It has been an interesting week. After hearing way too many horror stories from friends and relatives regarding damaged and lost items attributed to moving companies, my wife and I decided we could do a better job of moving important personal possessions and at a lower cost. So we rented a 22′ Penske truck, a nice international diesel, and drove from Sunnyvale, CA to Raymond Maine; approximately 3,300 miles.
As you could imagine, travel by truck is as bare bones as a person can get when it comes to transportation. The truck had 2,000 miles on it when we picked it up and it looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor. The cab had a wide bench seat, satellite radio and CD player, air conditioning, and automatic transmission. Never used a drop of oil, easily got 11 – 12 MPG and the size was perfect as we filled it from front to back and to the roof with tightly packed cargo. We left on a Friday and arrived 5 1/2 days later with not even a single box bouncing out of position.
I know we over planned. We had a notebook set up with a DeLorme Map software, connected to a GPS, backed up with AAA maps and travel guides. we had every rest, food and fuel stops listed by address and time. We had two way radios clipped to the sun visors and a small LCD TV to monitor local weather and road conditions as we move along our route. Other than always advancing at least 520 miles each day, we stopped for food when we were hungry, fuel when necessary and the notebook was never powered up until we were already stopped for the night. Bracing for hundreds of weigh station stops, after hitting four in almost as many mile in California, we found not one open scale the rest of the way across country. We found the best way to drive was to set the cruise control against the truck’s governor and let the electronics struggle against those 8,000+ foot climbs.
We stopped every 125 miles for a quick stretch, every 250 miles for fuel and food, then every 500 – 550 miles we’d wrap up our travel for the day. Generally the timing was up at 6 AM, out by 7 PM, in for the evening before 6 PM. Predictable routine seems good for the mind and body and prevents fatigue from setting in. A digital camera allowed for lots of snap shots that were dumped to the computer at night, and sent as postcards to family members over free hotel/motel high speed Internet access or a PDA connection. A lot of pictures look like the above and made for an appreciated departure from the scenes typically seen on the way to work.
We did find the earth is not mostly flat as seen by these bumps along side the road through the bug splatter on the windshield. It was really good to see open land where condos aren’t being constructed for gerbil like communities and local city councils aren’t in the process of building shrines to themselves. It was good to see wild life without PETA people attempting to dress them in human clothing and save them from a dinner plate. It was really good to find places that still cook steak medium rare without placing a cooking temperature warning label on the table or ask for a liability release before serving.
After a stop or two we figured out the fuel pump numbering scheme for diesel at Pilot and TA truck stops and we found the true meaning of the food we call “hamburger”. We discovered that real truck stops have windshield washing squeegees with extended handles, while service stations that sell #2 diesel for cars have only short handle squeegees that cause allow dead bugs to remain out of reach and glued to the windshield after a fill up.
We were going to pass through South Dakota and visit the areas where we had spent some years when our family was young, but we eventually arrived at the conclusion that sometimes the best way to retain good memories is not to alter them with more current realities. Too bad, a Wall Drug jackalope would have been nifty for the house in Maine. Maybe there will be another road trip in the future to tie up these loose ends.
We did advance a theory that Nebraska deer and antelope are much smarter than their Wyoming cousins as we observed far fewer dead animals per statue mile in Nebraska. However, this may also mean there are fewer live animals per mile in the apparent low fatality areas, or the highway crews are more efficient in Nebraska, or drivers in Nebraska are more cautious. In the few days driving through these western and mid western states I believe we saw more real wildlife than we saw in the past 20 years in California. I remember on a trip to Yosemite, rangers and volunteers had a morning drive to scare animals away from the housing areas and streams weren’t stocked because fish drew fishermen which made for a messy outdoors.
for the most part the weather was good. I little rain in Nebraska and a storm front we drove put of quickly, but from Mass on it was all downpour. I believe it had something to do with Ted Kennedy, but I don’t have any proof. People in general were genuinely courteous and sociable where ever we stopped, except for travelers on the Mass Turnpike, where the people in Massachusetts clearly illustrated how they earned their reputation throughout New England. Mass should be the “Me first” state, or the “I can’t drive and I’m proud of it” state, or the “Why can’t I cut in line” state, or the “Let me pretend I can’t hear you ask a question” state.
Finally, home and the most open view of our neighbors, who I am sure are very nice people…and half a mile away. At the moment, the garage is filled with shop tools and related material, we are running around picking up what we need to make the house livable, and we have month ahead of us setting up shop and putting together what we need to improve Real Guns and getting our firearms business into operation. We should be back to normal operations shortly. Sometimes it takes a few detours to make significant progress and I believe this is where we are at this time. We’ll be back soon.
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