Your last (interesting) car journey

[orudge]

Today I rented a car and went on a nice drive through the Sierra Nevadas to Placerville, stopping off at some wineries and a nice park. Then I headed back here to Tahoe along US Highway 50. Most fun roads to drive. This is my first "significant" drive in the US (I'd done lots of little journeys in Minneapolis, but no real long-distance driving). Driving on the right doesn't seem to bother me at all, either!

Anybody else driven anywhere exciting recently? (I'm expecting Born Acorn will have.)

[audigex]

Well, my journey itself wasn't that interesting... but 7,500 of us just travelled accross the pennines in the snow. That makes for an interesting journey coaches aren't designed to be driven on the ice rink that is the A66.

[bwong]

I was driving (er, my dad was driving) and as we were about to turn out of our street, we saw a three car crash. It was pretty insane because the first car had stopped at the stop sign, and the car behind it didn't stop behind the first car, and rammed the car. This occurred with the third car. Luckily, the fourth car was a Markham maintenance car, and thus, emergency services were quickly called and dispatched.

[vear]

Actually, I had an interesting drive on December 27th (I had briefly mentioned it in another topic a day or two before). We (meaning me as a driver, plus three friends of mine and four more guys in the other car) decided to go from Kraków (which is my hometown) to take same train photographs near Nowy Targ. Why so? Well, Zakopane, Poland's favourite winter resort is nearby. Lots of people from the whole country travel there to spend Christmas and New Year's eve there. Obviously, many choose travelling by train, even though covering 147 km from Kraków takes... 3-3,5 hours. However, traffic jams on the virtually only road make a train journey pretty competitive, so lots of extra trains are launched. Having in mind the lovely neighbourhood (the Tatra mountains!), lots of sharp turns and hills the trains have to pass through, photographs taken there can't be other than magnificent; take this one for instance.
So, we spent the whole day on driving from one point to another in order to take various shots. In total, during those 6,5 hours spent in the vicinity, we took photos of 18 trains. Sadly, no freight ones.
I am extremely happy about the trip and so are my friends. Even though we were hoping for some snow to fall a day before, while not a single snowflake had fallen (only rime and fog could stand for winter atmosphere), we all enjoyed it Besides, not very winter-like weather conditions made driving easier.

[Ameecher]

Mine would be today getting home from work. I live in a s*** hovel and the roads haven't be gritted and under the railway bridge there has been ice on the road continuously since about the 21st December. Consequently tonight when I drove along there (to avoid a 2 mile detour which would involve many more interesting icy road features) I completely lost traction which involved my wheels spinning slowly (CHEERS TRACTION CONTROL) and me sliding back down the slope slowly. Realising this could end badly I shoved it into reverse, gunned it down the slope and back up the slope the otherside until I lost grip. Then put it into 2nd and gunned down the hill and managed to gain enough momentum to get me up the hill the otherside. Damn Bridge.

[orudge]

photographs taken there can't be other than magnificent; take this one for instance

That's a rather spectacular photo, indeed!

I'll hopefully get my photos uploaded next week, once I'm back in Minneapolis. Yesterday I went to Sacramento, driving along I-80 (which itself is pretty spectacular for a freeway, the way it manages to traverse the Sierras), and visited the Railroad Museum, and got lots of photos of various famous trains from the area, and suchlike. Most interesting.

[PikkaBird]

I drove out from Las Vegas to Hoover Dam last week. Fun times indeed. The lake was looking a little low...

[audigex]

The lake was looking a little low...

That's because it's got bad self-image and no confidence. It insists it's fat, and you can't convince it that it's only retaining water.

Ba-dum tsh.

[pavel1269]

... take this one for instance.

Wow. Thats a great image. I would definitely want to see more

[vear]

Yet another trainspotting-related car journey here.
When I woke up this morning the thing that almost shocked me was... the sun. Everywhere. Hurray, the first day of 2010 without ANY overcast! Having in mind it's Saturday, there was only one proper way to utilise the day, or at least its half. Quick breakfast, coffee, shaving and then get to the car as soon as possible. Then drive 40 km away, to one of my pre-chosen decent spots for taking train pictures. This time, the place was near Tunel (literally meaning "Tunnel", of course) station. As the name implies, a railway tunnel is nearby (the interesting thing is that LHS - the most westward 1524mm railway, connected with the former USSR's rail network - instead of passing the mount directly via tunnel goes around, totally avoiding the hill), but that's of no importance for this story
Driving is fun when roads offer no traction as they're all covered with ice (not even snow, which would provide some friction). Having about 40 km/h indicated by the speedometer, I *tried* to stop and covered roughly 200 m until I eventually did. Thankfully I was far from being in hurry. Once I reached the place, parked safely, the tricky part was to get near the rails. Recent weather conditions had covered the area with lots of snow (up to a metre), then a thin ice layer (which wouldn't let you walk on it) and a bit snow just to mask the ice. Walking was extremely difficult. As I was making small steps, I feared I could fall down below the ice and break a leg. Obviously, I fell for a couple of times , however nothing really bad happened. Finally, I reached my destination and took this photograph. The journey back home wasn't particularly different, just everything the same, yet reversed. I believe it was all (even standing there for several dozens of minutes at -10°C) worth it

[orudge]

Big dig.

Not the most interesting drive, but today I headed back up to Westhill from North Wales. Generally quite a pleasant trip up - the wind had died down a bit, it seems, compared with Thursday when I headed down. Sun behind me, roads quiet, lovely. A couple of numpties on the M6 and the A74(M), though, including one guy who left his right indicator on for about 10 miles, and another guy who was apparently allergic to lane 1.

Incidentally, the train theoretically would have been cheaper - booked in advance with a railcard - than driving, with this return trip costing me about £120 in petrol. However, it'd mean a £10 taxi, twice, in Wales, as well as getting into Aberdeen and back, plus waiting about an hour each way in Warrington Bank Quay for connecting trains - surely one of the most depressing stations in Britain. So overall it'd have taken much longer and cost more or less the same. A shame, really. I suppose if I wanted to get there quickly with money being no object, though, I'd fly from Aberdeen to Manchester and rent a car!

Anyway... anybody else been anywhere fun lately?