Day 22

Starting mileage is 17590
Miles to date: 8751
States to date: 29

 Our plan is to run across the northern states, leaving Bozeman, MT this morning and running to Bismark ND.  The route is all interstate so even though it's a longer driving day it shouldn't be too difficult.


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Although we've run into a bit of rain along our path, this is the first day we've started in the rain.

It cleared up a bit, but it's still quite dreary.  I'm sure this area would be quite beautiful on a nice day.

Well, the adventure has begun.  About 20 miles east of Billings MT, in quick succession, we got the left catalytic convert warning followed by the right catalytic converter warning, the check engine light then a dead engine.  We coasted to the side of the road surprised that we had no real warning that anything was wrong.  I pulled out the ODBII scanner and read the codes.  We did have a limited signal on the ipad so while I called Josh Hill at Exotic Car Specialties in Virginia, Quillan was trying to find the codes on the internet.

Josh was able to lookup the codes for us which indicated that we had been experiencing misfires on both left and right sides as well as catalytic converter temperature warnings.  The catalytic converter warning lights come on when the cats hit 900 degrees and the ECU turns off the fuel pump when the cats overheat to prevent engine damage.  In discussing the situation with Josh, it was quickly determined that we got some bad gas when we filled up in Billings, 20 miles ago.   I called AAA and had them send out a flat bed to take us back into town where I was hoping to find someone who could drain the tank.

Unfortunately, it was Friday afternoon (the 13th no less), and it was difficult to find someone who would attempt to get the Murcielago on a flatbed, much less put it on a lift.  We did get towed back to Billings where we waited a couple of hours for the cats to cool off, added some dry gas and hoped for the best.

We were lucky to find a hotel, most were booked with folks heading to/from Sturges.  I wanted to make sure that bad gas was the problem, and that the dry gas had solved the problem so I after dinner put about 80 miles on the car driving around Billings.  No additional problems popped up so we'll be heading east again tomorrow.

Day 21

Starting mileage is 16907
Miles to date: 8068
States to date: 27

 We are finally heading east, we still have a ways to go, but it seems like we are on the down hill part of the trip.  We are leaving Issaquah and will go through Idaho ending up in Bozeman, MT.


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We started out going through the mountains, but things flattened out soon enough.  I was unaware that there was so much agriculture in Washington state.

In Spokane, WA we found the worlds largest Radio Flyer wagon.  The handle is actually a slide.

We ended up stopping at a Dicks drive in for lunch.  I needed to make a call for work and the car is too loud to carry on a conversation on a cell phone while driving (or maybe I'm too deaf).  Dicks was interesting, they sold cheese burgers by the bag, the three guys in front of us ordered 10 between them.

Into Idaho, we have covered over 2/3rds of the miles for the entire trip, but we still have quite a few states to go.

The western side of Idaho was much more mountainous , the driving was much more interesting than the flat straight roads we were on earlier in the day.

We cut across the thin part of Idaho so it wasn't too long before we hit Montana. 

The weather had been threatening rain as we approached Montana, but we only had enough to create a rainbow.  We've been quite lucky with the weather on the trip.

 We ended up in Bozeman a little late so we didn't get to see much of the town.  We had been pushing the destination a little today, and over the next few days to make a little more time for the north east.

Day 20

Starting mileage is 16604
Miles to date: 7765
States to date: 27

We have another shorter day, we're heading west to the coast then up to Issaquah, WA, just outside Seattle.


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Our first day was on the western side of Portland.  We stopped at the zoo to take a quick tour of the subway station.  They put some effort into the design, filling the station with various scientific facts, and a core sample taken during the construction of the station that detailed the state of the earth during various points in the core sample.

I'm not sure why, but they also included PI in their engravings.  Some may find this more interesting than others...

The forests are amazing to drive through, I'm sorry we don't have time to do any hiking, maybe on another trip.

It is easy to identify those areas that have been logged recently.  We did run into many clear cut areas.

It wasn't too long before we reached the Pacific.  The weather was a bit overcast so there weren't many people on the beach.

We took a little time to stretch our legs and relax.  It was quite peaceful swinging on the beach watching the waves.

We left the beach, and headed north toward Seattle, finally arriving in Issaquah late in the afternoon.  Issaquah turns out to have a great little historic downtown area with many restaurants and shopping.  Unfortunately I had left the camera in the room so I don't have any pictures.

Day 19

Starting mileage is 15380
Miles to date: 7541
States to date: 26

 Today is a fairly short drive through the mountains into Vancouver Washington.


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The weather was great as it has been for the majority of the trip.  We started out in the high desert with the mountains in the distance.  It was really quite picturesque, although the snapshots don't really do it justice.

As we got into the mountains, the trees became much more plentiful.  We ended up driving past Government Camp on Mt. Hood, this is where Quillan went to a snowboarding camp a couple of years ago.

Early afternoon we ended up in Washington.  We needed to search a bit for the welcome sign, but we eventually found it, it's past the second exit.

While in Vancouver, we did meet up with a couple of guys, one brought his 1986 Jalpa.  I had to get pictures so Pam could see that it's possible that ours will be on the road at some point.  Quillan suggested that I actually needed to take a video since it might not have gotten there under it's own power.

There seems to be quite a bit to do in the Portland/Vancouver area.  Unfortunately, we'll be heading on tomorrow, we would really need to spend several months on the road to have time to really explore.

Day 18

Starting mileage is 15878
Miles to date: 7039
States to date: 25

Today's route takes us north west to Bend Oregon on mostly secondary roads.


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The terrain is pretty flat and desolate with very straight roads.  I measured this straight section at 13 miles, followed by another 13 mile straight section,  followed by another 13 mile straight section, you get the idea.  Not too surprisingly, occasionally they run unlimited road races in this part of the country.

Even on these back roads, we couldn't get away from the construction.  In the middle of nowhere, at least 60 miles from the nearest town (which didn't have any services), we got hung up in construction traffic.  The traffic handlers and follow drivers were very surprised to find a Lamborghinion these back roads.

Turns out they were cutting a rumble strip down the middle of the road.  It even though they swept up after the cutter there was still quite a bit of debris on the road for miles after the construction site.

We ran into a few showers along the way.  I'm continually surprised with the expanse of the terrain.  With the wide open plains it's possible to see where the rain stops, something that isn't possible along most areas of the east coast.

We passed in to Oregon near Denio, there wasn't much there.

As we got closer to our destination we got more into the mountains.

Crossing the grasslands we took out quite a few grasshoppers.  We don't seem to be able to get away from them.

We stopped in Bend Oregon.  With a population of 81000 or so, it's one of the larger cities in Oregon, but still less than one tenth the size of the county where we live. 

Day 17

Starting mileage is 15412
Miles to date: 6573
States to date: 25

Our route today will take us north to Prometory Summit then west to Elko, NV.


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We started our day running north to Promontory Summit in Utah, the location where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific rail lines were linked.  We learned that the two railroads had been requested by Congress to link their lines created an east-west line, but they were not told where to link.  Since the two companies were being paid per mile of grade they actually built 250 miles past each other.  When Congress found out they specified Promontory Summit as the linking point since it was halfway for each company.

The actual engines that were present for the driving of the final spike were used for years later and were actually sold for scrap at the end of their life.  The National Park Service has two similar model steam engines at the site.  They are working engines and they provide steam demonstrations daily.

Not far down the road is a rocket engine testing facility that has quite a static display of various engines and rocket components.

From there, we went south, then west below the Great Salt Lake.  Again, there isn't much out there, although there was quite a bit of traffic.  There was a 40 mile stretch of highway that we

On the western side, near Nevada, is the Bonneville Speedway.  We stopped, and after some prompting from Quillan, we actually went out on the salt, at least for a half mile or so.

The salt does seem to get caked on.

We found our way to Elko, Nevada where the first order of business was to find a car wash so we could wash the salt off the car.

Day 16

Starting mileage is 14984
Miles to date: 6145
States to date: 24

Our route takes us up interstate 15 to Midvale UT, just south of Salt Lake City.


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Again, through the desert with lots of nothing around.  It's very brown and dry.  It's important to make sure you have enough gas for the car, and water for the people when traversing the deserts.

It did get a little more interesting when passing through the mountains...

And finally we got to the Utah state line. 

The scenery got a little more colorful in Utah, but there still wasn't much around.

As we got closer to Salt Lake City (our destination was just south of the city), we also got closer to the mountains.  We also ran into more of the ever present construction.  Many of these projects are labeled as stimulus projects.

This was a fairly short driving day, a little more than 400 miles so we were able to relax a bit and get some dinner at a local brew pub which had some good German food.