Back in the USA! Back in the USA!: The Red Mist Explores

 Hello Sports Fans!

My peeps in BC! My peeps in the Theatre Capital of Canada. Steel Town! And, for my family that is about it.

To my Social Media peeps! Hello too!

So, the adventure begins. As some of you may know the title is an homage to a Beatles song "Back in the USSR." It has been over 7 years since I travelled to the United States and it was necessary to get a new passport (in 3 days!) so I could take advantage of transiting through New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Of these four states, I had yet to go to New Hampshire and Maine and looked forward to transiting those states and knocking them off my travel target. I have been to 30 states. Not bad. Perhaps next year's trip will be to California and not off the southwest states and Oregon.

First coffee of the trip. Good Earth coffee rocks and the people are great.!

16 degrees C with7/8 of a tank I left at 18:33 EST for somewhere along the New York State Thruway.

Normal protocol on other trips was to transit via the 401 and then past Montreal and stop around midnight at a roadside rest stop and grab a quick wink or two and blast off dawn zero early to attempt to complete the trip. This was to Halifax when my son went to school there and I could make it late the following day as the trip is approximately 22 hours without stops.

Going through the States would make the drive to St. John NB approximately 15 hours and I had to do this in less than two days. I had to be part way by after midnight (6 to 7 hours) and then get up and put in a 12 hour day to make it to my motel.

Thing is...

If I am later than 8:00 PM AST the motel will not check me in...

And, I had a ferry reservation for Saturday morning and had to be at the ferry in St. John no later than 7:00 AM. Not being the best early riser, I felt it was incumbent on me to get some digs in St. John the night before and get up early the next day and be there smartly at 6:30 AM. My luck, like last year, I was one of the first on the ferry from Point Aux Basque NF to Sydney NS and literally, literally was the LAST car off that ferry.

So...

Off I go. 401 to. Well, Google Maps had its own idea where to go. And I followed it out of curiosity and it worked. It ran a parallel route to the 401 to Highway 6 South and save me a lot of stress.

I was at the border by 20:02 EST and passed through without a hitch. Not too busy (ask me about going over 3 weeks after 9/11) and I put my front and rear windows down and turned on the interior light and stated that I was transmitting the USA to go to St. John NB. He nodded and let me through. Ironically, I had a more involved interrogation getting back into Canada.

At that time the average gas consumption was 7 litres per 100 km and average speed was 70 km/h.

21 degrees C with 4/10ths scattered cloud at about 4,000 feet and a light high coverage of cloud above 20,000. The weather was going to be favourable!

Stopped for BK and the poor manager had two completely useless dolts "working" with her and she backstopped the merde out of them. Without her no one would have gotten their orders.

The fries, apparently an "medium" size (really was a small) were 5.29 US. That's 7.15 CDN for MOFO fries people! I know were BK makes it money. The hamburger was almost cheaper.

Moving on and avoiding the crap food at the food courts along highways.

BTW, travel in France. The food in 1992 at their road side highway stops was amazing.

North America can do better. But we won't.

I stopped at the Mowhawk NYS stop for fuel and decided to kip out there. They are revamping the facility so a bunch of truckers and motorhome travellers pulled over and stopped to rest.

I had forgotten my travel pillow (and my teddy bear) so I bundled up my coat, set the sun shade up and had a decent 4-hour nap/sleep.

The thing is, I can't fall asleep in situations like this. I need a bed. To lie on my side, and to have a fan cooling me. In a car... Well, NOT happening. So I pop in and out of REM sleep and basically, achieve 25% rest over the time period I am TRYING to nap.

However, my alarm goes off at 6:00 AM and I am off in search of coffee. I pass the first rest stop and proceed to the next one and fuel up.

Tall Pike black. 7 out of 10. Unfocused staff. Is it the pay or do we not instill a strong work ethic in our youth? Coffee run at 6:41 AM.

So, now is the serious driving. I have 12 hours and 900 km to cover. I had driven 588.5 km so far.

How did it go?

First...

The Impreza is impressive. It is comfortable and a hell of a lot of fun in the curvies. Some of the driver aids take a bit to get use to and incorporate tactically to one's driving but I had this MASSIVE smile on my face in Vermont, then New Hampshire and Northern Maine. The Red Mist likes to move and the 4-wheel AWD is a massive confidence booster. A couple of times I had to show who's boss while navigating the route, especially in northern Maine.

And note this...

Subarus are prolific in these states. They are everywhere. I stopped at a tourism stop in Maine by Bangor and, including my car, there were 5 Subarus parked together. I saw a Vermont Crosstrek with the licence plate "SCUBAROO" and several times during this trip today fellow Subie owners assisted me in acts of driver courtesy because we "know." It is a cult. It actually has some aspects of the Harley and motorcycle fraternity. Not as evident as those other brands, but it is there.

I had a string of perfect driving songs on Sirus XM to accompany me on my drive through the twisties of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Last coffee of the day at Raymond, New Hampshire. 

The total for today (Friday) was 941.2 km with an average speed of 92 km/h and a fuel economy of 6.9 L/100 km which is quite impressive since I was doing between X and Y during my drive in Northern Maine and New Brunswick.

At the Canadian border, I got asked if I had guns, drugs, mace, bear spray, marijuana and if I really had not bought any alcohol or tobacco while I was in the US. Interesting how our police and other services presume guilt and attempt to have innocent citizens pressured into admitting accidentily that they may have broken the law.

I got to my cheap and cheerful motel and went out for some Chris Brother's Pepperoni (trigger warning to the vegan readers), a spot of rum and shrimp as a Hors d'oeuvre.

The Red Mist is nestled in for the night and will be ready for more adventures tomorrow!