After we had just about finished taking all the parts we wanted, we decided a little fun was in order. The engine was out; Chris had taken the suspension, the window regulators, some interior pieces, and some brake parts. The next step was obvious.
We tipped the Protege up on its side. With a good portion of weight removed, it was quite easy. 3 of us lifted, but it could have been done with 2. Once we got it most of the way up, Chris and I steadied it while Tim positioned the jack so that the car would balance nicely.
Chris, ever practical and efficient, realized that it was a perfect opportunity to remove his exhaust:
We thought about throwing it onto its roof, but in the end we just tossed back into its normal position. It landed with a nice crash. There are more photos of the car on it’s side in this gallery, along with photos of the engine pull from earlier in the day.
After we got back from our cross-country drive, Henry and I decided that we needed to do something–something–with the truck. So we got Noah on hand to document the shenanigans, and then Henry did a massive burnout with his Miata inside the U-haul. It made an extraordinary amount of smoke–so much that the Miata was immediately obscured from view. A cloud of smoke came out of the back of the truck as I pulled away, and you can barely see anything by the time it’s all done. But, in the end, we proved something very important: A Miata can do a burnout in a U-haul while it’s moving.
We woke this morning to dreary, gray skies, so we went to the fireworks store just this side of Erie and bought just under 2000 bottle rockets. In Pennsylvania it is legal to sell fireworks to non-PA residents only. You must sign a form promising to take them out of the state and provide proof of non-PA residency. Fireworks shops dot the PA borders so that people passing through or who live in states like NY where fireworks are illegal may get them.
The Sky King Fireworks Outlet in North East, PA, is probably the biggest fireworks store I’ve seen: Row after row of bottle rockets, mortars 60% off, and firecrackers by the brick and the wheel. The clerk was friendly and helpful. We came away well-stocked for the next year.
There is not much left to report. It cost us 50 dollars in tolls to use the New York Throughway and made excellent time across MA. We arrived in Boston around 9.
In 4 and a half days of driving we had no breakdowns, no problems, no rain, and no snow. We barely ran into traffic. In all, it went about as smoothly as possible. Tomorrow is the final phase: unloading the two Miatas, putting them back together, and returning the truck.
The Holiday Inn Express just west of Erie, PA, might have the least comfortable sofa-bed mattresses possible. I can feel most of the springs, and I’m not quite sure why one end turns up like a spoiler. But it is larger than the air mattress and sleeping bag that has been my bed since Monday. Our room, too, is larger, and we have a jacuzzi that is the perfect partner of the sofa-bed.
Not too long after we left Black River Falls we saw a grain silo with a gigantic pumpkin on top. It had a painted buck-tooth face. After passing through lower Wisconsin we arrived in Henry’s orginal hometown state, Illinois. Traffic looked bad in Chicago, so we drove a 60 mile loop around the city that took us through some of the flattest terrain we’ve seen. Many of the farms had their own large windmills, and one boasted a large windfarm with about 30 mills. It covered enough area that it was impossible to photo, even with no trees or mountains blocking our view.
With Chicago behind us we resigned ourselves to blowing through Indiana. When you cross from Illinois to Indiana on I-80, you go over a large rock quarry so deep you cannot see the bottom and so wide you cannot see the end. And then there are tolls and truckers until the next state. In Ohio we stopped at a Kohl’s in Ohio to fix an underwear supply problem, then hurried along towards Cleveland. There we found one of the most extreme corners we’ve seen. I-90 takes an extreme right at the airport and then runs along the shoreline. The posted limit is 35, and the U-haul couldn’t handle much more. And there is not much left to report about what is, so far, the least interesting leg of the trip.
Tomorrow is our last day. We have about 550 miles to go.
We completed our longest day today–a 760-mile through the last bit of Montana, through North Dakota, down past Minneapolis, and well into Wisconsin. Tonight we are in the self-proclaimed Black River Falls Oasis, home of several budget hotels, the Orange Moose Bar and Grill, and some gas stations. One of the lodgers has a gutted deer tied to the roof of his SUV. When we walked over to the gas station so that Henry could buy some nasty cookies or some such thing, I stood outside and took a look around. The attendant watched me through the window with a spyglass.
I’m not sure what he thought he would see me do. Abuse the Dumping Station, perhaps? Violate a object marked “Drinking Water” that was actually a large white pipe coming out of the ground, looping around, and ending in a garden hose patched with duct tape?
Unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of Minnesota because we blew through it in the dark. What we did see–the town of Moorhead, which is directly across the border from Fargo–seemed very harsh, blue, and industrial. Smoke from factory smokestacks was unusually thick-looking; I think the cold may have been condensing the exhaust very quickly, causing a denser smoke.
North Dakota was the highlight of the drive. The western part is very interesting steppe country, with an odd mix of fields, gentle rises, and unusual mounds and rock formations. Gradually this gave way to flatter plains, and not too long after we passed a huge metal sculpture in the shape of an eye, we found the only thing, so far, that we’ve picked up to bring back with us: tumbleweeds.
I had never seen a tumbleweed before save for in cartoons and Married With Children. When the first one–a small, almost perfectly spherical specimen–rolled across the highway in front of us, I couldn’t help but laugh. I thought it was going to be the only one. Little did I know that North Dakota is the perfect place for these interesting plants. They grow along the highway, break off, tumble to the fence indicating a pasture or field border, and stopped. I imagine the biggest ones mount the fence and get a little farther from home.
A tumbleweed is in the thistle family. To spread, the stalk breaks off from a its extensive root system and rolls along, shaking off seeds that will eventually become new tumbleweeds. It struck me as a remarkable strategy. The tumbleweed itself is very light and very dry, with tremendous surface area. The ones we saw were about 3-4 feet across. Trying to hold one in the North Dakota wind isn’t easy. We loaded 4 into the truck. 2 to keep as souveniers, and two big ones–two nice, hefty tumblebeasts–to release in Boston. They tend to grow in dry and slightly acidic soil, but we’re having fun imagining that we’re going to be responsible for a massive tumbleweed infestation along I-95 back home.
Tomorrow we’re shooting for the Ohio/Pennsylvania border, just beyond Ashtabula.
First, special thanks to Craig from Bozeman, one of our readers. He was kind enough to treat us to dinner. It helped break up an otherwise long trek that started this morning in Wallace, Idaho and ended in Glendive, Montana at about midnight, a total of 678 miles.
Craig, keep in touch. We want to know how your Protege project is coming along.
On to the day itself: We drove the entire state of Montana today and learned a few things. The U-haul will do 75mph under its own power, but it will coast to 81 down a steep incline. And I-90 in Montana has a series of steep inclines that wind down mountain passes between Missoula and Butte and Butte and Bozeman, which gave us plenty of opportunities to exceed the speed limiter.
We also learned that Montana has a 26-year old annual tradition called the Testicle Festival and that before you reach Glendive you must pass Bad Route Road and Whoopup Creek Drive.
Some of the rock formations around Butte and Bozeman are beautiful and impressive. But what really stood out to us today was the sheer size. Being from Boston, it’s hard to grasp the idea of a state so large that you can barely drive across in a day. If you drive 200 miles in any direction from Boston, you’re in a new state (or the Atlantic). It was a little different today.
We anticipate being in Minneapolis by tomorrow night, which puts us on schedule to arrive in Boston late Friday.
We left Seattle at about 6 on Monday and traversed Washington. The western part of the state has some interesting smells. Near Moses Lake there is the distinct smell of cigarette and cigar ash. Then, a bit past Moses Lake, it smelled distinctly of…um…poo. We weren’t sure what to make of that, nor were we sure what to make of the towns of Steptoe and Fishtrap, which are between Moses Lake and Spokane.
Spokane, for what it’s worth, seems to be the only city that is 5 times wider than it is long.
We aren’t seeing much of Idaho because 90 runs through the upper part–and because of a thick fog that made doing 50 in the U-haul was difficult. We arrived in Wallace, the self-proclaimed silver capital of the world, just before midnight. We haven’t seen much of the town, of course, but we did find out that the U-haul will bottom out in the exit ramp of the hotel. We got stuck briefly bringing the truck around to the back parking lot. After a quick U-haul burnout, we dragged the trailer along the ground a bit and then pulled free.
We had planned to leave Seattle for our cross-country drive Sunday afternoon, but getting 2 Miatas into–yes, into–our 24ft. U-haul proved to be a little more difficult than we thought. After trying a variety of methods, including using the ramps that came with our U-haul rig and a local corporation’s Miata-friendly loading dock, we bought 2 gigantic 4″x10″x16′ beams and fashioned makeshift ramps. Here’s a quick run-though of the rest of our attempts.
At first we couldn’t get the Miata to mount the beams (4 inches is a big step), so we extended the ramps using the ones that came with the trailer to ease out the transition. That worked well and I was able to drive the first Miata to the edge of the truck’s liftgate. At that point the front wheels fell off the end of the ramp, landing inside the truck but also causing the car to bottom out the frame rails on the ramps. It was stuck well enough that I could spin up the rear tires easily. This is disconcerting when in a car 3-feet in the air.
Our solution was to jack the front of the car up by the subframe, freeing it from the wooden ramps. Then, I slowly creeped the car forward while Henry steadied the jack. The car moved forward, fell off the end of the ramps, and landed fully inside the truck. The first one–the easy one–was done. On to the second one, which we would do in the dark.
The second one went up into the truck much more easily because we redesigned the ramps. Using bricks, we made the huge beams meet the platform of the truck exactly. The biggest problem though, was space: A Miata, stock, is 13′ long. The truck is 24. We removed the front and rear bumpers of both cars, the raised the front of the second Miata so that it hung over the trunk of the first. Then, we creeped the second one forward until it cleared the door of the cargo area. It fit–with about 3/4 of an inch to spare.
This took us about 7 hours–stressful hours–total, and we decided to shut down for the day.
This morning we made another visit to Home Depot and bought a hodgepodge of wood and gardening bricks to construct platforms for the front of the second Miata. After about an hour it was secure. Now we’re throwing the last few things into the truck. In an hour or so we should be on our way.
Pictures are coming, as are more details about the Miata adventure. But right now there isn’t quite time.
Tomorrow Henry and I will leave Seattle for Boston. The trip will take one week. We’ll be posting regularly as we drive, treating you all to whatever weird happenings or strange things we see in the barren and bumbly lands of Colorado and Nebraska. We can’t make any promises though, as we’ll be at the mercy of whatever wireless internet is available.
I have no doubt that we’ll encounter some adventures along the way. We always do, even on much shorter road trips. So prepare yourselves. Our mad dash across the country begins in about 24 hours.
A lot of attention has recently been brought to the pictures of us testing the efficiency of various home chemicals as a fuel additive. Well I guess that I can explain it a bit better.
