Sunday, July 27, 2014

Solid tires with added lightness

Ran across this interesting combination cherry-picker / payloader today in Brooklyn, the cool thing were the non-inflatable tires. I like the added lightness (and probably compliance) of all of the holes in the tires. Also, somebody left their keys on one of them.



Saturday, July 26, 2014

Day ... um ... July 26th! Cortland NY to Brooklyn NY via the Catskills

Somehow our 300mi drive today took 9hrs. Not sure why, but we are now safely in Brooklyn.
Not Brooklyn

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Eagle River MI -> Marquette MI -> Manitowoc WI -> Mt. Pleasant MI -> London ON

A few days on the way to NYC.
Eagle River MI: left Monday evening, beautiful day (80F)
Marquette MI: bit of rain in the morning, decided to head south to visit my aunt in Wisconsin
Manitowoc WI: took S.S. Badger across Lake Michigan to Ludington MI. It used to carry rail cars to avoid the long turn around the southern end of the lake. 4hrs on the ship, it ingested about 100 cars and 4 semi-trucks, one of which had been transporting livestock and the smells reminded us of that the whole trip. Nobody fell overboard.
Mt. Pleasant MI: about 100mi in from Ludington after the ferry, through the Manistee Forest, lots of basketball players.
London ON: border crossing at Sarnia was uneventful, lots of trucks queued up, short line for passenger cars. Super nice houses north of Detroit along Lake Huron coast, we drove Hwy 25 for a bit.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Iron Moths from Copper Harbor and Hancock

This is probably the most rusty truck I've ever seen. The owner says that it is his third Toyota and they've all rusted out in similar ways, he just drives them until the frame breaks.



This shot is from an old Dodge at the car show in Copper Harbor this weekend. The rest of the car was similarly oxidized.


1984 Paris-Dakar, the Rothmans Porsches


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Monday, July 14, 2014

Snake #2

A slightly larger garter snake

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Trail runs and turtle

Double trail run today, hill climb in the morning, 12km in the evening, not sure if I'm going to be able to complete the third leg which is a 25km tomorrow.

View from Mt. Lookout (a.k.a. Mt. Baldy)

Western Painted Turtle laying eggs

Sunday, July 6, 2014

An average 9:30pm run on the beach in northern Michigan





Also, as the boys were playing in the water, we noticed a deer slowly loping towards us, in the water, parallel to the beach, and weirdly discolored. It approached for quite awhile, then finally noticed us, stopped, went back a bit, then turned directly toward the forest and ran in. We walked to the entry point, following its footsteps, and noticed a fairly significant spattering of blood with each step along the path. We are not sure what happened to it, perhaps a wolf attack (they crossed the ice this winter from Canada when the lake froze over), but we then realized that the discoloration on the hide was most likely large smears of blood.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

July 04th fish toss

Yes, this is the 2nd place finisher in the under-12 division of the annual Fourth of July Fish Toss in Gay MI. 41 feet to be exact. With a blindfold. Winner was at 43' and was nervously pacing near us, muttering to herself "I'm done for. I'm gone. This girl's got an arm!"

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Day 10: Eagle River MI, a day of no driving

I lied slightly, I did move the van in the driveway a bit. Birthday for Anton and Aunt Ginny, sand, beach, sauna, and some work. Goal with Andrei is to find agates, where to look?


Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Day 9: Ashland WI to Eagle River MI via lots of trees

The final day, not huge (180mi or so), nice relaxed start, swimming in the morning, drive through a few nice towns on Lake Superior, then up north M28->M45->M26->US41->M26->home. Note the presence of M26 twice there, it takes a much more circuitous route through the upper peninsula than US41.



Some stats for the trip are below. Note that the html composer screwed up the formatting, so I'll fix it later.

Total miles: 2749mi
Total fuel: 109.6gal (assuming 25mpg for the last leg)
Avg mpg: 25mpg

Date City State Mileage Temp Cond Cost Fuel MPG Trip word
Mon Jun 23PiedmontCA17635075Fsunnyhome
Tue Jun 24ChicoCA17651286Fsunny$58.2914.4gal305.9hot
Tue Jun 24Montgomery CreekCA17662783Fsunnyuphill
Tue Jun 24Lava BedsCA17676075Fsunny, windybats
Wed Jun 25Klamath FallsOR17680461Fpart cldy$52.9112.9gal292.7cows
Wed Jun 25Crater LakeOR17686243Frainysnow
Thu Jun 26BendOR17698357Frainyducks
Thu Jun 26Grass ValleyOR17709169Fsunnyhorses
Thu Jun 26BiggsOR17711877Fsunny$51.5212.7gal313.7teenagers
Thu Jun 26KennewickWA17722478Fsunny
Fri Jun 27SpokaneWA17737467Fcloudy$46.3110gal255hoops
Fri Jun 27Albeni Falls DamID17741760Fcloudysnake
Fri Jun 27Kootenai FallsMT17751869Fpart cldy143.7bridge
Sat Jun 28KalispellMT17762461Fcloudy$37.649.4gal249.8salmon
Sat Jun 28West GlacierMT17767850Frainy53.7rapids
Sat Jun 28ShelbyMT17781863Fsunny, windy193.8rabbit
Sun Jun 29MaltaMT17790969Fclear$63.2515.6gal385downtown
Sun Jun 29Wolf PointMT17814475Fpart cldy135Missouri
Sun Jun 29
Minot
ND
178371
68F
clear, windy
$56.76
14.3gal
363.1
sauna
Mon Jun 30
Grand Forks
ND
178581
66F
rainy
210.2
waterpark
Mon Jun 30
Grand Rapids
MN
178780
62F
rainy
409.9
tin man
Tue Jul 01
Ashland
WI
178912
77F
sunny
$76.48
19.7gal
541.3
estuary
Tue Jul 01
Eagle River
MI
179099
55F
sunny
184.5
grandparents