I have been meaning to write up some of my experiences and thoughts from my drive out to Wisconsin. In all it wound up being just over 2400 miles from my place in Santa Cruz to the faire here in Kenosha, WI and I did it in 6 days total. The vast majority of those miles were in the last 4 days where I averaged 500ish miles per day.
Day 1: Santa Cruz, CA to Sutter Creek, CA
The drive out to my bosses house should have taken about 2.5 hours according to google maps but between traffic and me not making good enough notes about the directions it took nearly 5 hours. Not much of note aside from finding that there is a castle on the biggest hill in the town of Ione. I tried to take a picture of it but I was driving at the time and the light was fading so it did not come out. The castle is part of a youth correctional facility according to the kids of my boss.
Day 2: Sutter Creek, CA to Davis, CA
I decided to go visit my friend Angel in Davis before heading out on the road fro parts unknown. We went for a walk around town and explored their arboretum and some of the UC campus there. It is a nice campus and I liked how everything was setup for bikes on campus. I got pictures of a couple of uninteresting statues and a modern building who’s function I have forgotten. We visited the soil science lab where she works and played in the playground on the way back to her place. We had dinner at the Bistro 33, it was good but probably only really worth going for drinks and munchies though.
Day 3: Davis, CA to Toole, UT
This was about 600 miles and I was on the road for 11 hours total including stops. There was not much to see past Donner lake although there was a nifty new building at one of the truck inspections facilities in Nevada that I would have liked to take a closer look at. It’s also interesting how just at the CA/NV state line the highway suddenly gets much better and stayed in great condition all the way through the state. In Toole the motel I stayed at was right next to a flying J truck stop and had the only non fast food place that was open at that time of night. Eating there was a bit of and experience in it’s own right. THe first thing I noticed was that the plastic cups that they use for water and drinks there are the size of a large or extra large drink at a fast food place, and they offer free refills. I ordered some combo meal thing for $10 that had a meal and an appetizer. I soon found out why truckers are often so fat. The appetizer was enough to fill me up and the actual meal was huge, fortunately my room had a microwave so it was breakfast too.
Day 4: Toole, UT to Big Springs, NE
Only 9.5 hours on the road this time. Not much to note but again I stayed in a motel near a truck stop. The big surprise here was again in the restaurant where I found an ashtray on my table. I had totally forgotten that people still smoked in restaurants, it was somewhat of a challenge to find something on the menu that did not involve bacon, gravy or being fried.
Day 5: Big Springs, NE to Davinport, OH
This was the 4th of July and I came out to my car in the morning to find that one of my tires was completely flat. Fortunately being right next to a truck stop meant that there were service guys working 24/7 and they fixed lots of tires for trucks so they were able to fix mine at a decent rate. The landscape of Ohio was far more interesting than Nebraska but thats not saying all that much. I did manage to see a few fireworks from towns that bordered the 80 as I was driving by at ~80mph. I wound up eating at a Flying J again and one again found that there was tons of food and friendly service. My room sucked though, it was the most expensive of all of them and was the smallest. The water from the tap was nearly undrinkable it had so much chlorine in it.
Day 6: Davinport, OH to Kenosha, WI
I didn’t take notes this day and by then everything was running together anyways. Until I was nearly in Chicago I had not strayed out of sight from Highway 80. One of these days I’m going to take the train down to check out the sites there. Got to the faire site and started working on the booth. We cleaned lots and painted for the first 2 days. Now that I have been here for 2 weeks I have a relatively comfortable living space set up and a workable internet connection.