Summer has given way to autumn, and with that transition, the trip is half over.

I see the sun rising later and setting earlier every day now.  It’s a stark change from the beginning of the trip.  When I was in northern Canada and Alaska, it was light nearly all the time.  Now, darkness gets its turn.

It never really got dark in Fairbanks. This was the view from my hotel window around 2:00 a.m. on July 9. No long-exposure trickery here; just a snapshot from my phone. (ISO617, f/2.8, 1/15 s)

So, where do we stand?  The latest numbers:

• 94 days down, 89 to go
• 17,200 miles driven, roughly 10,000 to go
• 20 states visited/played in, 30 to go
• 4 provinces visited/played in, 6 to go

If you’ve been paying close attention to my mileage estimates, you might have noticed that they’ve been fluctuating a bit.  You might also have noticed that the mileage reported for my completed path on Google Maps is somewhat lower than the mileage reported above.  The main reasons for the discrepancies are that my routes have changed from my initial plans and that I do some driving within each of my destination cities.  So far, I’ve been averaging about 20% over the theoretical mileage due to that in-town driving.  Due to all of the uncertainty, I’m going to leave the overall trip estimate at a nominal 30,000 miles, even though 27,000 miles is looking more likely.

Major accomplishments so far:

• Only one speeding ticket
• Not yet eaten by bears
• Hockey found in every spot except North Dakota

In other words, things are going well.

I will continue to chase the waning sun as I cover the eastern half of the continent.  Autumn in New England promises to be beautiful, and I’m particularly excited about visiting Newfoundland — a place that it seems many Americans would struggle to find on a map.

Meanwhile, the question of “what comes next” continues to loom large.  I am going to base my decision first on where I want to live and second on what I want to do. With luck, I will find that spot and that vocation yet on the trip.