What a Car Can Do

The vast expanses of land on the North American continent have long served as both a hindrance and an inspiration to the cause of both domestic and global transportation efforts.   Our wonderful mass of dry land has prompted explorers to find quicker routes from sea to sea so that the markets and peoples of the Atlantic and Pacific basins could more easily interact with one another.  The end result was that transportation corridor quality and methods were greatly improved here, and the nations of North America were able to maintain their sheer sizes through a really efficient combination of a vast network of rails, roads, and an industrial base that was concerned with making service economically feasible for its customers.

Until the middle of the twentieth century, the United States and Canada had the most developed and efficient system of passenger trains in the world, at which point this system began to be eclipsed by the rise of the limited-access freeway network and the automobile.  These days, people like to decry that this is the case, citing the environmental damage caused by cars and the destruction of inner cities that have resulted from a sequestering of wealth and development in suburbs.  Yes, the automobile has had negative impacts on society and the environment, but also has done wonderful things for connecting diverse communities and promoting travel with which the natural world might be better appreciated.  While trains are wonderful ways to provide for mass transit between cities and towns, and can make a horrid commute on a crowded expressway just go away and never come back, a car can get a disabled person onto a mountain ridge!  Trains offer a relaxing way to see the continent, but with a broad-side view.  Cars offer a more hands-on way to see the continent, but with a front and side view.  A train can send someone from Mexico City to encounter a city like Dallas or Los Angeles on the other end, but a car can let a Mexican experience the everyday world of all sorts of Americans in or out of the big cities.

The inspiration for this post: A Mexico City license plate taken in the parking lot of an Albuquerque, NM hotel.

Heck, a car can take a Mexican to the Northwest Territories, or a Canadian all the way to the Yucatan.  One can drive anywhere from the interior of Alaska clear to Key West, or from northern Quebec all the way to Acapulco.  The best part is, one can see the landscape change bit by bit the whole way along, and come to see how a beach covered in palms is distantly connected to a soggy patch of tundra.  This is very hard to do in much of the rest of the world, because not even Asia, which provides as much continuous landmass from north to south as our continent does, has a complete network of passable roads, to say nothing about the lack of gasoline availability, or the travel limitations posed by the international political situations there.

So, while I am certainly not an advocate of "windshield tourism", seeing the continent by car is nothing to be embarrassed about either.  A car is often the best and only way to reach a trail head, from which so many other wonderful options exist at for exploration at that point.  Everyone who lives in North America, and is able to make such a journey, should definitely make their way across the land from ocean to ocean, or gulf to northern ocean, at least once in a lifetime.  The experience will be unforgettable, and it will open so many new and exciting horizons in the imagination and world-view.

Practically speaking, a simple trip of just driving for 8-10 hours a day, and sleeping at night, from "end to end" will take:

New York to Los Angeles: 4 days.
Montreal to Miami: 2.5 days.
Seattle to Mexico City: 3.5 days.

Most of the larger western states can be traversed in about 6-8 hours, though Texas and California can take as long as 12, depending on the cross section.  Most Mexican states are comparable in size to the eastern seaboard states.  Canadian provinces are huge, and a full transit of Ontario and Quebec can take over a day of travel time.

Mexico, the inter-mountain west, and northern Canada can take longer to traverse, owing to road conditions and topographical elements.

Of course, this is only if you are being silly and not stopping to enjoy anything.

Other things to keep in mind:

Even your amazing sports car will not perform at peak efficiency above 9,000 feet or so.  Mountains can be fun to drive in, but the grades can sometimes be as high as 16% on backroads, and 7% on limited-access freeways.  One of the most dramatic stretches of freeway in North America in this regard is westbound I-70 between the continental divide and Veil, Colorado.

This looks like it was taken by its maker in August or so, which is a relatively placid period in the Rockies.  I have driven this in the middle of an intense winter storm with 18-wheelers bearing down behind me.  No other conditions can come even close to mountain conditions, with the possible exceptions of lake effect snow storms.

While the desert is not as dangerous to travel across as it used to be, it is best not to zoom across it.  Air-conditioning, while very helpful, does take a bit of resources from an engine, and is best shut off while making a climb on a desert mountain.  States such as California and Arizona have signs that advise this.  Sand storms can often completely cut off visibility, which usually requires pulling as far safely off the road as one can go, to wait it out.  Also, tumbleweed is dangerous, despite its brittle and small appearance.  Large snags of it can actually cause car fires and damage houses!  Avoid when possible!

Many roads in the far north tend to be ice, rather than ground, in the winter.  This is both beneficial and dangerous.  The far north also has wonderful things like Moose and Caribou.  These and cars do not mix well in direct collisions.  Moose can be encountered in eastern North America roughly from the 45th parallel and northwards, except in the lower peninsula of Michigan.

Nearly all of North America, including most of Mexico, is motorist friendly.  Problem areas include the U.S.-Mexico border region and some of the larger cities in both the U.S. and Mexico, which can be as disorienting as they are dangerous to non-locals.  I myself have driven in the more colorful parts of Detroit, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Mexico City without incident, but I also knew what I was heading into, was passing through, and was not there to see the sights.  I have only experienced the border region from the American side, and it was incredibly secure.  While the Mexican side is much less of a picnic, the media does tend to focus on the worst of the worst when it comes to Mexico.  A good place to look for more information: this blog.

Gasoline availability is somewhat limited in the more remote parts of the continent, and can often be quite expensive when it is encountered.  For the most part, Mexico offers the cheapest gas, followed by the central United States west of the Mississippi river.  In my experience, the cheapest gas is in Iowa, followed by Kansas, which <cough> happen to be located the furthest from most major pipelines carrying either domestic or exported petroleum products!  Except in unusual circumstances, California has the most ridiculous prices for gas out of anywhere.  Canada used to be a bit problematic, especially in the face of a stronger Canadian dollar not being represented fairly by retail prices set to some imaginary economy that pretends that 2012 is 1997.  This has changed much in the past two years, however.

Driving in New York City is not for the timid.  Driving in Los Angeles is not for the impatient.  Other than these two hot spots, a driver will encounter far less traffic in most of Canada, the western United States, and northwestern Mexico than they will anywhere else.  Cities will always feature more traffic than rural areas.  On average, the busiest freeway is the 401 passing through Toronto, but owing to an efficient transit system in the city, it will seem to be far less of a headache than driving in many other cities.

Myths, as well as fun things (and posts) to look forward to:

After being inland for so long, especially having crossed deserts, the ocean is a brilliant sight to behold!  The Great Lakes can produce a similar effect, minus the salty smell and taste of the air.  They do, however, still smell good.

The Great Plains are not at all as boring as people make them out to be.  Most major roads follow river valleys and pass by picturesque bluffs and other natural markers.  Even where the road tends to stick to the stereotype of a straight run in the middle of nothing but miles and miles of miles and miles, the grand scale of the sky and the austere expanses of grass can be as breathtaking as any voyage into the mountains or by the ocean.

There are few drives more incredible than approaching the Rockies from the Great Plains.  They can often be seen as far as 100 miles away, disappearing and then reappearing larger and larger as one goes up and down the rolling hills of the shortgrass prairies.

Mountains and sharp changes in elevation often produce transitions between ecosystems that would normally be over hundreds of miles apart in a mere mile or two.  This is especially true on the edges of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, as well as the coastal areas of California.  In Mexico, one can travel this way, botanically, from near-taiga to the tropics, in the space of a few minutes in a car.  Outside of the mountains, a lack of the effects of vertical relief usually means that transitions happen slower, though two notable exceptions exist in the relative distance one is from the Pacific Ocean in southern California, and the sudden changes that come from crossing onto the Canadian Shield.

Driving into the heart of a major city can be confusing and intimidating, but also spectacular.

Even if you don't pay attention to the changes in vegetation and landscape, the first spruce, pine, palm, cactus, outcrop, water feature, or significant change in elevation should grab your attention.  On the way back, you might even notice the "last" of them as well.

An overcast and/or rainy day is not necessarily cause for sorrow.  Rain, mist, and even snow can add a whole new dimension to some landscapes.  The same holds true for the cycle of the day itself; dawn and dusk can make heading into the unknown even more incredible.

Take a drive!