Damn you Canada!

When I first drove there I knew exactly what to expect. I had brushed up on my manners, I had about five sentences memorized I could perform (the word was chosen carefully) without a cuss word in it, I had packed suitable clothing to be worn while in public in a civilized country.

My local contacts spent a lot of time teaching me the speeding rules and what is the limit of being utterly screwed and for all of that I'm very grateful. The lessons were much appreciated though momentarily forgotten at times.

The thing nobody warned me about was my horrible experience with the food back there.

When we moved here a year and a half ago, it took me a few months to start eating here. Everything everywhere tasted awful because of the bad ingredients and I swear I could taste the hormones and antibiotics in meats. I still can not drink anything else but  non fat organic milk and that my friends is about 2 times more expensive here than petrol. Canada brought back this problem.

My minor issues with headlights have been documented with the precision only I manage to achieve as can be seen here but on the first part of my journey those were bad in a way I did not see happening even after having (was going to use the word seeing, but that was a bit strong) my first wildlife encountering.

Sure, my beloved bank made being in petrol stations a hobby which I hope I won't return to, sure the names of the places were planned to keep people out. Sadly those become minor issues compared what I started to call in my head The Curse of Tara not long after leaving Vancouver.

I'm taking back my high evaluation of her now since I'm sure she did it on purpose. She took me to a night market as told before, a  great part of the Asian food culture there. Since she didn't see me eating much because of her slowness she thought I hated it, when the problem was the usual mom problem of eating faster than the speed of light. Except one thing she gave me, all textures were excellent and even when we were on a damn market, an outside market, the feeling of being home was there.

If you don't know anything about Finnish food culture, here are a few quick lessons.

* We kick our kids ( male) out of the house when they finish high school to army and they all go nicely since the food made by mom is so bad. I remember looking at my plate when living with my parents many, many times thinking this will surely finish me off. The female ones get an education fast to get the financial means to get food in the table and to buy a cook book. The women are smart so they lose their ability later in life just to get the pups go away when the time comes.

* When I moved out of my parents house, I had one set of forks and knives, a spoon, a puppy, a frying pan, puppy food and a cook book my first grade teacher gave me as a present (she came to dinner to my parents house once, and I do believe she as an educator wanted better things for the next generation). My first attempts in being an independent adult were so bad, the puppy who followed me to the states later shared her food with me on nights when I actually wanted to go back to my parents to get fed.

* Finns never use any spices and the textures are usually mildly or very disgusting. I still remember the first time I had this weird thing called Jalapeno.

On my way to Calgary I seemed weirdly hungry all the time. At first I thought it was Tara not feeding me properly, but after a few hundred kilometers I realized there was a pattern. It seemed weird to walk out from a petrol station without having at least an apple in my hand, next thing I knew was I was stopping (for 45 minutes every time since the bank kept shutting down my accounts) to get some milk, ice cream, hell once I bought a 350 g or something of cheese and ate it all on my way to the next stop 100 km away.

When I hit Calgary, after driving almost 45 minutes with a mere snack within my reach, I got it. Tara had cursed me with taste again. That sneaky tiny thing got me in a few hours back to eating like a lunatic and things started to be quite desperate when I hit Saskatoon. The man behind the handle M4TW took me out for a breakfast, and got enough milk into me to last for hours. By lunch time when we met again, I swear to coffee (not canadian, that's still shit) I did not know Ukraine exported anything else but bad news about tiny nuclear accidents. After he gave me a short introduction to their food culture, a few atom related news from the past will not get in my way while exploring more of their delicacies.

Now you see a pattern. Now you know why the headlights become an issue. It is truly hard to spot the next place one can get food when your lights are not bright enough and also, the only option for me to cover any miles was to do long days, with multiple fuel (and not just for the car) stops.

Just before Thunderbay while eating a truck drivers dinner his wife had packed for him, I realized this was becoming a big issue. Before hitting the border I had to face the fact that if I was to see Wyoming again which was my dream drive for this trip, I needed to come up with a way to handle my minor food related issues again, and not a damn thing I will write here will explain to anyone how bad it got. I was doing 8 meals per day after Vancouver, and a few snacks in between. If I say I was on five liters of milk routine it would probably be quite correct.

Here all tastes the same, it's bland mixed with badness and there is no place in Canada where the ingredients are not better. Even the food on a truck stop is worth every penny, and I assure you, I did my testing on this too.

I was in Canada for 6 or so days, and I didn't fit into any of my clothes when I reached the border.

When I returned home I was 4 kg's under the weight I left with ( hubby dearest weight me since the last time I apparently lost too much weight so in order to go again he set up parameters I had to meet) because all I could eat on the road was chicken wings, wings, wings, wings and WINGS. Those sauces hide the bad taste well enough and while eating at the mother pace ("thanks, can you just go and charge me for this straight away, since I tend to eat faster than the speed of light") they are not that terrible.

I see you three reading this shaking your heads, you all think I'm full of shit. Well yes, I was then (don't analyze that one please, it would give too much meaning to all those photos with potable potties) but here are my pics from the states outside Wyoming:

Now, at home I'm on Jalapeno diet again. This photo could've been taken at breakfast, lunch or just now, at dinner since apparently all I do for me are these:

The awful plastic thingy is filled with coffee, the only thing that is better in America when compared to Canada.

 So yes, this all is Tara's fault as you can see. I will have my revenge this weekend while we are going fishing. Even the weather is working for me since after this extreme dry period we've had in the north west, next weekend is filled with apocalyptic rain.

I merely want you all to be aware, eating abroad has risks we can't calculate or prepare for.

Anna

(and really, it's all her fault. it just is.)

Math

Average speed is something you don't ever want to calculate, that is addicting and in the really long trips like yesterdays 1100 km, you'll always be disappointed.


example one. 400km to a relatives birthday. You know there will be food there so you skip eating on the road. One tank of petrol is enough and if you can go without a toilet break, you'll easily hit your goal.


example two: Anna wants to go home
1100 km's is 2-3 fillups, two chicken wing hunts, 5-7 times gotten lost, 5 battles again Candy, two toilet breaks, 3 coffees and one phone call to my trusted navigation helper. His wife likes me so he had to sort me back home.


I averaged only 78 miles per hour. I know now why I didn't get stuck in traffic, it was because everyone was faster than me. :(


The tip of the day is not to count. I feel like a grandma in a Lexus now and I am sure Peter is actually mad at me for making him look bad.

Those are from Wyoming, I truly need more time to work the damn photos into something one can publish. Funny thing is, my phone had changed settings, so all my pictures sucked until yesterday. A good thing to realize when you're almost home already.

Tonight I'll try to write up the last part of the drive, and tomorrow I'll try to write what else happened on the road. This was a great trip in all accounts, but I never had any time to write up it all on the road, so I have an update to almost every post.

Anna

Oh, don't speed, that is not nice.

A tiny change of plans.

Yesterday I woke up at three am to wait for the sun to come up. I was mildly excised about racing the sun up in my favorite place in the world, and I wasn't one bit surprised when I realized my great plans had minor issues.


I stayed the night in Cheyenne, a thriving city of five people, that is located in the far east corner of Wyoming. I did try to get the sun come up from the west for once but she was a tough cookie to negotiate with.


it was a beautiful sunrise captured from the rear view mirrors while I went aimlessly around the one state I remember the best from my travels. The landscape in there is awesome. The roads are in pristine condition and when you're outside of any town, there is no risk of cops.If you go off from the main roads, Europe at it's best has nothing on this place.

All my pics almost show the hud, so before posting those some editing is needed.

The roads were unbelievable and scenery took my breath away. I kept pulling over to take pics, and forgot to snap one.

My plan was to go through Yellowstone fast, and get a hotel/ cabin near a stream and spend the evening fishing. The road I took there was probably the best fast drive I've ever done, but since it took both hands at times at the wheel, and because no editing skills are at my disposal, I'll wait to post those up. I highly recommend that road that has a name I have already forgotten. Zero traffic so pushing my boy to new highs was easy.

Entering Yellowstone, apparently there are big forest fires close by, so this is all you can see there now.

I took the exact same shot last year on my first day on the road too. Funny how they both have zero visibility.

I was in a petrol station and I counted 53 cars passing me in 3 minutes. Let's say only 21 of those went the way I was going, so that's 7 cars per minute passing by two guys who's car had died. Nobody stopped to help them, to take them to a station to get oil they still hoped would revive their red beast in three hours and they had walked over 20 km from their car by then to get some by themselves. I was extremely impressed with us people again, since how fucking hard it is to stop, ask what's up, get the oil yourself if you don't want any strangers into your car? win the fucking humanity points you can use to score a slot in heaven later? PEOPLE: There are signs everywhere stating be aware of the bears, and two people walk miles to get help and nobody stops? Are you fucking kidding me?!

Since I'm now the official transporter of hitchhikers too, I took them get the oil, told them their car is ruined, and we packed their stuff into my well organized tiny car, and went to search for Wifi so we could find them a place to stay and a rental car.

Yellowstone had both, but sadly nothing was available, so I spent the last night impressing the two guys who probably after five minutes started hoping they had been left there to be eaten by bears with my navigational skills.

When I started my day at three am, I did not see this happening.

The car was not yet moving so they were still smiling.

The parting sunset provided by the state of Wyoming. I will miss you my friend.

My personal heaven.

Anyway, we ended up driving to the next big city, Butte (yes, I made all the jokes possible about peter going into butt, they were not impressed), we got rooms, nobody was murdered in any way and now I'm merely a few miles from home, so I might as well go. I miss my kids insanely, even if this tame time away has ensured they have a bit more fun mom to look forward to.


Oh, there was a huge traffic jam in Yellowstone. We were hoping it was a bear, since we were stuck with it for a long time. Finally when someone told me after I was cleared to go, that the cause was a coyote, Anna was adult enough to rev the fuck out of Peter to ensure they too were standing there for nothing.


a fucking coyote. You have gotta be kidding me...


Anna

Wyoming.

Gentlemen, they let me in!

Just before the state line, I managed to get pulled over for stupidity. Yup, not my first rodeo but this one was different.

See, mirrors told me I'm dealing with a female, and my first thought was jail. Rightly so, since the speed was a bit high, even if I was just passing a few trucks. We had a good chat, and she made the decision of sending me to cause havoc here rather than keep me inside Nebraska lines.

A written warning was given. If I had done that in Washington, I'd be looking for a lawyer. I think she was just so damn impressed with the balls of yarn I had to go through to get the car's papers from the glove box, and my overall excellent skills in convincing her I am an adult, she wanted me out of state.

She asked me how fast I was going, and since the only thing that can help you in those is the truth, I gave her my best estimate. I also told her that many things I can count on and one of them is that this will happen again.

I'm not writing this to brag about my luck, I completely know I deserved my fate, it was her being a really nice person that got me back to the road. Gentlemen, I do believe I have found the cop in this world that took the job to actually be good to others.


If you're lost, you know you're in Wyoming if the greeting is one like this.

"Wyoming, why the hell would that be your favorite state?"

A magnificent sunset, empty road, 80 mph speed limit (yes yes, I know how to look at the posted limits even if I do have minor issues in following them), and one hitchhiker picked up and delivered to a truck stop,  (accidentally a trucker who's ride had broken down a few miles earlier. he wanted to give me a twenty for the lift but somehow accepting money from him or any other person in the business of logistics now would feel wrong. LOL) and a hotel that has walls. I'm quite sure this place has a name, I just have seen enough of these by now that they all blend in with each other.

The sun comes up soon, and my intention is to go greet it to the roads I dream of every night when life is a bit much. Tonight, if not in jail (and yes, I will be deserving that then too) I will do my best to post good pictures. This state is a home of about 500 000 people, beautiful roads, great scenery and windswept landscape that just feels like it's screaming to tell us all it's story and the life it has seen.

I'm also happy to report my title count did not go up yesterday, though the jailbird was quite near. From a homeless to a hooker and then to jail would've been a great combination though.

Laters dudes, today is the day I've been waiting for a year. Peter is fueled up, and warming up outside, Danzig is playing in the car, my backpack is on my feet and the road calls.

Anna

Career advice for the young.

I've had the two the most hilarious days of my life.

Yesterday after I pulled out of St Louis, Peter decided he is not a car but a Christmas tree, and turned on warning lights I've not seen with him ever. I got him to a dealership, and they checked him out even if my poor vocabulary to describe the situation they came on got mildly in the way. This all naturally made the drive to Wyoming turn into a dream instead of a drive, I was stuck in traffic all the damn day.

A great service department at the Autohaus BMW in St Louis, but I do not recommend this as a holiday destination to anyone.

 "

Hello Ms,

My name is **** and I am a Front Office Manager at the Hilton Columbus Downtown and I wanted to touch base with you regarding your less than stellar guest service experience at the front desk last night. I sincerely apologize for this and hope that it did not leave you with a negative impression of our hotel, or Hilton in general."

 I told her I hope she is not too hard on the poor girl, since sadly my road trip look is one of a street person rather than a person with any financial means. I'd say something about judging a book for it's cover, but meh, who gives a fuck. As said earlier, I have always gotten along with the staff of any hotel, except in this one incident. I told her shit happens, and that she probably won't do that again and that that's good enough for me.

In Canada, if one pulls into a truck stop, the truckers bend over backwards to help you. They tell you the routes, the roadworks, cops lookout places, hell they share their dinner if needed ( yes, I ate a man's home cooked meal in a damn stop somewhere in Canada, since the next diner was 20 km's away!) In the USA, things are a bit different.

It takes a special person to become a long distance truck driver, I'm actually not sure what I mean by special, since unlike their peers in Canada the men here operate differently.

My first contact with this great set of chaps was last year on my way to Yellowstone. At 2 am or so, I pulled up into their stop in my rental to stretch my legs, and watched them shake and pop pills while trying to get down from what ever they had been popping to stay awake. Nice, made the roads truly seem like the safe environment they always are here.

I learned from that, no more night stops at truck places, not the best move. Damn Canada just ruined all things I've become to think as normal for me by being so European.

Yesterday I had the best of luck in life and I had a stone stuck in my car's heat shield. It sounds horrible every time, but after the car has cooled off for a bit, it usually is a quick thing to fix.  My mechanical skills stretch from cussing to a taking off a tire which was not needed in this case ( and I wouldn't have had the tools anyway)and to poking the heat shields to get what ever is stuck to come out. I have learned finally to let the damn car cool off first, and while waiting, the lovely professionals of transportation approached me with offers of giving them "a good time".

It appears TV has given me a completely wrong impression of the ladies who entertain these gentlemen. I was under the impression one needs to be a drug addict, and in a quite bad shape with the addiction until the ladies end up working in these conditions, and I thought a night time, or even an evening would be a better time to exercise this profession.

In the middle of the day, four different men approached me asking my price. I found it extremely classy and quite flattering, I must be really good if I can make M4 money by spreading my legs at a truck stop at day time. I asked one of them what was giving them this idea, and his answer was "You're a chick in a stop."

Clearly long distance truck drivers here make a ton, and I suggest this profession to everyone. if they can entertain ladies with my taste just like that money must be excellent. Most people end up marrying demanding bitches like me and still never get lucky. My tip of the day is to consider a profession in logistics.

I got the gravel away from the shield, off I went. I'm sad to report that I decided not to take them up on their great offers.

I also spent hours on looking for the damn buffalo wings, since the taste of food served anywhere in Canada is still haunting me. I truly am afraid hunger will kill me if the sheer memory of a taste makes me drive around looking for something that resembles food and a sauce that hides the poor ingredients used. All in all, wins all around.

It appears Chevrolet is the replacement for moose here. I've spent the last day looking at those logos and honestly, the people behind the seats, just looking at their expressions give out a  good insight of why the car was bought instead of the many options available. Anyone who can appear as unattached to their surroundings as these drivers are, should probably consider walking. I did take a fuckload of pictures about them being stuck, but they are such a usual sight here, why post them up, you've all seen them anyway.

This year I found Kansas city.

That picture was taken while speeding away from it. It looked beautiful but after all the Chevrolet drivers, I was in a hurry to chase this one.

No, i was not reversing and chasing, but the picture was too beautiful not to post, it has the sky in it I was trying to capture, and we all know how rare that is with me.

Thunderstruck was playing on repeat (I'm pathetic) and the most beautiful storm rolled over me. It was such a heavy rainfall I pulled over to watch this. Peter, I'm happy to report, is for once clean again.

Anyway, from a homeless to a prostitute and from a prostitute we will see what. My titles are getting quite interesting.

Today, if Peter doesn't come up with a new lovely habit again, I will finally get to go to my favorite place in the world. Wyoming. If not, and my plans always seem to fail, I'm done trying and stop dreaming of that state.

Anna

Anonymity.

Most people has the shield of normality to keep them from being remembered. Most people thrive to be as average as possible and to many, this is an easy thing to accomplish. Drink coffee with milk and sugar, say good morning to the neighbor, don't examine the life around you too carefully of you'll might realize how imperfect everything is. Keep yourself in the shadows enough and never make waves.

See, I've studied humans, I know what we want, but sadly I have never learned to use this knowledge. This backfires frequently, cops remember me, everyone at my usual grocery stores know me by my first name, I get tons of invitations to boring events that make me want to chew my spine to get away.


To my weird world saving hobbies this translates as me borrowing my confidence to those who have none. People that have been kicked around enough that there is barely a soul left in them, but usually it sparks up fast when they are given an opportunity. Because I'm a freak show , I'm excellent at making connections and with a little pushing I see people picking themselves up, and I never see them again.

All this leads me to hilarious situations, and to people who yet again teach me something new. Yesterday was a good example, since I once again pulled in to St Louis.

Last year I was here during the riots, the whole place was a mess of anger and hate. It was hard to have compassion towards either side of the shooting, since all I saw was a bad situation made worse just because enough people backed up the hate. Hate never works for anyone, but it does drive us into stupidity.

My plan was to go for a walk, have a pint, dinner and to write up my unreal drive here (I'll do it later) but as always, that went to shit.

I pulled in , and the valet asked me straight away if i was in Indianapolis last August. Well, yes I was. The guy sees thousands of customers daily, yet he remembered the idiot in the yellow car. He got their boss out, told the story, I shared my weird traveling ways with them and the next thing I knew, I had tour guides again.

How do these things cook up to a yet an other chapter to my journey?

Because I am never a bitch towards the staff, I got the owner interested in my weirdo hobbies. After a pint and big time gambling at a casino ( I made 4 dollars!) when the next time comes I need to ship someone far away from their current location, I have an other option who to call.

The lesson of the day is, never, ever be an ass towards the people who deal with idiots all day, and karma will come around.

I can not fucking believe a man remembers me from a year ago. Jeez I need to tone down this freak show.

I actually parked him so that I could take the photo. I don't think I'd get a job with the valet company.

I don't like money enough to try to win that, but hey, who can say no to pink?

Today I will head out to my personal heaven. Every time life is bad and stress is hitting hard, I picture the roads in Wyoming. Off I go to make more memories now, and probably end up meeting some native American chief who knows how to fix the world with his magic wisdom. I can dream at least. ;)

Anna

Bimmerfest, yet an other pile of clusterfucks.

A hotel, hotel lobby pub for a pint, talking with a few of the vendors present, and meeting an awesome dude whom with I have so many similarities he will have to get used to his new best friend fast, a McDonald's run at four am because the damn Canada and their good food makes me now eat anything in sight, an hour long night of sleep and off to bimmerfest we went.

We didn't even need to valet the car!

I already got shit for cutting all lines for making friends easily, but I do have to mention these guys.


I'm quite sure he let me park in their stand just to keep me from bitching about the hot asphalt in their tent all day, but it was an act of kindness anyway. They also choose to use their extra ticket on me because the whole world near me was sick of listening rammstein.


In car world I've met my fair share of arses, these and only a handful of others I would recommend to a friend, mainly because I have their phone numbers so I can kill them if they are assess. Naturally I forgot the company's name before writing this, but anyway, nice blokes.


In we went, fun we had. I met the founder who was an extremely nice bloke, so nice in fact that I promised him I would not come over to his forum and ruin that too for all users.


It's funny when real life and internet lives collide. I met a lot of familiar people behind the avatars, I got to hang out with my best friend on this continental, the modder kids who have zero style or taste but compensate with love towards their projects, it all was there. As an event, I would go again. It's fun in good spirit, and except one company, even the models used were within good taste.


To me, the main event was to get to meet our very own Mr BC, Mrs BC and the man I really need to suck up more to, Mr BC's brother.

None of the ssott outsiders know who these are, but BC whips ours arsess all the time for whining. I've tried to picture the couple often but the reality was far better.


first of all genuine people a rarity, those two have that. Second of all, they are hilarious. Since mr BC and I have similar interest in work (in my case hobby field) field, I've always pictured him as an male version of me: Blonde, past sell by date and quite dull. Wrong in all. Mrs BC was the only person in the damn place who shared their water with others on that exhausting, hot day, and that tells something about her.


our meet got cut short since I had gotten a nasty cut in my leg, and a golf cart happened to drive by. I made my bestie flash his tits and a ride we got (not really, I asked the man to help me out and he was kind enough to do that for me, my version is just better than the one told in bimmerpost).

Gentlemen, I won a trophy! I was the person who showed up from the longest distance, even if I didn't do the journey for the event. Sadly when they gave those I was already hunting for chicken wings again, but Mr BC had taken the time to go fetch it for me.


He quoted the conversation had in the bimmerpost, so I'll just paste this here.
"
This was me picking up her trophy:
 Me: "Anna asks me to grab her trophy for her!"
 Awards guy: "Can you describe her to me because I met her earlier?"
 Me: "Blonde, from Finland, barefoot, batshit crazy!"
 Awards guy: "Here you go!"
"
I'm happy to report BC is an excellent photographer too, so this shot is dedicated to the man who tailgated me for a hundred miles until he "accidentally" ran into the back of a truck. He had something to say about a pussy to me when he pulled next to me, so this is a fitting picture.

I doubt I'll live this down in a while...

All in all, to have crazy people like you all in my life makes my vacations just so much better. To all you I met (and probably bitched about my led's) thank you! It seems to be my only conversation topic atm. Our crew has a great attitude, we even let men hang out with us!


Since my photography skills have been questioned quite often, as often as me being a 48 year old man who doesn't shower has been, this is my photo feed from the F8x generation, I admit some cheating was involved.

MW F82, the color matches, so we just call it that and not look too closely.

Mr BC black F82.

all I all, NJ is a stupid place to go. The best thing about it is that the people there are great fun. Thank you for not taking my license officer Tom. ;)


Anna

Fuck it, pics still not uploading, and I'm running out of time. I actually do have to drive today, the life back home is catching up again.


Oh, this...


I'm staying in a Hilton, and for the first time on my travels ever, I ran into problems last night.

I went outside to write this damn stupid blog, and since I've been in a different hotel and city for every night for over a week, I forgot my room number. I had no need for a wallet, so that was in my room too, so I had no ID when I went to the front desk to ask my room number.

I do realize they can't just hand over room numbers, but I had the key, I had the email confirming the reservation, I told the lady I had my passport in the car, and she was the first bad customer service person I've ever ran into.
When I mentioned this to the guy who came with me and checked my id that they truly should make a note of the case and I'm sure they will. Still, Ohio of all places I did not see this coming. :D

I'm sure she had a bad day, but in all my trips this was the first time I've ran into shit like this.

Since we M owners always complain about valets, try theirs. They are true car guys, and great blokes all around. I would've had a fit if not people like them in the staff.

All in all, tip of the day: In ohio, write your room number up. And valet. ;)