(Thread IKs:
Goons Are Gifts)
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Yeah, QCS was suggested before, but as it's a special forum with a purpose, it's less a planet we can visit and more an office we could crash and imagine who would have to clean up the messy paperwork! I'm not entirely sold on the idea yet, but maybe it's time for the spaceship to take a break in BYOB's space garage and re-launch at a later date. We've Entirely open on input here, and I'm happy to stay in AI's probing land for as long as our hosts want to car probe, but for a bit we could return to the BYOB home town, refill our brownie cannons and posting fuel tanks and visit both new planets as well as re-visit those that we've already seen after a break of a month or two. What do you guys think?
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Sep 24, 2020 22:56
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 05:23 |
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Goons Are Great posted:Yeah, QCS was suggested before, but as it's a special forum with a purpose, it's less a planet we can visit and more an office we could crash and imagine who would have to clean up the messy paperwork! Yeah yeah yeah whatever.....how do I get a sweet sig like that. |
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Sep 24, 2020 23:46
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Ohh, Manifisto made it for me! Every season we make sigs for each other, because wearing a sig made by another yobber is a special honor and tradition. Our fall sig thread is here, feel free to request one and be amazed of what talent we have posting among us: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3940388&pagenumber=1
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Sep 25, 2020 00:06
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While you're at it, I highly recommend checking the poll results
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Sep 25, 2020 00:07
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Goons Are Great posted:While you're at it, I highly recommend checking the poll results oh hell yeah |
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Sep 25, 2020 00:11
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boaurding the space ship please take me to your leader 
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Sep 25, 2020 00:16
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oh this is the thread with the car probes, i meant to get one yesterday i will post a car when i'm home from work edit: i mean probations not the ford probe and also please do not probe my rear end thanks!! |
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Sep 25, 2020 00:19
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Sham bam bamina! posted:oh this is the thread with the car probes, i meant to get one yesterday You can also leave it up to the wonderful cat intercepter. I can 100% promise that it probably won't be a probe probe given the probe in straya isn't cool. |
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Sep 25, 2020 01:59
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Cat interceptor knocking it out of the park. Very nice. |
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Sep 25, 2020 04:14
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before it moves let me get a car probe, please use the worst car (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) |
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Sep 25, 2020 04:39
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Relax Or DIE posted:before it moves let me get a car probe, please use the worst car Well the worst car is the Reliant Robin but it has a certain kind of charm for all it's awfulness so that wont really count as such. Hmmmmm. Let me have a think here...... |
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Sep 25, 2020 04:46
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The worst car for a probe is an early 2000s Malibu in beige. |
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Sep 25, 2020 04:58
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Relax Or DIE posted:before it moves let me get a car probe, please use the worst car Oh for fucks sake I checked the period and the link and it didnt loving come up still in the Colony  Well THATS the worst car. It's a J-Body JB Camira with a asthmatic 1.6 litre oil burning lump. Mechanically one of the most unreliable cars of its era, which is quite an accolade. But the Camira was a complete package, engineered throughout to displease. The exterior fit and finish was so haphazard that you’d think it was drawn by Picasso. It didn’t get any better once you moved inside, thanks to acres of hideous, poor-quality, mismatched plastic that squeaked like the car was full of cicadas. Initially powered by a pathetic 1.6-litre engine and later by an equally pathetic 1.8, the car was slow, horrible to drive – and it rusted. Oh and it was one of the worst cars to be in in an accident. I can ont think of a single redeeming feature nor could I think of a more obnoxious fanbase who deny reality that hard on just how worst it really is Edit : hang on wait.... is that showing up at all??? https://imgur.com/tN7DsvC is the image but it wont show on my webbrowser at all but it does on another machine? |
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Sep 25, 2020 05:07
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Relax Or DIE posted:before it moves let me get a car probe, please use the worst car Edit: Aha, you have noticed. Also missing from the post about it. This car is SO BAD it can't be photographed, it's some kind of vampire car. Edit2: Does it work if I do it? I see it in the preview...  Edit3: I see it here too, but I can't tell if other people do! roomforthetuna fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Sep 25, 2020 |
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Sep 25, 2020 05:08
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roomforthetuna posted:The picture seems to be missing from this probation? Yeah also not in the post and I can absolutely see I set the URL and tags correctly when I go edit the post? |
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Sep 25, 2020 05:11
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:https://imgur.com/tN7DsvC is the image but it wont show on my webbrowser at all but it does on another machine? That's an album link, not an image. https://i.imgur.com/tN7DsvC.jpg is the image. |
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Sep 25, 2020 05:15
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Goddamnit. I'll probate myself in dishonour again then. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) |
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Sep 25, 2020 05:15
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:Goddamnit. I'll probate myself in dishonour again then. nope it wasnt working for me (to answer your pre ninja edit) |
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Sep 25, 2020 05:21
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Hi GaG! I’m of the opinion that we park the ship at home base for a while. We have Halloween and secret Santa and we always send a holiday card to other forums, so we won’t be bored. but just imagine byob landing in qcs for a couple of days. God that would be fantastic. 
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Sep 25, 2020 05:41
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Can I get car'ed? Dealer's choice, I'm feeling the classics so something with fins please? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) |
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Sep 25, 2020 06:04
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i think we should just stay docked here forever and post about road trips. cause i just got done with one and i'm too sleepy to post about it rn. alternatively, my suggestions are: the mod forum fyad coupons and deals qcs and i would like another car probe with this guy please  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 25, 2020 07:32
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Can I grab another sixer with the Taylor Aerocar. It's a car AND a plane. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) |
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Sep 25, 2020 08:17
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owlhawk911 posted:i think we should just stay docked here forever and post about road trips. cause i just got done with one and i'm too sleepy to post about it rn. Where did you goooooooo? I managed to escape to the Lake District last week and catch what seems like the last of the UK summer weather. It was glorious and some of the roads round there were absolutely PERFECT for driving my little MX5/Miata around with the hard top off. |
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Sep 25, 2020 09:55
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Hit me hard baby with that sweet sweet flat engine sexiness. Dealers choice, I don't judge  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:35
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Oh man someone said road trip! Before I catch a probe, read about mine! It was a hoot. Copy/paste from my thread: An AI'ers introduction to Iceland  Iceland is a fantastic small island country in the north atlantic. It's a sparsely populated nation just outside the arctic circle with viking roots and is truly the land of ice and fire. Sitting on the divide between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, Iceland is ripping apart by about 2cm a year and losing about that to coastal erosion, and is characterised by its quite lively geologic activity. The landscape is diverse and otherworldly, the people are friendly, the food and accomodation is shockingly expensive at times, and the weather can be brutal and unpredictable. To give a better feel of its size, it's roughly comparable to the size of New York state and has a population of around 360,000, less than half that of my home town of Winnipeg. It is also home to some of the best driving roads in the world.  click for huge. Paved roads in iceland are pitch black, beautifully smooth, and wonderfully winding. Iceland has a very european feel to it, which is as expected considering it's roots and proximity to europe. The roads are narrow, shoulders are non-existent, and other than a few sections near the capital of Reykjavik, the highways are entirely single lane everywhere on the island. Speed limits are set at 90 kph on highways, 80kph on gravel roads, and 50 kph on city streets, with smaller residential and touristy areas limited to 50kph. The road signs are european standard for the most part, so for a Canadian traveller it took some getting used to and a quick google to get an idea on the more obtuse signs. City streets are tighter than the average north american city but easily manageable, and plenty of roundabouts to go around. The traffic lights also have a quite nice sequence of Red -> Red & Yellow -> Green to give an early warning and to get you ready to go, it seemed to really improve traffic flow as you didn't have people sitting at a green and with the stop-start in the car allowed me to kick in the clutch to start the car and get in gear in time for it to turn green.  Now, we started our adventure in Reykjavik and being an AI'er, opted for doing a self driving tour of the island. Our chariot for the trip was this late model Dacia Duster 4x4. 6 speed manual with fancy features such as hill descent control, automatic stop-start, hill start assist, and some off road gauges for pitch and roll. 1.2 liters of turbocharged fury producing a modest 123hp.  In terms of size, it's comparable to a Nissan Juke. In terms of everything else, it's nothing like the Juke. For a small SUV it's well laid out inside, feels spacious enough and was comfortable enough for the long journeys that were ahead of us. The ride was quiet but if you listened closely and had the window cracked, you could hear the high pitch of the turbo spooling up as you squeezed the throttle. It was slow, but not punishly so, it reminded me of 90's honda's with its peppy puppy like demeanor on the road. If I could import one of these I would in a heartbeat.  Outside the city and outside the larger touristy attractions, you really get the sense of isolation. The views are spectacular and you can go quite a few hours without seeing another soul if you stay off the main routes. We ran into a few areas of construction and it's fascinating to see how the roads are built. Coming from a place with a quite extreme climate and clay in the ground, I'm used to seeing roads being dug out 5+ feet with various grades of gravel, then reinforced concrete with asphalt over top at times. Here because of the more temperate climate (temperatures range from as cold as -20°C in the winter to +18°C in the summers) and the natural porousness of the volcanic landscapes, the roads are dug shallow, filled with coarse lava sand, and what looks like some sort of sealant to bind it all together. We encountered a good amount of rain throughout our trip and water pooling on the roads was not an issue. Road noise was not an issue from the tires and as I mentioned before the roads were very smooth and a pleasure to drive on.  That is not to say we didn't encounter any potholes or rough roads. While major routes and the ring road around the island were paved, many of the secondary roads were just gravel, and with those the surface was not as smooth. Which brings us to the wildlife. Other than birds, the major wildlife you'll see in Iceland are the sheep and ponies.  The sheep are everywhere. In places you wouldn't expect them and they'll leave you scratching your head wondering why the heck they ventured up to where they are when there's perfectly good grazing land lower down and more easily accessible. None of them are wild, they are all from one farm or another, but during the summer months they are left to their own devices and free to graze where they please. In the fall the farmers all get together and start rounding them up. The same is for the icelandic ponies. It can be quite the sight to see a large herd of ponies trotting down a road being lead by a farmer back to his/her fields.  Now, in my opinion, while the main roads are fantastic and truly should be considered some of the best driving roads in the world, the real hidden gems are the icelandic f-roads. F roads are historic roads that go into the highlands, they are unmaintained and they have a reputation for being some of the most dangerous roads to drive on in the world. Off-roading in iceland is prohibited and is punished with heavy fines, but with the condition of the F-roads I don't see why you'd feel the need to venture off road. Driving on f-roads is restricted to 4x4 vehicles only, it is unlawful to drive on them with 2wd cars. They are challenging roads that are rewarding to drive on as you get to see some incredible views of the countryside On our trip we took quite a number of F roads, F261, F210, F225, F208, F338, F337, F985, 550 (formally F550), 570 (formally F570).   Not all f roads are created equal, for some long stretches of them they were relatively smooth, comparable to rougher gravel roads back home, but with much nicer scenery of course. The mountains were covered in vivid green moss that incredible to see.  The roads also famously tend to have unbridged river crossings. The one below the very first river I ever forded.  In theory I knew what I was doing, but in practice it definitely a rush to just drive through a river. Slow and steady, in 1st gear keeping my speed around 5-10kph, at this crossing I had to go a little against the current which wasn't ideal but it's a nice rocky river bed with small stones and the water was up to the top of the tires at its deepest. The Duster has its air intake just off center on top of the radiator so it should be able to go through fairly deep water without worrying about hydrolock.  Successful crossing, adrenaline pumping, and continuing on our journey we went. As I mentioned, sheep can be found everywhere, and depending the route you choose, they may be your only company that day.  The contrast between the vegetation, the changing colors of the fall season, and the various geological features was stark  And thankfully the sheep weren't our only company on this particular road (F208 for the pictures so far) We caught up with little Suzuki Jimny  They gave us some tips for the river crossings, that it usually is shallowest along the edges of the crossing as most people tend to just plow through the center, and we watched as they crossed before following their path.  Throughout the trip we forded well over a dozen rivers by the end of it, the majority of them were smaller and not too deep spring fed rivers and streams.  Some were very calm although deceptively deep.  And others were quite a bit wider and a little deeper.  The duster took them all like a champ. The deepest of the rivers had us with a small crest of water flowing over the hood as we splashed in, and had some larger boulders that you bounced off of, the key was just to hold the gas steady and to never lift. If you stop, you're dead in the water. |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:41
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That's not to say it's all river crossing and scenery. Some of the more challenging roads we drove one had some quite steep inclines. F985 up the glacier is a short little F road with some steep inclines and cliff drop offs, make a mistake and you won't be having a good day. Unfortunately it wasn't the most photo friendly place to be as we ascended into the clouds and the weather was not cooperating, visibility eventually went down to a few feet and when were near the summit we decided to cut our losses and turn around.  The inclines hit 14° which is apparently a 25% grade road. Let me tell you, if feels pretty drat vertical. On the way up I made the mistake of attempting one of these in 2nd gear and had slowed enough to drop out of the power band, leading me to stalling on the steep incline. The hill hold and a little abuse of the clutch allowed me to start back up but that was nerve wracking. Reversing down a steep slope that was winding up the side of a mountain with no visibility was not my idea of fun. Many of the F roads have unique feels to them, as best as I can describe. They'll have different challenges, different road surfaces and degrees of windiness.  Going up 550/F550, you start following a glacial river that cut its way into the rock, and start climbing up into the highlands.  The fall colors just add the beauty of the area, the whole world just pops.   Following along a power line service trail (F338) it's a twisty rough road that's a track through a lava field.  You bounce around, and switch between soft volcanic sand and solidified lava flows with these incredible burst of color as you drive along.  Once you get to the cross roads, we took F337 back towards more populated areas.  And apparently someone's lost an exhaust gasket.  Taking you along the foothills of seeming painted mountains  Unfortunately for us, the weather was mostly on-and-off raining and low clouds which dampened some of the visual impact of the scenery.  But this being Iceland, you wait 5 minutes and you can get rewarded with some occasional clear sky peaking through  All while the landscape is changing and you hit soft black sand with small outcrops of grass.  Which rewards you with a stunning view from the top and a treacherous winding steep path down.  Now, one of the final roads we took, F261 and F210 proved to be the most challenging. They were rougher roads and had much bigger boulders that we had to traverse. A few we heard on the underside. The road starts out tame enough as a rough gravel track with a great view of the nearby glaciers  You follow a large river bed that's currently quite dry and you slowly climb up as the trail progresses   Continue through a small valley, and around some small mountains  Climbing and climbing the entire way.  And as you keep on going you get closer and closer to some stunning views  At one point, we crossed the deepest and strongest river thus far. I did not take a good photo of it, but it was deeper than I expected and the large waves you can see down the center gave some indication of the current.  As we crossed the river, the water went slightly over the hood but the momentum kept us going and we made it across. Definitely the toughest crossing we attempted. On the other side we continued and eventually the road was becoming harder and harder to discern from the surroundings  until all the soft soil just kind of ended...  And we were greeted with some phenomenal views  So with a spirit of adventure we continued on, and crawled along the solidified rock.  Which eventually led us to this soft black sand  At the foot of a glacier  And this soft sand trail led to a rather wide glacial stream, which while it was low, was still the soft sand surface. As I walked towards the river bank to assess it, I noted that I was sinking into the soft fine sand and even though the depth and current looked manageable, I decided this was not a certainty so we turned back. No low range gearbox and the soft sand left me worried it would bury itself into the sand and that would be that, so we took the safer route and devil we knew with the larger river crossing we first went through. By the time we came back, the river had swelled from the rain throughout the day. Not having much of a choice and having a cavalier attitude, we attempted to cross it with a little more speed this time. As we entered the river it's extra depth became apparent. The water rose over the hood and splashed up onto the windshield, we felt the car momentarily float and a few moments that felt much longer later, we felt the front wheels hit the rocky river bed and the duster pulled itself out of the river. Not fully unscathed as we had managed to knock the front plate off, most likely during this crossing.  I'll follow up with some more automotive related icelandic things, but for now I hope that adventure was fun to read through. |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:43
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Yup, superjeeps are a thing and they're   Note: I don't remember actually seeing an actual 'Jeep' in Iceland. Plenty of Hiluxes, Mitsu's, a good number of Fords. Saw a converted military style camper with giant wheels, thing looked like it climb a mountain dead on. There's a good number of these modified vehicles running around, and they're mostly diesel as fuel prices in iceland are  , we paid around 240 isk per liter, which comes to about 7.31 USD per gallon. Our fuel costs were quite significant as we put on around 3700km of driving and averaged around 7.7l/100km with all the f-road adventuring. There's a whole spectrum of cars in iceland, from the tiny euro subcompacts up to the giant lifted trucks with all the gubbins. Most popular seems to be those Mitsubishi Pajero with a lift and fat tires, and you see some cool stuff like the air lines to the wheels and various snorkels and such. I'll have to look into renting superjeeps, from my cursory look it was that you could go on an excursion with one but not just straight up rent. There's blue car rental that has a modified land rover defender that's the closest thing I found to a modified rental. We rented with Lotus car rental and the biggest thing they have available is a hilux I believe. I'll definitely have to take a closer look as I definitely need to go back and explore more of the highlands in a more capable vehicle. Similar to the superjeep theme, I mentioned I was working on a modified wheelchair to tackle the less accessible aspects of iceland, and in that I succeeded with the Mk.1 prototype.   I bought a fat-bike that I stripped for it's tires and rims, and handed the bits to a local bike shop that sourced the hubs, axles, and did the lacing of the wheels and threw it all together. Upgraded from the thin and hard plastic wheels that came with the chair to 24x4" off road tires. Some of the more touristy attractions where very nicely paved (as kerid crater was above) and would have been fine with a standard issue wheelchair, but once you get off the beaten path or a ways away from the golden circle touristy areas, you end up with rockier or softer surfaces that would have been unpassable with the standard wheels.  Technique was to balance her on the rear wheels and that made pushing much easier. the wide tires handled surfaces like the black beach above without issue. As you can see the front castors are still the original ones and they sink in deep. Over larger loose stones it worked great as well, the fat-bike tires are kept at a relatively low pressure and they flex around any rough surface and make it much easier to traverse. For the MK2 design, I will be sourcing some more appropriate front castors and working out a brake system, as the factory one fouled on the new wheels so there was no actual brake system with this setup. With larger front castors and a bit of spacing, it'll also rake the chair a bit more backwards which will help keep more weight on the rear wheels and hopefully make the front dig in less. On the smoother trails I was able to push her being level but was always worried as we had the front wheel catch a rock and cause a tumble. A seat belt might be a good idea for a future iteration too. In any case, the chair survived and was well worth the effort and expense to make Iceland more accessible. As I may have mentioned in my write up, Iceland is a very geologically active area, they have a thin crust and there's plenty of natural hot springs around the island. Every little village has some form of hot spring pool and driving along you will see some mountains just steaming in the distance, and at times you'll find steaming rivers.  The Islands water is some of the best in the world, the tap water is straight spring water and is incredibly tasty. The hot water in iceland is all the waste water from the geothermal power generation stations, as it's natural hot spring water it has a sulfurous odor. There are actually two hot water systems, the cooler hot springs feed the hot water system directly after having done the work in the geothermal stations, but the hotter hot springs would still be scalding hot after being used for power generation so they run a water to water heat exchanger to warm up the fresh cool spring water. To prevent corrosion of piping, they add a sulfur compound to it which gives it that familiar hot water smell. Another side benefit of this is that they run the hot water piping underneath the roads in the cities so they have naturally heated roads in the winter. I personally embrace my inner tourist and while I love going off the beaten path and exploring the more raw aspects of the country, I also enjoy doing the touristy crap like taking a LARC-V tour of the glacier lagoon.  They take you into the lagoon, you get to see magnificently huge icebergs and the glacier that is producing them, and you even get to taste some 1000 year old ice.   Which brings me to the next point. Iceland is very much in its early stages of tourist development. The most popular areas near Reykjavik have been built up, but the further you venture the less safety and more at-your-own-risk things get. I remember travelling with my parents as a kid to Banff and the surrounding areas and the over the course of a decade I got to see first hand how the attractions changed, with the addition of sectioned off areas, boardwalks, signage, etc. Iceland feels like the places I visited when I was a kid, for better or worst. You can walk right up the edge of a waterfall and if you're not careful you can over the edge.  Personally I really like the freedom this gives you, but I understand the necessity as things get more popular the need for preservation and preventing people from damaging the natural beauty of the areas.  And again, getting to these places, it's incredible to see the landscape change from vivid orange and reds  To the cracked formally molten rock flows just a few minutes away  And further still, Iceland has a few quite long tunnels. The longest of which we drove was just shy of 8km long, and when they tunnel, oh boy do they tunnel. Canadian tunnels I've been through tend to be along the edge of a mountain, or shorter distances, with concrete reinforcement and ventilation shafts or openings as you go through. These looked to be blasted direclty through the center of the mountains. The only ventilation you have is the turbine fans above that push air from one entrance to the other and the only place to stop is emergency breakdown areas every couple kilometers. You're not supposed to, but... I like photos.  Which leads us to the 2nd most populated area in Iceland, Akureyri. Which has a very charming quirk where all the traffic lights are hearts for the red lights. 
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Sep 25, 2020 15:44
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While we're doing road trips here's another! I've Survived! 18 Days. 9400 km. 2 countries.12 provinces/states. This is going to be really photo heavy so strap in. Thanks again for all the suggestions. Saskatchewan  Going through Saskatchewan is a bit of a chore, there's nothing really scenic along the way, and while the prairies do have a certain beauty to them I had my mind only on everything that was ahead. I'm happy to report that nothing was stolen this time and overall it was pretty uneventful in Saskabush. Lots of bugs.  Alberta  Met up with slidebite and confirmed the rumor that AI goons are actually pretty cool dudes irl. It was nice chatting and visiting.  Taking the southern route, we passed through the Frank Slide area.  When you look at the size of these rocks, the distance they've travelled, the area that got covered, it's just crazy to think of the amount of energy released here. From the Wiki: 90 million tons of limestone rock slid down turtle mountain in about 100 seconds killing between 70-90 residents of the town.  British Columbia  Well, enough bugs. time for a wash.  I went for the route less traveled this time around and went up HWY 3A and HWY 31. And man am I ever glad I did. These ended up being some absolutely amazing driving roads with a nice mix of elevation changes, plenty of winding, smooth surface, and empty open road. As usual pictures don't do this justice.  One of the reasons I think it's less travelled is that it has two ferry crossings, but as a nice surprise BC inland ferries are all free to use. Although you're at the mercy of the ferry schedule and if you happen to look at the schedule for the wrong crossing, well..., you'll be waiting a while. ask me how I know.  But BC lives up to its license plate motto of "Beautiful British Columbia" so we walked over the nearby terminal cafe and enjoyed the sights while waiting for the ferry. And we got to see this cute little thing get off the ferry when it arrived  The ferry ride was nice and relaxing, just walked around the enjoyed the sights and experience.  The further north we went we started noticing the smoke haze from the wildfires, on the ferry it was mostly just a distant haze.  Visited the Ainsworth hot springs. Didn't really snap photos but I can confirm that chanting and moaning are forbidden in the cave. It was pretty cool, and being in a cave with the hot spring water it was extremely humid in there and it was pretty easy to overheat. They had a freezing pool of water right beside the hotspring and the contrast is... stark. The water is so mineral rich we actually had some deposits on our feet that were a bit of an effort to wash off. Venturing further north towards Revelstoke we encountered even more smoke, at this point it was actually significantly reducing visibility. The air quality wasn't bad enough to be noticeable in terms of breathing and surprisingly the smell was pleasant, bringing up memories of camping from my youth.  On the northern leg of 31 we actually saw some of the fires burning. We were far enough away that you couldn't see flames but the smoke plumes were very visible even among the heavy haze. I wish we stopped to grab photos but the ferry had a set departure time and I didn't want to miss it accidentally. At the ferry terminal the smoke was quite thick.  Just outside Revelstoke we visited Sutherland Falls, which is an easy walk to get to the falls. This close to Revelstoke the smoke started to lighten a little.  And the gas prices rocketed up. I'm used to the prairies being more expensive for gas with it getting cheaper the further west you go until you hit BC, but this time around it just kept going up up up. (this is about $5 usd / gal for you Yanks)  After Revelstoke we headed west through Kamloops and along BC-99 which is just a breathtaking drive to Whistler. Between this and HWY 31, it's been a terrific twisty driving experience through the mountains.   In Whistler we stayed in the village and enjoyed the evening walking around the shops and pubs. Touristy but fun.  Nearby we also visited the cascading Alexander falls.  With Whistler behind us, we stopped by the market in Granville island  We heeded the warning and did not feed them  And while in Vancouver we decided to skip the aquarium and see the animals in their natural habitat.  We were lucky enough to run into the southern resident killer whales J pod. These particular killer whales are considered endangered, likely due to the decline of their primary source of food; the chinook salmon. These are the fish-eating killer whales with their diet being strictly salmon, and there's not many of them left. I believe our guide said there's only around 75 of these particular whales left, J pod being 23 of them. The other type of killer whale, the marine mammal diet ones, are doing quite well and are not considered endangered.  Besides the whales, we got to see the symbol of american freedom  Once he stopped moving I got a clearer shot of him.  and we saw some blobs on the shore  Washington  (the state flags are a lot more boring than the provincial flags...) Heading south of Abbotsford, we ended up driving through the country roads, by local farms and lumber mills. A little unconventional but I can't complain. Headed back east along HWY 20 to get a taste of the Cascade Mountains  Looks like the smoke from the fires has spread around and you just see a haze everywhere you go.  Back west towards seattle, we checked in to the hotel and popped by the space needle on the way to Pikes market.  Tell you the truth, after visiting Chicago and Toronto, skyscrapers and towers in other cities just look kinda... short.  The market was a fun experience, it felt like a european bazaar with all the stands, flowers, fresh food, and people shopping. The fish stand workers had a lot of fun throwing fish around the market, kind of a show for the tourists.  The roads in seattle don't photograph as particularly bad but they felt vertical when you're stopped at light with the person behind you a few mm's off your bumper. I admit, I stalled a couple times in the city.  And of course, couldn't leave the market without chowing down on a bowl of chowder. Being from effectively landlocked manitoba I don't get to indulge in good fresh seafood very often, and well I love seafood.  Seattle was fun and on the way out we stopped at the museum of flight. I feel like I could have spent all day here, just an incredible number of exhibits. In particular we really liked going through the space program sections that detailed the history of space exploration and had actual deep-sea recovered parts of the saturn V rocket on display.  From there, it was a scenic drive through paradise. No really, the place is called paradise and it lives up to the name. Lots of waterfalls, mountain vistas, and fresh air going through Mt. Rainier national park. There was a little bit of a mist (low cloud?) that was coming off the mountain.  And with that we drove a few more hours and made it to our stop for the night, Chehalis WA. And well, this happened:  To Be Continued |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:48
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Oregon Let's roll it back a little, back in Chehalis, WA we popped by a grocery store to stock up on some snacks and came out to this little puppy wetting itself.  Threw in all the water we had in the car and since the hotel we were staying at for the night was only 2 minutes away I limped it there and started calling every place in Portland, OR that was listed on the Oregon porsche clubs website. Took some crappy pictures to try to figure out what happened.  The next morning I got a few calls and called CAA/AAA for a tow. Ended up going with Matrix Integrated West in Portland and they're really a stand up group of guys. It was really nice having a shop that texted us to get more info, pre-ordered parts so that they'd be in when we arrived on the two truck, and overall was just incredibly responsive. Ended up being the water pump, 5.2hrs of specialized labour plus the pump, coolant, and belt. It was a good blow to the wallet but on the positive side the only impact it had on the trip was that we missed going to Mt. St. Helen and some Tidepooling. The shop was nice enough to drop us off at a nearby mall so that we could catch a movie while the work was being done.  So yeah, that's now the second Boxster I've owned that's lunched its water pump on a roadtrip. The next Porsche I buy I'll just replace the pump pre-emptively. The CAA membership is more than worth it with these, I asked the tow truck operator how much this would have cost me if it wasn't covered and he mentioned around $7-800, and the last one I had towed because of the pump had a similar estimate. I would highly recommend membership with german car ownership. Anyway, the next day we were back on schedule and visiting the oregon coast. It's strange for me but I guess it makes sense with the coastal climate but the hotel didn't have AC and apparently it's common for the coastal areas not have AC.  Got to see Thors well, which is an interesting geological feature. The water surges up and down as the incoming waves hit the coast, and because of the way it connects to the coast the surge is a good few feet more than the incoming waves.  We were there at mid-low tide so we didn't get to see the spouting horn shoot water into the sky but we did get to see the tidepools around thors well. Plenty of little crabs, anemones, and various mollusks but no starfish unfortunately.   Further down the coast we first heard, then we saw, a large group of sea lions. These guys were fun to watch since they're always noisily 'ARFF ARFF'-ing at each other, playing in the water, or just lazily lying on the rocks.  Oregon's coastal highway did have some long in-land stretches but when it did hit the coast, it was gorgeous.  California  Once we got down to California we started to see the famous redwoods.   Walking through the stout grove trail (excellent suggestion by the way) the redwoods are just stunning. These things are absolutely massive, and seeing the few fallen trees really makes you think of the grandness of one falling, the amount these must weigh, just wow. And the mosquitos, drat the mosquitos. Should have brought bug spray.  Another pro suggestion was driving down the avenue of the giants. It was worth it going through the entirety of the route. Just a wonderful road with awesome scenery in the original sense of the word.  The California coast is incredibly scenic and surprisingly has a lack of safety barriers. I'm so used to having either a railing or barrier between the road and whatever (sheer drop, water, who knows what else) but that's just not the case in california. Makes for some really nice photos though.  I think I finally understand why this car had some much underbody damage when I purchased it. Driving through the hills and HWY 1 in california, you get incredibly twisty roads and an astounding number of elevation changes, and one of the california DOTs favorite road type appears to be the hairpin turn with an elevation inflection through the turn. What I mean is that coming into the hairpin you're heading down, the road is cambered into the apex and coming out you're heading up. Done at any sort of 'sporty' speed you end up bottom out on the front and the bumper hits the road. Good thing it's getting repaired after the trip.  As I keep mentioning, I'm a stereotypical tourist and I like doing the occasionally full-touristy thing. So I drove through a tree.  Continued down the coast towards San Francisco  And that's where I'll end for now.  To Be Continued. |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:49
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I believe those last two are around Fort Bragg. As an aside, my wife's phone has the geo tagging enabled so whatever we snapped quickly with hers we can check the geodata to figure out exactly where they were taken. I've got to enable that on mine since taking as many photos as we did it can be hard to remember where exactly we took what. I don't typically share photos directly without having the meta data scrubbed so I'm not too worried about the location data compromising privacy. I actually managed to take enough photos to necessitate buying another SD card for the camera and it went across the file name max so working through them in lightroom is a bit of a mix terms of order. And poo poo, what did I call Pikes Place Market in my post? You ever had that were you mentally 'write' something but you never actually did... happens a lot to me it seems. I'm terrible with replying to texts since I come up with a reply in my head, something distracts me, and I mentally already checked off that it was taken care of so I forget about it. I'm an annoying person to text. Now, where were we? Back to California Made it to San Francisco without any more drama, car's running like a top and in the past two days I've topped off the coolant since we were on a schedule and bleeding this big of a system is a pain. You've probably heard the joke that Porsche designed an air cooled motor and just slapped a water jacket on it for the water cooled models, well it's not far off from what I can tell. The car has a crazy amount of coolant due to the radiators being mounted up front and being mid-engined so there is a lot of piping running back and forth. 22 liters of coolant IIRC and a hassle to bleed due to the complexity of the routing. Matrix left me with a bottle of coolant and instructions to check and fill in the mornings after its had a chance to cool. After day 2 the coolant level stayed at full and it looked good. One of the things on my bucket list was driving down the crooked street in SF, aka Lombard st. We went in the morning and it was nicely clear of tourists and traffic so I got to cross that off quick and simple.  Hit up the Wharf as well. There was a marathon in the morning but we managed to find parking and roamed around for a good part of the day. Saw our first naked guy (apparently it's a thing and legal in SF?)  Took a drive down mission street and legitimately had one of the best burritos and guac I've ever had. Kind of a bummer coming back home since it's not going to be the same  These red bus/taxi muni-only lanes are weird, for a city that's as packed as San Francisco I'm surprised they carved off this much of the road.  Saw the bridge, drove the bridge, one more thing off the list.   Not sure how this got past the CA DMV but maybe he/she said they're just very enthusiastic about gardening, or they love their Ford. One thing we noticed about SF was that it was the city of the Mini, we saw more Mini's than any other model. It makes sense as it's a roomy small car in a tight city, it was just funny to see so many of them running around in one place.  One major thing I want to bring up is while California had some of the best driving roads I've ever had the pleasure of driving, it also had some of the worst surfaces I've ever driven on. I don't know what could cause it, or if it's just poor construction, but some of the highways resulted in almost unbearable road noise. The traffic, just drat. I'm a prairie boy from a relatively small city, I was not prepared for this level of traffic.There is also a plague of having the road really camber down by the kerbs and having the driveways camber down as well, creating a nice relatively deep 'V' valley that is deep enough to cause the nose to scape everywhere. Doing the stance-nation approach of entering/exiting at 45° angles works in most cases but even that wasn't enough in some cases. Like I mentioned before, the damage on the thing when I bought it makes sense, especially if it was driven by an inattentive driver. After SF we took the scenic route south towards Santa Cruz and popped by the pier for lunch. Found these fantastic fellows hanging out just under the pier.  Took a detour south to check out some of the stops along the snobby rally route book. It had some nice views but honestly the northern cost felt more scenic and HWY 1 south of SF has a lot of inland sections.  Still, I wouldn't say it wasn't worth it. In Big Sur we stopped by the River Inn for a break and to see what it's all about. They served us some tasty but ridiculously priced food, like $12 for 4 chicken wing drums with two sauces you could dip in. Fits the bill of being for the snobby. Talking to some of locals earlier in the trip they mentioned the area was fantastic and the redwoods would blow us away, but yet again this place didn't hold a candle to the avenue of giants in terms of redwoods.  Continuing with the Snobyness, we ran into a porsche club of america sanctioned tour, chatted a bit with them and this is one of those where owners from around the country come in to drive down these roads, they were pretty much 100% the P-Car owner stereotype. At least it was cool seeing a whole line of new 911's in all colours driving down the road lead by a Cayenne.   Caught another lineup of identical models touring the coast  Finally, taking one more page from the rally route, heading inland from the coast through Heckers pass was a blast, I love how the road has a nice high speed limit and its expected you slow for the turns, key word being 'expected'. Heckers pass is worth the detour to drive. Not many places to pull over or scenic vistas to photograph so I don't have anything to show for this other than my words expressing how much fun it was. The following day we're into Yosemite.  The fires in the rockies have affected many areas, looks like Yosemite has also had some fires, thankfully now extinguished for the most part, but we did see a small flame and smoke plume from the center of a burned tree off the side of the road. The flame was really small, like 2-3" max and there were signs around that they are aware of the fires in the area and not to report them.  The diversity of the rockies is incredible, I wish I studied geology so that I would know what all the differences are but just seeing how different the mountains look and their different makups depending where you are in the range is really cool. Around Yosemite everything is giant smooth vertical rock faces.  Well, sometimes not so smooth  And from there, we left Cali and into Nevada  Nevada is the land of Casino's. Seriously, you can't spit without hitting one. These guys must love gambling. The peppermill was a nice place to stay (thanks slidebite!) but it was huge, practically a maze inside. It was well worth it to relax for two nights here and take full advantage of the spa. Reno was surprising in how small of a city it actually is. Considering how famous it is I was expecting a much larger city. They were also redoing the road on the entire main strip so driving through the city was a bit of a chore with all the detours and slow traffic through construction. We did do some automotive related things here with checking out the auto museum. An incredible collection consisting primarily of examples from the beginning of motoring history, we learned a lot about early motoring and these horseless curiosities. I could but I won't spam here with all the photos of the exhibits but this particular one caught my eye, a solid copper bodied 1921 Rolls Royce with all its accessories in either nickel or german silver.  The rest of Nevada is aptly described as desert. Got to see legitimate nevada desert tumbleweeds blowing across the highway again which was a highlight going through the vast flat expanses of desert. Idaho  Craters of the moon was a great detour and it's definitely got a 'hidden gem' feel to it. Not a lot of signage or development in the area but cool to see the thousands of years old lava fields.  I would like to come back some time and spend some more time exploring the area, there were a few trails and features I would have liked to check out.  Volcanic rock is really cool as it's really sharp, really light, and almost sponge like in its form. The majority of the rock you see in these pictures is Basalt I believe, which is the namesake of the Boxsters colour, Basalt Black.  After the sunset, still had a short leg of driving to get to the destination for the night. Am I ever glad I replaced the bulbs and aimed the lights, visibility is great and the high beams are phenomenal. We ended up seeing a good number of animals during the night, one of them we think was a lynx or bobcat, likely lynx as I swear it had pointed ears.  And that's were I'll finish for now. To Be Continued. |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:50
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Glad to see the pics are liked, I'll keep posting more up until you guys get tired of them. With regards to a roadtrip, if you've got all the regular maintenance sorted you should be fine, particularly if you're dealing with something with a reputation for reliability like a miata. And if it does have something fail it'll at least be a little easier/cheaper to find a shop and parts. Now if you suggested a british roadster of some flavor... yeah. Wyoming  Yellowstone is definitely one of my favorite places to visit. Otherworldly landscapes with all the geysers, hot springs, mud springs, and steam vents, beautiful waterfalls, and a variety of interesting animal life.  The buffalo that roam the park have a habit of roaming all across the road and causing their own sorts of traffic jams. They're used to people and cars but it's still important to remember they're wild animals and definitely not domesticated.  They can be very majestic and stoic animals.  And sometimes... not really.  Took a trip back to the Grand Prismatic Spring. The colours are always so stunning. Microbial colonies grow in the spring water and the colours you see actually depends on the temperature of the spring water in the area.  As I mentioned upthread my wife has difficulty walking and unfortunately during the last trip she wasn't able to do the full boardwalk so this time we came prepared. It was a bit of a quest to find a walker that folded up small enough to fit in the trunk but we managed to find this one and it worked great. Can't stress enough how much it helped particularly in the big cities and destinations with a lot of walking.  Some nice contrast of colours, and look a Bird!  This one I'm actually pretty proud of, managed to pull up just before the white dome geyser started erupting. There is actually a lot more geological activity this year than previous years, I haven't heard a reason for it. The days we were there it was actually quite chilly (9-15°C ish) which meant that all the steam vents, geysers, and hot springs had a lot more visible steam rising off of them making it seem more dramatic as well. In terms of the photo I only wish the sky was a little clearer so that I could get more contrast between the eruption and the sky.  Heading through Mammoth Hot Springs was a treat as well. The mineral rich water and the microbial growths built up over the years and you get these picturesque staircase like pools of water, with them slowly growing as more calcite is deposited from the water flowing down the pools.   While we were around Mammoth, we found out that it's apparently mating season for the elk. So here's one sticking its tongue out in what is surely a mating display of sorts  Yellowstone was great to explore as always, note for future visits though: come during the week. We came during a weekend and while the friday was great and relatively empty in terms of visitors, the saturday was packed. We went to the norris geyser basin relatively early and managed to get good parking but by the time we left all the overflow parking was full. Just a mad house. With Yellowstone behind us we headed to Beartooth pass. Montana  It's a wonderful drive, and this time I actually had some time to enjoy the sights and not racing against the sunset and a road closure.  Surprisingly enough, a year later they are still doing construction on the same little stretch of road. Government work never changes. At the top of the pass I ran into this fellow, a slick 80's air cooled. Speaking of reliability... chatted for a while with the owner, nice guy, down to earth.  Down the mountain pass and through the hairpins, nearing the end of our trip.  Hitting 88mph and I'd say we saw some serious poo poo.  North Dakota  Nothing to see here. No really, it's fields and straight roads forever.  Manitoba  Now these are MY fields and straight roads. And we're back home with this lovable goofball!  The weather we had was amazing, we didn't get a single spot of rain until we came back to Manitoba, and even then it was more of a heavy mist than an actual shower. Got quite the tan and racoon eyes from my glasses, top down for the majority of the trip. And that about covers it. It's been one hell of an adventure, and now that I'm back it's back to regularly scheduled programming. Baja's getting some work done in the next couple weeks (the weather has been terrible, we left it was nice and warm, we come back and it's in the single digits and rainy. And we had our first snow, it melted instantly but still, oof.) I looked at the underbody and being in the rust belt sucks, and apparently I'm not that good at applying POR15, or salt and sand are much more aggressive than I thought. Oh, and you know those pop songs that brag about going 20 over the limit or 90 on the highway? Yeah, that's just tuesday on the west coast, big deal. Speed limits in general seemed more like an abstract concept out west, definitely not enforced with the same gusto they have in the prairies. Some closing thoughts on the Boxster as the vehicle for a roadtrip of this scale: - While it's not a grand tourer, the seats are comfortable and the cabin is roomy enough. There is not a lot accessible storage space so plan accordingly, my model has the bose audio package which replaces the rear cubby compartment with speakers, which while improves the sound system removes a considerable amount of interior storage in an already minimalist interior. Heated seats are a must on the colder mornings and evening, and a variety of hats and toques was a great idea to block out the sun and keep our heads warm respectively. - Interior cabin can be loud on the highway, below ~110kph it's fine, but once you start getting above that the road noise and wind noise get a little excessive especially if you're doing long stretches. We balanced this issue by using noise cancelling headphones which did a good job of cutting out the road noise while still allowing us to converse and listen to music (noise cancelling tech does really well with consistent low frequency noises, does almost nothing for speech and music) - Frunk and Trunk are quite deep and can accomodate a lot of stuff for such a small car. Packing for two weeks wasn't too bad actually, we fit in with some room to spare. You do have to be mindful of what you pack and if you planned on going camping this would not be the right choice unless you went bare bones. If you don't have to transport a bulky walker I suspect camping gear would fit nicely in the trunk. - Gas mileage is pretty good and the tank is a fair size. All days other than the long commute days were done on a single tank, filled up pretty much every night at the final destinations. Never had any range anxiety even when going through the more remote areas. Bladders are a more likely cause for stops than an empty tank. - Even loaded up with all of our stuff it was blast to drive spritely on those twisty mountain and coastal roads. Felt exceptional balanced and the steering telepathic, plenty of grip. The main gripe is that most drivers would slow way down for the corners and then speed on the straights. Being the base model with the 2.7l I do not have an abundance of power but it's plenty to spiritedly pass on the straights in spite of the other drivers reluctance to let me. California and Oregon were the best for this as some drivers preemptively pulled to the side to let me pass when they saw coming up behind them in the corners, I was definitely not tailing them or being a prick on the road, I think it was just a local thing? Either way it was a nice gesture and for the majority of the driving I was not stuck behind anyone which made for some memorable driving. - A++ 100% would do again. Highly recommended. |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:52
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And you know what, two more for the road: Seeing as I no longer had a sports car for the summer, and due to being a workaholic I completely forgot to take any of my vacation last year and only found out about it when the company emailed in the spring to let us know that our vacation was resetting. I've asked my manager and I was able to carry it forward into the next year so I took full advantage of that. The next stop was the East coast. Halifax NS was home for the next week and a bit.  Walking along the waterfront we saw a familiar face, Theodore Tugboat! As a kid I remember watching the show on TV.  And being tourists, we did the most touristy thing imaginable and bought tickets for a ride on the harbor hopper, a repurposed military amphibious vehicle. These puppies are 1960's LARC-V and only 968 were made, at a cost of around 1 million each.  Uncomfortable, loud, and way overpriced, this was definitely a do it once and never again experience. We also had a shortened time in the water as there was a military ship in the harbor that restricted the movement of these so we had to go along a modified route that was 1/2 the time of the regular route. We stopped by the Citadel to take in some military history and witnessed the changing of the guard ceremony  Also got to chat with one of the guides there about this restored and running Ford model T ambulance. It even had a little oil puddle under it    And you can't stop by in Nova Scotia without visiting the Alexander Keith's brewery.  We made day trips all around, went down to Lunenburg and enjoyed what may have been the best fish and chips in the province.  Knocked off another tourist trap with a quick stop at Peggy's lighthouse on the way back to halifax  and checked out the treasure hunting artifacts on Oak Island  Hopped over to New Brunswick to check out the Hopewell rocks, one of the best places to see the incredible difference between the high and low tides in the bay of Fundy.  Saw the beautiful red coast of Prince Edward Island  Cruised around the harbor of Charlottetown  and had the best lobster I've ever had aboard the Top Notch were we learned about the fishing industry and got to pull up some of the traps they have set.  I've heard of the famous highland loop, and that they have mountains there as well. The draw of mountains had me hooked and of course I had to explore Cape Breton.  Unfortunately the day we went we ran into clouds, but the views were still wonderful. Thick green forest, low impenetrable clouds, and twisty narrow roads. Paradise.   Shifting gears back to quaint small towns, we made the trip to a tiny little island with around 200 inhabitants on the western tip of Nova Scotia, Brier island.  We set off into the bay of Fundy in search of whales but it was a foggy day on the island, the lighthouses were shining bright and the foghorns could be heard echoing back from the mainland.  But farther out to sea the fog cleared and boy did we find those whales.     The whales came right under our boat, and we were in for a real treat. It's apparently quite rare to see a pod of 4 whales together in these waters, the feeding must have been very good that day as they are usually territorial of their hunting grounds.  While we were there we had the fastest car in the world. A rental Jetta.  It was surprisingly enough a Wolfsburg edition so it was very comfy for the trip.  Considering we spend almost 50hrs in the thing and over 3700km, it was good that is was little upscale. |
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Sep 25, 2020 15:57
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Last one, for now. These are in reverse chronological order anyway. Read from.bottom to top I guess? Spring was here, I've got an unnatural attraction to the rocky mountains, and for the first time in my life I've got a convertible sports car. Two words. Road. Trip. (You too get to suffer through my vacation photos!)  Breaking up the drive into two parts was the best decision, gets all the boring highway driving out of the way and let us enjoy the sights fully on the next day as we made it to our final stop. Of course the trip was not without its excitement. In Regina, Saskatchewan when we stopped for lunch, we came back to the car after about 20 minutes and the rear license plate was stolen. We were not in Friendly Manitoba anymore... quick pit stop to move the front plate to the rear and reporting the incident to the RCMP and we continued on our way.  On the way we stopped in the little town of Waterton, a very quaint place with a very laid back feel. I missed this place on my previous trips but this time I was set on experiencing the small town.  Even the animals were laid back here  After Waterton drove up Crowsnest and stopped to see the Frank Slide  By that evening we had made it to our home base for the week. A delightful BnB in Radium BC  Throughout the week, we went EVERYWHERE. over 6000 km of driving in the week.  Went up the Jasper along what has to be one of the most scenic roads in this country    And of course we stopped by Athabasca falls.   And we saw some wildlife along the route   Driving through the mountains is just incredible. With the roof down you have an amazing view of the mountains towering to either side of you and elevation changes and twisty road are exhilarating. It is just an unbelievable feeling of how in-tune you get with the car through all the curves, it's almost telepathic. Since we were in Radium, we made the drive on hwy 93 through Kootenay many times and it was a dream every single time. Albertans are crazier than I am. There was a time or two that I took some of the downhill curves quick enough to land me in some trouble if I was observed but these guys, yeesh. Had a lifted bro-truck whip around me on a blind corner and he ended up in the oncoming lane because he couldn't keep it in the lane at those speeds. loving mental.  We took a trip up to Revelstoke to see the meadows in the sky parkway, but unfortunately we couldn't make it to the top as the snow hadn't receded far enough and the road was covered.  It was a little disappointing but the drive out was gorgeous and we stopped by the giant cedars boardwalk on the way.    The mountains also have some interesting weather patterns as we found out. We ran into some very localized showers on our way back from Revelstoke and we personally confirmed that if you are going above 100km/h you will not get any water on the inside of the car with the roof down in a pretty decent downpour. But of course, not trip would be complete without visiting the tourist trap that is Banff. Seriously I love the place but there's no denying it is very much geared towards getting all those tourism dollars.  Oh right, the first time we stopped there it was snowing. I never thought I would drive this car in snow, but here we are.    Now, I was on Michelin Pilot Super Sports, not exactly a winter ready tire. They handled surprisingly well, grip was adequate the whole time and taking it cautiously I was able to get around without issue.  The following day, everything melted and it was back to being sunny and warm. The weather was a roller coaster for sure. Mornings were cool around 10°C, with the afternoon warming up to high 20's.  We stopped by Emerald lake and saw the natural rock bridge.  The rushing water, the soft cool mist around the falls, the experience is just relaxing and mesmerizing to look at.  This majestic grizzly was just walking along the side of the road eating dandelions and minding his own business. We got right up beside him to snap a picture, closest I've ever been to a grizzly   The whole trip was an unforgettable experience. If you ever have the opportunity to tour the canadian rockies in a convertible, absolutely do it. And if you're from a place that doesn't have Costco booze, Calgary does, and the truck of the 987 comfortably fits two cases of Kirkland French Vodka. 
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Sep 25, 2020 15:58
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i love all these roadtrip pictures they are beautiful 
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Sep 25, 2020 16:09
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| good road trip pictures and good cars mostly | |
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Sep 25, 2020 16:31
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talbot-lago t150c ss, 1938 loveliest car ever built 
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Sep 25, 2020 16:37
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Sham bam bamina! posted:talbot-lago t150c ss, 1938 
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Sep 25, 2020 16:43
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hell yeah, that's an awesome road trip, thanks for sharing!! you're so much cooler than me
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Sep 25, 2020 16:53
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Nice road trips! I just visited Thor's Well last weekend, it's really neat. |
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Sep 25, 2020 18:39
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 05:23 |
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those are some amazing (and incredibly well-documented/presented!) road trips bajaha. let me just shitpost about my most recent one off the cuff, and remember that byob is among other things the post your crimes forum and you should always be lying on the internet there was too much heat on me in the islands so i decided it was time to head north. the last frontier keeps getting further and further away, there really isn't one left but the further west/north you go the easier it is to pretend. i liquidated my toyota pickup and subaru impreza to finance the move, stored some treasures i couldn't bear to part with in my non-op van i also couldn't bear to part with, and packed the rest of what i owned into a 1998 honda accord. i took a ferry to Ketchikan, then another ferry to Juneau, then another ferry to Haines the guy in front of me at the border crossing was in a homemade truck camper and they tore his poo poo up good. pulled out his nice under-bed drawers, turned his home into a pile of crap and then apparently didn't let him through cause he shoveled it into the back of his truck and headed back towards haines. spent like 3hrs doing it too, i got to sit in my car behind him and watch the whole time. i tried to get out to stretch and got yelled at, gently caress the [strikeout]police[/strikeout]canadian border patrol. at least they let him go i guess. anyways i made it through fine even though my car was full of guns and drugs because i am so charming and attractive. they didn't even look i didn't want to pay for a hotel and my car was so packed i couldn't lean the seat back, so the plan was to one-shot masterblast through all the way to fairbanks. late ferry, 3hrs at the border, and tire damage said otherwise. there was pretty much no leak holding still, but the faster i went the faster my tire deflated. made it barely 150 miles to haines junction (a different place than haines) actually doing the speed limit and stopping every 15-20mins to pump it back up. 2 of the 3 ferries i was on before broke down too, the stars were not properly aligned for my journey. haines junction was basically shuttered due to the plague and all. there was a tire shop there, but they were closed down except for the cardlock fuel pumps. there was a guy with a garage, but he was in whitehorse picking up fuel. there was a field of broken cars behind the tire shop though, so in the morning after camping beneath the [strikeout]stars[/strikeout] clouds and realizing the system had failed me i poked around until i found something with the same bolt pattern/a similar size tire to mine and swapped em out. strong post-apocalypse vibes new old tire equipped it was time to scoot north. my plague pass expired that day and if i didn't at least make the border the mounties would be after me. the rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. i blasted through beautiful mountain ranges and boreal forest and eventually tundra at double the posted speed limit cause my car wouldn't go any faster, the 1998 honda accord ex-l 2.3l kinda runs out of gearing around 105. you can push it to ~118 but it doesn't sound happy about it. people like to say the alcan highway is "lovely" and "dangerous" because of all the frost heaves and potholes, but i call it fun. potholes you just got to dodge, there's never much traffic and this trip through with the plague and all there was almost none. use the whole road, and think of the heaves like corners. brake in, throttle out, keep the car level. i was hittin em hard and i'm pretty sure i caught air a couple times, definitely had a couple rough landings. got a pretty good squeak coming from the steering now, but that's ok fixing cars is part of driving them got into fairbanks last night but in a way you could say i'm still on the road because i'm living out of this car until i find a secluded/unsecured summer home to squat in for the winter. i hope you enjoyed my tale of car-based crime and survival in the american northwest. i made it all up so don't call the cops. bajaha had a bunch of cool pictures so i guess i should find a couple too. i didn't take many on account of being busy Living It and my phone only working when plugged in but google's got my back (along with a terrifying amount of personal information but hey, what can you do) this is a map, duh  these are frost heaves. fun huh?  this is where you can score some tires, just in case  this is destruction bay, there's a really cool abandoned resort i always stop at but i don't know what it's called and couldn't find a pic  this is just a nice pic of the road i saw whilst googling 
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Sep 25, 2020 18:53
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