Road trip diary

[keith]

I had a bad experience with Denver also. I was southbound headed for the I-70 east exit. I went under the arrow indicating that I was in the correct lane, then a barrier rose up beside me and the next sign pointed out that I was on the wrong side of the barrier. Went about 10 miles to get back on the right track.

[Petros]

Each state had their funny sign quirkiness. Most of the hwys in every state were in excellent condition (California was the worst, likely because of the heavy usage) and most of the signs were fine, but not always, expcially around construction zones.

Funny thing about CO signs, they had these long dissertations about state law on their signs: "it is against Colorado state traffic laws for trucks with trailers to drive in any lane except the right lane, except while passing slower vehicles only..." it did not occur to all those people in the hwy dept to make a sign that says "Trucks with trailers must us right lane excep to pass"?

Texas hwy dept always seemed concerted that everyone knew where the cemeteries are located, big signs everywhere indicating the cemeteries in every town (as if the locals already did not know).

Arizona seemed to me to use bad grammar on their road signs, as in "Sudden dust storms can happen".

California seemed committed to naming all their major highways after one group of war veterans or another, as in "Vietnam Veterans Memorial hwy", or "Survivors of Pearl Harbor Memorial parkway", "World War 2 veterans memorial hwy", etc. They seems to think rather than build a park, cemetery or a monument to honor veterans, by just naming a hwy, parkway or freeway, one that they were going to build anyway, is somehow a "special" honor. I am not opposed to honoring vets mind you, it seems a false way to honor a worthy group to simply name a hwy after them.

[Petros]

New Mexico

Wednesday Jan 6th, 2010 (continued): We continued south into New Mexico,and out from under the ominous clouds back into clear skies. It has always surprised me how much the look and feel of each state changes soon after the state line. Not only does the road details, railings and signs look different, but also the terain and climate also seems to change too. Most of the state lines are political boundaries, not geographical, but yet the new state is always different, this is true of crossing into New Mexico from Colorado. I missed getting a picture of the sign, but I did get this nice shot from the car looking into the valley just after the state line.


Entering New Mexico

On Into Texas, and the Cold Front overtakes us

Our route started to take us from going dead south to more of a south east direction. As we approached the Texas state line we could see the cold front moving south, swallowing up the view to our North of the great plains. It was like dark curtain sweeping south towards us. As it got closer the temp was dropping again, and the wind was picking up, doing about 30 mph sideways across the interstate were were driving. When we finally crossed into Texas it was almost upon us, a bank had the temperature on its sign and it had dropped to 17 degrees! This was in the Texas panhandle, I thought it supposed to be a desert climate!


Texas state Line! Notice the gray skys, the temp dropped to 17 deg F. Sorry for the poor shot of the sign, I only had one go at it.

The high winds also was moving some Texas tumble weeds across the plains. The fence along the hwy caught most of them, but at a cattle crossing, where the was a sort of open gate, I watch as a large tumble weed crossed the other side of the hwy, came across the median and was on a collision course with my car. I let off the gas so it would passed by in front, but too late! It attacked the front of the car, made a terrible noise as it crunched into the front of the car, it clawed at my hood and tore at the grill. It left a large piece of itself wedged under the edge of the hood, hah! I showed him who is boss! This tumble weed was taller than the hood on the car, it would have been messy had it hit the side of the car. A bit later I saw another approaching from the left, and let off the gas in time to allow it pass in front of me with out incident. They are like great plains demons on the prowl looking for unsuspecting motorists.

We continued southeastward into Amarillo, and got off the interstate to get gas. We have been told about finding good steaks in Amarillo, and it was about dinner time to so we search the GPS and it gave us a list of local steak houses. Most of the names did not sound very interesting, but there was one called "The Texas Road House" that was close. That sound good, so the with Gir leading the way, the GPS guided us to it. Some Texas natives do not think much of the Texas Road House food mostly because it is a chain restaurant, we found the food excellent. We ordered their 16 oz steak and split it, with the side dishes of chilly, onions and mushroom, buns, plus an extra salad, and it was more than enough food for the two of us (I can not imagine eating a 16 oz steak by myself!). And not bad for a total cost of about $19. This was the only time we ate at a restaurant on the trip since we were on a low budget trip. It was worth it, the steak was one of the best I have eaten, and we did it as kind of celebration of making it to Texas at last. We enjoyed it very much. The waitress and cute and friendly, as was most people we met in Texas, and the restaurant had a great local feel to it, heavy timbers, concrete floors and buckets of peanuts on each table, with the floor covered in peanut shells. I highly recommend it. Though I have to say I was disappointed not to hear everyone there talking in a Texas drawl, I am told you will not find that too much in the cities (and Amarillo is now a very large city), but in the country side.


Only restaurant stop on the trip. Gir and Grunt in front of the Texas Road House.

While eating dinner the bulk of the cold front swept over us on its way south. When we left the Texas Road House, the air was very cold and windy, but it was dry. We went to the local Wal-Mart and bought more windshield washer fluid for both cars (it helps clear the ice), and I bought two new wiper blades, the ones on the car worked somewhat, but I thought new ones would help clear the any ice better. When we filled up with gas I went to put on the new blades and the temp was now about 11 degrees, even with gloves my hands would become useless trying to swap out the wiper. I gave up in the cold and dark beside the gas station and just unbolted the whole arm and took it into the food mart to get warm and find better lighting. The old wipers were a pain in the neck to remove, even in the good light and warmth of the store. I got the driver's side blade switched out and reinstalled, I did not want to take the time to do the other side. It did not look like I was going to need it anyway, and I wanted to get back on the road. It was now 9 pm and I wanted to make to it list member Danzo's place by midnight. which was not going to happen since it is about a 5 hour drive from Amarillo to Lewisville, which is just outside of Dallas. I called Danzo to let him know we were on the way, but were going to be late. He said no problem.

ICY ROADS in Texas!

Early morning Thursday Jan 7th, 2010: The cold and wind kept most of the locals off the roads, and it was late on a week night. So the driving was good, road clear and dry. We made good time, got made a gas and restroom stop in Wichita Falls, and continue southeast on 287. It was late but we were making pretty good time. As we approached Decatur where we need to change hwys, I noticed my daughter in the CRX in front of me move sideways back and fourth a foot or two as we cross over a bridge. My first thought was she much be getting tired, than I hit the same spot and Grunt went for a long slide straight for the right shoulder at about 80 mph. I let off the gas but no steering input had any effect, it was like being on an ice skating rink. I was going off the hwy no matter what I did. I glanced at my daughter to see how she was doing. She had slowed and managed to keep it in her lane, her tires were better than mine. I continued my slide off the roadway, crossed the paved shoulder and than onto the wide grassy soft shoulder. I finally got control of the car on the icy grass where I had better traction than on the roadway. I steered back onto the roadway without stopping, and than immediately lost control again and slid for the left shoulder and onto the grass on the median. I was very grateful that Texas has nice wide shoulders with grass, otherwise it would have been the end of the road for Grunt. It occurred to me to put in 4wd and than drive back onto the roadway, but at much slower speeds. I finally had some control, but I could not get much speed on the icy roads. It was going to be a slow long drive to Dallas, but so far we still could make headway even if slow.

I caught up to my daughter in a few minutes, she had slowed to about 30 mph, and appeared to have control of her car. I have driven many miles on icy road and was not too concerned for myself, but my daughter had almost no experience with it, my safety conscious wife would not allow her to drive if the our local roads were icy. Daughter seemed to be doing okay with the ice, both of us were wide awake now, despite the late hour (adrenaline does that to you). Than we came to another large bidge: Gir first yawed to the right, my daughter naturally over corrected so Gir quickly yawed hard to the left, and yawed right again and than completely swapped ends, making a 360 degree circle right in front of me. She looked at me and I looked at her briefly through our windshields, despite both of us were still traveling in the same direction! She continued the yaw and slide off the road facing forward on the right side onto the wide grass shoulder. I was not too worried about her safety since we were going pretty slow, and that nice grassy Texas shoulder would safely stop her car. I was worried she might be all panicked, since we could not continue if she was all shaken up. I kept control of Grunt (the 4wd was a big help) and pulled up along side her in the frozen grass, and she was laughing! Good for her! no panic. I was proud of her, she did the right thing, kept her cool and the car came safely to a stop. I rolled the window down to talk to her, she wanted to know what we were going to do now. I said we can drive on the grass should were we would have more traction. She lead the way and drove to the next exit and took it. But there was nothing there, just empty roads. I pulled up and told her we can not stay here, it was too cold! If we kept driving we might be able to get back in front of the cold front, and out of the ice. So we got back on the hwy and soon found dry roads, so we picked up our speed again. We found the exit where we needed to change to the surface hwy anyway, but than we would head staight east, so there would be no chance to stay ahead of the cold front. As we drove the ice became bad again, even worse than before. We had driven into the cold front again, and the little bit of moisture did not have enough time to evaporate in the high winds that followed. The only thing we could do was continue slowly until the roads improve.

I found the right lane already had gravel on it, I called my daughter to tell her to stay in the right lane. This worked for a short while, until we caught up to the back of the gravel truck. He was only doing about 25 mph, and there was just too much ice to try and pass him. We followed him for almost 100 miles. We stopped at several gas stations to find a restroom, all were closed. Finally in Denton, only 20 miles from Danzo's place, we found an open Shell station. It was 4 am and now that we stopped noticed how tired we were. My daughter said she could not go any further, we were close, but would be at least another hour at this rate. I did not want to get a hotel for just a few hours of sleep, so we pulled into the dark corner of a hotel parking lot and prepared for a short nap. My daughter tired to sleep in the CRX with the seat reclined but quickly abandoned it for the back of the Tercel. So we curled up together in the back of Grunt on a foam pad under a down sleeping bag I brought for just such a need, and the Tercel was much better suited to such an bivouac than the CRX. WE had been on the road almost continuously, except for the dinner stop, since Boulder, CO, 16 hours, and about 8 of that on icy roads. We now slept, at last.

We slept until 7:30am when the traffic noise woke us up, not much sleep but enough. Besides, the last thing I wanted was a hotel employee finding us asleep in their parking lot. A bagel and an energy drink had me ready to go, I called Danoz and told him what happened, he said he figured as much since the road conditions did not sound good on the news.

We finally arrived at his place around 9 am, safe and sound, an no major car problems. We had a short visit and he allowed us to sleep while he ran some errands. After and shower, a lunch and Danzo's return, we took pictures of each other's cars. Danzo said this was the first time he had seen another Tercel4wd since he been to Texas. Considering most people in Texas drive 4wd SUVs or full sized pick-up trucks (you can tell the guys that are married with kids, they drive crew cab 4x4 trucks), it is not surprising.


Grunt, Gir and Danzo's excellent '86 all together


Danzo's place with his other ride, a BMW

Next, Austine TX at last....

[ARCHINSTL]

WOW on the ice experience! Just what a parent dreads - seeing a child in a spinning auto in front of him (no matter the kind shoulders and wide medians!) - the things that run through the mind - their fragility to us, the parent, no matter their age...
Again - Thanks for the Odyssey!
Tom M.

[neddflanderz]

this is a great story! I am really enjoying reading about your adventure.

[sdoan]

Petros, exciting reading! Quite an adventure.

[takza]

New Mexico

Wednesday Jan 6th, 2010 (continued): We continued south into New Mexico,and out from under the ominous clouds back into clear skies. It has always surprised me how much the look and feel of each state changes soon after the state line. Not only does the road details, railings and signs look different, but also the terain and climate also seems to change too. Most of the state lines are political boundaries, not geographical, but yet the new state is always different, this is true of crossing into New Mexico from Colorado. I missed getting a picture of the sign, but I did get this nice shot from the car looking into the valley just after the state line.

To some extent...I think the states were regionally/geographically distinct to some extent due to the "fact" that those groups who settled them adapted to particular kinds of environments...the straight lines were added later by dudes (duds?) with big tall hats.

[keith]

Did anyone here listen to cartalk this weekend. They must be visiting this site. They had a caller who complained that her heater was always on full blast. The car was an old beater so guess what they suggested? Vicegrips.

As for Texas Ice storms, been there, done that. I think the ice storms in Texas are worse than anywhere else. I also wacked a very large tumbleweed in New Mexico at about 85 mph. It scared the crap out of me for a second, it looked like a tree had rolled in front of my car, I only saw it for about a quarter of a second then hit it. It didn't do any damage though, broke up like glass.

[Petros]

...the straight lines were added later by dudes (duds?) with big tall hats.

that and guys with big clumsy transits from the USGS in the 1800's, it is easier to divide a map into different territories with straight lines. Very difficult to describe an area or boundary mathematically (for legal descriptions) that follow rivers or mountain ridges.

[terceldude]

Petros, that is such an awesome story, but too long for me to read all at once, lol because I use PC computers and they are very slow but from your pictures, I can gather that you visited other forum members' cars and had a nice time! What was the name of that lit-up restaurant in Texas and did they have any good food? Could you paste a menu of their food somewhere here, lol?! Thanks and keep enjoying your Tercel and I highly wish you could have visited me, dcn, and Terkill!

[danzo]

Very entertaining to read the story (time permitting!). West TX tunmbleweeds are kind of a "defacto speed limit", don't know why they bother posting signs. The night after you guys visited a PVC water check valve to my haus froze 'n' busted. No showers after that for a day so you had crackerjack timing.

We've had a crazy winter - sometimes unusually cold (normally without precip), but today we got our fourth snowfall which is unheard of. Tomorrow I'm going to find where they 4wd truck lunkheads go play and show them up. Damn right - bringing the scattergun, which curiously can serve the dual purpose of both making and preventing relationships.

Can't seem to upload a pic I took today of the snowbound Terc at Southfork Ranch (where the goofy show "Dallas" was filmed). How is this done within a post? I tried the "upload attachment" button but the screen goes blank.

[Petros]

The whole time I was in Texas it was below freezing everywhere I went! The only place that was warm was in El Paso, which is more like NM and AZ in terms of climate.

[takza]

The jet stream is going way south this winter.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-jet-stream.htm

Cold polar air flowing down from the north meets the warmer air mass over the United States causing the polar jet stream to form. Areas of high and low pressure act like a moving riverbed, buckling and snaking the path of the jet stream as it flows to the east. At times, the polar jet stream may dip further south into the U.S., bringing cold weather with it. At other times it retreats into Canada, leaving milder weather in the U.S.

[keith]

Don't know what this has to do with Petro's trip diary, waiting anxiously for the next installment.

Every 30 months, the prevailing winds over the North Pole reverses direction. When that occurs, we have what's called a "Polar Breakout". It pushes the jet stream way south. I believe that is what we are experiencing now.

[Petros]

Thurday, Jan 7th, 2010: We had hoped to get up early enough to get to Austin during the day to enjoy some sightseeing in the Republic of Texas' capital. The ice storm put us behind almost a day, which is always a possibility with a winter drive. Never the less we left Danzo's place late in the afternoon, it was clear but cold, well below freezing. We filled up in Lewisville and got on the interstate southbound toward Austin.

When we got gas there was a bothersome incident: an older woman driving an SUV pulled up into the next pump over, right behind her a young redheaded guy comes screeching in and gets out screaming at the woman. He was standing right next to her window yelling, waving his arms wildly at her, caller her all kinds of names. Scaring the poor woman half to death, she locked her doors and pulled out her cell phone to call the cops. It appears he was bent out of shape over some incident and wanted to let her know what he thought of her driving. The issue with him was he had his 4 year-old daughter in the truck and did not want her endangered. I almost went over to calm the guy down by acknowledging how much he must care for his daughter, I thought it might make him think about his behavior if I ask him what kind of example did he thought he was setting for his daughter by acting like that. It seems to me a guy with that much of an out-of-control temper will not likely stay married very long, doing much more harm to his little girl than anything the older woman could have done. It might have also earned me a punch in the nose, but I would be ready for that too. He soon got back in his truck and drove off quickly. So there was no need to intervene, but I feel sorry for his little girl, living with a hot tempered Irishman for a dad. It took a while for the terrified woman to clam down and finally get out of her SUV to get gas.


Refueling in Danzo's neighborhood, where the incident with the hot head occurred.

All fueled up we got back on the interstate heading south towards Dallas, and Austin beyond. For some reason the GPS tooks us through Dallas, and than west towards Fort Worth, and than back south again towards Austin. Looking at the map it looks like it might have been faster to just head south from Dallas. No matter, it gave us a chance to see more of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US, and the largest in Texas. The Dallas/Fort Worth area, with all the suburbes was like one giant city. We even drove right though Arlington Texas, I noticed on the trip that every state seemed to have an Arlington, the name of the little town I live in WA. This part of Texas is very built-up, with many tall buildings and modern highways, I was very impressed with it all. It all looked so prosperous and busy, I could see no sign of a recession here.

Heading south of the the Dallas/Fort Worth area we went through a number of smaller towns, Hillsboro, Waco and Temple. Waco was in international news about 20 years ago because of a tragic ill planned raid on a religious cult compound. Suspicious Law enforcement officers were snooping around the compound and got killed by paranoid members of the Branch Dravidian. Than than a long standoff ensued with Federal agents moving in, escalating the situation. It ended all when the compound burned to the ground killing everyone inside. A badly mishandled event than could have been avoided.

I did not know this at the time, but Waco is also not far from Crawford, the home of the former President of the US. It might have been fun to drive through Crawford but we really did not have the time anyway. The thing that stands out the most about Waco on this trip was there was a very large self-service wrecking yard right off the Freeway, too bad I did not have time to go explore it.

A couple of other things stand out about this stage of the trip: one is the Texas country side. It was rather unremarkable, at best low rolling country with a lot of low scrubby oak trees. Almost no geographical features, unlike the cities that were busy and had lots of interesting sights, the country side is just out right boring. I have always lived and traveled throughout the western states and really like the mountainous geography. Even the western deserts have mountains, rock formations and canyons, but not here. The most interesting features were an occasional dry wash they called rivers. Why would a dry wash with little to no water in it in January be called a river? Perhaps it was more of a hope than an actual fact.

The other thing that was interesting was what people were driving on the freeway. Almost everyone was driving a big 4wd truck or SUV. I would take a count of the vehicles I could see in front and behind me on the interstate, usually something like 15 or 16 (not counting commercial trucks), and only 2 or 3 at best were normal passenger cars. It made my tiny Tercel4wd very conspicuous. And almost all of the cars and trucks were shinny and new (also unlike my T4wd), not a beater to be seen anywhere. Some of the trucks had these big impressive custom welded steel cattle guard type front bumpers. Some were way over the top too, large and scary looking, like something that belongs on a piece of heavy road building equipment. Must be some kind of show of manhood around here. It did not look like any of them had seen any serious off road action either. Though I did see one 4x4 truck all covered in mud, it was the only one on the whole drive. The Tercel was really dwarfed by these big land vehicles, and the CRX looked nearly cartoonish next to them.

One annoying thing about the way the locals drive; they seem to think the "proper" way to change lanes is to force the guy next to them out of theirs. It was really odd too, because almost everyone we met were friendly and considerate. It must be some local custom, or was it simply lack of skill, these big SUVs and trucks, even when there was plenty of room, would pull up beside you and than just move over into your lane. I saw this behavior a number of times, they did it to my daughter in that tiny CRX several times. She avoided them all, but it made me mad, and more worried about her safety than when we were driving through the ice storm, mostly because of the speeds we were driving at. Texans drive very fast. It was the only state we drove though where they have an 80 mph limit, and most drive much faster. If you drove at 85mph most of the cars and big trucks were passing you. At about 88 mph you will be passing the larger commercial trucks and keeping up with most of the traffic. But even at that speed a few Texans are still whizzing past you, and trying to turn into your lane too. On the open road these speeds are kind of fun, but in the heavy traffic around the cities, it was rather nerve wracking.

Austin

We finally arrived, well before dark fortunately, which was nice. The ratio of 4x4 trucks and SUVs to cars changed to about 5 cars to 15 4x4s (a big improvement over Dallas), and I even saw a few Prius hybrids in Austin. Politically Texas as a state is notoriously conservative Republican, however they say all the Liberals in Texas are in Austin. There is, after all 5 universities there, and it is the state capital too. Even so compared to Seattle this is a much more politically balanced big city, kind of refreshing in a way. This would account for the Prius's on the road, I even saw a few Subarus too (which were strangely absent throughout Texas, same as the Prius, they are as common as flies in Seattle, and just as annoying).


Only muddy 4x4 I saw in TX, typical interstate traffic south of Ft. Worth area.

The political ads on the radio were also refreshing clear and brutally straight forward, unlike the wishy-washy feel-good lies we hear in Seattle all the time. I was really enjoying my visit to Texas, it is like a foreign county compared to Washington State, they even talk different here! With my daughter leading the way in the diminutive CRX we got off the interstate and drove through the city, I took a few good shots of Austin in the fading light.


first exit in Austin, right into rush hour traffic

One other thing I noticed was the large construction cranes throughout the city. One sign of a strong economy is the sight of many of these cranes over a city, it means they are building more commercial office space, which means more new business and more new jobs. I realized than that these have been absent from Seattle for several years now, and many of the other cities we have driven through. That was also something amazing about Texas, they have had a lot of job growth compared the rest of the country. And the local politicians are all talking about lowering taxes even further, not something I ever hear talked about in Washington state. I think I am starting to really like this state.


Austin skyline in the fading light. Notice the large construction cranes, signs of a strong economy

My Daughter attends a private school in Austin, St. Edwards. It is on a hill south of the down town area with a commanding view of the city. It is one of the older schools in the city with classic architecture. We drove strait there and I took pictures of Grunt and Gir in front of my daughter's winter home, East Hall. We walked around campus a bit and I got a great shot of the night city scape too. After we drove to the capital building in down town, and got a quick tour of the city.


Daughter and CRX at her winter home, Campus East Hall dorm


Grunt and Gir together for the last time, at the campus dorms


Door to the Administration building at St. Edwards collage, Austin Texas


Fantastic Austin night skyline from the Campus admissions building.

Both my daughter and I have several friends in Austin, but we could not really reach them ahead of time, so we did not have any concrete plans on where we were staying. Several of my daughter's local class mates were still out of town since the semester did not start until next week, and the dorms were not even open until Saturday, where I could not stay anyway. We found one class mate who lived in Austin at home and his parents welcomed us for the night. The father was great, after a nice dinner and conversation, he allowed me to do a bit of maintenance on Grunt in his garage which was nice, it was quite cold out and very dark.

I checked all the fluids (it did not even use one quart of oil yet), and I wanted to top up the trans with gear oil just in case it was low so I do not trash the tranny on the way home. I did add almost a quart, though I may have over filled it a bit. the car was up on ramps with the front high. I added it from the front diff filler plug since the middle plug was draining oil, no doubt because the of the angle the car was at. So I could not be sure of the trans lube level, so I added the extra quart I had to the front diff, overfilling it would be far preferable than to drive with it low for the next 2400 miles to get home.

I also should have taken the time to put in the new t-stat I bought in Trinindad, but I was very tired since we had not had a good night's sleep for several days now. The vice grip on the rad hose was working fine, I just had to keep an eye on the temp gauge, and so far it was working great. Since there was no let up in the freezing cold weather I saw no hurry to change out the t-stat, a messy job since I would have to drain out most of the anti-freeze to do it, and than replace it all.


Friend's home where we spent our last night together in Austin

I called it a night and hit the sack. I had a very long drive in the morning. I needed to get back to work by Monday (when you are self employed the most expensive part of a vacation was not having any income while you are not working). I was going to try and make it all the way to Los Angeles in a single day (about 20-22 hours) and needed to get some rest.

It would have been about 4-5 hours less total driving time to head back north to Cheyenne WY, and than head west to WA. I considered the option, I did not want to be on the road any longer than I had to. But checking the weather map on the internet was showing it was minus 6 deg in Cheyenne! NO Thanks! though I had confidence that my $100 Tercel would get me home, breaking down in that kind of weather, even with my sleeping bag, would be a very uncomfortable night at best, and life threatening at worst. I do not think it is even reasonable to expect to do road side repairs in those kind of temps. It was 72 in Arizona and about 70 in Los Angles, where I had a place to stay at my parents house. A visit to my parents would have been nice anyway, always restful for me and lots of good food too. My brother also lives in the Bay area, and list member 4wdChico had also invited me to stop by in Northern CA. So heading west to warmer weather it was.

Next up, trip through West Texas, and than Arizona. keep checking on new installments.