Car Games

We just got back from a 6-day roadtrip (Hi, Jenny!!), and of course we played some car games to keep the drive from feeling quite so long. Here are the results:

State License Plates:
Florida                                        Georgia                                 Mississippi
Ohio                                            North Carolina                    Iowa
California                                   New York                             Arizona
Idaho                                         Connecticut                         Kentucky
Washington                             Missouri                              New Jersey
Michigan                                  Oregon                                 Alabama
Indiana                                     New Mexico                         Tennessee
Illinois                                      Maine                                    Minnesota
Wisconsin                              West Virginia                       South Carolina
Kansas                                    Vermont                                Maryland
Virginia                                    Montana                               Utah
Pennsylvania                         Colorado                               Nebraska
Louisiana                               Massachusetts                     Montana
Oklahoma                               Colorado                                South Dakota
New Hampshire                    Nevada                                   Wyoming

Other License Plates:
Manitoba
Ontario
Washington DC
US Government

For it being the middle of October, and all the public schools in session, I don't think this is too shabby of a list! I did think it odd that there wasn't a better representation of Canadian guests: other trips this long have shown us most or all of the Provinces. Perhaps because they are also in school, we didn't see as many of our neighbors to the North. We also made note of vanity plates, which was a new list for me, and one that I think I'll be making a habit of doing in the future!

Vanity Plates
ICANDI                                BOBBIN3                          IGUANA8
JABA                                   JAG XJL                            JEPR
ME ME ME                        WIN WIN                           EREN
CU RACN                             BBS                                   SN1PS
NH OMFS                           PIZZAZZ                          MEGLET
LV2MNBK                          JAG                                    2 N JOY
SIR OWL                             TWIN 1                              KENEDY 4
SAAD                                 THE VOLS                         CRN 79
7 R                                        FRKNRCN                         RUNRBUG
BREZEEE                            GILVSJT                            JAG DADY
4 SCUDR                             NATO 16                          FNFAB1
SARRIS                               PODGE 4                          AMP 1
TEDYBUR                          NOJZFST                         NEW MINT
MOMANS2                       S MUERTE                        X PS1 X
JIMBO 52                           MAX THIS 1                    COOKN IT
ME BRAT 1                       NERZ1                               DA MASK
LA PRINCSA                    BEAR DN                          WD2 N4W
MR WB 5                          MR ZIP                               GIDEON
HK3                                    JEWEL                                NANEE
CAPTTED                        PITURA


The Chicago area had an unusual density of vanity plates: we probably got about half of the plates as we went through that area. Made me wonder if they are less expensive in Illiniois? We also though of a plate that we may get ourselves at some point... no, I'm not giving it away!

We also kept track of weird/interesting stuff we saw. Here are the highlights:

• 2 empty white lawn chairs, set up on the side of the highway like they were watching a parade
• a large windfarm. We estimated that there were probably 500+ windmills, and they weren't small ones either!
• a semi trailer that was hard-topped for the first 1/3 of the trailer, then soft topped the rest of the way back. It had no marks to give us clues about what they might be carrying.
• a large green dragon, with little tiny wings. I guessed it was around 2 stories tall.
• "Isothermal" Community College
• cotton fields, ready to be harvested
• 1/2 hay bale laying on the highway
• hot tub on a pickup
• yard with a 2-hole golf course
• sign: "Possible Wildlife in the Road"
• watertower painted like a rainbow hot air balloon
• "Hungry Mother State Park" (guess the Daddies had enough to eat??)
• sign: "Big Musky Bucket"
• falling plane - we thought it was remote control...
• burned and melted semi cab - gone to the level of the headlights
• Binary Odometer: 111010 (58)
• Binary Odometer: 111111 (235)
• Big Crane: the top was popping out of a quarry on I-80 that's around 2 miles deep. BIG crane.
• Max's Cheese castle - with a castle shaped building

My family started keeping a list of roadkill sightings when we were headed out West one year and there was an unusually large number of them on the side of the road. Funny thing was, we saw them in the first state we traveled through, and then everyone else on that 1500 mile drive had them cleaned up. This time I also noticed that there was a definite difference between the way that one area to the next was able to keep their roads cleaned up.

Roadkill:
UFO*: 19
Racoon: 12
Skunk: 3
Rabbit: 2
Deer: 3
Bear
Squirrel
Beaver
Wolf
Fox

UFO = unidentified flattened object 

Other bits of stuff we kept track of:

Lowest gas price: $3.11/gal
Tunnels: 5

It was a good trip!