New Travels and Stats Discussion

[yakra]

I'm not Jim, but...
On my last trip, I narrowly avoided breaking down at the worst possible place. A long stretch of ME US1 in Thomaston was restricted to alternating one-way traffic due to reconstruction, which meant idling for about 10 minutes. After the end of the construction zone, where traffic was just beginning to get back to speed, my engine started sputtering & misfiring, and shortly went dead. I was able to coast onto the shoulder at the north end of Main St Mall, and allow enough room for traffic to pass. I quickly diagnosed the problem as a broken rear timing belt (luckily, that's the one that controls the fuel pump, and not the valve timing). No cell service, but the Thomaston Police Dept. was about two blocks away. No officers on duty there, but a phone in the vestibule/waiting area connects to a regional dispatch, who helped me find a cab. Thus I clinched ME ME131 US1_N ME73 and ME ME73 ME131 ClaIslRd by taxi, and arrived at a cookout in memory of Steve Seekins, a Volvo Club of America co-founder. My father was attending, so at least someone could represent the Dark Blue 1986 Turbodiesel Wagon contingent. After an hour or two of eating, schmoozing with fellow Volvo nuts, and digging on some nice 140 series, a 164, a few P1800s and a P210 Duett, I drove his car back to mine. $100/150 of the tow truck to his garage in Wiscasset was covered by Volvo Roadside Advantage. We replaced the timing belt with one he had in stock. At the end of the operation, however, he put the jumper wire back in a custom-made starter relay wrong, which ended up MELTING my starter solenoid during/after the test drive. So we called it a night. Mm, nothing like the acrid smell of fried electrical bits in the garage, even the next day. After replacing the starter, on the road again.

Don't know if this last bit pushes my car troubles into "more interesting" territory or not, but thankfully the inconvenience and expense were minimal.

[Jim]

Fortunately ours wasn't so bad.  We broke down on I-75 south of Atlanta but were able to get off the highway and to a convenience store parking lot.  AAA towed us to a local shop, but it was Sunday morning so there was no one to look at the car until the next morning.  The day was spent arranging a car rental (helped by my first ever Uber trip) and checking into a hotel for the night.  On Monday morning, the shop was able to get the parts we needed (a snapped belt and needed a pulley also) and had us on our way by early afternoon.  In the end, it cost a few extra hundred dollars for the repair, rental car, and room.  The AAA person on the phone said as an AAA Plus member my hotel and rental car should be reimbursed, something I'll check into when I get home.  The delay was about 28 hours and cost us one of our three days in Jupiter, Florida, which meant a planned side trip to Key Largo didn't happen.

[michih]

Hmm, I just had a puncture once... Just back in Germany from a trip to Spain but still 250km away from home. It happened at 200km/h in a curve downhill and I needed the whole width of the road to stop the car on the emergency lane. Luckily, the road was very empty. It's not a big deal to change the tire on the Autobahn but it was left rear and traffic would pass about 1 meter next to me. I stood about 100...200 meter behind the end of the on-ramp of an interchange. The next interchange ahead was more than 10km. I decided to drive backwards and to pray that no vehicle will enter the Autobahn and crash into me. I think I drove about 20 meter and saw a car entering the Autobahn. I immediately stopped my car again and saw that it's police. Well... The policeman was nice. He told me that he drove the Autobahn in the opposite direction when he saw a car trying to stop in a way which is not normal "using the whole width of the road" and he wanted to see what happened, if help is required etc.
That was the moment I realized that I really had luck... However, I asked the policeman what I should do and he said that I should change the tire right here on the Autobahn. I said that it's dangerous but he just answered that he protectes the location with his car (lights on etc.) which was parking just behind my car. I changed the tire, thanked the policeman and drove home with the spare tire which is allowed to be driven with a maximum speed of 80km/h only. I was overtaken by trucks etc., one of the most painful drives I ever had... Nevertheless, back home I was happy that I didn't crashed into anything when the puncture happened...

[mapcat]

This summer seems to have been brutal to cars. My most recent trip, 2 weeks ago, was just a quick drive over into West Virginia & back. About 8 hours into the trip, I noticed a vibrating noise when I was accelerating, and it was frequent enough that I decided to call my mechanic and see what he thought. This proved difficult, as the hills of WV aren't conducive to mobile coverage, so it took about 3 partial calls to him to determine that it was probably just a loose part that he could check out when I got back to Ohio. Since no lights on the dash came on and the gauges showed everything in the normal range, I kept going, but after another 6-7 hours it was getting more frequent and louder. I pulled off the side of the road and immediately the engine died as I coasted to a stop. Only then did the dashboard light up. Still without a signal, I saw a gentleman outside his house and asked him if I could use his landline call a tow truck, which, luckily, he allowed me to do. The driver arrived about 45 minutes later, and the first thing he checked was the oil, which was completely empty. I'd just had the car in for service a couple weeks before, and had never been told that it was leaking oil, so this was a bit of a surprise. I was still 4 hours from home, and there was nowhere nearby to rent a car, so I was stuck in WV for a night. My dealer sent a truck over to WV to get my car, and they're just starting to look at it, so I have no idea how much all of this is going to cost altogether, but the hotel, rental, 30-mile tow, and change of clothes I had to buy has already set me back close to $500. If there's a silver lining, it's that I got to spend the night in WV for the first time ever, which means I've stayed overnight in all 50 states now.

Other than this, the only unexpected delays/expenses I've had to deal with on roadtrips were a blowout on a gravel road in Montana, and hitting a deer at full speed (if it hadn't been a new car, it probably would have been totaled by the insurer). Only the deer caused me to pull the plug on a trip; the blowout, even though it led me to a tire shop that insisted I needed 4 new tires, which they needed to call in from another shop, only delayed me about 4-5 hours.

[rickmastfan67]

Back in the early '90s, my family was driving back home from Canada, along I-90 WB in Erie, PA and our timing belt let go on our MB while we were in the fast lane with no warning.  By a stroke of good luck, there was NO traffic around us that we were able to coast to a stop on the right side shoulder just after the on-ramp from the PA-97 on-ramp.  Just amazing luck, as that could have been deadly if we had been rammed from behind or the right lane would have been clogged not allowing us to get over safely.

[7/8]

Thankfully I didn't have any car troubles on my trip to Indianapolis this past weekend!

New roads I got:
A short stretch of BL I-69 in Port Huron
I-94 from I-69 in Port Huron to I-696
I-696 from I-94 to I-275 (so close to a clinch!)
I-275/96 from I-696 to M-14
Clinch of M-14
I-94 from M-14 to I-69
I-69 from I-94 to I-469 south interchange (I've now clinched the original I-69)
I-465 from I-69 to I-70
I-65 from West St to the south I-70 split (Indy)
I-70 from West St to I-75 (I've now clinched I-70 IN)
I-475 from I-75 to US 24 (another clinch)
M-10 south of I-75

I also added 5 counties in MI, 4 in IN, and 1 in OH.

[Jim]

Always fun to discover missing mileage from the past.  When looking for an I-210 for one of the photo threads on AARoads, I noticed that I hadn't credited myself with any of I-210 in Louisiana, despite having a picture showing an I-210 shield from 2003.  On further investigation, I can add about 30 miles of US 90 and a good chunk of I-210 to my list for the next site update based on where I must have taken a few of my pictures from that day.

[JJBers]

Going to be clinching I-84 and traveling on massive chunks of I-81, along with smaller sections of I-75, I-26, and I-40.
aka going from Atlanta to Connecticut

[mvak36]

Going to Chicago for a baseball game in early August. Right now the plan is to clinch most of the rest of the Illinois interstates (I will only have I-74, I-474, and I-57 left once I'm done with this trip). I do have some other things planned during the trip so I won't have too much time to take some newer routes (at least on the way there).

[Eth]

Just got back from a vacation trip to Iceland, granting me my first mileage (all by bus) outside the USA! Even got a route clinch (ISL TH365) out of it.

[Jim]

On the next site update, my Ohio gap in I-75 will be filled in, and I'll have all of it from Detroit to Miami.  Still a few holes in Michigan.

[Jim]

On the next site update, my Ohio gap in I-75 will be filled in, and I'll have all of it from Detroit to Miami.  Still a few holes in Michigan.

That plus I-264 in KY today puts me over 80% in usai.

[7/8]

I just got back from spending a few days at my friend's cottage in Haliburton County, ON. I added 7A, 9(Orangeville), and 118 to my list of clinched routes. I also added some mileage to 7(Main), 12, 28, and the 427. I'm now over 50% complete in Ontario

I'm also heading on a trip to Orlando in a few days which will add a lot more US mileage, mainly on interstates.

[mapmikey]

Took a 20-hr ride last Saturday criss-crossing West Virginia.  Picked up over 300 new miles of US routings, clinching US 33, US 52, US 60, and US 119.  This now gives me all mainline US route mileage in West Virginia except US 30's 3-mile clipping...

There are still I-73/74 corridor signs on US 52 near Kenova and there is also a quite outdate sign referencing WV 65S northwest of Williamson...

[bejacob]

New travels this week in IA, NE, and SD along with the promotion from "preview" to "active" of usatn has pushed my active mileage over 100,000. 
Looks like I have a few log errors to fix, but I'm pleased to have crossed a major milestone (pun intended).