Silicon Valley Redneck

Yes, we're back.

Two weeks ago, Joy and I set out on an Adventure.  There was a gathering of the clan planned for Tower City, ND, and, given my aversion to commercial air travel (even before the post-9/11 security theater escalation), and Joy never having been to those places in between the coasts, we made a road trip of it.

There will be a trip report, with photos, as time allows (including the answer to the whatziss).

Points along the way: Incline Village, Twin Falls, Craters of the Moon, Idaho Falls, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Bozeman, Billings, Bismarck, Fargo, Wall, Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower, Rawlins, Timpanogos Cave, and Elko.

There was way too much to see along the way... trying to visit a lot of places on a 2-week trip doesn't really work.

Middle America is still there, and what I had a chance to see of the culture hasn't changed much.  I'll have some commentary on that, in among the bits of trip report.  It makes the return to California rather disorienting (especially returning by way of North Tahoe).

The tourist attractions were busy, but not horribly crowded (high fuel prices may have something to do with this), with no signs of crowd rage.

Now I have lots of bloggable material, but this had better be a weekend for catching up on stuff... and, on Monday, it's back to work.  I've got one definite live project and another probable one, and that's a Good Thing, 'cause the travel bills kinda add up.

Oh, and there's a potential project on the horizon for which I may need to go to cow college, or at least cow boot camp.  Anyone know where a technonerdboy can go for a crash course in modern cattle management?

14 days, 4880 miles, 106 gallons of gas.

Sundry notes from the Fargo trip:

Stuff that works

• The Prius
  It's a fine vacation car for two people, or maybe three who pack carefully.  Fuel economy is great (note the numbers: 48 MPG for the trip, despite a couple of tanks of gasohol).  Not good for offroading nor hauling large/heavy stuff.
  It passed the 100,000 mile mark a couple of days ago, out in the middle of nowhere, and is still working fine.
  ... Except for the air-conditioner drainage.   It's drooled on the floor (under the dashboard, passenger side) a couple of times before, when I ran the defogger in horribly humid conditions.  On this trip, it started making small lakes when running in warm, humid conditions, i.e., when I really want air conditioning.
  (I'd been guessing the drain tube was somehow getting skrunkled and obstructed, causing overflow into the passenger compartment.  After a significant swamp formed on the way to Wall, I removed the mat, used one of the hotel's trash towels to remove most of the water, pulled up the carpet, and extricated the drain tube.  I found no evidence of skrunklage, but it seems maybe it had gotten dislodged, and was simply draining onto the floor instead of through the little drain hole.  It's been fine since.)
• Verizon
  Pretty decent voice coverage - with some gaps along the highways, and no coverage in national parks - and surprisingly good EVDO coverage.  Just about any settlement with a lunch counter also has an EVDO signal.  Not so much EVDO in between towns, but, really, should you be surfing the Net while driving?  Even the Tower City Cemetery has a solid EVDO signal!  (For those who surfed while driving, I suppose.)
  ...Except for approximately 0845~0930 July 4th, in Incline Village.  The EVDO signal was there, and the phone would connect, but the data rate was pathetic.  Then the EVDO signal went away completely for a couple of minutes, after which service was back to normal.
• FreeBSD on commodity hardware.
  The Gumbyware server hummed happily along the whole time.
• Checklists
  I didn't leave anything important behind... and, arriving at "turn off water heater" on the checklist, I noticed that the inlet fitting is horribly corroded.  I have a feeling that water heater is going to die within the next year... and it maybe could have done so during the trip.

Stuff that doesn't work

• T-Mobile
  OK, so it's a big-city cellphone company, but why is there only spotty coverage in Fargo?  There's no coverage at all in between cities, which makes it completely useless for emergencies while on the road.
• Gasohol
  Cruising along the freeway at a reasonable speed, the Prius normally gets around 45-50 MPG on California gasoline.  On the sort of real gasoline they sell in Nevada and Idaho, it gets around 55 MPG.  Into North Dakota, fill up with "regular", and... oog.  Around 40 MPG.  The "regular" is cheap, but it's Enhanced With Ethanol! and thus has low fuel value.
  Apparently the "premium" gas, for right about the same price, is a genuine petroleum product; too bad I didn't hear that before filling up twice with the corn squeezin's.
  Being charitable, let's call that a 20% decrease in fuel value per gallon compared to Montana gas.  Dakota gasohol costs about 5% less per gallon than Montana gas, so... no, that's not a bargain.  10.4 MP$ for Dakota gasohol vs. 12.3 MP$ for Montana gas = 15% less value for money.
  (For future research: learn how fuel with 10% (?) ethanol can have 20% less fuel value than real gasoline... and how it manages only an 85 octane rating.  Isn't ethanol supposed to boost the octane number?)
• Taking work along
  I managed to check my e-mail almost every day, but most of the Work Stuff (and personal projects) I'd so carefully packed went untouched.  I did manage to put in a few hours on some documentation a client needed for their customer, during the weekend we were in Fargo.  The rest of the time, we were just on the move too much.

Stuff that has its place, I suppose

• McDonald's
  It's the triumph of mediocrity: McD's is the place where a traveler in a hurry can get a meal of predictably acceptable quality, cheap.  Now, of course, it has several competitors - Burger King, Carl's Jr., Wendy's, and so on.  Any of these will do if you're in a hurry and on a budget.
  I note that Denny's (a step up, and not really in the same fast/cheap pattern) is somewhat less predictable.  A Grand Slam breakfast in Billings was pretty good, except for the bacon.  The bacon looked rather unpromising, but tasted fantastic.
  Of course, if you have time for lunch, it's generally worth checking out local eateries, as there's a fair chance of finding a better combination of quality and price, as well as more interesting food and local character.

Stuff that has lost its way

• Motel 60
  Once upon a time, Motel 6 was the McDonald's of lodging: cheap, and predictably mediocre.  Within living memory, the name was the price: $6/night, all locations, all seasons.
  It's still an acceptable place to crash for the night, but the price has increased by an order of magnitude, making it seem rather less of a bargain, especially with significantly nicer accommodations being available for maybe 20% more money.

Stuff that's just... odd

• Time zones on the Garmin c330
  Calculating trips from Yellowstone to destinations in Montana, the GPS gave ETAs that were optimistic by an hour.  Turns out the time zone is set manually, not determined by the current location nor the location of the destination.  Wouldn't you think that'd be automatic, or at least that there'd be a setting for "determine the time zone automatically"?
• While we're on the subject of time zones...
  How come the Central / Mountain boundary runs through North Dakota, instead of following the state line?  Is it because the west end of the state is lumpy, and thus gets classified as "mountain"?  And how come the AAA map of Idaho shows the time zones at the state border, but the map of the Dakotas doesn't show the time zones running down wherever-it-is?

Driving on rural highways?  Oh, yes indeed.

Teaser

Border war between North Dakota and Montana escalates!

(It's sort of a whatziss.  Answer next week.  We passed a few more of these things on the road.  They travel in pairs, one pointing forward and one backward on a flatbed truck.  The blunt end appears to be open.)