Saturday, August 18, 2007

Roadtrip Lessons

Michelle is writing in more detail about our LA-to-Chicago roadtrip, but I wanted to mention some things I learned while driving over 2000 miles:

1. The US grows a lot of corn.

2. Smoking is much more prevalent outside of California, and it was a shock to be asked "smoking or non-smoking" in restaurants.

3. "Regular unleaded" gas in Utah and Colorado has an octane rating of 85. We weren't sure if this was high enough, so we always filled with the mid-level gas; however, Wikipedia tells me that 85 is okay at high altitudes.

4. The speed limit is much more respected outside of California. If you were to drive 80 mph on I-5 between San Francisco and LA (where the speed limit is 70, not that I've ever gone so fast), you would be barely average. In all of the other states we passed through (where the limit is often 75), going 80 mph makes you pretty much the fastest car on the road (again, not that we ever drove 80).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some thoughts on exactly the (negative) significance of so much corn: http://www.ecoliteracy.org/publications/rsl/michael-pollan.html

Your pictures look awesome!

Anonymous said...

great, the link got cut off.

http://www.ecoliteracy.org/
publications/rsl/michael-pollan.html

Anonymous said...

in relation to anjuli's link, you should also check out pollan's book 'omnivore's dilemma', which talks about all that corn being grown. i just read it...it's a bit disturbing.