Sweet Potato + Marsh-mallows = Texas

730km brings us to Amarillo Texas, one success and one failure on the land art to do list.

We left Gallup, NM around 8:30 MST with our sights on Cadillac Ranch. The I-40  was our road the whole way today. It is a pretty straight, East bound Interstate, so it would make for a boring drive, but the scenery is pretty awesome if you like wide open sky. The best part of long straight roads like this is the conversation between friends.

After a long day of driving, our goal of Cadillac Ranch came visible off the I-40. We we pretty happy to see a bunch of cars parked off the road. Who thought so many people would come to see this?

The old girl parked outside Cadillac Ranch, dirty with the dust of the roads to Spiral Jetty.

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After the excitement of visiting Cadillac Ranch, we were ready to find Amarillo Ramp. We punched in the GPS coordinates into our car GPS and off we went. The Ramp is not so easy to find. It is on private  property and one has to walk to it. The night before we watched a YouTube video of some other people finding it and felt we cold do the same.

Sadly we were met with No Trespassing signs or gated unnamed roads that the GPS wanted us to run down. Aaron talked to two houses we found after driving down small one lane farm roads. The first house belonging to the Barton Family came up with nothing, the second at Circle Ranch also came up with nothing but the friendly advice of "be careful".  The Ramp was made in 1973 so it is not surprising no one has heard of it. 

After several dead ends we gave up our search and headed in Amarillo to find a hotel for the night. Those who are close to me know I am a big fan of Motel 6. In the last 3 years I have stayed at over 40 Motel 6's in the USA, and 1 in Canada. The Motel 6 we found in Amarillo is the best so far! It has been recently renovated with faux bamboo hardwood floors and a fancy style sink to boot!

Luxury at $39 a night!

Aaron wanted a steak, after all we are in Texas. We just returned from the Texas Roadhouse Restaurant (a chain in Texas we assume). Aaron had the Big Hoss Bone in Ribeye Steak (20oz) with sweet potato. He was asked if he wanted his potato loaded. What does loaded mean? Well for an extra dollar you get caramel and, wait for it..... marshmallows on your baked sweet potato, smartly he declined. I might add the potato did come with two almost ice cream scoop sized pads of butter on top of it.

On our way back to the motel, we saw this storage unit which was very proud of its security measures. 

Everything is bigger in Texas

Tomorrow we may attempt another visit of Amarillo Ramp. Ultimately we will be headed to Carlsbad Caverns and Marfa, Texas for more art!

Road of Bottles

Another 700km or so under our belt today. I was very happy to revisit Moab Utah, one of my favourite places in North America. It is always a treat to show new people the area. Arches National Park is never a let down.

I'd put more photos up, but a) the connection sucks here and b) you should check it out yourself.

We continued South to New Mexico. We took a detour to see Four Corners, which proved to be a bit depressing. US 160 is littered with beer and liquor bottles on both sides, in fact there was so much broken glass the ditches glittered in the sun light.

The last time I was at Four Corners (8 years ago) it was just a round plaque in the sand, now it is surrounded by small booths that Navajo people can sell their wares and you have to pay to get in. It felt like a bit of a tourist trap now.

We left and made good time to Gallup NM.  Not sure what kind of rest we are going to have here tonight. Their is a very active train line next to the hotel and the toilet keeps making weird noises. 

Amarillo is in our sights for tomorrow. It is about a seven hour drive from here. We hope to see Cadillac Ranch and Amarillo Ramp, two more works by the same person who did Spiral Jetty. The latter may be a bit tricky to find, but we have come this far, it is worth the effort.

Joseph's Myth

For those of you who know how I road trip, you will know that having only covered 708km in one day is odd for me. This trip has truly been more of a sighting seeing trip than my usual one destination how long can I drive in one day type road trip that I have been doing since 2001.

Here is a better photo of our camera setup in the car.

So we crossed into Idaho early this morning. I had told Aaron of the Idaho plastic potato pins they give out at the Visitors Centre when you cross into Idaho. Aaron's excitement was soon dashed by no sign of pins in the centre. Perhaps over the last 8 years (the last time I stopped at this place with Brandy and Chelsia) they phased out the pins.

Idaho was mainly covered in smoke. It seems like they were having problems with forest fires too. Everything is super dry out here at the moment. 

A sad sign of the times. Don't forget your cell phone when you travel I guess.

The Utah border came quickly, and soon we were off the Interstate headed for the Spiral Jetty. The Jetty is inside Golden Spike National Park, although it is not an official part of the park. The road through the park is not paved and the last 10 miles to the jetty is a small gravel road, despite road condition we could still do about 90km/hr. I was surprised to see two people pass us coming back from the Jetty, I thought we' be the only ones.

I wasn't sure to what to expect with Aaron's crazy idea of visiting this land art, but I was surprised at how neat it was.

Aaron wanted to get naked and go into the lake, but after closer inspection he decided against it.

Our time at the Jetty was fun, and it seem that other people do come out here. There was fire pit in the middle of parking lot (which was just the dead end of the road). We're not sure if burning your underwear is part of some tradition when one visits the Jetty.

After the Jetty we headed to Salt Lake City to see the Mormon temple. Aaron took some time taking photos of various statues on the temple grounds, and soon we became to weirded out by the vibe of the place and went looking for beer and food. On the way to Red Rock Brewing we saw a car with a white bumper stick with simple black letters saying "Joseph's Myth", a great play on the name of founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith. While Aaron took a photo of the sticker the owner of the truck saw us and asked if we wanted the same sticker, we of course wanted them and he happily supplied us our own Joseph's Myth stickers. He told us if we put them on our car to expect them to be scratched off.

It was a short trip to Provo, where we are now settled for the night. Provo and I have a history. I was trapped here in 2004 after a fuel pump relay went on my Volvo on US 6 south of Provo headed to Moab. I could have fixed it right there on the road (I had spare relays as any good Volvo owner should have in their glove box), but it didn't occur to me at the time and was towed back to Provo.  

The last time I slept here we (Brandy, Chelsia, and I) were told Provo was the Meth Capital of America. It doesn't seem so bad this time around, though I didn't make a bee line for the place we stayed at back 8 years ago. 

I almost can't sleep knowing the Moab is so close. I look forward to sharing some photos of my favourite place in North America tomorrow. 

A Different Ontario

943km later, I think the car is going to be ok.  She hasn't missed a beat, and the fuel mileage is normal for it's vintage. 

Below is a photo of Aaron setting up the time lapse camera. I didn't know at the time that that the reflection was so bad in the photo, so I will add a better one tomorrow. The little rig that we put together last night works very well. Most of the trip was recorded with the camera pointing to the back, but we did do an hour or so facing the front. 

There are a number of forest fires in Southern Oregon at the moment. It has made the scenery around us rather smog like. It did however make for a nice sunset tonight,

Tomorrow we will set our sites on an art installation called The Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson in Utah, just north of SLC.

The Night Before

This blog covers a journey to Marfa Texas. A journey shard with my good friend Aaron. Along the way we are visiting various land art installations, with the ultimate goal of Marfa Texas to visit minimal artist Donald Judd's ranch. The trip will be recorded via time lapse photography as we drive.

This blog will also be a record of my car's performance on this road trip. The car is a 1985 Mercedes Benz 300D making another trip into the USA. This is no ordinary vehicle. It is on it's third engine now, the last one, having made it to 560,000km was too tired after a trip to Las Vegas to be of service any more. The chassis only has 340,000km on it, the first engine blew a ring, this current one has 379,000km, with a suspect injection pump (we have an extra one in the trunk). I do have faith in this car, after all it did take me and 3 of my buddies up Old Priest Grade, located in Mocassin Califorina on the way to Death Valley. For those of you who don't know of this road, let me tell you, it will test all your skills. One goes from 280m (910feet) to 750m (2450feet) in 4.3km (2.7 miles), and is met with a yield sign at the top of the climb!

The current engine was taken out of a car bought from a good friend in Vancouver. It and the car sat for 4 months waiting to be  swapped in by a mechanic that owed me money, Ideally it should have been done back in April when I gave him the car, but it was only completed last week, I have no feeling of what new engine is like, and after asking my good mechanic what he thought of the me going on this trip said "I have seen worse go farther". That comment made up my mind. I did have the option to rent a car to to do this trip, but thought half the challenge and excitement is us getting there, and this blog will serve as record of what happens mechanically along the way.

This will not just be about cars, but observations of the trip and what happens along the way.

For now, it is time to get some sleep as we plan on an early departure.