Futurama

My time in Texas has ended. Aaron and I had a wonderful time in Smithville and Austin. We spent some time checking out varous galleries and eating excellent food made by my equally excellent friends in Smithville.

Aaron flew out on the 6th back to Thunder Bay, and on the 8th I picked up my friend Sean from the airport as he wanted to do the North bound part of the road trip. Sean came down to Austin with me last year, as an extension of our trip through Death Valley and to Las Vegas.

Lets take a quick pause to do some number crunching of the trip so far.

Distance from Vancouver, BC to Smithville, TX (including all side trips, but excluding time spent in Smithville/Austin) was 5,103km (3170 miles).

Fuel used in that distance was  454L (120 US Gallons). Giving us around 8.9L/100km (26MPG). Not awesome but not bad considering our average speed was about 125km/hr.

No major problems with the car, however there are some minor issues. One new stone chip in the windscreen, two stone chips in the right front headlight lens, a cranky neutral safety switch, and a sunroof that sometimes doesn't like to close.

Back to the North bound leg of the journey.

Sean and I left Smithville fairly early today. We decided to stop in Austin to take in a new exhibit at the Harry Ransom Centre. The Ransom Centre has been a favourite of mine since I discovered it about 5 years ago. It is free to enter and they have very interesting exhibits there that are always changing five

Last year Sean and I saw a one time exhibit that showed the history of censored materials in the USA. It was amazing! It is such a shame it is not on tour.

This year the exhibit is called  "I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America". I am so happy we stopped in to see it. I had never heard of Bel Geddes but I had seen his design work before. From his designs of stages to the miniature cities of the future he built for the World Fair in Chicago, it was all excellent. A catalogue of his work was not available for us to buy since it was the first day open but I plan to purchase it online once I return home. The work can be looked at for hours! I highly recommend doing a bit of Google image searching, especially his stage drawings.

So after taking in some art it was time to head North. We wanted to put some miles in today, so we ended up driving 1,219km (757 miles). We didn't quite make it to Albuquerque, but we are just outside it tonight.

Our sights are set on the Mesa Verde National Park outside Cortez C,O for tomorrow's sight seeing. From there we will just continue North via Utah. Moab take two!