Podcast - Adam Savage Project
Road Trips – 7/28/2015
In a wide-ranging conversation, Adam, Norm, and Will discuss their road trip strategies, stories from past trips, and share plans for their future drives.
Comments (46)
In a wide-ranging conversation, Adam, Norm, and Will discuss their road trip strategies, stories from past trips, and share plans for their future drives.
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For road-trips, get yourselves copies of BBC’s Cabin Pressure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_Pressure_(radio_series)
And John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Finnemore%27s_Souvenir_Programme
John Finnemore is a frigg’n hilarious genius!
Fuel that is not taxed is usually dyed, I believe a red color. Highway patrol, sheriffs or city police have ‘dip kits’ that they can use to dip in your tank and check said color.
Cabin Pressure is funny at any altitude (it works on many levels). Again, highly recommended.
The fuel has different dyes for different uses.
Re: Best Audiobooks
While I agree that The Martian was one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever herd, if you can find a copy the abridged version of Neuromancer read by William Gibson is simply amazing.
They use very 80’s ‘cyberpunk’-inspired music for bridges, and some basic sound processing to distinguish the various computers as they talk. In the cyberpunk mythos, it is a near-perfect ‘tone’ for the material.
You can’t purchase this particular version of the audiobook anymore. Having said that, I own a hardback, paperback, and an unabridged audiobook version. I didn’t feel too horrible about downloading it. I would buy it if it ever becomes available again, though.
Marietta Ohio has a great historical downtown that you would never known from driving by it on the interstate. Marietta was the first permanent stelelment in the northwest territory.
I drove all my worldly possessions from Knoxville, Tennessee to Portland, Oregon in 2001 by myself, and it still stands as one of the more harrowing experiences of my life. Driving cross-country can be a life changing adventure or a living nightmare, and sometimes it can be both at the same time.
My stupid drive across the country…
We drove from Albany, NY to Las Vegas, NV to relocate in 52 hours.
Speaking of John Finnemore, I would add That Mitchell and Webb Sound to the list.
For roadtrip movies you absolutely HAVE to watch “Road to Paloma” . It’s a beautiful story starring Jason Momoa (yeah, Khal Drogo from GoT 🙂 ).
Absolutely GORGEUS
podcast favourites:
Infinite Monkey Cage https://soundcloud.com/the-infinite-monkey-cage Prof. Brian Cox and Robin Ince
Answer Me This https://soundcloud.com/answermethis Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann
No Such Thing As A Fish https://soundcloud.com/nosuchthingasafish/ QI Elves podcast
and the majority of the stuff on here http://www.radiotopia.fm is awesome too.
Norm: The Kennedy School is awesome, but if you ever have the chance, McMenamins’ Edgefield in Troutdale is even better.
Thanks for that! Ditto on the rest of the recommendations, but I was not aware this existed.
It also contains more sulphur so can be detected from the side of the road by smell.
The dye stains pretty much every part of your engine too so they can see if you have been using it even if you aren’t.
If you enjoy driving fast you should definitely plan a road-trip through germany 😉
Another fun show, I love road trips, we made several cross country ones when I was a kid. Itching to do one through the Appalachians and back along the coast down through Georgia.
there are still no radio stations across NM and AZ
*A I am a fan of Mitchell & Webb… My wife, not so much….
A nice Tie-in from Mr. Alton Brown’s page today
http://goo.gl/A04aj6
I was able to volunteer recently for the shooting of a Mythbusters episode and Adam had his Land Cruiser there. It looked pretty sweet. I’d like to see a full feature on it.
It looks like Adam wears http://us.blundstone.com/work-boots/179-black-xtreme-safety-series
Way to go Norm taking your quadcopter on the trip! We totally need to see some footage. Last road trip I took, down to Bend, Oregon, I took my Parrot Bebop. I got some awesome footage of some of the vistas down around La Pine, OR.
Also, I hope you had fun at the McMenamins Kennedy School, that’s a fun place to stay.
I live in Denton Tx. And the pride of our town is the square that I live off of. It was and will always be the heart of this great town. It is where everybody goes to just be small town people. That is why I will always visit the small downtowns of the cities I pass through on road trips.
nice one . really enjoyed that one.
I find road trips in the US great (if you have a strip mall filter) but the driving speed.. (if you are used to autobahn where 90 is considered a relaxed cruising speed and 125 as merely hasty) is just soo slow, but in a 1982 Land Cruiser that probably would not bother one as much.
I had that same thing happen to one of my older hiking boots, and didn’t notice until I got home from a hike and stepped on a normal floor again and noticed one boot felt completely dead in impact. Not sure what caused it, but it appeared as if the rubber sole had hardened a lot over the years so it cracked around the softer cushioning underneath, which then escaped.
That straight stretch toward LA is nuts. Me and a friend drove down to San Diego last summer and were going stir crazy by the end. The heat probably didn’t help.
Don’t forget “The Road” for best road trip book! Fun family high jinks
I have a question… did Will have a walk-on part in the recent mythbusters story about drones?
about 6:21 in, as the drones myth (soooo many issues with how badly this was done) was being set up. delivery drone crosses the street as a dude walks past un-concerned.
looked a bit like Will, I mean there cant be 2 red haired, bearded guys in america with checked shirts & jeans 🙂
P.S. the Dragon Lady ‘Myth’ was BS too, BUT wtf! Adam got to fly in a U2!!!1!1!!! gotta give you a pass on that one.
I really enjoyed all of the love that my home state got in this podcast! Go Ducks!! 🙌
Agreed.
Road trips are so much fun. I enjoy many travels through the southwest US each year. And there is public radio in New Mexico.
My sister lives in LA now, and my wife and I have been planning a road trip starting there, then visiting friends in SF, Portland and Seattle – driving all the way. Really looking forward to that.
When we’re in Portland, we also stay at the Kennedy School. Norm – how many Tested listeners tracked you down in the Boiler Room this evening? Or are you a Detention sort of guy?
Midnight Run is still one of my all-time favorite movies. An early score by Danny Elfman and additional barnburning performances by Joe Pantoliano and Dennis Farina are a couple of my favorite things about it.
Tomorrow we’re driving the 4 hours to Indy for GenCon. I think you guys sold me on listening to The Martian while we do it!
Spent the day with my mother last saturday. We went on a short one day roadtrip up north, from Montreal in the Laurantians.
Just drove around for the day looking at the beautiful landscpaes, talking and listening to some music.
We haven’t done that in years. Was a great relaxing day.
In talking about finding interesting things, I can’t believe you guys don’t know the website Roadside America!
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/
I actually have a small Garden Gnome that I take with me and take pictures in front of as many monuments as I can manage. He’s my buddy, and we’ve seen several dozen things – everything from the world’s largest gavel, to a ventriloquism museum, to life-size fiberglass dinosaurs.
I listened to The Martian again recently, and they have fixed the bit where RC Bray used to mispronounce ASCII. He used to say “A.S.C. two.” I didn’t download it a second time – it must have happened automatically when I wasn’t looking…
I concur. The Infinite Monkey Cage, and No Such Thing … are my top podcasts. Also, because I like comedy, the BBC’s Friday Night Comedy and Comedy Of the Week are up there too. Oh, and Wait Wait Ask Me Another.
I used to live in Blundstones, until they moved production from Tasmania to China and they stopped making the style I liked. My only ever pair of steel-capped Blunnies fell apart where Adam’s did, way faster than they should have. I use Keen now.
(Perturbed that the Blundstone’s AU range is *way* smaller than their US range, and you guys have a lifetime guarantee. Perhaps Adam could try it out).
I guess that the US is THE country for road trips. For this year I was finally able to convince my family to do a road trip starting in Las Vegas. We did the Grand Canyon, then Reno, San Francisco, Fresno and then Palm Springs and back to Vegas. It was awesome!
If you like to see some pics: http://hexahelix.com/category/usa-westkueste-2015/ <- I wrote a little trip diary for my family. It's all german, but google translate should help.
Next year the east coast hopefully and then I do want to do a coast to coast trip someday.
Cheers,
Markus
I have been lucky enough to have several long road trips. Living in Canada, I did one from Toronto all the way to Newfoundland (which required a 6 hour ferry ride) and and back through the United States down the east coast and up to Boston and back to Toronto. This took three weeks. Later I drove across our wonderful country from Toronto to British Columbia, then down to Seattle and across to Wyoming and Montana, going back up at Detroit and to Toronto. Again, three weeks. The first one was solo and I have wonderful memories (plus hundreds of slides, Kodachrome of course) as keepsakes. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe…..
In Canada (or Southern Alberta, anyway) farm fuel was often referred to as “Purple Gas” on account of the dye used. Though I have heard that in recent years they have done away with the dye.
Fandango…..#RoadTripFilms….
I drove from Houston to San Diego for Comic Con this year. 1500 miles. After the con was up, I visited friends in LA, adding another 100 miles. GPS decided I8 would be the best choice to go home, so back to SD it was. 3200 miles, all told. There is basically nothing in Arizona. There is NOTHING between San Antonio and El Paso. I got to El Paso and thought to myself “yay, I’m almost there!” and instantly realized I was only halfway home.
No affiliation, I just love this super great audiobook: Shadowmagic by John Lenahan
Available on Podiobooks.com as pay-what-you-want. It’s serialized in podcast format, so if you binge-listen you get intro and outros for each chapter, but really, they’re not bad. The book itself is a rip-roaring good time, and it’s read by the author who, as a professional stage magician, has a great voice. Just check out the reviews on the Podiobooks website, or on Amazon (it’s available in dead-tree form also).
*I can’t get formatting to work on this site, so here’s the link: http://podiobooks.com/title/shadowmagic/
**Also available free through iTunes, so search “Shadowmagic” in your favorite podcatcher.
So far my longest road trip was from Valdosta GA to Fairbanks AK. We made a vacation of it, and somehow ended up in Sturgis for the bike rally. I then did it again 5 years later from Goldsboro North Carolina to Chatanika AK, was chased out of the state by hurricane Fran. The last trip was the worst. That time I started in North Pole(yes, it’s a real town, that’s where my 99705 comes from) and drove to Xenia Ohio. When we left it was -55F and somewhere in the Yukon territory we blew a valve cover gasket. Stopped at a gas station(one room log cabin) and bought all the motor oil they had. Went through 11 quarts of oil before we got to a town big enough to have a real repair shop.
I’m a big fan of radio comedy. It’s what I normally have playing when I have my IEM’s in, so it makes sense to continue that when on a road trip.
Cabin Pressure by John Finnemore is possibly the best recent comedy. It is absolutely magnificent. *and I was at a couple of the recordings. Thanks for the free tickets BBC!*
John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme is another excellent series… John just seems to be hitting all the right spots at the moment. *Sorry BBC? Are those more tickets? Why thank you!*
Then you’ve got the weekly satire shows. The News Quiz and The Now Show. Both pretty silly, but fun. *and yet more free tickets…*
And finally you have the complete absurdity – I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, The Goons, Dead Ringers, Dilemma, I’ve Never Seen Star Wars, The Brig Society, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and so on.
My girlfriend doesn’t get on with Audiobooks. I’ve tried, but she just can’t cope with someone else reading the books. I do have an Audible subscription so have quite a few. I love Terry Pratchett when on my own in the car. Douglas Adams, Tom Clancy, Mark Kermode, Robert Asprin, Bill Bryson. But my all time favourite performance of an audiobook is the full cast recording the of The Godfather – hunt it down, it’s the best version I’ve ever heard.
I love this topic, and I agree that the US interstate system is both a blessing and a curse when your goal is to try to see the country. That being said if you do a little pre-planning you can easily break through the interstate monotony on a road trip. It doesn’t have to be all Taco Bell, Cracker Barrel, and tourist traps – you just need to know where to do your research.
These days my recommendation for road trip planning is to start the process with a visit to http://www.roadtrippers.com where you’ll decide on the specific route I want to take and get a general sense for the sorts of things that will be available along the way.
Then I like to head over to https://www.flickr.com/map where the real magic happens. The cool thing about this site is that when you search for each of the towns/cities that you’ll will be passing through you can click through all of the geotagged photos of that area that have been uploaded to flickr. You will obviously have to wade through some random snapshots, an occasional wedding photo or two, and a few bird-watching pictures, but there are a lot of relevant photos here too. Because this site is mostly used by professional and hobbyist photographers the photographs tend to be beautiful and quite often they include some very informative descriptions.
I’ve found a lot of roadtrip gems this way – my favorite is a circus performer graveyard in Hugo, OK filled with fantastical circus themed headstones. I would have never known about it except for stumbling upon the photos via flickr.
Adam, midnight run also one of my favourite movies, no matter how many times I see it I laugh out load at how frustrated DeNiro gets , at it continues to build throughout the film , hilarious
I have driven across sections of America a few times and really love it, I always know I’m back when I see a reflection of my rental in a chrome truck tanker, as a car fan The Driver is an amazing read, and when I drove through some of the towns mentioned it brought a smile to my face . This might encourage a tested.com road trip with you three 🙂 at a legal speed off coarse.
Been doing road trips for awhile now. Typically I’ve been driving from the LA area to Monterey or Santa Clara. I would load up Giant Bomb, Screened, Tested podcasts and just alternate between music and podcasts the entire drive up. There’s sort of an ethereal zen that takes hold while you’re cruising on the five listening to Will and Norm talk about tech.