Little kids like to sit in Ludwig's driver's seat, I think, because they can actually run the steering wheel and see out the windshield at the same time. This is our nephew Jacob, who is larger now.
Readers who have paid particular attention to this blog might have noticed that I refer to the line separating the waters flowing to the Pacific from those flowing to the Atlantic as the "Great Divide" instead of the more common, but ambiguous term "Continental Divide". The reasons for this would be interminably boring to the average reader; let me just say that North America has several continental divides, only one of which is the famous one that trends NW-SE through the Rockies, and that one is the Great Divide, though this sign in Wyoming (and every other sign I've ever seen) calls it the Continental Divide, as though it were the only one. Sigh.
Tires go bad with age, and they go really bad when they just sit flat for years and years. We were lucky to get as far as Mesquite Nevada on the driver's front tire before Arizona's section of I-15 and Ludwig committed it to the Sweet Hereafter. This tire, like every tire I'd ever blown before, started to feel weird, then started to smell weird, then started to sound weird, and then blew up. I therefore sensed its impending demise and managed to get Ludwig onto an exit ramp.
Ludwig's sacrifice to I-15 AZ
The passenger's front tire, upon which Bill was perched, gave no warning when it burst, at 60mph and in traffic, atop the Cajon Pass the next day. Here are my and Bill's butts just after we destroyed a small step-ladder for material to put on the jack so we could get Ludwig high enough to change the tire. Changing a tire on the shoulder of an LA freeway with traffic flying down a 5% grade past me is something I will avoid repeating if I can at all help it.
The day after dropping Bill off in Palm Springs we made it to Goleta without further incident. Here are Ludwig and Fang Fang at the apartment on Cannon Green Drive. Of course the older, junkier vehicle gets to live in the garage.
5 comments:
Having crossed the Northern Divide many many times, I don't believe there is a word opposite enough of 'Great' to connote how absolutely plain that divide is compared to the Great Divide in the Rockies, or the utter irony at looking at a sign that says "North/South Continental Divide" and being on a road that essentially divides a swamp and the dreafully flat surrounding terrain in two.
http://plantsci.sdstate.edu/woodardh/Geology/Eastern/Geographical_Features_%20Fossils/continental_divide.htm
I found this pic, and I've been to Browns Valley, MN (but I don't think I've been to this park) which is situated between two lakes on the MN/SD border. Lake Traverse - whose waters empty to the north to Hudson Bay and Big Stone Lake - which is the headwaters of the Minnesota River and joins the Mississippi here in the Twin Cities on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
Barry,
When I was introduced to the concept of the Great Divide as a child, I was under the impression (having never traversed it) that it was the "Great" Divide not because of the majesty of the local relief, but because it divided the two "Great" waters of the Pacific and Atlantic.
(Indeed, as the picture on this post shows, the Great Divide is in many places not all that big a deal (though I won't claim that in general it's as topographically snore-inducing as the North/South Divide on the MN/SD border that you mention). Furthermore, in WY, I-80 crosses the Great Divide twice, because of the Great Divide Basin (one of only two "holes" in the Great Divide in the lower 48 (that I am aware of): the GDB, in which water doesn't "go" to either ocean, and, amazingly, a spot South of Yellowstone where a creek splits in two, one branch headed Pacificward and the other Atlantic-bound).)
We intend to take Ludwig over both significant continental divides, thus driving him in each of the three great American watersheds--a feat made somewhat easy for us in that Montana is the only state that drains into the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans (so long as you consider Hudson Bay an arm of the Arctic, which you should).
Alright,
Mitch.
The first time I crossed the Divide I was driving the Landcruiser to Alaska. I was driving far too many hours each day because I was averaging about 50mph in that old lumberwagon. The second (and third) signs that I saw for the Continental Divide were very disorientating...especially considering how tired I was. I thought I had somehow gotten turned around and was headed back over THE (long 'e') Continental Divide. It was the source of unnecessary anxiety that I resent to this day. Bastards.
McDonald,
I think I understand your resentment, and its extreme longevity, particularly considering that your anxiety must've been severe enough to induce in you the hallucination of a third Continental Divide sign along the most direct route between Lincoln and Seattle.
I-80 only crosses the GD twice (both times in Wyoming, as mentioned above), though if you went up I-15 at Salt Lake City to get onto I-90, you'd cross it twice more: at the ID/MT border and just South of the I-15/I-90 interchange in Butte. But, even if this had been your route (was it?), surely this succession of signs couldn't've seemed rapid to the point of disorientation, especially at the astoundingly low freeway speed of 50mph (!) and therefore separated by probably close to 14 hours of driving time.
Alright,
Grady.
I did go through SLC, and I was averaging 50mph...overall. Usually I could go 60, but the Landcruiser burns so much fuel and has such a small gas tank I had to stop every 150 miles for gas.
Post a Comment