Roadtrips Galore

Amy linked some nifty little tools on quand même the other day, diagramming the collection of US states and European countries she’s visited in her travels. So, being the ripoff artist quality blogger I am, I thought I’d get in on the act.

I felt like adding more detail, though, so I borrowed a North American outline map from EduPlace.com and went at it with The GIMP. The result is the nifty little colorized map to the right, with states I’ve spent lots of time in in red, lower-intensity locations in orange, and drive/fly-thru only states in green. (Of the greens, Ohio is airport-only, Rhode Island I covered on a southbound train, and the rest I’ve driven/ridden through on some epic roadtrips.) The total score is 29 of 51 states (counting D.C.), plus two Canadian provinces (of 13 provinces and territories).

You’ll note half of the continent is missing from my map; that’s because I have yet to make it any farther west than Austin, TX. I’m hoping to rectify this problem soon. (West Coast Ballpark Fest ‘05?)

Favorite places among those red and orange states/provinces? Depends on what I’m looking for at any particular moment. Tossing out Blacksburg (because it’s on an entirely different level), here’s a somewhat-arbitrary Top 5, in no particular order:

• RBC Center, Raleigh, NC — I loved the Hurricanes before — and then I saw Game 4 of the 2002 Stanley Cup Finals. My dad saw his first NHL game here a couple weeks ago with me, and while he may not be completely converted yet, he now understands why, when feasible, I’d much rather drive 3 hours each way to see the Canes than 20 minutes to see the Richmond RiverDogs.
• Washington, DC/Northern Virginia — I’ll take a quick guess that most of the NoVA haters my age grew up there, or in some other place that (a) doesn’t lose everything interesting to larger cities 2 hours to the north or the southeast, and (b) doesn’t have a love-hate relationship with its own history.
• Montreal, Quebec — if you know enough French to at least be polite, this is a very fun city to visit. I doubt I could put up with the political-linguistic issues for very long as a resident, but that’s not a problem I expect to face. ;-)
• Boston, MA — another place that’s awesome to visit, maybe not so much to live there. But if listening to the national anthem in Fenway Park on the Fourth of July doesn’t give you chills, I don’t know what could. (And if the last three elements of my list didn’t clue you in, a functional mass transit system (Metro/Métro/T) contributes serious positive points on my personal scale.)
• Southeastern Iowa — sure, my opinion is based on a totally idealized image in my mind from Choir Tour 1994, but I’m allowed to do that. Endless cornfields, welcoming small towns… “Is this heaven?”

Speaking of adventures, I pulled off another one last weekend, using 20,000 frequent flyer miles and Priceline to come up with a very affordable mini-vacation, flying into Montreal, then day-tripping west on Autoroute 40/Ontario 417 to Ottawa Saturday before returning for my own Hockey Night in Canada: Canes-Canadiens.

• Ottawa is actually smaller than Richmond, a parallel that becomes obvious walking along the pedestrian trail at the base of Parliament Hill and seeing four high bridges over the Ottawa River — very similar to what you might see walking along the James.
• It surprised me just how little traffic there was between the national capital and the nation’s second city, even on a lazy Saturday morning. Keeping it to 100 km/h (62 mph) was difficult on the open highways of rural eastern Ontario.
• Ontario isn’t consistent about which way they run their kilometer/exit markers on provincial highways — the 401 (Windsor through Toronto all the way to the Quebec border) counts down east to west, but the 417 counts up from the QC border west to Ottawa.
• I’ve never been so alone as a sports fan in my life as I was at the Bell Centre: 21,239 fans in the building, and maybe five were wearing Carolina jerseys. There were more Canes jerseys on the ice than in the stands — kinda disconcerting to me, being used to attending road games as part of the Hokie Nation.
• My curse lives: I have yet to see the Canes win in person, over seven years and nine games attended. The best I’ve managed was a 3-3 tie with the Bruins.
• Tim Hortons rules. That is all.