I’m home! Ish! Yesterday I decided to help out my brother and drive something a few towns over for a hand delivery to help take it off his plate before his last and biggest exam. Took, uh, longer than I expected but was completely worth it. He feels better and is on the road to write it and I have a day of relative peace… after my errands.
Unfortunately, I have to start packing. Though my move is not nearly as extreme as Darren’s trip across the United States (with a stop in Toronto, of course!) on a motorcycle, so that’s something. Gotta say, I’m jealous! If you’re gonna move you might as well make it count!! But that’s not actually why I am jealous. I love driving. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. I want to drive across the US and Canada and I don’t know when I can make it happen. There’s a lot of risks involved as a single girl going solo — not to mention the risk with my slightly older car. And I’d totally build a sweet-ass-sweet carputer first! That’s another great project — but it’s on my bucket list, for sure. Americans get such an awful rap abroad but I love them and want to meet more people and explore their home states. The Canada Cross-Country Tour would be a whole separate thing since there’s only so long I can sit on my butt! Oy, errand time.
I’ve driven across the US, and… If you can take the time to stop at all the weird stuff, it can be a _lot_ of fun. But if you’re just going to drive across Nebraska as fast as you possibly can, it’s a dull trip. :)
Driving is fun. I remember as a kid driving from Montana to California in my parents old VW van. The VW was really fun but it was underpowered and on MacDonald Pass on Highway 12 we all had to get out and walk to the top of the pass while dad drove the van to the top of the pass. At the top we then got back in. Another time the VW van broke down in a remote section of Interstate in the California Mojave desert. Dad had to walk several miles in scorching hot sun to a service station we had passed, thankfully the van was parked under a tree. At the service station there was a house across the street that had a camel. You had to be careful cause he kept spitting all the time.
Another good trip was the time I helped my brother move from Soldotna Alaska to Helena Montana. He had this old camper on top of his Jeep pickup truck and it weighed around 12,000 pounds fully loaded. Everything he owned was in the camper. We took the Alaska-Canadian Highway. The Alaska-Canadian Highway was the single best highway I have ever had the pleasure of driving on. Every mile was filled with oohs pretty and spectacular. I remember gassing up the truck in an Canadian gas station and we went on the road and after a half hour we noticed the gas gauge only read about a quarter tank, LOL, that is the metric system biting us in the ass, thankfully we made it to another station. There was this remote outpost along the way you should try. Right beside the highway, you would know when you see it. It is a restaurant and bar, very cool out in the middle of nowhere, can’t remember the name. If you ever go on the highway in summer make sure you still take winter clothes. Because of this trip I went to Edmonton mall and rode my first roller coaster in the mall. The coolest fast food experience was seeing McDonald’s in Canada serve up pizza! We were sleeping overnight in this one small Canadian town and during the night in the camper my brothers liquor spilt all over, whew! I think we might have got drunk from the fumes! Western Canada was pretty fun.
Hope you get to go on a long road trip, it’s so fun.
Be sure and come through Montana, I’ll put you up for the night….:)
I’ve done the New Brunswick to Toronto drive a few times, as well as to other Ontario cities but since haste was kind of the point I never really appreciated it much. Had a destination to get to, so we drove all night. We were all kind of loopy by the end.
The thing with highways is that they keep you from the places you are driving through. Were I to do a real cross country trip (and at my age, quite unlikely), I think I’d stay off the highways and see what the country has to offer.