As you may recall, during this trip we won’t be driving all that much each day. We aimed for around 500 miles per day, which is only about 8 hours a day of driving including rest/gas stops. Assuming we are on the road each day by 8am, that means we’ll have a few hours of time during each day to stop and see what the United States has to offer.

I was reading a couple blogs similar to what I hope this one becomes, and realized we hadn’t planned out any scenic stops. I’m asking anyone who reads this to check the post here detailing our route path and schedule, and give your suggestions for places to stop in the comments on this post (TMF readers, don’t bother responding to the thread I won’t see the responses until at least the weekend). I’ll break it down day by day below.

I will update the post as I receive suggestions.

Sights to see:

Day 0: ??  August – Last trip to Toronto for a very long time

- No planned stops. In all my trips to Toronto I usually just park and wander aimlessly around the city, so I’ve never really seen the sights.

Day 1: Sunday 31 August – Rochester, NY to Rootstown, OH

- Nothing planned. We’re leaving early in the morning from Rochester to get to Rootstown by noon-ish so no real time to stop. There’s a big long Mazda meet in Ohio.

Day 2: Monday 1 September – Rootstown, OH to Tennessee

- Deals Gap / Tail of the Dragon –this is actually the destination for the day, and the only reason we’re even going through TN on the trip.

Day 3: Tuesday 2 September – Tennessee (Maryville I think) to Little Rock, Arkansas

- I seem to recall Rob mentioning something to do in Little Rock.. I’ll have to confirm this.

Day 4: Wednesday, 3 September – Little Rock, Arkansas to Dallas, TX

- Mazda meet in Dallas at night.

Day 5: Thursday, 4 September – Dallas, TX to El Paso, TX

- The longest leg of the trip and from what I’ve heard, the most empty and boring stretch of highway ever. Any suggestions for a place to take a break during this day would be extremely welcome.

- Meeting up with a TMF member who moved to El Paso

Day 6: Friday, 5 September -  El Paso, TX to Tucson, AZ to Phoenix, AZ

- Meeting up with Tucson Mazda people around dinner time

- Getting to Phoenix probably after dark.

- White Sands National Monument – driving directions from trans-am zoom route – It ends up being at least a three hour detour, but that’s ok because the way this day was scheduled we weren’t leaving El Paso until 11a-12p so that we didn’t get to Tucson too early. Now we can leave at 7:30-8 and have plenty of time to play around in “southwest snow” as I will call it.

I’ve been having this dilemma for a while and just can’t figure it out. I know Rob was intent on making the move to Arizona taking just the things he can fit inside his Protege5. While I would love to do the same, I have too much stuff (even after throwing away most of what I owned, which I did a month ago). I already have a room at the house in CT full of furniture on top of the house in Rochester and all my furniture and stuff here.

I’ve looked into a few moving companies; the “pod stuff, ABF U-Pack, etc. I kinda have to figure out if it’s worth $2000 – $3000 to ship my stuff. If it’s just the furniture, it’s really not worth it. I can hit up an Ikea in Phoenix and replace it all with the exact same stuff. The rack mount server I may just leave to my remaining roommates here to manage on their own. It’s ludicrously heavy and huge (it’s a 3U) so to ship it DHL/FedEx would be stupid. Ok, so furniture and computer stuff out of the equation, I still have to figure out what to do. I keep forgetting how much stuff I have.

Big stuff I want to get to Phoenix that would cost a lot to ship:

• Second set of wheels/tires for the car
• OEM hood for the car
• air compressor and air tools
• Polk Audio floor speakers
• Sony ES amp & pre-amp –the radio tuner, dvd player, etc I could just throw away. The amp weighs over 75 pounds.

This is so frustrating. I’m swapping my stock wheels (with pretty much new Bridgestone Blizzak WS50s) to Stephen for his same stock wheels with whatever tires they have on them. That happens on day one of the trip, so the full set of wheels/tires will have to be in the car. I could at that point pay him to ship the wheels/tires to us in Phoenix. The air compressor I could replace very easily, it’d probably be cheaper to ship it than replace it ($300 or so) but it’s quite large to shipping it would still be a pain. The floor speakers I would be sad to lose, but they’re heavy and really tall so shipping would again be a pain. The amp/pre-amp I just got a shipping quote on, and it’ll be $80 insured for half of what it’s worth. The hood for my car is a bit of an issue. I could bring it with me in the car all the way to Arizona if needed, I’ve had it in my car plenty of times. It does obstruct much of the cargo area and would need to be protected from getting chipped. It would cost around $500 to find a really cheap used one and get it painted in Arizona, so if I can fit it, I’d definitely like to.

I was doing some cleaning in the living room today and I realized I have some more big things. I have a coffee table, a set of end tables, a bunch of chairs, etc. I could just be nice and leave all that stuff for my roommates to use, but I spent well over a grand on furniture and kitchen stuff to help furnish our first apartment and I’d just be throwing it all away.

At the end of the day, spending $2000-$3000 with ABF to move my stuff gives me the freedom to bring with me whatever I want. Our house could be half furnished immediately when we get there, instead of having to deal with spending days assembling new Ikea furniture. With ABF, they just drop off a huge trailer at your house and you fill it as much as you need to and are charged accordingly. If we go that route, rob’s full P5 could be emptied into the trailer after my necessities are in there, then we can fill up to the space paid for at the base rate with whatever else we want, even if it’s stupid stuff like the stock exhaust pieces from my car or a pile of 20 laptops.

Moving sucks, I’m going to go run around the house and garage today throwing things away so I feel better about it.

Now I just need to get a part time job to save up for that –or a full time job in Arizona that will finance moving expenses. If anyone knows a company in Phoenix looking for full time IT Sysadmin / Networking to start in early September let me know

I know we’ve been doing all this planning and stuff, but something came up and I got into a “If I don’t pass this one class, I can’t graduate until November” situation so this whole thing was up in the air.

As of last night I can officially say Trans-American Zoom 2008 will happen, as scheduled. As per my last post, I will be taking 7 courses this summer, three of which are accelerated 5 week courses June 2nd – July 4th, the other four are normal 10-week RIT quarter courses. Three of the four normal courses are online courses, which means I really need to finally work on my time management skills (mainly the lack thereof). Pending the completion of the 7 courses (schedule is linked from the previous post if you’re bored/interested), I officially graduate and the trip can be completed.

I was so very worried that I was going to mess up this quarter, and I came very close. My quarterly GPA has been on a slow decline since fall: 3.75 in the fall, 3.66 in the winter, and 3.5 in the spring. I need to cut more of the BS time wasting out of my life and really hunker down and get my crap done this summer. It’s going to be tough, because nice weather means I like to spend as much of my day as possible outside.

In other pretty random news, my Protege5 will hit 100k miles in a day or two

For the full scoop, read the post I made on my personal blog here. I originally thought I had to take 16 credits (the standard full class schedule at RIT of 4 courses), but instead I’ll be taking 23 credits this summer, which is enough of an overload that I actually have to pay extra for the last 3 credits. Oh and there’s a 0 credit course in there too ha. Definitely go read the post on my blog, yes it’s long-winded but as you will soon learn, that’s just the way I am (online only).

We had a big www.themazdaforum.com turnout at the Carlisle Performance & Style show this past weekend, and since Rob and I were both there the plan was to get lots of pictures featuring just our two cars, one of which would be used for the banner on this site. I remembered to get lots of pics of the Proteges there, and even lots of photos of Rob, Stephen, and I since we were parked together. I had to use one of those photos as the banner, so just ignore the car in the middle it isn’t a part of the trip, just the ones on the end are making the epic journey

Post any suggestions you have in the comments! This post will be updated as time goes on.

Thinking of the soundtrack for this trip (both music to listen to while driving as well as music for an extended photo slideshow), some stuff came to mind:

• The entire “Cassadaga” album from Bright Eyes. It’s suitably folky/western while still letting us feel indie – this could work well for the Texas part of the trip.
• Modest Mouse – “Dashboard”
• Death Cab For Cutie – “Title and Registration” – talks of cars on the surface, mentions finding a better life… of course ends up being a love song like most crap haha
• Beck – “Farewell Ride” - for the Rochester to Ohio or Ohio to Tail of the Dragon part of the trip.
• Taking Back Sunday – Where You Want To Be –I think many songs off the album would work well for the last leg of the trip, the El Paso TX to Phoenix part. Upbeat, warm, fast-paced.. great stuff.

more will be added later

Rob just suggested Fastball – “The Way”. While I hate the song the lyrics do fit so well

Since there will be a handful of meets along the trip, I figured I’d keep them organized here with links to the threads on various forums discussing them.

Saturday, 30 August

Toronto Protege Club gathering – Location: TBD – link to thread

Sunday, 31 August

OAC Mazda Club / Cleveland 6 Club gathering – Location: BBQ at Stephen’s house, then on to a Drive-In Movie.

link to cleveland 6 club thread

link to OAC Mazda Club thread on TMF

link to event on Facebook

link to nazis247 thread: http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123708563

Monday, 1 September

tail of the dragon meet?

Wednesday, 3 September

Dallas Meet –DFWMazdas and others – Location: TBD – link to DFWMazdas thread

Friday, 5 September

Tucson Meet – Arizona Mazda Club – Location: TBD – link to azmazdaclub thread

Saturday or Sunday, 6-7 September

Phoenix Meet – Arizona Mazda Club – Location: TBD, probably not our house since we won’t be moved in yet. No thread for this yet.

At each meet everyone in attendance needs to sign our cars

Schedule (tentative)

As of right now, this is the route. It is 2709 miles, or 1 day 17 hours driving time. You can explore the map here. We will leave Rochester, NY on Sunday, 31 August 2008 and head to Rootstown, OH where we will have a meet with the OAC Mazda Club. This will also be the last meeting of the 22v Trinity (click for photos). We’ll spend the day at that meet and dinner and such, then spend the night at our friend Stephen’s house (third member of the 22v Trinity). From there, our next official waypoint is a trip to Tail of the Dragon / Deals Gap, which is said to be one of the most exciting driving adventures on the East Coast. The difference in travel distance and time is not significant. It adds 2 hours.  We will then travel to Dallas, TX, where we will meet with a bunch of Mazda community people. From there, next stop Tucson, AZ, again for meeting with Mazda folks. Then the last leg is just Tucson to Phoenix.

During the trip, we planned for 500 miles per day of driving, at 110 km/h (roughly 70 mi/h). With about an hour of rest stops during the day, that is just 8 hours a day. While this does make for a nice relaxed pace without risk of burning out, our thought is that we might stretch it to 750 miles per day at least at first. Doing that for just two days basically takes one day off the trip.

We just worked out a semi-official schedule.

Thursday 28 August: Rob arrives in Rochester at night.

Friday 29 August: wrench on Rob’s car, then go to Fountain Motorsports or Eksten Autoworks for an alignment. Also show Rob all Rochester has to offer (not much).

Saturday, 30 August: Drive to Toronto, spend the day there. Hopefully schedule a Toronto Protege Club meet for this. Drive back to Rochester. This will be in one car.

Sunday, 31 August: Officially embark on the trip: Drive to Rootstown Ohio in the morning, have a meet with the OAC Mazda Club, also final 22v Trinity meeting. Spend the night in Rootstown. 282miles, 4 hours 34 minutes driving.

Monday, 1 September: Drive from Ohio to Tennessee, specifically Deals Gap / Tail of the Dragon. Spend the night there. 514 Miles, 8 hours 12 mins driving.

Tuesday, 2 September: Drive Tail of the Dragon once more, and then drive to Little Rock, Arkansas. 532 miles, 8 hours 5 mins driving.

Wednesday, 3 September: Get to Dallas. Spend the evening with the DFWMazdas community. 319 miles, 4 hours 51 mins driving.

Thursday, 4 September: Drive from Dallas to El Paso, TX. 635 miles, 9 hours 4 mins driving.

Friday, 5 September: Drive from El Paso, TX to Tucson, AZ. 318 Miles, 4 hours 32 minutes driving. We will sleep in and leave El Paso around 11a-12p, such that we get to Tucson, have some time to explore the city, and meet up with the Tucson people from the Arizona Mazda Club. From that, we will leave and go to Phoenix as it is just two hours away. Total driving for the day is 431 miles, 6 hours 30 minutes.

Saturday, 6 September: Sleep.

As much as I hate how ugly it will make things, our cars are going to be taped for this trip. At first we were thinking just taping the front end, mirrors, and sideskirts, but why go that far and leave out the doors and such? Now, the plan is to cover EVERYTHING. Literally all that will show on the cars is the front turn signals, side turn signals, and tail-lights.

I was thinking of ordering a case of silver painters tape so that our cars are at least still silver, and then an accent colour for each car to have fun. I was thinking orange for my car, which I’d use on the headlights, fog lights, and maybe a racing stripe haha. Maybe a salmon accent colour for rob?

The best part about covering the cars with painters tape, other than having no wear on the paint and just glass to clean for the week that we’re driving, is that we can then apply all the vinyl we want to the cars. Our friend Barry from Georgia made up a great design that we’ll have on our front doors commemorating the trpi, and we’ll have other assorted vinyl from our sponsors.

Another idea! Sorry for rambling but since we’re having meets along the way, maybe have people sign the cars as we go

Here we will document our preparations for our trip – maintenance and mods to make the trip more fun and bearable as well as non car related prep we have to do. Packing, jobs, apartment searches – read here for all the juicy fun!

Rob’s car:

• Under axle exhaust with JIC Spartan SUS canister
• SLS Mid-pipe, Stainless Steel, Catted with o2 bung
• OBX or similar header
• JIC FLTA-2 Coilovers
• Corbeau A4 Reclinable Racing seat & bracket
• EVOLV Gauge pod
• Prosport oil pressure and temp gauges
• Timing Belt, water pump, accesory belts
• Long reach spark plugs
• Some elf/total oil that I steal from Chris
• tape the whole car with silver and salmon painter’s tape

Chris’s car:

• Oil change
• water pump, timing belt, accessory belts. Will be around 105K miles, last changed timing belt at 76500 (water pump is original)
• Lube rear sway bar
• Swap to stock 16s with Blizzaks (yay snow tires). My summer tires should be sufficiently dead by this time, even though I just got them this April. I may shave the Blizzaks by hand if I figure out how to do it accurately. They only have 3k miles on them, so they’re way too new. My other option is to buy the General Exclaim UHPs off my roommate.. he’s getting rid of the car and the wheels, and they’re 215/45-17 just like my current summer tires so they should fit ok.
• tape the whole car with silver and orange painter’s tape