New Travels and Stats Discussion

[mapcat]

@bejacob: Welcome to the club!

[bejacob]

@bejacob: Welcome to the club!

Thanks. Still lots more routes to drive. 

[oscar]

A partial update on my still-ongoing cross-country road trip, while I'm stuck in Bozeman MT waiting for a new fuel pump for my truck.

I'll soon submit a cumulative update to my list file, once I finish reviewing my Florida state route entries (I think I have almost everything in south Florida) now that set's gone into preview. But I spent a lot more time traveling throughout northern California, increasing my coverage of the California state routes to about 95%. The remaining mileage is mainly in Los Angeles County, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the coastal counties in-between.

Once I left California for good, I started concentrating on completing my clinches of US routes. So far, I've done that for US 2, US 89, US 95, and US 191 (in addition to US 85 and US 412, during an earlier phase of this trip). More US route clinches to follow, assuming no more breakdowns, and also I may have to do some prioritizing to make sure I get back home in time for the eye surgery scheduled in about two weeks.

The trip has added about 20,000 miles to my truck, which was already long in the tooth. I'll have to decide what to do with it once I get home.

BTW, I set out to avoid the crowds watching the eclipse in eastern Oregon and southern Idaho, through which I had to pass to finish off the westernmost parts of US 20, US 26, and US 30. Eclipse-avoidance proved to be almost as much of a pain in the ass as eclipse-attendance. I might try to make the next one, in 2024.

[yakra]

Wow. That's about 20 months' worth of travel for me. What's your oil change interval? (I use Mobil 1 5W-30, changed every 25k.)

[oscar]

Wow. That's about 20 months' worth of travel for me. What's your oil change interval? (I use Mobil 1 5W-30, changed every 25k.)

5K max with conventional oil, often less if the truck needs other work in the meantime (as has happened three times on my current trip -- it's eleven years old, and approaching 180,000 miles).

[Bickendan]

My car just hit 201k, and outside of the AC dying, it's running fine. Debating whether I'll have time to clinch the new US 20 bypass on Saturday though.

[oscar]

My car just hit 201k, and outside of the AC dying, it's running fine. Debating whether I'll have time to clinch the new US 20 bypass on Saturday though.

Which one? Eddyville (which I covered next month)? If not, that throws a wrench into my plans to finish off US 20 on my way back home.

[Bickendan]

Yeah,  Eddyville.

[7/8]

I got back from a 16-day road trip on Sunday, which included seeing Diamond Caverns in KY, seeing the eclipse in Nashville, seeing Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, visiting Disney World and Universal Studios in Orlando, and touring Washington DC.

I added lots of new mileage on TM. Highlights...
- Clinched BL I-94 in Port Huron, MI
- Added my first mileage in KY and TN
- Almost clinched I-75 in GA (only missing the section around Macon)
- Clinched I-475 in GA
- Clinched FL 417
- Clinched FL 9B
- Clinched I-95 in SC
- Clinched SC 38
- Travelled US 29 from Greensboro, NC to I-66 in VA
- Added some MD state highways around Bethesda
- Clinched I-270 in MD
- Clinched US 15 in PA

[dave1693]

Optical issues (oscar, I totally sympathize) kept me from adding much to my TM mileage in the past year. Once I was able to drive again, I wasn't able to go all that far from the DC FedroSplat -- NYC and western PA were as far as I got. Added pieces of a few new routes, added new pieces of some routes I already had other pieces of. Clinched PA 164, PA 913, PA 16, MD 910.

I'm now working on trying to figure out (from long memory) routes in systems that have gone to preview (and in some cases, to active!) since the last time I thought to check. I think I've gotten all my TN state routes, though I need to double-check again. (I haven't done a ton of travel in TN.) Still need to re-check FL, GA, CA, and a couple of others.

I'm also trying to flog my memory for routes traveled in my two trips to Europe, both of which were more than 30 years ago.

[oscar]

I just got back home from my two-and-a-half month long mega-cross-country road trip. I decided to spend this weekend on the Jersey Shore for some beach time with friends before completing the trip home, because I didn't want my only "beach experience" for this summer to be a bear killing a deer on a cold gravel beach, less than a hundred yards from the lodge where I was staying. I had no trouble improving on that, this weekend.

My road trip covered almost 25,000 miles, in most states and three Mexican estados. Including previous trips, the only states I haven't been to this year are Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Vermont, and Florida. All those miles included, in addition to the "interesting" El Paso breakdown I mentioned upthread, one of my wheels separating from its hub on I-80 near Sacramento after most of the lug nuts worked loose, and a bad fuel pump that stranded me in Bozeman, Montana (believe me, it really sucks to limp along at 35mph on an Interstate with an 80mph speed limit, due to poor fuel flow into my engine).

I spent a lot of time finishing off US routes. In addition to the ones I previously mentioned, I finished off US 12 (including the new Baraboo Bypass in Wisconsin, and a minor route tweak in Illinois), US 20, US 26, US 30, and US 310.

Now that I'm back home, I'll have a day scrambling to do a lot of grocery shopping and other chores, ahead of eye surgery Tuesday morning to be followed by several weeks of recovery and reduced (but non-zero) work on TM. That will give me time to decide to do with the old breakdown-prone and high-mileage (over 180K miles) pickup truck I drove on my summer road trip.

[Jim]

My weekend trip for a meeting in New Hampshire gave me an opportunity to pick up about 60 miles of TM-clinchable routes.  The most significant was a short piece of I-93 near Manchester that completed all of I-93 for me as well as all of the interstate system in New Hampshire.  It becomes my 8th state with 100% of usai.

[michih]

With my latest travel I've clinched 2 motorway systems in Europe: nlda and bela

It's not yet confirmed but it seems that a new Belgian motorway section will be opened in Mid October. The project was called N5 Couvin bypass but there are motorway signs. I guess it will be called A5.

nlda (1,500mi) and bela (1,000mi) are motorway systems no. 3 and 4 I've clinched. I had completed deua (8,100mi) and luxa (93mi) in 2016. However, new deua sections will also be opened "soon" - to be traveled in 2018

[bejacob]

Just back from a trip to Wales. Went from zero to about 20% of the clinchable mileage. As this was a family vacation, I made almost no attempt to clinch additional mileage, so covered only slightly more than was absolutely necessary while touring the countryside. Added a little mileage in England as well. Always fun driving a manual transmission on a right-hand drive vehicle. Come to think of it, the last time I drove a stick was in the UK about 4 years ago. 

[Ib3kii]

I may be going to a wedding in Pakistan next year, slight possibility I may be the first member to clinch roads in Pakistan.