It's good to be back

Wow, I can't believe how much I missed this place! I've been with friends almost non-stop since I got back, and I still haven't seen like half of them! The trip sure was long, but I definitely enjoyed it. Ups and downs, sure, but on the whole it was a fun adventure!

We made it!

We pulled into Troy, NY a little after 8pm. We're home!

Almost home

Hello New York State! Less than two hours to home.

Leaving Pittsburgh

This is a bit late, but Eric got some good shots out the window when we were leaving Pittsburgh.



We had bad traffic for maybe an hour coming out, but now we're on a nice country road going through Pennsylvania. Cell phone and internet service aren't doing that great, but the view is nice.

ETA in Troy: 7:30

Garmin fail

Wow. I feel like a total idiot. Instead of trusting Google's route up
through Buffalo, I decided to trust our GPS. It sent us all the way
across PA on astate highway with stoplights every few miles. By the
time I realized this it was really too late tocgo back a take
interstates. I screwed that one up pretty big time. ETA 7:15 in Troy
according to our piece of crap GPS. Wowfail.

10 states down, 1 to go!

Hello Pennsylvania! I can't believe we're almost to RPI!

Get Stop Ticket

Um, right. That's not confusing at all. Go Ohio! At least we got
through the toll plaza in under five minutes.

Toll road

I'm not sure what to think about this "toll road" business. We spent
like fifteen minutes waiting in line at rhebplaza just to get our
ticket! On the other hand, the road in Indiana was pretty nice, so how
can I complain? And hey, what we thought was gonna cost $9 ended up
being $6.50. Ohio here we come!

Indiana

Time zones

We forgot about time zones again, and we ran into another construction zone where we got stuck behind some old guy, so our new ETA is between 8 and 9 eastern time.


The slowest Cadillac in Illinois.

Today's going to be our quickest day so far, we're going to make it all the way to Pittsburgh on two tanks of gas, with one quick stop for food... maybe. My aunt and uncle fed us delicious roast beef last night and fruit, eggs, and potatoes this morning, so we're going to be pretty stuffed for a while.

6 states down, 5 more to go.

Illinois

We slept in until 9 this morning, so we hit the road later than we'd
hoped. We should still get to Pittsburgh by 7:00 tonigt, though. A
good night's sleep on a real bed and a hot shower in the morning goes
a long way. Only 614 miles to cover today.

Dinner

Dinner in Bettendorf, Iowa. Roast beef and vegetables sure beats Arby's or Dairy Queen knockoffs. We leave tomorrow at 9am, headed for Pittsburgh.

The happiest little water tower in Iowa

zoom in for a better look

Iowa

We passed through Omaha at 4:30 and are less than 300 miles from our
destination tonight: Bettendorf, Iowa.

Nebraska

See? Nebraska isn't as ugly as everybody thinks it is. We thought it
would just be plains and corn, but there are trees and rivers and
towns and all kinds of stuff! Heck, North Platte, where we stopped for
lunch, was downright populated. We hit a serious rain storm before we
got there, though. It didn't slow us down too much, but we probably
lost 10 minutes to it. Looks like clear sailing from here.

Altitude

Fucking altitude. My toothpaste attacked me last night. I guess a 7000 foot elevation change'll do that. We're heading out of Laramie at about 7:30a local time, headed for Bettendorf, Iowa at around 9p.

Laramie!

We pulled into Laramie, WY around 11:45 this evening, and had no trouble finding our awesome CouchSurfing hosts. Thank you Austin and Jessie!

Continental Divide

Right about the time the odometer rolled over for 1000 miles into the trip, we passed the Continental Divide.

A few minutes ago we passed a big fire a few miles off the freeway. It looked like a pipeline fire or something like that; it was very bright and very localized.

120 miles or so till our couches to crash on in Laramie.

Wyoming Sunset

Almost there

Quick stop at Arctic Circle for dinner in Green River, WY

Whew!!

Unbeknownst to us, Interstate 80 is closed in both directions just outside of Salt Lake City as of 7pm tonight! Luckily, we made it through at 6:15 and are set to make it to Laramie by 11:00 tonight. Disaster averted!

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700251025,00.html

Salt

Well, I guess we're at the Great Salt Lake! I totally spaced on time
zones when estimating our arrival time. We're getting to Laramie after
11pm tonight probably.

Utah

Old cars!









Utah!







Right about when you cross into Utah, everything gets really salty. Not quite as far as the eye can see, but instead of dust and dirt you just see lots of white with various tread marks running through it.

We forgot about time zones when planning our arrival time, but the Garmin did it for us, so we're set to get in around 11:20 at the latest calculation.

Arby's

Dan says hi from Winnemucca, NV. Made it by noon and were on our way!
I think we'll make it to Laramie by 10 tonight. We're making good time.

Nevada

Middle of Nevada. Flat. Boring. We'll Hit Winnemucca for lunch.

Reno

Passing through Reno at around 9:40. We totally missed the state line, and now we're in the middle of a bunch of very tall, odd shaped hotels.





We're getting out of the bay area, and all the cloverleafs are getting lots bigger. Lots of intermittent road construction.

Bye Bye Bay Area!

Boxes? Check. Backpacks? Check. GPS? Check. Laptops? Check. Inverter? Check. New car stereo? Check. Wireless internet access? Check. We're good to go!

We left this morning a little after 6, and our wonderfully helpful GPS tells us we'll get to Laramie, WY before 2am tomorrow! Sounds good...

I'm going to be photogeoblogging (or whatever) the trip over on Flickr, so head on over there and grab the RSS feed if you want to!

T minus 80 hours

Plans are to leave Saturday morning. Check back for more.