Day 19: Battle Mountain NV

Some sterling work by Larry means that our distance marker signs are now metric and count down on the full course from 8 to 2 km, followed by 1000 and 500 m as before.  This is mightily confusing for old-skool members of Officialdom.  Even ones from metric Canada😈

With only two machines have passed tech inspection yesterday the first road closure was pushed back an hour, to hours 08:00 of the clock, but early rising still advisable before the breakfast area gets rammed with Canadian PSO^[1]s.  Nice Man Bill Thornton let me drive his Tesla Model S Plaid out to the start.  Waited until we'd got round the corner and out of the view of the lurking deputy sheriff on the road out of town.# before pressing the loud pedal.  There's fast, and then there's this.

Bill's spaceship

There ensued some hanging-around practice and coffee drinking before the first road closure.  We have a fancy viewing platform down at catch this year:

Built by Nik Runner & Battle Mountain Mike, with pegs

MC Hans

Nice Man Bill let me drive for the first sweep run, since he's only been here as a competitor before.  Took it up to ~100 mph until we'd passed timing, then nailed it.  Hit the limiter at 204 mph.  Eeep!  Bill has a plug-in module in the post which, when fitted, will add another 100-odd horespowers.  Double Eeep!

Only one machine in the first heat, viz. Calvin Moes & Ethan Elbaz in Titan.  Loading the beast is a lengthy process and more practice is required for when the heats get a little more crowded, but they got away OK with Larry performing launch duties and ran 46.43 mph, hindered a little by a loose crank for stoker Ethan.

Bill drove the spaceship for the second sweep run. 204 mph again.  Alas I hadn't figured out which button to press to get my shiny new camera to do these new-fangled Moving Pictures rather than stills.  First away was Adam in Dark Star, with Niklas performing launch duties:

43.49 mph.  Calvin was back for another go, this time with Ellen in the back, but the brute fell over at launch and they decided not to try again.

Calvin still strapped into a burning bike

This perforce concluded the morning's activities out on the 305, so back to town, this time with Adam driving the Tesla.  He was very restrained and spent most of the trip with the thing on autopilot.

All remaining machines are expected to pass inspection this afternoon, but with tonight having:

• only two bike/crew combinations qualified, and
• a red alert for high winds

we're skipping tonight's runs on the long course and will instead have a full programme of runs tomorrow morning.  Starting at the usual time i.e. 07:00 hours würg kotz.

Update on Sunday afternoon: went back to the Civic Center for a bit to watch the PSOs hard at work and the Politburo at play:

Professor Admiral Viscount Timelord Jun Nogami tries the lightweight racing velocino
Cal Poly rider Justin says he wants to do a century ride on it, the crazy mixed-up boy...

For Russ: Titan without the crash panels

1. PSO = Penniless Student Oaf, as any fule kno

Day 18: Battle Mountain NV

Lazy day, what with the likes of Adam Hari, Larry Lem, John Jackson and divers folks from town having done all the heavy lifting already.  Things wot I have learned since yesterday:

• Long-time competitor and all-round Top Chap Peter Borenstadt is absent this year for health reasons.  GWS, Peter!
• The moulds for SeventySeven, which Russell Bridge was giving away earlier this year to free up space in his garage, are now with Niklas Bostelmann, who's over here crewing for Adam this year.
• The team from Quebec's Université de Sherbrooke rocked up late last night; some of them having done a 50-hour drive.  Sensibly, a lot of them flew instead.

After breakfast I wandered over to the Civic Center.

Chassis of the Adachi family's work-in-progress
They hope to have a multitrack entry next year

So, your guitarist used to be in Evil Gazebo...

Pointy end of Sherbrooke machine, with Pinion gearbox

Larry Lem and transplanted BRITON Ben Bowlby discuss hockey tape

Ben is also planning to have a multitrack machine ready for next year.

Some time later the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo crew showed up, with the result that Joyce Lem now has a new hat:

Use your Junior Pocket Microscope (model 3a) to make out the words
"Girl ENGINEER"

What does this button do?
Cockpit of WooHoo Two

Joyce's magic wand for extracting entry fees from competitors

Mid-afternoon saw the arrival of experimental University of Toronto side project HPT North and the cunning amalgam of bicycle and bacon slicer that is Titan.

Titan already holds the tandem record but captain Calvin Moes and stoker Ethan Elbaz reckon there's more to come.  Plus the beast is going after the mixed tandem record (has anyone previously set one, Mike Mowett?) with Ellen Van Vugt in the back; Ellen is hoping to do her 100th competitive run on the 305 this week.

While some of the official Toronto team were also on-site by mid-afternoon the rest of the team, together with their machines Typhoon and Eta Prime, came through the door about five minutes before the opening meeting kicked off.

Half a wretched hive of scum and villainy, plus Danny Guthrie in the front row

The meeting was very much the same as it has been for my previous twenty visits, this time delivered by Politburo members Hans Van Vugt (who is Head Honcho this year), Joyce (herder of money, paperwork and cats) and Jun Nogami (Timelord).  Jun is sans luggage, because idiot airline.  Apparently his missing Stuffs may be here by late Tuesday.  WTF?

Back to the Super 8 for a nice cup of tea and a sit down.  But soft!  Some, or more, hungry-guts has et all the free cookies in the lobby.  Serious outbreak of FUMMIN avoided by presence of backup cookies brought all the way from North Dakota without melting or turning to crumbs.

Tomorrow morning's qualifying runs on the short course should be a relaxed affair since only Titan and Dark Star have passed scrutineering.  This also means not having to get up at audax o'clock.  Hurrah!

Edit: Forgot to change the time zone on Blogger.  Again.  Why can't it default to the system time on the wossname you're typing on?

Day 17: Battle Mountain NV

First item on the agenda: do some washing.  I have been religiously saving my quarters all trip, that I might feed the washing machine and the drier.  Now I can go out in public with a clean T-shaped shirt.  Yay!  Go me!

Item 2: Coffee.  Oh look, here is Joyce Lem eating breakfast and relating a tale of software-related woe involving her wee anbaric Chevy, which required a tow to the dealer in Boise ID to be reset after it suddenly refused to play nicely with one of Space Karen's charging stations.

Item 3: Contact National to sort out the business with the POB wanting its tummy tickling oil attending to.  The instructions on the phone in my room are clear and straightforward.  Press 8-1 and then the 800 number.  Pressing "8" causes a nasty noise.  More than once.  I go to make enquiries at the front desk.  "Did you press 9 first?"  Why, no!  No, I did not, because it clearly states "8" on the phone in large friendly letters.  Try with 9-1-800 and shortly thereafter have made arrangements to take the POB to Elko airport, there to swap it for, well, something else.  They are expecting me between 1 and 2 pm, thus allowing me to hang around the Civic Center with Joyce, arranging T-shaped shirts into neat piles and tracking down errant boxes full of Useful Stuffs.

Seiran, formerly ridden by Teagan Patterson and reworked over the past year by Larry Lem for donation to the High School, if the can find a rider small enough to fit in it...

Dark Star, Adam Hari's new bike none the worse for having
had an unscheduled two-day stopover in Fiji on the way to LAX

Then away to Elko, after first restoring the POB to factory settings in case it dobs me in to Homeland Security or sells my data to Peter Thiel.  Elko airport is not a major transportation hub and thus the choice of replacement vehicle is somewhat limited.  I can have a Jeep Wagoneer, an SUV only slightly smaller than Basingstoke.  Or a Honda Odyssey, which is a 7-seat van with windows.  Or a Honda Civic, which is at least an actual car, has the word "Sport" written on the back and a set of fairly spiffy alloys.

A whole new licence plate to try to remember...

Back to Battle Mountain to spend some of my Copious Free Time delving into the depths of the new motor-car's setup menus and trying to get it to talk to something - ANYTHING - with tunes on.  It wouldn't initiate a conversation with my phone via Android Auto unless the phone was plugged into the car's USB port with the cable that was on the desk seventy miles away, so no music on the way back chiz.  I got it to talk to the phone, then tried the USB stick.  "Unsupported!", it said.  Reformat said USB stick in FAT32 instead of NTFS, start copying files back again and twiddle my thumbs until it finishes.  Out to the car park, plug in, prod buttons... Yay!  Sonic Youth!  No more fannying around with Android fucking Auto!

It also has fair bit more space in the back than the POB did, but Bill Thornton is not racing this year due to injury and has instead brought his Tesla Model S which:

• is even more spacious and
• has all the bells and whistles that allow it to hit 60 only slightly slower than an F1 car and go on to 203 mph

So I expect that will be doing the lion's share of sweep duties this year.

The Nice People of Lander County have laid on dinner for all us early arrivals.  Burgers, salads, top-quality chorizo and about seven different type of CAEK.  This is why I am struggling to keep my eyes open rather than lying on my bed digesting my own body weight in sossidges.

Larry raising the fleg while Weibke supervises from a safe distance

Dinner is served...

Day 16: Pocatello ID -> Battle Mountain NV

To compound the sin of bleating about wanting a service the display on the POB's dashboard that is supposed to tell you what the current speed limit is has thrown a wobbler and kept furiously blinking "50" at me on I-86, with its 80 mph limit.  I wot not whether this is:

• a corollary of the overdue-by-a-thousand-miles service
• a software error
• a hardware bug, in the form of smooshed bugs affecting the gadget that reads the signs

but I wish it would stop.  The 25 mph limit here in town is being shown as 15 mph and the cruise control only goes down to 20.

It should have been a straightforward day from a navigation perspective too, given that I-15 is a hundred yards from last night's resting place and the junction with I-86 a mile up the road.  Turn left at Twin Falls and take US-93 south to Wells, I-80 the rest of the way.  No.  Instead I'm treated to a bewildering and convoluted route avoiding the centre of Twin Falls completely, including an attempt to send me down a road that was:

• closed, and
• dirt

Though I did get to cross this:

Carries ID-50 across the Snake River
somewhere not that near Twin Falls

Once off the Snake River Plain US-93 climbs over some not-insubstantial mountains - the road tops out at around 6,200 feet before dropping into the Great Basin at Wells.

Cliffs near Jackpot NV

Using your trusty Junior Pocket Microscope (model 3a) you will be able to see the lengths, or rather heights, some people will go to in order to tell the world that they love Ashlee.

And so to Battle Mountain, where it was blowing a hooley and trying very hard to rain.  I arrived at ye olde Super VIII just before the driver of this rather splendid '55 Chevy:

"Looks better without the dust and bugs!" opined the San Diego-based owner.  He's driven it to all states of the continental US too.

First sign of the event, apart from a billboard next to I-80 just west of Elko, was finding Larry Lem having an early dinner/late lunch in the foyer of the motel, and thus I learned that not only have the boards lining the bridge already been erected but that nine or a dozen hefty youths from the high school sportsball team have been coöpted to deal with the straw bales we scatter around the course to prevent wayward bicycles from falling in holes or demolishing ranchers' mailboxes.  Thus making the early arrival of this Unit rather superfluous.  So I can put off phoning the hire car folks until tomorrow and also do some laundry.

Day 15: Billings MT -> Pocatello ID

Travellers in USAnia!  Amuse yourselves on long journeys by pronouncing local placenames containing "ll" inna-Welsh-stylee^[1]!  Billings, Pocatello, Dallas, ect and, moreover, etc.

Mr Google suggests two basic ways of getting from Billings to Pocatello, viz.

• I-90 west then I-15 south, or
• I-90 west then US-191 and US-20 south until I-15 becomes unavoidable

Since the US-191 is seventy miles shorter and heads into the mountains I took that option.  There's still a hundred and twenty miles of Interstate to Bozeman - albeit with the lofty and SNO-capped Rockies off to the left - but then the route climbs the valley of the Gallatin River up to Yellowstone National Park, and jolly scenic it is too.

It is, however, not a good road for a semi-truck to try overtaking three vehicles^[2] while going uphill and approaching a blind corner, and only by dint of the oncoming traffic taking to the verge with smoking brakes was a head-on averted.  Anyway, Mr Garrison Transportation Services of Salt Lake City, it was likely one of your lot^[3] and he probably wants drug testing, or to be smeared with lard, tied to a tree and left at the Deer Creek Trailhead:

US-191 does actually cross into Yellowstone NP but you don't have to pay to access this bit.  Turn right onto US-20 in West Yellowstone village and keep going through the tree-ridden mountains until there's a long 6% downhill and there you are on the Snake River Plain, mostly flat and full of potatoes.  At least, Ashton ID claims to be the Seed Potato Capital of The Wurrrld.  Lots of this before hitting I-15 at Idaho Falls and heading south for another 50 miles.  During which the potatoes are occasionally interrupted by lava beds.

The North Blackfoot Rest Area has a handy Structure plonked on top of the building containing the Usual Offices of an Interstate rest area, so you can gawp at the lava beds in all their glory.

Pocatello is completely different to how I remember it the last time I stayed here but then again, that time it was dark when I arrived.  Mr Google thinks a bit over five hours from here to Battle Mountain, plus I gain an extra hour by crossing into the Pacific time zone, which will give me the opportunity to phone Mr National Car Rental to ask 'em what I should do about the POB grumbling about wanting an oil service.

1. But not where anyone else can hear you, obv.
2. Of which the POB being the rearmost.
3. Definitely one of their trailers, anyway.

Day 14: Bismarck ND -> Billings MT

Since arriving in Bismarck last night the wind has both tripled in intensity and switch through 180 degrees, such that it very much appears I will have a screaming headwind all four hundred and something miles to Billings.  This in addition to the 80 mph speed limit on I-94 all the way across North Dakota and into Montana plus it being generally uphill all the way means that the POB's petril™ consumption will take a turn for the worse.

And so it proved.  Yesterday: 330 miles with 310 remaining in the tank.  Today 440 miles with 30 left.  Fortunately there's a petril™ station at the end of the road.

Bismarck lies on the Missouri, which is crossed by this rather fine railway bridge:

and this rather dull concrete slab with I-94 on it:

After which it's onto I-94 to its bitter end - it merges with I-90 just outside Billings.  Lots of prairie, mostly, and passing by Salem Sue:

Photo from 2023...

Though like its southern neighbour North Dakota also has Badlands.  Unlike in SD, where they're a National Park, up here I-94 cuts straight through the middle of them.  Like this:

Eventually North Dakota gives way to Montana and the road does a brief downhill thing into the valley of the Yellowstone River, which it follows all the way to Billings.  And one of the first things the traveller notices is a Lewis & Clark Trail sign; on the way back from the Pacific the party split, with Clark following the Yellowstone down to its confluence with the Missouri somewhere over there ////.

Yellowstone River from Hathaway Rest Area, Montana

Not far from Bozeman lies another piece of Lewis & Clarkery, viz. Pompey's Pillar, which looks like this if you get close enough:

Getting that close involved a fair bit of walking chiz, because the gates were firmly locked.  On the other hand, not having to hand over $7.50 pleased the part of my immortal soul that is forever Yorkshire.  "Pompey", you may recall, was the nickname bestowed by Clark on Jean Baptiste "Son of Sacagawea" Charbonneau.  The Man has helpfully installed a flight of stairs round the back, so that halfway up you can see:

Junior Pocket Microscope (model 3a) will reveal the inscription
W Clark
July 25 1806

and amazingly he spelled all the words right too.  Trekking from the entrance to the rock and back took just long enough to allow bigly yuge black clouds to form over Billings.  Touch down, check in, go foraging and only on getting back to the motel do I realise that I've forgotten to buy milk, which means tonight's tea will taste 'orrible because non-dairy creamer muck.  Unless I forego the tea in favour of Run Wild 0.5% IPA.  Which I did remember to buy.

Day 13: Bemidji MN -> Bismarck ND

I did warn you that the next Several of days would contain little of interest, so here goes.  Alternately south and west across western Minnesota until the woods turn to fields and the terrain flattens out, for this is the Red River "valley".  Meaning we have crossed a Continental Divide of sorts, since the Red River strolls off northwards into Canada, ultimately ending up in Lake Winnipeg and thence via the Nelson River into Hudson Bay.  This is not as dramatic as crossing the Divide between Atlantic and Pacific drainage in for e.g. the Colorado Rockies since Lake Itasca is only 450 metres above sea level.

The Red at this point also forms the state line between Minnesota and North Dakota, following which a Several of things happen:

• I-94 comes to a juddering halt in Fargo because it's down to one lane at the junction with I-29
• There are hills, though not very big ones
• It starts raining

Scenic North Dakota

Thankfully the rain doesn't last long and currently it's warm and sunny in Bismarck.  Which, Constant Reader, you will recall was visited in 2023, on account of it straddling the Missouri.  Since that up there ^^^^ is the only photo I took today here by no popular demand whatsoever is a piccie from 2023:

Tomorrow's drive is a bit longer than wot I done today but I can still have a leisurely start on account of Montana being in a different time zone.  Hurrah!

Day 12: Bemidji MN

Having time on my hands I decided to backtrack twenty-odd miles along US-2 and check out the bit of the Great River Road between Cass Lake and downtown Bemidji.  Which was singularly devoid of river views, swooping vistas or decent bridges, but did sport some æxcellent joke comedy road names to match the "Squirrel Keepers Road" I spotted yesterday.  These include:

• Fishy Waters Drive, and
• Plum Nuts Road, and
• Nearlya Road

Later I passed the end of Yaubetcha Lane.  So, downtown Bemidji.  It's dominated by the lake, which has the Mississippi at both ends.

Under the bridge lurk trolls, with an interesting way of luring victims:

although it seems that they do in fact supply the socks before eating you.  Natch Paul Bunyan gets a look-in too:

He appears to have shaved off his beard since yesterday

Then another thirty-odd miles south to Itasca State Park, where Lake Itasca is generally held to be the source of the Mississippi even though there appear to be nine or a dozen streams, creeks and beck'oles feeding it.  "Itasca" is not a Native American name^[1], no, it's a cod-Latin neologism coined by one Henry Schoolcraft, from "veritas caput", which doesn't quite mean "true head [of the Mississippi]".  With it being a holiday weekend the place was pretty full when I arrived, mostly families and dogs taking advantage of the suddenly sunny and warm weather to splash about in the river.

Wade in the water,
Wade in the water, children...

George the dogg of retriever breed being a shameless tart

George the dogg of retriever breed doing what doggs
of retriever breed do i.e. titting about in water

I went for a paddle too

Beyond the Visitor Center is a ten-mile one-way road through the woods, which they refer to as "Wilderness Road".

which obviously had to be Defiled with Rock'n'Roll:

and leads to, among other places, the Alton Heights fire lookout tower:

Not entirely my cup of tea, so I didn't go up it but instead came back to Bemidji to catch some rays outside the hotel before the weather in the shape of a GBFO thunderstorm, appeared.

Thus concludes the Odyssey of the Mighty Mississippi, for tomorrow I start heading generally west.  Halts planned from Bismarck ND, Billings MT and Pocatello ID, the latter because the hoteliers of Idaho Falls seem to have turned in robdogs post-COVID and can therefore Get Stuffed.

1. The Ojibwe call it Omashkoozo-zaaga'igan (Elk Lake) while the French referred to it as Lac Labiche (Doe Lake)

Day 11: St Cloud MN -> Bemidji MN

Things I hate about the Pikey Old Beemer:

• The pre-flight routine is akin to starting an Airbus.  Select Driving Mode^[1], poke the touchscreen until Android Auto deigns to reënable diplomatic relations with the phone, poke the touchscreen again with crossed thumbs and pressed fingers hoping that VLC will start playing where it left off, start the engine, fiddle with the audio volume^[2] and optionally try to remember the incantation to reset the trip data.
• Every time you poke the button to reëngage the cruise control after for e.g. stopping to photograph a bridge or encountering a "STOP" sign, the display switches to showing you how far ahead the vehicle in front is.  If you want the trip data displayed, you have to press another button and frob the little control wheel wossname.
• The cruise control has normal and "Assisted Driving" modes.  Normal does what you'd expect from adaptive cruise control i.e. holds a steady speed and matches speed with any vehicle ahead even down to a standstill.  "Assisted Driving" looks at the lane markings and attempts to steer the car, though if you take your hands off the wheel for more than about ten seconds all sorts of blinkenlights start flashing in an admonitory manner.  However, it gets confused by:
• filter lanes
• crossroads
• traffic cones
• roads with too many corners
• cyclists in yellow jerseys
• So after the novelty has worn off, frustration sets in and off "Assisted Driving" must fuck.
• There was something else as well which I'll probably remember later.  It helpfully displays the current speed limit.  Or what it thinks is the current speed limit, because the most recent sign was part-hidden hidden in a bush.  Or it thought that the sign informing motor-ists that the next junction is Highway 30 is actually a speed limit sign.  Although it didn't do that when on IL-110 chiz.

Back onto the Great River Road, which in this part of the world mostly follows small county roads and sticks reasonably close to the river.  But woe betide the river-seeker who misses a sign, because then you end up doing an unguided tour of Aitkin MN and only realise you've started following the southbound route when the sun comes out.  But there are Nice Things to see:

Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, Little Falls

MN-371 is sufficiently non-little to have a pukka rest area at Brainerd Lakes though, which contains this:

and this:

Small furry animal neither in a
cave nor grooving with a Pict

and this:

Yah, you betcha!

The very splendid and worthwhile Coen Brothers fillum Fargo was partially set in Brainerd.

More fiddly little roads running parallel to the river, which by now looks more or less like this:

The somewhat-less-than-Mighty Mississippi, Palisade MN

until eventually you work out that if you keep following the Great River Road you will do another hundred miles over and above the sensible route to the night's resting place, pull the pin and tell Emily to make for Bemidji without let or hindrance.

Staying here two nights so I can do a leisurely visit to the official source of the Mississippi tomorrow before hitting the road west.  And following this helpful advice next to the door into the car park:

1. It has "Personal", "Efficient" and "Sport".  So far this trip I have mostly used "Efficient".  Can you set "Efficient" to be the default?  No.  It can remember seat and mirror positions, but not that.
2. Can it be told to remember your preferred volume setting?  No.  No, it cannot remember that either.