The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

The 48 state US road trip is suspended for a day or so. I am, after a short interrogation by a surprised but unruffled Canadian immigration officer, in British Columbia as a grateful guest of JMB. I had a pleasant and uneventful trip from Wenatchee, WA today to Vancouver and…

I didn’t know what to expect of Washington State, except perhaps a disappointment after the Dakotas, Montana and – to my surprise – Idaho. I didn’t get one. Yes, there was a long drive through wheatfields that set me up to think I was going to find it hard to…

Can anyone with local knowledge advise me please? Is it worth the investment of an extra hour and a half to take the scenic light blue route to Vancouver tomorrow? Given the terrain I am traversing, will it even be any more scenic? [As usual, click the image to enlarge…

I know it’s too soon to declare which road in America is best. I am only coming up to roughly the half-way point of my journey, with about 8,500 miles on the clock so far. Based on my experience to date, however, I am provisionally confident that US 12 in…

Tonight is my last in this ruggedly beautiful state. I am spending it – for no particular reason other than that it’s on my route – in Missoula. Tomorrow morning I shall head for the nearby state line with Idaho. I had a wonderful scenic run from the rather tacky,…

My plan yesterday casually to take in Yellowstone en route to my hotel was – I now know – absurd. As Londoners say it was Dagenham (i.e. two stops beyond Barking). This is a park so big it needs gas stations! I drove more than 130 miles today on park…

I am not sure my plans for today were among my best-laid. Anyway, agley they ganged. All started well with a pleasant two hour run through Montana to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. I arrived just in time to join a bus tour organised by the Crow Nation, on…

I had a great evening yesterday at a Western style saloon in Keystone, SD with good country music and some rather feeble attempts at period raunchiness. The waitresses, despite being clad in risqué outfits and red garters, managed still to radiate down-home innocence. They are probably all solid churchgoers. Still,…

I rose early full of beans and looking forward immensely to today’s short drive. The day promised the fabled Black HIlls of Dakota, followed by the carved mountain called Rushmore. I ate my “complimentary” breakfast and hit the road. I had the misfortune to overtake a slow vehicle at just…

I don’t know how many miles I did today because I forgot to reset my trip computer. Let’s just call the last two days an average of about 250 miles each – a little below my target. On the other hand, I am comfortably exceeding my target average speed of…