2025 Jumbo Road Trip

Roadside America States & Corrections II

I have previously mentioned how many states I drove through on the 2025 Jumbo Road Trip (more on this later) and I wanted to really count how many states I took Roadside America photos in. So I went back to the start, April 18th and wrote down the name of every state where I took a RA photo all the way through June 17th. I came up 26 states. Wait a minute, when I did the Power Point presentation to put on Instagram the other day, one slide read: 70 ROADSIDE AMERICA PHOTOS IN 25 STATES?

So, I pulled up an image of a map of the lower 48 states and retraced my route filling in each state outline that I’d driven through. When I was done, I had filled in 31 states. Wait a minute, when I did the Power Point presentation to put on Instagram the other day, one slide read: DROVE THROUGH 31 STATES & 1 CANADIAN PROVINCE? Okay, I got that one right.

I looked at that filled in map. And realized that that when I visited Monument Valley I was in the north east corner of Arizona and although I didn’t count it in the RA photo count, it does have its own pin in the Arizona map on Roadside America. That means in fact that I took 70 Roadside America photos in 27 states. And I probably need to go back and add at least one more to that 70 total to make up for not counting Monument Valley.

I think that seventy figure came from me counting just how many Roadside America photos I posted to Instagram. Of the Roadside America photos I posted on the web page, that total comes to 82. If I count all the photos I took in total it is probably closer to 100, but I can’t give an exact figure because I’ve already gone through and deleted the ones I thought were crap.


 

Jumbo Road Trip Round Up

I left Fairview on April 18th and returned 61 days later on June 17th. It was really only 60-1/2 because yesterday was the second shortest drive of the whole trip, I was home by mid-morning. Wethersfield, CT, to Springfield, MA was the shortest at 30 miles.

There were 35 driving days, ranging from 3 hours all the way up to 9 between leaving one place in the morning and arriving at that night’s stay. The average was probably around 7 or 8 hours with stops. I traveled through 31 states, including five new to me; Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, Montana and Idaho. This leaves just one state out the 50 I have not spent any time in – Alaska. I also crossed one Canadian province, Ontario

Now let’s talk about how far I drove. Day before yesterday I mentioned 526 miles until I discovered that the odometer only went up to 9,999.9 miles in Coeur d’Alene, ID. I added that to the 9,500 I had at the coffee stop in Billings and got a total of 10,026 miles driven. Because I always enter my gas info into the Fuelly app when I fill up, I downloaded all the fill ups from the trip and added up the total mileage and the figure was 10,025.1! Perfect, right? Not so fast there sailor. I went out to the car this morning and got the mileage from yesterday’s morning’s fill up in eastern Oregon. It was 163.3 giving a trip total of 10,188.4 miles. Things got interesting when I checked the B Trip number, it read 445.6. Add that figure to the 9,999.9 and you get a grand total of 10,445.5. And that number is the minimum, because, remember, I didn’t know how long B Trip had been maxed out. I’m rounding it out to 10,500 miles.

That last twist also means I didn’t capture a gas fill up that covered 450-ish miles. All told, I used a total of 277.876 gallons (that I accounted for) at an average price of $3.829 a gallon. The lowest price paid was in North Dakota of $2.839 and the highest paid was $4.999 in Maine.

I spent 21 days at the houses of friends and relatives. There was 18 days in hotels, 16 days in Airbnbs and 5 in VRBOs. The most expensive night was an Airbnb in Rochester, MN at $258.49, but it was nearly the nicest place I stayed in, plus it was walking distance to downtown and the Mayo Clinic Hospitals. The cheapest night was at the Holiday Inn Express in Lubbock, TX, but only because it was free, I used my IHG points. The real cheapest was the Airbnb Sally and I split the cost of in Hammond. The lowest I paid for a room for me was $96.11 at the Quality Inn in Robbinsville, NC. I’m always saying that staying in an Airbnb is almost cheaper than staying at a chain hotel, well, its close, but not true. The average for the hotels came in at $142.37 and the Airbnb and VRBO came in at $163.63, but I think it is worth the extra dub (or double sawbuck.)

How much money did I spend on the trip total? I know the gas costs (sort of) I know the total of how much it cost to spend the night out and I can tell how much cash out I took at ATMs, but I don’t feel like combing through every purchase using the charge card to find out where it went on all the incidentals, so a ballpark figure would be $10k. I decided to do just that. Went back to the May & June credit card bills and crossed out all the stuff is all the streaming services, my internet and a couple Amazon purchases that weren’t trip related. Grand Total: $7,920.67

Was it worth it? Hell yes, and then some. Will I do it again, probably. I know the Miata’s trim level is called GT for Grand Touring, but the next time it will be in a true GT car. This 70-year-old body still has no trouble getting in an out of a Miata, but is more the car’s lightweight and single suspension setting that beats up my aging internals.

Fairview, OR – Day 61: Home & Post Offices Again

Umatilla, Oregon Post Office


 
All three of today’s Roadside America photographs happened in my home state of Oregon. Both the first two Metal Men on a Roof and the Large John Wayne Figure, although I see no resemblance, are located in Umatilla. Number three, the Tugboat On Land is grounded in the town Boardman.

Today is Day 61, and like I did on Day 1, I took the opportunity to take a few Post Office photos. I grabbed the first three upon entering the home state. And because I really got to Fairview pretty early I should have stopped at the other two, Rufus & Arlington, that are right off I-84.

Walla Walla, WA – Day 60: 10,000 Miles

I was planning on keeping track of how far I will have gone for the whole trip, but now I’m not so sure. I have two different trip counters, A & B, and I keep resetting A at each fill-up so I can keep track of gas mileage and leaving B alone. Today when I stopped for gas in Coeur d’Alene when I went by A after resetting it, I noticed that B was reading 9999.9. Cool, I’ll reach the 10k mark once I start rolling again, so I left B showing and pulled out of the gas station. After driving for a minute, it never changed. Then I did the Homer Simpson head slap, DOH! That’s as far as that trip counter can go, so I reset trip counter B.

How far had I been driving with it sitting on all nines? I remembered telling the barista at the drive-thru coffee place in Billings yesterday morning that I had just passed the ninety-five hundred mile mark on my way there. So, using Google Maps, I backtracked the mileage between Billings and Coeur d’Alene and came up with 526 miles. This means that I am going to be off around 0.2% or really just an inconsequential amount.

Both of today’s Roadside America photos are from Idaho, first up is the Sunshine Mine Happy Family Statue in Wallace and then there was Tidal Wave of Canoes in Lewiston.

I also visited three more spots that were listed on the Roadside America website. The first one was the World Famous 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar in Haugan, MT, where I bought a couple of postcards and a sticker that said “Montana” on it for the trunk lid.

The second one I did photograph, but I couldn’t really get a decent photo worth anything of the Uniroyal Gal with Tattoo in Pomeroy, WA.

The third one was interesting in that it harkened back to Blue Earth, MN, where there was a 55-foot-tall Green Giant statue. In Dayton, WA, there is a Hillside Jolly Green Giant that is 300′ tall but looks tiny because the hill it is on is so far from the road.

Missoula, MT – Day 59: Blue Car & Blue Horses

Blue Car


 
I looked along my route, and there were a couple of Roadside America places, but none that really excited me until I spotted Bleu Horses in Three Forks, MT. And now that I’ve visited it, it is my favorite one of the whole trip. I have two more travel days until I do get back home, and I’m tempted to stop looking for any others.

From the Roadside America’s website: “Montana sculptor Jim Dolan spent 15 months and his own money to make, move, and install the 39 horses in 2013 as a permanent artwork. They’re designed so that their heads, manes, and tails move in the breeze.”

The path down to the ravine is kind of steep but very doable; the path up from the ravine to the hill where the horses are is very steep. So steep that when I finished walking around and headed back to the car, I had to zigzag down like a sailboat tacking into the wind.

Billings, MT – Day 58: Cowboys & Indians

What happens when you don’t take a drive on the interstate and instead stay far away from that type road, add a detour to avoid dirt road sections of a state highway, toss in a couple small detours for Roadside America photos and then spend an hour at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument? Four and a half hours becomes nine. The park was very interesting, and the Montana backroads are smooth and uncrowded. Oh, and it was a gloriously sunny day, the first in about 5 days.

Last Stand Hill


 
A white marker has been placed on the battlefield wherever a 7th Cavalry soldier died and was initially buried. This is Last Stand Hill, and the officers have their names on the stones. The black hightlighted marker is for General Custer. No one is buried under the markers; 5 years later they were all dug up and buried in a mass grave, which is under a Large Memorial Marker.

Now for what everyone is waiting for: roadside oddities. Yesterday we had a large cowboy statue and a cowboy riding a dinosaur; today we have a Cowboy Riding A Rocket, but someone has stolen his hat. Then a couple hours later it was a Creepy Crawler Giant Baby which I think would be creepier without the animals and the dinosaur. Oh, this morning before leaving Hettinger, I took a picture of Last Marker of the Yellowstone Trail.

Hettinger, ND – Day 57: Cowboys & Dinosaurs

Carl’s Cabins


 
Yesterday I said the worst thing that had happened on the trip was being directed onto a dirt road and getting the car all dirty (it still is, by the way), but I totally forgot about what really should be considered the worst. Later in the day, as I was following a farm truck in the rain, another truck came past in the opposite direction, so I don’t know who to blame, but a rock was launched at the windshield and hit it with a crack. There is now a small star shape that is centered low on the windshield. More on the passenger side, so it is not really in my sightline, but I’ll see about getting it fixed upon my return.

Today’s route was scheduled to be a 325-mile day but ended up just shy of 500. Because I was going to arrive at my nighttime destination three hours early for check-in. I thought maybe I could add a couple of hours by going to the Crazy Horse Monument; I haven’t been there since 2009 and wonder what progress has been made. After about 30 minutes I looked again and realized this was a misguided detour. It would have put me in Hettinger, ND, at about six o’clock.

Then later, the Google lady said, “We found a shorter route,” and just put me on it, so I had to backtrack. About 30 miles later there was a sign saying that US-12 was undergoing major construction and travelers should consider an alternate route. They didn’t actually offer one up, so I conferred with Google Maps and decided to go north into North Dakota 30 miles and then drop back down into South Dakota. Finally, when I did get to Hettinger, I remembered I wanted to take a Roadside America photo back in Lemmon, SD, that was bypassed with the last detour. So back 25 miles to Lemmon and then finally another 25 miles to get to Carl’s Cabins for the night.

The top photo is the Miata parked outside of my room at Carl’s Cabins. The outside doesn’t do the inside justice. I’m in ‘The Station’ room, which is very nicely decked out in a very automotive theme. Go back up and click on the link for the place, and you’ll get the idea.

Anyway, the first roadside America photo of a Big Cowboy Statue was taken in Watertown, SD, way east in the state, and the second was the art statue of Cowboy Rides a Dinosaur in Lemmon, SD, way west in the same state. The next two photos are bonus ones. While taking the ‘Cowboy Riding A Dinosaur’ photo, I noticed it was in front of a museum, so I went inside. The place is a hidden gem; they have actual petrified bones, not molds, of several dinosaurs from nearby, including an almost intact triceratops skull. The lady running the show gave me a tip about a petrified wood park. Now I have been to the Petrified Forest National Park, but the amount of petrified wood in this one city block seemed to rival all of it in that national park. Bonus: it too is a Roadside America spot. Last, but not least, is this Jurassic World-themed installation on an abandoned lot I discover on my walk to dinner tonight in Hettinger. It too should be a Roadside America spot.