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.

I had grand plans for what I would eat on this trip.  I would feast on local fruits and vegetables.  I would cook every night, not but from scratch.  I would start each day with a healthy breakfast, and I would stop to make myself a practical lunch every afternoon.

“Food, glorious food!”

— Oliver

Ha.  That lasted about two days.

The first night, I camped at a national forest in northern Minnesota.  I stir-fried some tofu, fresh broccoli, and fresh onions, and put it all over a bed of rice.  It was delicious.  It was something I’ve done a thousand times at home.  It was a huge pain to do it on the road.

First, I had only a very small cutting board, so I didn’t have much room on which to work.  Second, my stove was meant for backpacking use, so it was underpowered, which led to long cooking times, not to mention high fuel costs.  Third, to keep the perishable ingredients fresh, I had to use a cooler, but that was a problem unto itself.

The cooler required ice.  The melting ice got everything in the cooler wet, and the ice itself was expensive, especially in the more remote parts of Canada. I thought that it might be easier to use a smaller cooler, so I set aside my awesome Coleman 5-day Xtreme cooler in Fairbanks and got a smaller one.  Turns out that a small pain is still a pain.  By the middle of August, I had given up on coolers all together.  That smaller cooler now sits empty in Sam’s cargo area.

Breakfast and lunch had similarly lofty goals that were quickly crushed.

So what have I been eating? Fast food?  Pssh. Not in this life.  Maybe if I wanted to feel greasy and bloated.  (Okay, okay; maybe I’ve stopped at Taco Bell a couple of times for a quick burrito, and I’ll admit that I’ve eaten a few subs at Subway, but that’s it.)

Here’s what it’s come down to: bananas and beans.

Oh sure, there are some other foods, like tortillas, peanut butter, and Sriracha hot sauce, but bananas and beans are the core.  Bananas are fresh, keep for a few days without refrigeration, cheap to buy, and don’t require washing prior to consumption.  Beans are high in fiber, high in protein, cheap, taste good, and require no preparation when acquired in cans.  Similarly, those other foods are shelf-stable, inexpensive, and (with the exception of Sriracha) minimally processed.

In what can only be a bad thing for my teeth, kidneys, and body in general, I’ve also been drinking A LOT of coffee.  Many cups on a normal day.  Even more if I’m driving.  I prefer tea, it’s true, but coffee wins for the convenience and availability.  It’s hard to find good tea, but decent coffee is everywhere these days.

The best food, however, has come from the generosity of my friends and family with whom I’ve couch surfed and visited.  Thanks everybody!

While in St. Louis, I decided to take the tour of the Budweiser brewery.  After all, it had been highly recommended by several people, and it often appears on lists of the best brewery tours in America.

I had high hopes, but I was disappointed.

The tour docents weren’t particularly knowledgeable about the process of brewing beer.  The tour route made only the most cursory of dips into the workings of the factory.  And my fellow tourists?  They all seemed more concerned with the free beer samples than with the tour proper.

Free beer at the end of the free tour, so it wasn't all bad

I should qualify this by saying that I’ve been on only one other brewery tour, that of the Harpoon Brewery in Boston.  The Harpoon tour was excellent.  It probably helped that the tour was given by one of the brewers, so he had intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the brewery.

One of the brewers/tour guides at the Harpoon Brewery in Boston last year. Pulling something from one of the fermentation tanks, I think?

There was one bright spot on the Budweiser tour (besides the free beer at the end).  They offered an optional “beer school” for the nominal charge of $10.  The class consisted of tasting a flight of Anheuser-Busch beers, along with a discussion of the ingredients and tips on pouring the different styles.  That last bit I found particularly informative.  I had no idea about the correct way to pour unfiltered beer.

A funny moment during the beer school came when we were smelling and tasting one of the samples of beer.  The class “professor” asked what we all smelled.  I swirled the beer in my glass, lifted it to my nose, and inhaled.

My first thought was that it smelled like my hockey gear.  I kid you not.  My second thought was, “That can’t be right,” then, “Wait… maybe my gear smells like beer instead of the other way around?”

I revisited the issue at hockey that night, and I noticed there was a definite smell of fermentation emanating from my hockey bag.  I’d like to hope that the smell was from the alcohol in Febreze, but I think I really just need to get my gear cleaned.

I’ve driven on some amazing roads on this trip.  The vast majority of those asphalt (and gravel) ribbons were completely functional, but only a few stand out as being truly exceptional.

#3: Beartooth Highway US-212 (Wyoming and Montana)

This is a famous road that starts in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, goes up a 10,000+ ft mountain pass, and descends into the friendly town of Red Lodge, Montana.  A good chunk of it is above the treeline, and snow is a possibility year-round.

The amazing vistas, the fun twisty curves on the many switchbacks, and the picturesque surroundings combine to make an excellent driving experience.  Better yet, there are numerous spots to pull off the road and soak it all in.  Charles Kuralt called the Beartooth “the most beautiful drive in America.”

#2: Sea-to-Sky Highway BC-99 north of Whistler (British Columbia)

I stumbled upon Highway 99 without knowing its many qualities; I had simply wanted to go to Whistler from Prince George.  I had been on the part of Highway 99 south of Whistler when I went there skiing, but the road to the south has a completely different personality than the one to the north.  Whereas the southern stretch is a 4-lane divided highway for most of its run, the northern part is a 2-lane, sometimes 1-lane, line of tarmac twisting through, up, and down giant mountains.

It winds through forests.  It echoes rivers.  It offers views of trees, rocks, snow, farmland, trains, tunnels, and more.

It’s a playground for sports cars and motorcycles.

It’s a thrill, and it seems to have been completely repaved within the past year or two, so it’s in excellent condition.

I couldn’t erase the smile from my face as I shot Sam through the curves.  It was the one time on the trip that I wished Sam were a WRX instead of an Outback.

#1: Pacific Coast Highway US-101 and CA-1 (Washington, Oregon, and California)

The most beautiful road in the world is actually several roads: start with US-101 in Washington, follow that down until around Eureka, California, then turn off onto CA-1.  Do that, and you will be greatly rewarded.

The magnitude of this road is what sets it apart from the others.  It’s 2000 miles of amazing scenery, scenery that makes everything seem right with the world.

Cruising down the coast with the windows down, the sun shining, and the surf of the Pacific pounding the beaches below the mammoth bluffs?  That’s the recipe for bliss.

It’s an engineering marvel, too.  There are hundreds of bridges.  There are enormous cuts in the cliffs.  Rockfalls, mudslides, floods, and other natural forces all attempt to cover or remove the road on a frequent basis.  On top of all that, many stretches of the road are extremely remote, which further complicates maintenance and non-functional cell phones.

If you ever have to go from Seattle to San Diego, do yourself a favor and drive the entire coast.

Honorable mention: the Alaska Highway (British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Alaska), the Glenn Highway (Alaska), the Icefields Parkway (Alberta), and Highway 37A (British Columbia)

My friend Masaru saw that I was in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, so he casually asked if I was interested in doing something.

“Lunch,” I replied, adding, “Name the place, and I’ll be there.”

I was expecting somewhere in downtown Madison, perhaps on the famous State Street.  Instead, Masaru invited me to the corporate campus for his employer, Epic Systems.  I’m glad we went with that option, because I was blown away by what I saw.

I drove Sam a few miles west of Madison to where the development of the city began to give way to the rolling farmland of the country.  There, perched on a hill, was the enormous complex of buildings that served as the Epic Systems corporate campus.

A small part of one of the many buildings at the Epic Systems corporate campus. (Photo CC by sarahbest via Flickr)

It was remarkable.  The landscaping was intricate, full of trees, rocks, waterways, and flowers.  The buildings, though large, did not clash with the environment as much as complement it.  The facades were warm-toned brick and wood, with tasteful black metal roofs.  And windows? They abounded.  A masterpiece of architecture.

It wasn’t just a beautiful exterior.  The interior was filled with high-quality fixtures, wood, and art.

The people were all friendly, and the environment was relaxed.

I was concerned that I would be severely under-dressed, as I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  As it turned out, I fit right in: the most-dressed up people were the ones wearing long pants instead of shorts, but even they were wearing sandals.

And security?  None to speak of.  Nobody had badges, and I didn’t even need to sign in as a visitor.  Remarkable.

The whole experience was in stark contrast to the corporate environments I’ve seen in the past.  It felt like something that belonged in California, not the midwest.

As I was walking around the building, mouth agape, I couldn’t help but feel that I wanted to work there.  I had no idea what Epic Systems did, but the work environment alone was compelling enough to trigger lust.  That’s the power of a beautiful campus and a friendly corporate culture.

It turned out that Epic Systems built health care software.  Really good, really expensive, really popular health care software.  That has led to meteoric growth, something like 30% per year.

Will Epic be able to maintain its culture as it continues to grow?  Hard to say.  But right now things are looking pretty good.