Took a 15-day trip to the northwestern US, prairies, and BC to do a little exploring and clinching. Cool, rainy weather dominated (even a little snow in some of the passes in BC) but the days were long, perfect for driving.
I crossed the border 8 times (6 of them necessary to my itinerary, 2 only to get cheaper fuel) and had no trouble. For most, I was the only vehicle there and the officer was happy to chat. All the crossings were at places I'd never visited before. Going from ND to MB at Neche/Gretna was the only time I got a question about why I was there specifically (since I was heading from Grand Forks to Winnipeg) and I told the guy about the hobby and wanting to collect a couple of roads I hadn't been on before, and it didn't seem to alarm him in any way. He asked which road, and at least acted aware that Route 52 in Winnipeg had been realigned recently when I told him. I'm back at 100% in canmbw again.
After that I took a non-TCH route west from Manitoba to Saskatchewan for the first time (3 & 18) and spent the night in Regina after driving the Ring Road, which was all I needed to finish off cansf. The next day I saw a lot of Alternate TCH route signs in Moose Jaw, so maybe that's something to add. I filled in the parts of the regular TCH I still needed in the prairies, and then headed down to Montana for the night and began my pursuit of some unfinished US routes. The next day US 191 and 87 were completed, and after leaving Kalispell the following morning, US 93 was crossed off as well. After that I headed up to the Crowsnest Hwy to collect the remaining mileage in Alberta, then turned around and headed to Creston, BC for the night, on the way picking up a short gravel section of AB 40 in Coleman that no one had traveled yet. That was the evening I crossed over into Idaho to gas up and return, which was of no concern to the border patrol. On the way back into Canada, the guard gave me some excellent dining tips and let me know that a festival was going on. Turns out my Airbnb hosts for the night were artists who were showing at the event the next day.
The next morning, I headed back to the States for a night in Spokane, finishing off US 95 and 2 on the way down, and 395 as I headed back to Canada the next morning. They sure are taking their time on the 395 bypass. It was cool seeing a "Future" banner for the first time. I stayed in Canada for two nights, exploring the Okanagan Valley and Kootenay regions on Victoria Day before heading south through the Fraser Canyon and back east to clinch the Crowsnest and cross at Osoyoos. After that, I mostly headed south on 97, detouring over to Walla Walla to reclinch a bypassed segment of US 12 and finally finish off that route. After that I made a bee line for Bend, drove the new freeway segment of US 97 north of the city, and marked 97 down as complete, which made 226 US routes complete. For now.
On the way home, I spent some time driving around Salt Lake City and clinching a bunch of mostly short routes, passed through Nebraska on NE 74 and grabbing a few spurs along the way, circled around northeastern Kansas to collect the remaining unclinched segments in that area, and then mostly sped straight east to central Ohio so I could return my rental car (low end 2024 Corolla, which was perfect) on time. When the guy at Enterprise got the odometer reading, he asked me if I knew how many miles I'd put on it. I guessed something more than 10,000, since I had to take it in for an oil change once, and it was due again. He told me 11,565, and his tone suggested that he thought this was an unusually high number for someone who'd had the car for 17 days.
Excellent trip overall. 6095 new TM miles, 158 new routes traveled, 186 clinched, possibly more if the routes I found not in the HB get added. My BC rank jumped from 20th to 8th, and somehow I'm now in 2nd place in Montana and Idaho. 3 systems clinched or reclinched, and one more (usaib) brought to within .25 miles of 100%.
