So, when using the navigation system in my car in the bay area before my trip, I generally thought it was ok. It didn’t always pick the best route, but it had all the locations I tried to get to in its directory.

Driving along US route 2 through northern North Dakota and Montana has demonstrated how lacking it is. Almost every town along the route didn’t have any roads in the navigation system other than US 2. Not even the business route of US 2 in some towns. If I lived in that area of the country, the nav system would be useless. Then again, if I lived there, I’d probably know all 15 roads in the town and wouldn’t need the nav system…

Anyways, I’m now back in the bay area, and have been for a bit. As of next Tuesday, I’ll move into a new place in San Mateo, and this chapter in my travels concludes.

When congress repealed the federal speed limit, Montana did apparently post their speed limit as “Safe and prudent,” though trucks were limited to 60 or so. Later, according to my guidebook, this was struck down by the Supreme Court as being too vague. So, now the interstate in Montana has a 75 mph speed limit, and US-2, which I took, is limited to 70 mph (though, 65 mph at night… while I agree that their long empty stretches of road are more dangerous at night, when wildlife could appear out of nowhere, will the 5 miles an hour really make a difference?). On the other hand, I didn’t see a police car on US-2 at all, so maybe enforcement isn’t common.

Josh and I saw Serenity on Friday. For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a movie spun off from the short-lived but excellent sci-fi tv series, Firefly. I definitely enjoyed it. I also think that it’s self-contained enough so that someone who likes sci-fi but has never heard of Firefly can enjoy it (as was evidenced by someone in our theater who had been given tickets by a Firefly fan outside the theater).

It was somewhat different from the series though. It seemed more summer-blockbustery than most episodes, and in some cases might have traded off character development for a bigger story. I also noticed a few slight differences from the tv series story, such as the description of how Simon rescued River. Nevertheless, it’s a fun movie, and one I certainly hope to watch again.

Travel plans for today were a bit derailed, but luckily not blown off the road. Instead of casually inspecting the nice little towns and kitschy off-highway attractions of the eastern half of North Dakota, I drove along hoping not to get stuck in the piles of snow in the middle of the highway, or drive off the road when all I could see was the taillights of the truck in front of me. I don’t think that my car is the best choice for deep snow performance, but it got me to a hotel with rooms, power, and dinner, so no complaints.

Yesterday, I wandered around Duluth for a bit in the rain (which in retrospect was terrific weather…). My guide book describes it as “one of the most beautiful and under-appreciated travel destinations in the midwest.” It also says that it is “gracefully etched into the side of tough, 800-foot granite slopes and gazing over the dark harbor hues.” Now, admittedly, the weather conditions might have affected my perceptions, but perhaps this description is a bit overly poetic. Positano, it ain’t.

However, there were two facets that I thought were really cool. Firstly, the whole downtown has a skybridge system, so that you can walk all over the downtown 1 floor up from ground level. Each building has public corridors on the 2nd floor, sometimes with shops, that allow you to walk from one bridge between buildings to the next. Obviously a useful feature in a place where the winters are a touch colder than San Francisco.

Secondly, there’s a drive north of the city called Skyline Parkway, which varies between views over Lake Superior from the top of a ridge to a multi-colored tree lined road winding back and forth over nice little bridges. Probably not pretty enough to warrant a visit to Duluth, but definitely worth checking out if you’re there.

I’m now in Duluth, MN, after driving yesterday from Chicago. Wisconsin is a very pretty state to drive across, especially with the leaves changing colors. It was cloud covered the whole way, but that’s better than raining, which seems to be the prediction for much of the great plains the next couple days. Boo.

Chicago was very cool. I stayed at Josh’s, and he kindly introduced me immediately to Chicago pizza, which was well appreciated after a long drive. We went to check out the Chicago Art Institute, a local art museum with a fabulously diverse collection. One of the installations in the modern art wing was a large rectangle of candies in colorful wrappers on the floor. Each visitor is invited to take one, which was pretty cool.

We also wandered around Millennium Park, which I had read about a bit but is very nice in person. The face fountain — with a large structure with a video of someone’s face at either end of a very thin layer of water which people can walk on — is interesting, but is eclipsed by “the bean”, which is a completely reflective structure in the shape of a bean, kind of. It’s really fun walking around it and seeing the interplay of the reflections and the sights around it.

We had dinner at a jazz/steak place in Evanston with the two guides from the Amalfi coast trip, who live in Chicago, and are really great people. The next day, I went to check out the Museum of Science and Industry, which seems like a great place to bring kids. They have a German U-Boat, U-505, which was captured off the coast of Africa in WWII and was recently moved into an enclosed exhibit hall and cleaned up, and it looks great. The tours on board are a bit crowded, but I guess it was when it was in service as well. They also have a huge model railroad, a replica coal mine, a 727 airplane, and various other exhibits that can easily use up their short opening hours (11am-4pm).

Today, it’s off to North Dakota, where it will hopefully not be snowing. Probably won’t be putting the top down today…