Note on Expenses & Accounting.

My budget for this adventure was $1,500. I kept detailed records to illustrate how through ride sharing, Couchsurfing, and a few lucky breaks, I came in $299.65 under budget. Below is the breakdown.

GAS

Gas costs were $322.02 total from San Diego to Durham, and my route excluding local driving was 2,713 miles. I received $40 from a rider on the San Diego to Phoenix leg, for a net cost of $282.02.

(I spent $54.13 in fuel to drive from Rocky Mount, NC to the Kill Devil Hills and back, plus another $4 for admission to the Wright Brothers National Memorial.)

Gas costs were $528.59 total from Durham to San Diego via Oregon, a route of 4,018 miles, again excluding local driving. I received a total of $300 in contributions from riders on various legs of the route, for a net cost of $228.59.

Altogether, I spent $564.74 out-of-pocket on fuel.

LODGING

If an average hotel costs $50 per night, and without factoring in planned stays with family and friends, couchsurfing saved me $300. I stayed with six different hosts (three met through couchsurfing.org, three met through ride share passengers).

I spent zero dollars on lodging.

FOOD, BEER, WHISKY & FUN

The stuff that really matters. Given the savings on gas and lodging, this is where I chose to splurge, and it was awesome. I tried at least one beer everywhere I stopped (and usually more), treated friends, family and strangers to dinner on several occasions, and generally lived it up.

Living consecutive months like this, however, would absolutely beat me.

Grand total for food and fun: $689.74.

Mt. McLoughlin.

CENTRAL POINT, OR

My sister and I have reached the summit of this peak twice - both times on the Fourth of July. It sits roughly halfway between Medford and Klamath Falls with about 4500' of prominence. 

This sign sits near the boundary line between the cities of Gold Hill and Central Point. My aunt used to have  a house on Tolo Road (which crosses I-5 at an overpass barely visible in the distance in this photo, as the road curves out of view). This sign means I'm back in the Rogue Valley. It means I'm home. 

Also notable for being COMPLETELY INVISIBLE on clear summer days.

Firestorm.

SUNNY VALLEY, OR

This is between Glendale and Grants Pass on I-5. I've never been this close to a wildfire before. At least three other cars pulled over to the shoulder to take photos. The colors were incredible: browns, oranges, purples, even light yellows and greens. The sunlight through the the canopy of smoke was like a garish real-life Instagram filter.

Speaking of Instagram...

Close to the source.

From the median.

From the shoulder.

Infused with Luck.

COTTAGE GROVE, OR

Stopped at Buster's Main Street Cafe in this little burg just south of Eugene for lunch. They carry over 200 flavors of craft soda, and are apparently the only place on the west coast retailing Cheerwine, which is otherwise mostly a North Carolina thing. I had a monte cristo and a MacFuddy's pepper elixir. Tasty.

Dr. Pepper with waaaay more kick.

Special K.

BOISE, ID

"Do you want to rave with us, man?"

I'm a little mystified. "What, here in the car?"

"Uh huh, hyeah!" The kid is Beavis and Butt-Head rolled into one, with a top knot and fuzzy pink terrycloth socks... or are they shoes? Whatever they are, they're disgusting. I figure 'rave' in this instance is colorful slang for hijacking the aux cable to listen to shitty EDM.

"Sure. Let's rave." I surrender my stereo to his favorite DJ, praying it will be marginally less insufferable than having a conversation with him.

I've been riding with and giving rides to people for at least six or seven years. The worst thing that's happened to me in that time is personalities not clicking and spending the ride in silence. I'm selective (it's Craigslist) and can usually weed out the obvious basket cases. If it came down to it, I would have no problem kicking a troublemaker out of my car. So I feel pretty safe about it.

These kids were 19 (him) and 22 (her), going to party in Portland for the weekend. After a rest stop near the border, the guy claims shotgun and starts getting weird.

"Where are we?"

We've just passed a sign: Portland 258 miles.

"Did you see the sign?"

"Yeah but where are we?" He's bobble-heading, eyes glazed. His girlfriend is quiet in the back. "Where are we, man? Where are we?" He asks me some variation on this only 827 more times throughout the trip.

He asks me if I like ketamine. I think he's talking about some dumb band and continue ignoring him. He asks me if I'm actually driving. He points to the Wallowas and wonders aloud if they are, in fact, mountains. He points to a wheat field as we crest a hill and asks if it's the ocean. He tries to ruffle my hair playfully. I slap his hand away.

I'm long onto them by now and beyond annoyed. I consider dumping them by the side of the road and keeping their $50 gas contribution for the hassle. But I don't. Why, I'm not sure. I don't even bother lecturing them about their dumbassery. But the miles to Portland are the loooooongest I've driven on this trip so far.

Ketamine, it turns out, is used as a horse tranquilizer, among other things. Weed is an understandable vice. Tripping balls on "Special K" in a stranger's car is unacceptably bad etiquette and just stupid as fuck. If I were a sick bastard so inclined, I could have driven them off to a barn somewhere and easily had my way. Stupid.

Didn't spend much more than an hour in Boise before I had to pick these jokers up, but I ate at the Parilla Grill in Hyde Park and tried the Outlaw IPA from Payette Brewing. Pretty hoppy, but refreshing in the 103 degree heat.

No Man's Land.

WESTERN KANSAS

It's late. There's constant cloud-to-cloud lightning everywhere and gas stations nowhere. Nobody lives out here. It's terrifying.

We're 20-30 miles from empty. The little orange dash light comes on. Should have filled up in Salina after all.

Depeche Mode's Violator album thrums out of my Spotify app. It fits the apocalyptic hellscape perfectly.

We pull into a Sunmart travel plaza in Bunker Hill around one in the morning. It's an oasis of light and gas and caffeine amid the bleak, interminable nocturnal plains. The lightning has died down and now it's just dark. 

The cashier greets me with "Howdee do, kangaroo?" I don't know what to make of that, I'm feel so dead.

There are crappy porcelain Wizard of Oz knickknacks on the shelves everywhere, because oh yeah, Kansas. 

I'm spent. Nikita drives the last leg to Denver and I ride shotgun, sleeplessly.

A second bite of the Little Apple.

MANHATTAN, KS

Of all places, I never thought I'd come back here again. In 2009, my boss sent me to the Kansas Building Science Institute here to get a home energy rating certification. Weird.

We drove into Manhattan to say farewell to our German backpackers, one of whom had a cousin here who works at Ft. Riley. We got him to take this photo before we went our separate ways.

Nikita, me, Kara, and the Germans.

So. Much. Stuff.