Best of the Drive For 5-0

Best of the Drive For 5-0

Here is the previously promised photo gallery of some of my favorite pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

7,611 miles and 19 states later, it's all over. We got in late last night, so I apologize for the late post today. I plan to post more photos and some general thoughts/highlights from the trip over the next few days, so please check back. Once again, thanks to everyone who followed this somewhat insane journey. It definitely helped me keep going knowing that so many people were thinking of me.

The Long Sprint Home - Day Three

That, friends, is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Mo., which means we have crossed the Mississippi and returned to the East. Today we made the relatively short drive from Lincoln, Neb., to Metropolis, Ill., getting us within 700 miles of home.

Not a lot to report from the Thursday drive, though we did hit some pretty funky storms across Missouri and Illinois. This morning we will head across town to the Superman Museum before completing the final leg of this wacky experiment.

Thanks to everyone who has been following along and we'll be home soon!

The Long Sprint Home - Day Two

Sorry for another relatively short post, but you'd be amazed how little energy you have to write about a day of nonstop driving.

Just for reference, here's what we've done since lunch Tuesday. Yesterday was Ogden to Lincoln, a lovely little drive that took us across both Wyoming and Nebraska (is it weird to anyone else that those two states share a border?)

Below you will see the state capitol of Wyoming in Cheyenne, where we ate dinner last night. The only restaurant we could find downtown was the Albany, which triples as a bar and a liquor store in addition to being an eatery. Talk about one stop shopping.



The only other real news of notes is that I had my first run-in with law enforcement personnel last night about midnight. But good news! It was only for not coming to a complete stop at the top of an off-ramp where I was stopping to get gas and a got off with a warning. Finally these good looks come in handy.

You'll notice that the bobbymap has been updated, while the scoreboard has not. That's because I keep forgetting to check my mileage when I park for the night. That said, I am well over 6,000 miles for the trip, which is fun.

The Long Sprint Home - First Leg

Not a whole lot to report today, just a lot of driving yesterday and a lot of driving ahead today. Yesterday we made the trip from Seattle to Ogden, Utah, today is Ogden to Lincoln, Neb. Google map it yourselves to see how crazy we are. I'll go into more detail next time I get a chance.

Oh, and by the way, that's all 50 states for those of you keeping track.

Yay me.

Evenflow As You Are

Monday was the last big city of the trip - Seattle, Wash. No plaid, depressing grunge rock or rain here, though. It was a beautiful day, and it featured the debut of a special guest that will be joining me for the rest of the trip - Lauren, official girlfriend of the Drive For 5-0. She's done with finals and helping me make the 3,000-mile sprint home by Friday, which is awesome because I was starting to talk to myself and that's never good.

Anyway, Monday morning I made the short drive into the city from Marysville and settled into the city. I don't think I can overstate how nice the weather was/still is. Lauren said the flight attendant told her it was only the second time she could remember flying into Seattle and the sun being out. Needless to say, I've gotten lucky again. Here's hoping that it won't run out before North Carolina.

After walking down to the famous Pike Street Market, I eventually found what I was looking for - a place to eat sushi for lunch. I had three rolls - spicy crab, tuna with mango and cashews and shrimp tempura. They were all excellent, as you might expect.

I rested for a bit back at the hotel before picking up Lauren from the airport, and we immediately headed down to the Space Needle to get there before dark. It was worth the trip...(look for the fading Mt. Ranier in the background)

So the overwhelming thought for the day was that I was completely spoiled by a perfect day in Seattle.

Today we start the long, not-so-slow journey home, but not before a stop in Portland, which is located in Oregon, which is state No. 50! After that it's back east by Friday.

I'm fresh out of witty titles

Maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, today was my day to enjoy Vancouver, the only non-American city on this here journey. So after a lazy morning of watching the Braves, I headed out (and this will shock you, considering this is the Pacific Northwest) into the rain to see the city.

Vancouver is basically a giant peninsula, and the downtown is essentially another peninsula off that. So after I cracked that code and got the right bridge into downtown (driving without a map is a whole new experience on this trip), I parked to grab lunch.

I ate at Prima Taste, a restaurant that specializes in food from Singapore. Best that I can tell, it's a chain, but the only ones in North America are in Vancouver and San Jose, Calif. The rest are in Asia, which is fun. So it was something I couldn't get at home, which is basically all I'm looking for when eating on the road. And all the other people in the place looked to be of Asian decent, so I figured that was a good sign that the food was up to par, which it was. I had a chicken and rice dish as well as some curry chicken pastries (kinda like empanadas) which were fantastic.

After that I walked around downtown for a while until the rain chased me off. It was a little disappointing to miss out on really getting a good look at the city, but lucky for me there was an alternative.

I headed over to the Vancouver Art Gallery where they had an exhibit featuring, wait for it, photos of Vancouver. It was a great exhibit and it was neat watching the locals go through the photos pointing out places they'd been. Sort of a fun firsthand/secondhand way to see the city.

I then left downtown to drive through the campus of the University of British Columbia. With the crummy weather, I didn't have it in me to take any pictures, but it looked like a pretty standard college campus. There was a good looking golf course right at the edge of campus, which is always a good sign.

After another extremely annoying trip across the border, I was back in the United States. I'm holed up in Maryville, Wash., for the night before heading into Seattle tomorrow. After a night in Seattle, it's Oregon Tuesday and then...well, that's it, I guess. No more states, mission accomplished. Kind of unbelievable.

Until tomorrow...