The Indignity of Being Towed (pt. 1)

When we moved from Goleta to Missoula we had three vehicles to drive (Ludwig, Fang Fang, and the moving truck) but only two drivers to drive them, so clearly either Fang Fang or Ludwig would have to be towed. As it turned out, we didn't have any choice in the matter and towed Ludwig. But even if Ludwig had been roadworthy at the time of the move, he'd've been towed anyway since he gets substantially worse mileage than Fang Fang (~17mpg cf. ~30mpg).
These are pictures of that move, taken by Melissa from Fang Fang who followed me towing Ludwig the whole 1300miles.

Zzyzx Road (off I-15 in California) is, alphabetically, the last officially recognized placename in the United States. Click for a bigger picture.

Las Vegas is in Clark County Nevada, one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. It gets bigger by over 50,000 people a year. That's 137 more people a day, every day, and you can bet they're bringing their cars. As you can imagine, this results in spectacularly awful traffic and unabated, completely pointless highway construction. This photo is blurry, but there's The Strip in the center.

I-15 cuts through the extreme Northwest corner of Arizona. For 15 or so white-knuckled miles, it winds through the Virgin River Gorge, along what was mile-for-mile the most expensive and ingeniously engineered chunk of interstate constructed. As you're travelling Northbound from Mesquite Nevada, you come upon this monolithic wall of a mountain range, which presents no obvious path around or over itself. Melissa called me on the CB as we approached and seriously wondered what was going to happen to the road. I more clearly remembered having been through it, albeit in the opposite direction, two years previously so I knew what to expect, but from this other perspective it really did look as though we might just slam into the rock at 70mph.

Instead, the road finds the absurdly narrow crack where the Virgin River liberates itself from the rock and into the Colorado River Valley. As tribute to its beauty and power, Ludwig offered his front driver's side tire to this road (much to the disconcertion of myself and my brother Bill, who was riding shotgun) when I drove him through it back in August 04.

Toward Utah the canyon opens up and you're treated to some awesome views. This picture shows just a part of the half-billion years of geology the river and its tributaries have laid bare.

These giant McMansions grow like weeds in and around St. George Utah. Melissa was skeptical when I gave her the reason why an otherwise unremarkable (and not especially wealthy) town would have so many corpulent homes, but I'm certain I'm correct: this is unabashed polygamy country, and you need a big home to keep your wives busy.

(cont'd)