the straightest run - and on her first go, at that. I had a hard time getting balance as my sled kept wobbling around, but my wipeouts were about as fun as my slides.)
     
    By 10:00 we'd done all we felt up to on the Dunes and trudged back to the car, interrupted by a number of breaks for water sipping. We got back to the car at 10:38 and rolled back out of the park. (Good thing, too - the sand was not only getting hot on our bare feet, but the crowds were starting to come in. The measly-looking Medano Creek apparently is the local answer to the beach, and folks came in with beach clothes and equipment - very few sleds, however.)
     
    After dropping off our boards at the sports equipment place, we got back to the hotel where I surveyed the insane amount of sand on my body. Sand stuck to my sunscreen-sticky arms and plastered my face, ears, nose, and hair - even though I wore a hat the whole time. Sand was all over my chest and lodged itself around my mouth and in my facial hair, which made it look incredibly dark. Getting a shower was an interesting proposition, as the sand and old sunscreen turned the water into a kind of slush and I was afraid of being responsible for a backup should I wash it all away at once.
     
    After we all got cleaned up as thoroughly as we could, we moved our Santa Fe reservations up a day and began the drive down to New Mexico. We passed by silos which featured murals on their sides and the oldest church in Colorado before it began raining in hard drops - hard enough that the smell of petrichor was thick, even inside the car. Concerned about the possibility of hail, we got out of the storm and continued south, where we entered New Mexico. (That makes it the second time this trip, if you count Four Corners.)
     
    The rain made the temperature plummet from 73 to 51, but it increased to 65 as soon as we got out of it. New Mexico is distinct due to some "half-and-half" landscapes we saw - green rolling hills interrupted by scrubby, arid pastureland. It seemed too organic to have been irrigated to look that way, and we pondered the origin of such a strange landscape before we saw the half-dried creek in the valley. We saw yellow blooming sagebrush as well as random rock formations akin to tan versions of some of the Arches scenery, but these were rather few and far between.
     
    (It was here that my dad had the following dialogue with himself, all spoken slowly in an accent of indeterminate origin: "I'm from New Mexico." / "What do you do in New Mexico?" / "I chase a little beaver around a tree." This had us laughing inordinately hard.)
     
    We began entering the more populated area around Santa Fe and found ourselves in the city, where we entered road construction. This usually would not be so bad, but the knocking we'd felt in the engine for the past few states finally came to a head - my dad reported that he "felt something pop" and the engine light came on. We got diagnostics run while on the go and were told via the OnStar guy that there was a misfire in the engine - which would account for the knocking. The guy advised against speed, hauling things, hard accelerations, and steep hills - all things that our car has done pretty consistently on the trip.
     
    Add the fact that we had experienced this in road construction - and the New Mexico drivers were letting in morons who sped past the lane-closure warning signs, thus slowing the pack down - made it kind of scary. We got connected by phone to the dealership, but the call got dropped before we could say much of anything.
     
    The engine didn't sound any worse than it had in the previous thousand miles, but we arrived at the Santa Fe dealership. My dad stayed in the repair area to check the car in while my mom and I went into the dealership to see about the possibility of a rental car or shuttle. We ended up talking to a receptionist whose mother is from Greensboro, NC - yet another NC connection. (It was also her first day on the job and didn't know her coworkers' names very well, which led to some hilarity when "Kevin" turned out to be called "Keith." This "Keith" character ended up saying "you ladies" when referring to my mom and me, which led to even more hilarity. He was ridiculously apologetic for his slip-up after he realized what had happened.)
     
    We ended up getting to know the dealership characters, who were quite the bunch. With nothing else to do and a co-manager bent on trading our car in, we looked at a few new cars, which were surprisingly nice - better than our current ride in some aspects, while inferior in others. We ended up meeting two fellows named "David" who worked there - one of which had a practically trademarked catchphrase I can't repeat on this site, while the other was even newer than the receptionist, but played up on the humor in his newness by saying things such as "a walk-around is car-salesman talk for when ... you walk around."
     
    As it turned out, the third cylinder had misfired, but everyone there was incredibly friendly and promised that, if possible, they'll have it done by noon tomorrow. If the engine turns out to have more extensive damage, we might just have a new ride for the journey home.
     
    Instead of a rental car or a shuttle, they actually let us use one of the sexy-looking cars we tested out, which was incredibly nice of them. I actually drove it a bit around the hotel parking lot, and it handles quite well.
     
    We ate at a mexican restaurant just a short walk from the hotel called the Blue Corn, which was half-brewery, half-restaurant. I had a huge chimichanga with some interesting limeade, while my parents got fajitas. (When the server asked me what kind of sauce I wanted, I remembered something the receptionist had said about "christmas" - half red chili, half green chili. I ordered this and I'm glad I did, as the green chili was delicious but the red chili less so.)
     
    When we got back to the hotel, we decided to stay an extra day in Santa Fe. We were able to extend our reservations and got some drinks from the small pantry area near the front desk. We also were interested in sampling the pecan pie that we'd gotten at Serious Texas Barbecue in Durango, Colorado and had been lugging around in the cooler for three days, so we inquired about acquiring some forks. We were told that they would be delivered to our room, which thereby put ourselves in the unique position of having the first-ever hotel fork delivery. We prepared for this moment by having my dad open up the door before the front desk lady was prepared for that to happen and by my act of taking a picture just as her eyes got big as my dad presented the pecan pie to her to prove that it actually existed. It was quite hilarious.
     
    Tomorrow: we spend a day in Santa Fe. Featuring an independent minor-league team and a number of delicious restaurants (the dealership receptionist said that you "really couldn't go wrong" with Santa Fe food), our extra day in the US's oldest capital will not go to waste.
  9. Sumiki

    Thoreau-breds

    By Sumiki,

    We left the labyrinth disguised as a hotel at 11:00, having traversed 1031.5 miles at that point. By 11:22 we'd found our first stop at the Lexington Commons, site of the first skirmish of the Revolutionary War. Green troops on both sides panicked after hearing a gunshot somewhere, and began opening fire around the Commons. Only a handful of people were even harmed, but it nonetheless marked the beginning of the Revolution.
     
    We visited the tavern across from the Commons, which houses the original door - a door which gained significant fame by having sustained a bullet hole during the skirmish. It's no longer the door, but is hanging inside, protected by a sheet of plexiglas. According to one of the tour guide ladies, most visitors to the tavern do so to see the door, not to stand in the very room the militia gathered in before heading out into the Commons on that fateful night.
     
    The next stop was at the Minuteman National Historical Park, which runs along the road between Lexington and Concord and chronicles the events between the battles of both towns.
     
    After a brief tour of the area, we drove around Concord to see the homes of the great Transcendentalist authors - first, the house of the Alcotts, then of Emerson, then Thoreau's Walden Pond (which is honestly more of a lake than a pond), and finally "The Old Manse" - the home of Hawthorne.
     
    Between our visits to Walden Pond and the Old Manse, we stopped in downtown Concord and ate lunch at a café. They served what was possibly the best reuben in existence, despite having a typo on the menu that flipped the word's consecutive vowels. This time, it was my dad's turn to have a massive sandwich - a gigantic club that could have fed any lesser man twelve times over.
     
    He ate it all.
     
    We then headed back out to see the Old Manse, which was next to the North Bridge, the final part of the Minuteman Park and where the British were sniped heavily by the Americans in their retreat to Boston. Seeing this after Bunker Hill means that we're working backwards, chronologically speaking.
     
    After this final Concord stop, we headed up the back roads to Lowell, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the city with the second-most canals in the world (this side of Venice, of course), and the home of the Lowell Spinners. We stopped in for our customary pennant and hat, talked with the sales guy, and then got back on the road towards New Hampshire.
     
    We entered New Hampshire (only two more states to go until I've been in all of the 48 contiguous!) at 4:00, and almost immediately saw the White Mountains - a hundred miles due north but still clearly visible. We went through a few toll plazas and exited in Manchester to get a pennant at the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.
     
    Of course, that was before we realized how backed up the traffic would be. All the traffic fed over a bridge, and even though the stadium wasn't but a mile or so away, it took us ten minutes because the traffic coming into the city not on the exit would keep going until it backed up through the intersection, regardless of the light. Once we got in, though, it was easy to get back out again.
     
    We talked with the guy in the team store for a little while about our travels to minor league stadiums around the country before leaving. Though getting into a little bit of traffic, it wasn't anything like trying to get in.
     
    On the road again at a little before 5:00, we passed through the second Concord of the day - this time, the capital of New Hampshire. The traffic on I-93 was busy, but not slow, and it gradually thinned out as we traveled northward.
     
    We stopped at a rest area, and then for gas in the community of Northfield. However, there was no re-entrance to I-93 northbound, so we had to go through the sleepy downtown of Tilton to access the highway again. This didn't put us back very much, and we saw more of rural New Hampshire than we expected.
     
    After an ominous-looking "MOOSE CROSSING" sign, we entered the White Mountains. The White Mountains are unlike many other mountains - sheer granite, poking straight up or curved. Many seemed unnatural at first glance.
     
    We never saw a moose, though - it figures. The moose never find us - we find them.
     
    It took us a while on a road with little to no people, but we wormed our way through these scenic mountains all the way to Bretton Woods, where we checked into the very same hotel that the Bretton Woods Financial System was agreed upon in 1944, with the end of WWII imminent and the world in the need of a new monetary order.
     
    The only downside to this historic and fancy hotel is that they're hosting a prom from a town an hour farther north, and thus most of the four-star dining establishments in the hotel are booked. We did, however, get 8:45 reservations at a place with the same food but a little more casual dress code, which was appreciated - although we brought along suits and assorted nice bits of clothing, we really didn't want to get overly dressed after a long day on the road.
     
    It was, quite simply, one of the best meals that I have ever had.
     
    It was easygoing, unpretentious, quiet, and serving four-star food without necessitating getting all dressed up. We took a shuttle over to a small cottage-like converted house, originally build in 1896. The server was polite, knowledgeable, and agreeable. My dad and I had a melt-in-your-mouth filet mignon, served with a bacon-sweet potato hash, roasted asparagus, and a delicious Vermont blue cheese fondue - a cold, brown, delicious cheese sauce on the side. My mom had the Israeli couscous salad - a warm mixture of pearl couscous, tomatoes, summer squash, asparagus, and green onion.
     
    Before the main course, we were served some kind of polenta-based concoction served on a demented-looking spoon. It was the only part of the meal I didn't like - it was followed by two kinds of bread with butter sprinkled with brown Hawaiian sea salt, and then a small dollop of apple sorbet to cleanse the palate before the main course.
     
    Afterwards, we split a marvelous maple crème brûlée and were served two rounds of peanut butter fudge as another palate cleanser - but it was hardly necessary. The brilliant, succulent, and buttery filets were enough to serve as dessert in their own right.
     
    We took the shuttle back to the hotel and looked around. The loud music and general busyness on the prom-hosting wing of the hotel precluded us from seeing the room where the Bretton Woods deal went down - we'll see that tomorrow morning - but we looked around the parts of the sprawling hotel that we could. They have multiple restaurants, an astonishing attention to detail kept up through the years from 1902 to the present, with unique features in every room - from massive pocket doors to curved chairs that look like they're from the set of the villain of a late-60s Bond film.
     
    Poking around the basement a little - and even ducking into a former speakeasy known as "the Cave" - we eventually decided to head back to our room in preparation for tomorrow's travels.
     
    Tomorrow: the possibility of Mount Washington, en route to Portland, Maine, and then possibly the Bangor area if we feel up to it.
  10. Sumiki

    Ode to Oven Racks

    By Sumiki,

    poems by sumiki and sumiki's dad: back by popular demand
     
    It's hard to snack on an oven rack
    (it's not easy to do)
    It's hard to pack an oven rack
    (I don't know what to do)
     
    It's hard to stick a tack in an oven rack
    (without sticking your finger)
    It's hard to comb an oven rack
    (without, you let it linger)
     
    It's hard to take a nap on an oven rack
    (you fall right through between)
    It's hard to hug an oven rack
    (unless you don't want your spleen)
     
    It's hard to date an oven rack
    (because they're just so flat)
    It's hard to sled on an oven rack
    (because you'll just go splat)
     
    But it's easy to cook on an oven rack
    (it's what they're made to do)
    And it's easy to bake on an oven rack
    (because they exist for you)
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    next time, we write about smuffin slappers
  11. Sumiki
    I still have not received MOC info from two of the four winners of Blogarithm Contest #1. Since I'm posting them all at once, I need to know your MOC info as soon as possible. Thanks!
     
    (Winners who have sent me their info: you don't need to do anything, except try to guess who hasn't. )
  13. Sumiki

    Bforoad

    By Sumiki,

    We explored our Mount Washington hotel thoroughly. We saw the Gold Room, where the setting up of and signing of the International Monetary Fund took place, and a few old fuses - well, I thought they were old. It turns out that the fuses, part of the original wiring put in by Thomas Edison, were actually still partially in use.
     
    Honestly it sounds like a fire hazard, but I'm not an electrician.
     
    We decided to skip the treacherous Mount Washington Auto Road due to the fact that it's a private road that doesn't have guardrails, and doing so in a car that has well over 100,000 miles on it and has just come off of its fifth road-trip repair in three years is just kind of asking for trouble, especially when the road is notorious for burning out transmissions and brakes.
     
    It was just as well, since that was well out of our route.
     
    We worked our way through sleepy towns in rural New Hampshire as we wormed our way back down amidst the towering granite faces of the mountains. As we kept on the route to Portland - towards the stadium of the Portland Sea Dogs (or, as my dad called them, the "Portland Dog Drips") - the towns increased in size and had signs that designated earlier and earlier dates of incorporation.
     
    The roads leveled out as we neared the Maine border, but we could still look back and see mountains - some still with traces of snow near their peaks.
     
    Conway was one of the towns we passed through, and its quirks included a motel with different "themes" for each room like storefronts in the Old West as well as bizarrely funny shop names.
     
    Around 12:30 we entered Maine, and got some literature at the welcome center from a guy who was born in North Carolina but moved to Maine when he was young. He'd long since lost any southern accent he might have once had, replacing it with a thick northeastern accent that turned "Bar Harbor" into "Bah Hahbah" and "Bangor" into "Bangah." I didn't hear anything close to that in Boston, where I thought I would.
     
    The potholes got really bad as soon as we crossed the Maine border. Only a few were absolutely unavoidable - the fault lines - but these were eased over as best we could. We slalomed through the rest, only hitting one - which was pretty good considering that there were as many potholes in one mile as there are living humans on Earth.
     
    It didn't slow us down considerably, so we stopped by the Sea Dogs and got our customary pennant, then set off for the Portland Head Light. Before doing so, we ate pizza at a local place called Otto's, which converts old gas stations into "filling stations" - for your stomach.
     
    The crust was flaky and buttery - one of the few crusts I actually liked. Onions, sausage, and marinara sauce gave it a little bit of kick. It was a filling and delicious late lunch.
     
    We then got to the Portland Head Light, which was absolutely gorgeous.
     
    The Head Light was built at the directive of George Washington and is now part of a municipal park complex encompassing both it and an abandoned fort. Rolling green grass saw much use from local citizens, but our main objective was to see the Head Light.
     
    We saw so much more than that.
     
    The Head Light itself was interesting - especially since it's still in use! - and the high-intensity fog signal that blasted out was close to deafening if you got too close to the lighthouse. We spent most of our time down on the rocks below, climbing and clamoring over the jagged rocks that claimed so many ships, even after the Head Light was fully operational.
     
    Seaweed and assorted flotsam would get tossed up into the rocks. Most of it would just run off back to the ocean, but in a few places, it would pool up in large rocks. An algae that looked like grass flourished in these tiny ponds, anchoring themselves onto the rock bottom of their little world.
     
    We were out on the rocks for the better part of an hour, enjoying the challenge of navigation, investigating interesting details in the rocks, and getting as far out on the rocks as was safe before heading back, taking care to avoid the slippery bits.
     
    After this rather extensive exploration, we headed back to the car, over a curved drawbridge, and back onto I-295, which eventually merged quite unexpectedly with I-95.
     
    Our destination was Bangor, just a short drive away from Bfahome. (He says that it's pronounced "B-F-A-Home," but I pronounced/sneezed it a little more as it's spelled.)
     
    My dad and I met him at a bar & grill in Orono. By the end of the day, we wanted to keep him around to be our new GPS, found out that he owns every university from here to Kingston, Ontario, recited bits from old BIONICLE games and the asdfmovie series, discussed the fun and hats of BrickFair, and generally had a blast. 10/10, would Bfahome again.
     
    Tomorrow: Acadia National Park.
  15. Sumiki
    After delicious breakfast which included corned beef hash, blueberry muffins, and coffee so strong it took us one pot of cream each to tame it, we left the hotel when we got the call from the dealership that the car was ready. We went over to pick it up and realized that, in addition to fixing the cylinder (which turned out to be due to carbon buildup on the spark plugs), they rinsed off the outside, cleaned a bit of the interior, and fixed a rear taillight that hasn't been coming on consistently. We talked a bit more with the crew there - who still wanted us to trade it in - before thanking them profusely and heading out in a much smoother ride.
     
    Since we had a day on the town, we headed downtown to a very historic section of Santa Fe - the Plaza, which was made out to be more than it really was. It was still nice, with brick streets blocked off to car traffic and a nice big green area in the middle with a number of trees, but it wasn't all that mind-blowing.
     
    (Side note: Santa Fe passed an ordinance in the early 1900s that was unusual for the time - it said that all new constructions must be adobe-style. There are no buildings which are not adobe-style, leading to the interesting sights of seeing adobe-style Wal-Marts and McDonalds. Also, I did not anticipate the kind of hippy culture that thrives in the Plaza area - it was kind of like some parts of San Francisco.)
     
    After navigating around some sort of wedding in the popular Plaza area, we found parking and within short order found something to do: a New Mexico history museum located next to the Palace of the Governors, a 1610 construction that has been modified over the years but still retains original portions. We toured the museum and learned quite a bit about New Mexico's history, from the arrival of the Spanish to the Puebloan revolt to the Mexican-American War and finally to the present day. It was extraordinarily well done and maintained a great number of unique and original artifacts.
     
    After roughly two hours touring the museum and the adjoining Palace of the Governors (which was really squeaky but didn't tell us too much more than the museum itself), we headed out of Santa Fe on I-25 northbound towards Glorieta, a nearby town and the namesake of Glorieta Pass, the site of a far western Civil War battle often referred to as the "Gettysburg of the West."
     
    The far western theatre only lasted for a few months and did not greatly affect the war's outcome, but if the Confederate forces had won at Glorieta Pass, then the reach of the Confederacy could have extended to southern California, reenforcing their case as a legitimate country to potential European allies. The three-day battle ended in a technical stalemate, but the Union won by sending a detachment behind Confederate lines to Johnson's Ranch, the site of relatively unguarded Confederate supplies. The Union burned them, forcing the Confederacy to retreat to Texas and ending the far western campaign.
     
    (The Battle of Glorieta Pass also featured a character by the name of Major Shropshire, who was trying to take out a Union artillery battery at Pigeon's Ranch. Motivating his men to take the hill, he said "come on and help me take that position, or stay back and watch men who will." He was killed approximately five seconds later leading the charge up the hill.)
     
    Our route not only took us through Pigeon's Ranch - a place where some of the original house structure still stands, with rocks behind it that Confederate snipers once crawled upon - but it was also once a part of Route 66. We got to the visitor center in the town of Pecos and asked questions of the ranger there. Most of the battlefield is in private hands, and those private hands don't care for snooping around - unless you're on a ranger-led tour. Unfortunately the next such tour was scheduled for next Monday, by which time we will be deep in the heart of Texas. The one non-ranger trail didn't have much on it that we hadn't seen in Mesa Verde - plus, the nearly 7,000-foot elevation was made doubly unpleasant by our unfortunate lack of sunscreen.
     
    The lack of trails or other roads to parts of the battlefield was disappointing, but since there was nothing else to see in the area we headed back to the highway, where we passed by Pigeon's Ranch again - but after heading on the Interstate for a while, we exited near an old church, which the ranger had told us about. We went on a road that dead-ended at Johnson's Ranch in Apache Canyon, the site of the Confederate supply burn. While looking at the old church we encountered a man who asked where from North Carolina we were from. He was born and raised in Winston-Salem, but lives in Boston now and also has ties to the Oakland area. He's on a big road trip of his own, following as much of Route 66 has he can before coming up to Oakland and then back to Boston.
     
    We then got back on the highway bound for Santa Fe, where we got a late lunch at "Bumble Bee's," which specializes in burgers, gourmet tacos, and general Baja cuisine. We all got a fish taco - yet another item crossed off my food bucket list on this trip - and they were surprisingly delicious. While the soft shells were not big, the amount of fish, sauce, pico de gallo, cabbage, and avocado they put on the thing makes it tricky to eat without getting half of it all over your body. Originally anticipating their size to make them appetizers for a larger meal, we were full by the time we had finished them.
     
    At around 6:00 we left for the stadium of the Santa Fe Fuego, an independent minor-league team in the relatively new Pecos League. The Pecos League functions on a unique business model comparative to short-season A ball - but with league tryouts to make the teams competitive and a limit of just a few years for players within the league. The league is in its third year, and within its first two years, it saw 119 players sign with affiliated minor league teams or higher-level independent league play.
     
    The play was surprisingly intense with a lot of excellent defense and pitching. Most of the offense was provided by extra-base hits on the part of the visiting Roswell Invaders, who use baseballs with green seams on them for home games as part of their alien shtick. They did not sell pennants, but they had a cool hat, which we got. We left at the end of the seventh inning with the Fuego down 7-2. (I've seen better outfield defense at the high school level.)
     
    When we left around 8:00, the sun was setting behind mountains, providing a fiery backdrop for the black smoke of two forest fires, which are sizzling behind the mountains. Fortunately for us, that's due west - a direction we won't go in for the rest of this trip if we can help it.
     
    By around 8:30 we pulled back into Bumble Bee's, where we got some more tacos. I tried the shrimp taco, which was even better than the fish.
     
    Tomorrow: either Las Cruces or Clovis, with the outlying possibility of Carlsbad. These routes will all serve to take us down south so we can take I-10 to San Antonio.
  16. Sumiki
    Today, we went out to explore the city. Our first stop was for brunch at a place called Lori's Diner. As we entered, we came up under a jukebox, then up 36 steps. fashioned to look as if it was from the late 40s/early 50s. Posters - which look like originals - advertise war bonds, the forward halves of retro cars displayed come from walls, and small jukeboxes are featured in every booth. While we had fun taking a look at the old tracks available to play, we did not have the necessary quarters to play any. Behind us, there was a large sculpture of a cow drinking a Pepsi. The food was just diner fare, but the atmosphere made the place.
     
    We then walked down to the terminus of two of the famous streetcar lines. The Powell & Hyde line and the Powell & Mason line both end at an old wooden turntable, and the streetcars are turned by their operators pushing them. The line to get on snaked around the rope that prevented people from getting on the turntable, though the pigeon population of the city was blissfully unaware of the dangers and we thought we'd see instant pigeon paté on more than one occasion.
     
    For a big city, especially one which thrives on tourism, I saw only one policeman for the entirety of the day, and he was talking to a homeless man, no doubt about going to a shelter. Another man had fashioned a drum kit out of old wine bottles and upside-down plastic cylindrical containers, and a woman kept going around asking people if they spoke English. These vagabonds seemed normal compared to a man who pulled out a megaphone and starting screaming in what was either English with a thick German accent, or full-on German. I think he was proselytizing, but that's just a hunch. The operator of the cable car, as he finished turning the car around, walked past us, saying "is he scaring you? 'Cause he's scaring me!" We also talked to some Italian folks, who thought we were rather nuts for traveling across the country by road. They were also impressed with the sheer scale and vast scenery differences present in America.
     
    The cable car ride is bumpy, but a memorable experience nonetheless. It's a much better alternative to walking when navigating the steep hills of the city, and though they only go on a few designated routes, they're an experience that's unique to San Francisco. We passed by the top of Lombard Street, famous for being the most crooked street in the world. For some reason, they decided to put a bunch of hairpin turns at the top of it, which makes it pretty, but also makes you wonder what the street's designers were thinking. (It's a 40-degree angle, so they're basically tight switchbacks to help negotiate it - but that doesn't stop me from wondering why.)
     
    After passing through Chinatown, we got off at Fisherman's Wharf, where a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge can be seen. It was surrounded and framed by fog, making it look eerie and mysterious in nature. We then headed up to the Ghirardelli building, where we got some free squares and got some hot chocolate. After getting slightly lost (which tends to happen when the map you have tells you that not all the streets are on there, and when you always get this aforementioned map out on the unlisted streets), we hopped on the cable cars again and headed back into the heart of the city, this time seeing up Lombard Street instead of down, and seeing another little slice of Chinatown. We got back to our room in time to look up the old San Francisco mint building, but they do not have tours and are apparently converting parts of it into a place to rent out to parties and such, so we decided to skip it. My numismatic side is raging that they are defacing such history by using the building this way, but I'm not going to let that get to me.
     
    We all felt kind of tired at this point and all got some small naps. (I know for a fact that my dad snores the funniest, though my mom snores the loudest. I plead the fifth on my own.) Deciding that skipping supper would be a bad idea, we walked back out onto the San Franciscan streets in search of something to eat. We found a little Italian place that featured a kind of a hallway as you enter. Desserts are places enticingly to the left while a wall dominates the right. In the back, right where the wind and sounds from the street dies down, the room opens up. The food was basic Italian fare, and the portions were modest. We had to sample the desserts, though - triple chocolate mousse, creme brulee, and tiramisu, all arranged in order of deliciousness.
     
    Tomorrow, we head on up the coast to Arcata, CA.
  17. Sumiki
    We left Ellsworth before noon, gassed up amidst what appeared to be an octogenarian biker gang, then braced ourselves for a drive on "the Airline" - the local name for Maine Route 9. The moniker doesn't refer to air travel, but in the sense that predated mankind's first flight; it's because it's a faster route to Canada than going up and around on the modern Interstate route.
     
    The grades were steep and there were a few potholes, but it wasn't anything like the 20 miles we had to traverse on Route 179 in order to get to Route 9. The frost heaves had frost heaves and the potholes went down multiple layers. We survived this hilly and bumpy route intact, and the Airline was a smooth ride all the way to the New Brunswick border - but we did top off our gas tank.
     
    Our trip odometer at 1,668 miles, we experienced what was our easiest and quickest border crossing ever, then got to New Brunswick. New Brunswick is in the Atlantic Time Zone, so we skipped an hour ahead as we looked for some kind of visitor center.
     
    We exited at one of the first opportunities, at St. Stephen, the Canadian chocolate capital. As is the norm with cities on this edge of New Brunswick, it's named after a saint. After getting a massive amount of information on New Brunswick from a particularly bubbly Wicker, we crossed the street for a late lunch at a place called Pizza Delight.
     
    Pizza Delight, it turns out, is a small chain with locations around New Brunswick. We were the only people in the whole place, and after admiring my extremely bent fork, we decided to split something called a Donair.
     
    A Donair is kind of a local thing - you don't see them much outside New Brunswick. It consists of a pizza crust, a little tomato sauce, Donair meat (similar to the thin lamb meat you'd find in a gyro), pepperoni, and cheese, all baked like a pizza. On top go fresh lettuce, tomatoes, and a thick, sweet garlic sauce called Donair sauce.
     
    It's fairly hard to describe, but just think of a meat lover's pizza with a minimalist salad on top and you'll be close. I was skeptical at first but then came to love it.
     
    We entertained the two waitresses there for a while before getting back on NB 1 to Saint John, which we got to and passed through within the span of five minutes. It's the largest city in New Brunswick, which tells you a lot about the population of this province.
     
    There wasn't much in the way of scenery between Saint John and Moncton, which is the largest city in the tri-province area where New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island meet. The number of hills was surprising, as was the dearth of birds. I got us from Hampton - just a few kilometers from Saint John - to Moncton.
     
    The lack of traffic on main Canadian corridors always surprises me. Two lanes in both directions and you still wouldn't see a car for long periods of time.
     
    We rolled into Moncton - where the hotel has almost no one in it aside from us and the staff members - and entertained the girl at the front desk who was obviously bored out of her mind before our arrival due to having no other human to talk to. She suggested a few places to eat in downtown Moncton, and we chose a place called Catch22 - a lobster bar just a short drive downtown. We also got three complimentary beers (!) and some maple candy. We took a picture of her posing with the one and only Yoder the Duck.
     
    My mom got a lobster roll, and my dad and I both got the same thing - the massive Fisherman's Platter. Each had half a lobster, shrimp, scallops, haddock, crab cakes, rice pilaf, and a roasted vegetable medley of broccoli, zucchini, and carrots, all served on a massive translucent fish-shaped plate.
     
    The utensils in the place were worse than the demented fork I'd experienced at Pizza Delight - the knives, while cool-looking, had their handles twisted 90 degrees around their axis. Ergonomically sound, there was just no place to put it. My dad knocked his first knife clear off the table, and I nearly dropped mine into the booth cushion - only some catlike reflexes prevented a second mess.
     
    We started a few running jokes with the waitress about seeds, the utensils, and a few other things. After we'd cleaned our plates, we got a banana and strawberry flambé, set aflame right at our table. We also got their last peppermint crème brûlée - but this was complimentary.
     
    Upon our return to the hotel, we got some more maple candy from the front desk and learned a few interesting tidbits regarding the non-standard operation of our hotel. Suffice it to day that the inner workings of this place sounds like a mix of McHale's Navy and Fawlty Towers.
     
    Tomorrow: we make the drive to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I am bound and determined to get my dad to try a poutine.
  19. Sumiki
    We left Lubbock at 10:00 and found a gas station in the midst of the confusing roads. We then exited the city - surprisingly easier than we had originally thought - and headed southeast, bound for San Antonio. Flat farmland was on either side as oil fields began to dominate the landscape. Eventually we ran into gigantic wind farms which stretched for miles and miles into the flat distance, and also saw a Google Maps truck taking pictures when we were in the town of Snyder. (If a snapshot of our car makes it to Google Maps, I'll inform the good folks of BZPower.)
     
    We got on the Interstate and entered the town of Sweetwater, which styles itself as the Wind Energy Capital of the World - and I certainly believe it. We got gas at around 12:30 and got drinks before hitting the road again, traveling on the Interstate for about ten miles before exiting on Texas Route 70, which we went on for a good ways.
     
    That is, until our car decided to overheat.
     
    There were no odd sounds, smells, or sights emerging from the hood, but we diligently pulled over at the first chance we got. My dad and I checked under the hood, where everything seemed nominal, while my mom accessed the owner's manual to check on what our dashboard had told us. We waited for a while with the engine off to let it cool down, which we did for about a half-hour. During this time we assessed the levels of coolant and oil, which were both surprisingly low given their Santa Fe top-off but not enough to account for the engine overheat.
     
    We gingerly turned the car back on and everything sounded alright, so we cautiously rolled down the road for about two miles before the engine heat shot up and the dashboard urgently beeped, telling us to stop the car immediately, so we pulled off on a farm-to-market road and stopped the car. Again we checked under the hood, but everything once again appeared to be normal. We did not want to try going any farther down the road, however, so we contacted OnStar for roadside assistance and proceeded to get in touch with possibly the most incompetent and klutzy person we could get, who clearly read off the screen in front of her without comprehending our situation. Eventually - after a ton of re-explaining and exasperation (especially when she asked if we needed a ride literally right after we'd explained the entire situation using small to medium-sized words) - we got ahold of a towing company who sent out a truck to get us. After this, we cancelled our San Antonio and Austin reservations and booked a room in Abeline.
     
    Then began a long wait wherein we all tried our best to pass the time before a fellow who worked down the street rolled up and pulled off to help us. He knew quite a bit about cars - though he wasn't a mechanic - and tried to rectify the situation by adding some coolant. When that didn't fix it, he called his buddy in to bring in some oil - but even after that fellow showed up the same issue was occurring. After some careful exploring of the under-hood area we discovered a dry-rotted, half-ripped, and rapidly disintegrating belt near the engine area. None of us knew what it was but we theorized that it was likely a fan belt, which would make sense given the overheating. (I don't know about the second fellow, but the first one said that he worked for the county government to maintain the county road system, and that they were in the process of paving the mostly unpaved county roads.)
     
    After those two gentlemen left, we waited around for a little while longer before the tow truck arrived. The car was put up on a bed and secured five different ways before we stuffed ourselves into the tow truck cab that lacked air conditioning. We rolled down the windows, which was fairly unpleasant for me in the back - I didn't have enough room to sit down normally and, to avoid breaking my legs, I had to lean them over halfway onto mom, and with the windows down got a face full of air for a half-hour until it went sightly numb.
     
    The tow truck driver used to be a tank driver in Iraq and was very friendly, but scared us when we were careening down the Interstate at 80 MPH. Near the dealership some crazy guy in a pickup truck pulled out in front of the wrecker and braked trying to instigate a crash. After a reaction by the driver I didn't fully see but I assume to be an obscene gesture and his call to the police to report the fellow as a likely drunk, we pulled into the dealership, where we threw away our incredibly warm sodas and acquired cold water bottles.
     
    We waited in the dealership for a few minutes before they set up a shuttle to the hotel. We got all our necessities (read: meltable stuff) and piled into the shuttle, which was driven by a Korean War veteran originally from Alabama but who had lived in Abeline for nearly his entire life. (He was in Korea not when it started, but when it ended.) He had recommendations for barbecue places in Abeline, as we were unsure how many days we would have to stay here. (As it turns out we'll only be here for a day as they replace the belt and do an oil change.)
     
    After getting to the hotel, we ate there as we had no car. It's probably the best hotel food of the trip - certainly better than the bland brick of a chicken breast in Grand Forks or the burned toast of Idaho Falls fame. We replenished our own coolant by ingesting nearly an entire pitcher of lemonade.
     
    Tomorrow: Shreveport, Louisiana, as we've decided to reroute the trip on Interstates, which are safer if the car has another issue. Once we're back in the south we're back to more densely populated regions. (At least there's sweet tea.)
  20. Sumiki

    Westward Ho!

    By Sumiki,

    We left home at 2:55 PM and filled up the gas tank on the way out of town. Like our first trip, we went along I-40 and made good time. Our first stop was at the stadium of the Hickory Crawdads at 4:30.
     
    The good ol' boys manning the front office informed us that they no longer sold pennants—in fact, they stopped production a few years ago because there weren't enough buyers. Nevertheless, one of them offered to take us through the empty stadium to their gift store, and we were willing to go along with the idea that there might be a good pennant substitute there. But before we could, he came around the corner again, holding an old pennant in his hands and willing to sell it to us for a flat five dollars.
     
    After our thanks, we absconded and found ourselves faced with the Herculean task of getting over The Mountain. The Mountain is a legend in our family; my great-aunt lives out that direction and traverses it often enough to refer to it by the definite article. Fortunately going west over The Mountain is easier than the other direction, and soon enough we were closing in on Tennessee.
     
    We got to Tennessee after 6:30 and stretched at the welcome center, which is an interesting looking building designed to look like an old log cabin, although the vending machines and the disturbing life-size cut-outs of Dolly Parton ruin the effect once you walk inside.
     
    Once back on the highway, we were slowed for fifteen minutes due to road construction, but then made up for it once the mountains cleared and the speed limit became more practical than suicidal.
     
    There was a bit of entertainment to be had in an otherwise bland case of road-construction inch-along-itis, and it was in the form of the two young ladies, perhaps in their mid-20s, in the beat-up blue sedan behind us. The one sitting shotgun was black-haired, with a streak of purple only visible in the few moments that she stayed still. Most of the time, she danced back and forth in her seat like an electrocuted monkey. This went on to the increasing concern of the driver and the continued catatonic state of the kid in the backseat.
     
    After refilling the gas and our stomachs in Lenoir City, we bore down on the last leg of the day. It got very dark very quickly, but the advantage of the dark is that there was very little traffic with which to contend. We went north and stopped here in Franklin, home of the only all-turf year-round horse racing track in the country. This particular location began as a place for feuding Tennessee citizens to duel with pistols, since that practice was illegal in Tennessee. Thus, we're really only in Kentucky on a technicality.
     
    Tomorrow: touring Mammoth Cave and then up to Louisville for a Hot Brown or a close imitator.
  21. Sumiki
    We caught up on some well-deserved rest and ended up leaving the hotel a little after noon. Our first stop of the day was an optical illusion called Magnetic Hill. Magnetic Hill has been known since Moncton was founded and the road was put in - there were reports of wagons and goods rolling uphill since the early 1800s. It was more publicized in 1933, and today, there's a whole Magnetic Hill complex around the illusion itself.
     
    Magnetic Hill is bizarre. To look at it, you'd say that the road dips down before coming back up on the other side. But once we reached the bottom, we put the car in neutral (as the sign directed us to) and we began rolling backwards - what appeared to be uphill.
     
    After reaching the end of the hill, we drove forward again and I hopped out to capture the illusion on video. However, I have to say that the illusion pretty much vanished as soon as I stood up, for even though it looked uphill, I could definitely tell it was downhill.
     
    Disinterested in the rest of the Magnetic Hill complex, we got some gas and began the trek to Halifax.
     
    The drive was surprisingly hilly, very woodsy, and utterly desolate. A brief change of scenery occurred right before we entered Nova Scotia, when we dipped down into a lower, more marshy area.
     
    After getting information at the Nova Scotia welcome center and surviving the vicious wind in the area, we stopped in Amherst to get a cash advance at a bank. It took half an hour to get through the clogged line, so my dad did that while I walked around and took pictures with Yoder the Duck next to creepy statues.
     
    We stopped for a quick late lunch at a Subway and then rolled out. We passed Oxford - Canada's Blueberry Capitol - and saw forested mountains in the distance. We paid a four-dollar toll and kept trucking to Halifax, and checked into our hotel a few minutes after 5:00.
     
    Still hungry, and knowing of a great place just a few minutes from the hotel, we set out for it ... only to get turned around by the insane road system of Halifax, going over one of its two bridges over to the heart of the city, ending up near Citadel Hill, home of quite a bit of Halifax history - mainly, a fort that was used for defense against the French and updated for different wars, being manned and used for various purposes until World War II.
     
    We paid a small fee to park and walked around the hill, though it was not open. Still hungry, we got back in the car, drove past an iconic clock tower on the edge of Citadel Hill, and took our second shot at finding the restaurant.
     
    We found it - but only after going over the other bridge, winding our way through intersections with almost no lane markings, an extra helping of potholes, and no signs telling you what road you're on or what road you're intersecting with.
     
    Despite all this - and did I mention the road work? - we found the place - Cheese Curds Gourmet Burgers and Poutinerie - about five minutes from the hotel, but a trip that took us very nearly an hour.
     
    It was worth it. I got a burger with a large hunk of fried mozzerella and some spicy chipotle mayonnaise. The bun was flimsy but the mix of flavors was delightful. My parents split a chicken burger and a lamb burger - but my mom couldn't finish her half of the lamb burger, so I tasted it. It featured a lemon hummus - a little strong, since I didn't know it was coming, but it had a unique flavor.
     
    As a side, we split a poutine. This was not the fake, flimsy poutine we got in Moose Jaw last year - this was the real thing. A bed of freshly cut fries on the bottom, topped with a ton of cheese curds and a thick, rich gravy. Best of all, I finally got my dad to try a poutine. He exhibited some apprehension towards trying a poutine - which is strange, considering his general adventurousness, but I convinced him to try a bite, which he rather liked.
     
    Tomorrow: Cape Breton on the northeastern end of Nova Scotia. We'll be traversing one of the prettiest drives not just in Canada, but the entire world - the Cabot Trail - over the next couple of days.
  23. Sumiki
    We began the day at the Alexander Graham Bell museum, along the Cabot Trail around Baddeck. We thought it'd be interesting to poke around - after all, we figured it'd be mostly about the making of the telephone. As it turned out, Graham's life and inventions far surpassed the telephone - as a noted teacher of the deaf and proponent of his father's system for teaching deaf students to speak.
     
    In fact, what was most striking was that the museum didn't talk all that much about the telephone - a good chunk of it was dedicated to the Silver Dart, the first manned flight in the British Empire, flown not far from the site of the museum. Bell assisted in the creation of the Silver Dart, and lived a short distance from Baddeck.
     
    Bell's forward-thinking spirit and childlike enthusiasm for tinkering meant that he ended up producing tons of prototypes, some of which were almost a century ahead of their time. Bell actually produced the first cell phone - similar to his telephone prototype, only that the electrical signals were sent via light. Though he called it his greatest invention, it would have been impossible to commercialize at the turn of the century. Still, the principle of bouncing electromagnetic waves around to send signals sans wires was the same one behind the invention of the cell phone.
     
    After a lively walk around and new information in our heads, we started of on the glorious Cabot Trail and began the great loop around Cape Breton Island. The road conditions were somewhat poor to start off, but improved immensely once we entered Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
     
    We poked around the nearly deserted visitor center and then entered the all-but-deserted park. We stopped at the pull-offs and traversed some of the smaller trails ... but the trails gave us worse views than from the road, so eventually we decided to stick to the places that we knew we could see stuff from. The fresh bear droppings along our first trail kept us on our toes - or, should I say, in the car.
     
    Rain and mist came in and out, on and off, for most of the day. Hungry, we stopped at a place featured on the Canadian equivalent of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, a show called You Gotta Eat Here - Coastal Restaurant in Ingonish, a place that did a pretty good job at advertising its television appearance. I got the burger that was featured on the show - the Ringer Burger - which is piled with onion rings and some kind of sweet honey barbecue sauce. It looked a lot bigger than it really was due to the onion rings, but it was still quite filling.
     
    We headed back on the Cabot Trail, winding in and out of the park. Most of the prettiest scenery on the Trail was on the other side, which we got to as we turned and began heading north and back down on the north edge of Nova Scotia.
     
    Of course, this is the time that Murphy's Law began to kick in.
     
    We began a slow climb up a mountain, stopping at the ample pull-off areas for breathtaking panoramas of the seascape and landscape - the Trail far below, mountains above, valleys with small babbling brooks, and the Atlantic Ocean, stretching out until it met the sky.
     
    At the second of these pull-offs, my dad said that he felt the car acting funny - like it wasn't rolling all the way. He chalked it up to trying to start from 0 on an incline with a lot of weight in the trunk ... that is, until we got to the next pull-off. Something smelled kind of funny, and sure enough, our back right tire was smoking slightly.
     
    We figured that it just got a little hot while going up and down massive inclines, so we stopped for a good while until it had stopped smoking and no longer radiated heat. I kept an eye on it in the rearview mirror and my mom kept her window down so she could smell it if it started smoking again.
     
    Without any signs of trouble, we reached the next pull-off. My dad slowed the car down, put the emergency brake on, and we all heard a pop. The next thing we knew, smoke was coming out of the brake apparatus anew, and my mom briskly warned us that there was a small fire.
     
    I launched out of the car and threw what remained of my water bottle on the tire, which steamed up. We dumped quite a bit of our water supply on the tire. It was still hot when we were done, but the fire and smoke had gone out. The smell, as thick in the air as the midges we would come to hate, was still there.
     
    It's at times such as these when faith in humanity is restored, for half a dozen different cars rolled up to see if we were fine. We must have been quite a sight - three folks gesturing and talking around a tire with a veritable puddle around it. We met a family from Salt Lake City visiting a family member in Maine, who took my dad down to an emergency call box two kilometers down the Trail. (We had tried OnStar, our cell phone, and the cell phones of anyone else who had offered help, all to no avail. There's no reception on the Cabot Trail.)
     
    We met a independently-minded older lady from Austin out on a free-wheeling road trip of her own. She didn't know where she would end up before turning back, but was thinking about hopping on the ferry to Newfoundland. She offered us fruit and water, but we assured her that we had plenty of supplies.
     
    The Salt Lake City folks returned and my dad emerged from their small sedan. We thanked them profusely for their trouble and offered to pay them, but they refused. He'd contacted a tow truck in Chéticamp, where we were originally planning to spend the night anyway. We had to wait another hour or so, but we spent it talking to the families that drove up to offer us their help.
     
    Eventually a man came up from Pleasant Bay, a little village that we'd gone through at the base of the mountain upon which all of these events transpired. Interested in the car - as many guys who know cars are - he poked around and posited a few theories as to the origin of the fire. Whatever it is, it will likely be a pretty easy fix, even if they have to bring in parts from Sydney - which is just a few hours' drive away along the northeast edge of Nova Scotia.
     
    Eventually, the tow truck came barreling up the mountain, right before we were totally eaten alive by the pesky and ever-curious midges. We gave the driver a brief rundown of the situation, and my dad drove the car up onto the bed.
     
    Unfortunately, the cab was even smaller than the one we all had to cram into in Texas last year. We were all crammed into an area of about one and a half seats. We maneuvered around to the least uncomfortable position in the cab, to the amusement of the driver. I was originally going to sit equally on parents' laps, but to do that, I would have had to basically lean over because my head wouldn't fit upright. So I got the other window seat, my dad was in the middle, and my mom sat halfway.
     
    This meant that there was no room for seat belts. My mom leaned over onto my dad or myself depending on the curve. We were packed into that cab like Sardines playing Twister, and we were keeping the driver laughing by cracking jokes left and right. By the time we had traversed the most scenic parts of the Cabot Trail and made it into Chéticamp, our driver felt like an old friend.
     
    We rolled into the small repair shop, met a fellow with green teeth, and got a ride to the motel just up the street. I had my reservations (no pun intended) at first ... but this place is actually pretty nice. People up here put pride into what they do. It's a small-town kind of feel without Americana ... Canadiana, perhaps?
     
    For dinner, we walked a little ways down the street and ate at the restaurant adjoining the Harbor Inn. It was good food and good ambiance - I ended up with the haddock, with some kind of dill sauce on the side. Dessert was fried ice cream. All in all, not our best meal, but it was excellent. (My dad ordered his first beer in 32 years.)
     
    Tomorrow: depending on the car situation, we'll either get a little farther down the road (after backtracking to see what we missed on the last little stretch of the Cabot Trail) or staying in Chéticamp another night. At most, we'll spend just one more night in this sleepy little town, but that would be unexpected.
  24. Sumiki

    (Hot) Brown and Out

    By Sumiki,

    We awoke this morning to the promise of a Hot Brown from the Brown Hotel. It was a little past 8:00 when we began getting ready, and we ended up getting there well before ten. The opulent hotel, which dates from the 1920s, remains the capital of swank in the downtown Louisville area despite the miserable decline of the surrounding neighborhood.
     
    The Hot Brown: juicy slices of turkey breast covered in succulent mornay sauce and topped with bacon and tomato slices, all held up by an absorbent bread—ostensibly an open-faced sandwich, but it would remain much too sloppy to try and eat should one put another slice of bread on the top.
     
    We did not get the original original Hot Brown. It was on the menu, but we opted for the buffet, where there was the promise of endless Hot Brown in the form of the Hot Brown casserole, a huge metal dish full of Hot Brown goodness. (The only difference was that there were bacon bits on the casserole whereas the original had strips.)
     
    The richness of our relatively small plates kept us full across the state of Indiana.
     
    We had to avoid some of the more unsavory parts of the Louisville population to get back down the block, but we did so successfully and loaded up.
     
    Our two options to get to Springfield, Illinois: go along the route we went on during our first trip (albeit in another direction) or add a few minutes to the journey by heading up towards Indianapolis and cutting over from there. We chose the latter for the sake of seeing new things.
     
    Once out of the miserable and accursed state of Kentucky, we entered into the slightly less miserable and accursed state of Indiana, where our gas stop took a little too long for comfort. The 55 MPH zones would encourage the Hoosiers—already going 85 in a 70—to careen around us at an even faster clip. Going anything under fifteen over the limit was suicidal.
     
    We made it to Indianapolis, where we curved around the beltway and briefly got on I-74 before getting off on serene, flat, nearly deserted two-lane country roads, where we went due west through tiny town after tiny town. We passed two Amish buggies and many cows doing the "Yoder Salute" (they all had their butts turned to the road). The only stop we made was near the Illinois border, when we got out at a state historic site dedicated to WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle.
     
    This site has a flagpole, a monument (a replica of the one that stands on the site of his death), and a covered bridge with a warning against running through it. It was a small but touching tribute from the citizens of a small town to their hero.
     
    Throughout this long drive, my mom slept intermittently in the back (sleepily apologizing whenever she woke herself up by snoring), while my dad slowly and slowly got more hyper. He mixed up songs and their words, badly mispronounced any proper noun on the road signs, and spouted non sequiturs in real time as they occurred to him: "there were motorcycles out the wee yang yang yang," and "man, plant, food: think about it" were among the greatest.
     
    The road continued on its course through to Illinois, where our hunger first began to come back. While my dad was itching for a Culver's, an upper Midwest chain that we ate at thrice on our second trip, there were none near enough to the road. I spotted a Freddy's location, which I was only familiar with because one had opened near our house and we'd eaten there while running errands the day before we left. Comparable enough to Culver's to satisfy my dad's irrational craving, their burger patties are very thin and cooked quickly, which slightly chars them on the sides. The fresh toppings and thin-cut fries only make it better, and the chain has a Thousand Island-like dressing known only as "fry sauce."
     
    But what really makes the Culver's comparison apt is their frozen custard, which comes in containers so large that the mini size is almost too big to hold with one hand, and the serving size fills the cup to the point that sticking a spoon in it sends melted custard dripping out of the sides. My mom had the turtle while my dad and I stuck to what we loved when we'd tried it at home: a scoop covered in crumbled Reese's cups, banana slices, and about as much whipped cream as frozen custard.
     
    This being on the outskirts of Springfield, we made it to our hotel in about ten minutes. Soon after arriving, my dad and I escaped the confines of the room and went out to explore the town.
     
    Springfield is very clean and almost totally deserted this time of day—surprising for a state capital. The warm summer air was pleasant with the wind from the northern storms keeping the humidity from stagnating. We walked down to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. These twin buildings were closed for the day, but we wanted to get a lay of the land before going there tomorrow.
     
    We talked for a while to a security guard at the museum about the history of the buildings in the area and of modern-day Springfield. He approved of where we plan to eat tomorrow and told us about both the old train station across the street and the place along old Route 66 that claims the corn dog as its invention.
     
    We worked our way around the old capitol building and read various signs about Lincoln's time in Springfield. Many government offices are scattered in small office spaces between storefronts downtown, which gives you a sense of being in the capitol as opposed to just being in the same city as the capitol.
     
    Tomorrow: the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, a local diner, and then on through Peoria to Iowa.
  25. Sumiki

    Breakdown Cruise

    By Sumiki,

    The man from the repair shop knocked on our door at about 10:00 to tell us that our brake had been fixed. My dad went down the street to get it, as my mom and I packed up in the room. The problem was in the emergency brake, and we were told that we should be good as long as we remembered not to use it.
     
    We set out back up the Cabot Trail, retracing our steps almost to the site of the brake-flame. Our destination was the gorgeous Skyline Trail, an almost five-mile trail on the top of French Mountain, overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Cabot Trail itself as it winds its way down the next mountain over towards Chéticamp.
     
    The walk there was uneventful - lots of woods, even more moose droppings. We didn't see any wildlife, save for two small light brown ground squirrels and one small gray snake. That was just fine by me - I've already seen bear and moose from the safety of the car, and I have no intent of ever seeing one without the protection of a motor vehicle.
     
    The trees cleared and we walked out on the boardwalk overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean ... but the fog had rolled in. Fog comes into the area around Chéticamp very rarely and we'd heard that the conditions can change suddenly at the series of viewing areas, so we waited.
     
    We sat down and waited, occasionally stretching our legs out, for the better part of an hour. Just as the wait became unbearable, the fog began to lift around the mountains, slinking back along the water.
     
    We were above the clouds, The long tip of the mountain, jutting out towards the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was completely clear, as were the peaks surrounding it. One could see the Cabot Trail as it wound around the mountain, down into the clouds and then back up again.
     
    It was a wonderful view.
     
    We stayed there for a long while, thinking that the fog might just break so we could see a bit of the ocean, but it never did. Once the locals started turning back, so did the few tourists - including a family from Orlando, who we talked to for a while. I took a few group shots on their camera for them and they did the same for us.
     
    It was a long haul back. It's one of those trails that just sort of feels uphill both ways, and once we knew what we had ahead of us, with nothing to look forward to, and no fog to keep things cool, it was a slow haul back to the car. But get there we did, and we set back off down the Cabot Trail towards Chéticamp in low gear.
     
    We stopped at every available pull-off, making sure not to hit the emergency brake. The brakes seemed fine, didn't smoke, and didn't smell bad. But as we headed into Chéticamp, the brakes sounded bad - specifically, that back right one that had had all the problems. As we pulled into a restaurant parking lot, the brake sounded like a muffled scream mixed with the sound of fingernails on a blackboard.
     
    Hoping that the brakes were just overheating, we ate a late lunch. My dad split after he ate in order to drive the car down the street to get looked at by the same folks who took care of it earlier. My dad, meanwhile, limped back on down to the service station. By this point, he said that the brake was smoking again.
     
    My mom and I got out of the restaurant and walked another mile or so to the service station, where we got the scoop: the brake was not totally disengaging. It was too late to call the dealership in Sydney, the nearest major city, so they will do that in the morning.
     
    We walked down another block, got a room at the same motel as last night, and crashed.
     
    Tomorrow: If the dealership in Sydney has the brake part we need, our car will be fixed by 2:00 and we can get farther down the road closer to the Prince Edward Island ferry. If not, we may have to patch it back up and see if we can limp down the road to Antigonish, which has a dealership.
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