Just In Case You Were Wondering

So you're thinking of doing this yourself, eh? You want to know how long it took, and how much gas we used, and where we stopped?

Or how about the number of cups of coffee we consumed? Wouldn't it be fun (and kind of anal retentive) if we tracked all of that mundane stuff?

Your wish is our command. So without further ado, all of the crap of which we took note:

Pre-trip Planning

2,693
The straight line distance in statute miles between Mattski's Alaska home city and Berty's Virginia home city.
3,215
The planned number of miles that the Geeks will meander across on their circuitous route from Seattle, WA, to Sterling, VA.
14
The difference, in years, between Mattski's and Berty's age.
201
The number of emails sent back and forth to prepare for the trip.
2
The number of phone calls made to prepare for the trip.
6
The number of months Berty thought about putting together a web site for the trip, without really actually making any progress on it.
2
The number of days it took for Berty to put together the basic structure and look of the site.

Stuff in the Car

6
The number of suitcases, duffel bags, or backpacks that held their clothes. The Geeks were highly inefficient when it came to packing. They would take all of the bags into the hotel because the different articles of clothing they needed were spread out in all the various bags.
4
The pairs of shoes on board. Each geek had two pairs.
4
The number of jackets or sweaters.
2
The number of computers on board. Also carried into the hotels at night.
2
The same number of iPods on board. Plus the “Battery Geek” that was used to power them. And headphones. And sync cords.
1
The number of musical instruments on board. Mattski brought his sax with him. Yes, they carried that into the hotel as well.
12
The number of different types of snack food on board, which consisted of; Sourdough hard pretzels, 6 apples (only one of which was eaten), sour patch candies, swedish fish, a bag of jelly beans, a case of beer, Wheat Thins, Fiji water bottles, lollipops, gum (both sugarfree and sugarfull), lifesavers, and beef jerky
2
The number of pounds of fudge on board.
175
The number of jelly beans that spilled under the passenger seat when Mattski first opened the bag the first day into the trip.
87
The number of jelly beans they ate after picking them up off the floor. A three day rule applied.
2
The number of rolls of paper towels. Not coincidentally, the number of rolls that were buried under all of the stuff in the back seat so that they were inaccessible when they were needed.
4
The number of hats on board. Two baseball hats, Mattski's outdoor hat (which you can see him wearing in the Day One photo page), and a newly purchased Stetson cowboy hat.
1
The number of camera bags. It was Berty's and contained all of the camera equipment. Also brought into the hotels at night.
4
The number of stabilizing devices for the cameras; a mini-tripod, a camera clamp, a monopod (used it a LOT!), and a full-size tri-pod.
4
The number of cameras. Two Nikon Coolpix cameras, a Nikon D-200 SLR, and a Nikon FM-3A manual camera.
14
The amount, in Gigabytes, of memory card storage space that Berty has for his cameras.
6
The number of rolls of film for the Nikon FM-3A manual camera.
0
The number of pictures taken with the manual camera. Digital rocks, but sometimes it's fun to kick it old school. Berty didn't kick it on the trip.
12
The number of maps on board. Also the number of times that Berty swore when he couldn't find the maps.
2
The number of notepads carried to keep track useless information. The number of pages used in each notepad? That would be twenty. They probably could have saved some space and only used one.
5
The number of books. Berty read two of them on his six hour flight over (they were short). There were also two camera manuals and several magazines as well.
1
A single box of Trivial Pursuit question cards. You know, for the long boring part of the drive. Neither of the Geeks ever ran an entire card, but both of them got four out of five questions right on a few of them. What do you expect? They're Geeks.
1
A single container of Anti Monkey Butt Powder, graciously provided by Frank and his family.
4
The number of quarts of oil on board.

During the Trip

131.56
The number of hours it took to drive from Seattle, WA, to Sterling, VA.
3304.5
The actual number of miles that the Geeks drove.
13
The number of states they drove through.
5
The number of mountain passes they drove through: Snowqualmie Pass, WA; Pine Creek Pass, ID; Teton Pass, WY; Togwotee Pass, WY; Powder River Pass, WY.
9,666
The elevation, in feet, of the highest mountain pass that they drove through—Powder Pass, Wyoming, in the Bighorn Mountains.
10
The number of two-digit Interstates that they traveled on; I-5, 90, 82, 15, 39, 94, 80, 76, 99, 81.
1
The number of two-digit Interstates that they traveled on from beginning to end (I-82).
9
The number of roads that they mainly drove on; I-90, I-82, US 20, US 26, US 16, I-94/I-39, I-80, US 322, US 15.
38
The difference, in degrees Fahrenheit, of temperature that they felt from start to finish. It was 45 in Seattle when they started and 83 in Virginia when they finished.
60
The maximum difference of temperature that they felt. The highest being Virginia—83—and the lowest being Twin Falls, ID—23.
24
The temperature change that they felt in one day—Powder River Pass, WY, to Gillette, WY—only 104 miles apart.
30
The total number of cups of coffee that Mattski and Berty drank.
35
The number of Starbucks stores that they saw. Not surprisingly, also the number of times Berty complained about Starbucks' decision to brew only the Pike Place Blend in the afternoon. Seriously, that blend has a really weak flavor.
15
The total number of alcoholic drinks they consumed in the evenings. Not very much, by partying standards.
19
The number of times Mattski said "Whatever!"
1
The number of times someone farted in the car. A new rule was quickly made to address this situation. No more flatulence occurred.
3
The number of times Mattski washed the car.
146
The number of deer that they saw in the black hills of South Dakota.
5
The number of Park Rangers that Berty asked, “What's the definition of a ‘butte’?” He wasn't being obnoxious about it, he genuinely wanted to know.
1
The number of Park Rangers who knew the answer. Also the one cashier at the Mount Rushmore cafe who knew…after Berty had just asked two armed Park Rangers who didn't. One Ranger was very enthusiastic about it, “Don't tell me, don't tell me…I know this. I used to work in Arizona…” Unfortunately, she couldn't come up with an answer.
97
The number of prairie dogs that they saw in the Badlands National Park.
5
The number of National Parks/Monuments/Memorials that they visited.
2,000
The estimated number of photos that they took.
6
The number of short videos that they filmed.
9
The number of GigaBytes of memory of photos that were DELETED, intentionally, because they weren't that fabulous. Berty and Mattski shot photos most of the time with the D-200, capturing the image in RAW format. Each photo was about 15 MB.
$10,000
The amount you will be fined if you hit a road worker in Illinois. You will also be put in jail for up to 14 years. Berty and Mattski did not hit anyone.
$375
The minimum fine for speeding in a work zone in Illinois.
2
The number of times that they were pulled over for speeding.
0
The number of tickets they received.
$334.44
The amount of money they spent on food, coffee and snacks.
104
The number of gallons of gasoline they bought.
$362.89
The amount of money they spent on gas.
$15.20
The amount they spent on tolls. As best as they can remember. Anyone else notice that it's hard to keep track of tolls when you have EZ-Pass? Maybe that's why local governments like EZ-Pass!
3
The number of quarts of oil that Mattski's car burned.

The number of people born in the U.S. in 1970: 3,731,000.

The number of people born in the U.S. in 1984: 3,669,000.

Expectation of life at birth for a white male born in 1970: 68.0 years.

Expectation of life at birth for a white male born in 1984: 71.8 years.

According to a 2005 DOT study, there were an estimated 247,421,120 registered passenger vehicles in the United States.

More than half of Toyota-branded vehicles sold in the United States come from American plants.

In 1998, Americans purchased 8,142,000 new cars.

In 1985, 15.7% of auto buyers said air conditioning was “essential”; today, that figure is 90.4%.

In 1985, 8.7% of auto buyers said that a sound system was “essential”; today, that figure is 95.8%.

Bear Stearns Chairman James Cayne sold his shares in his former firm for $61.3 million. Last summer those shares were worth almost $1 billion.

Last year's average Major League Baseball salary was $2.82 million.

Maple syrup prices in New England increased from $45 a gallon to $60 a gallon.

In 9 out of the last 10 elections, the candidate who wrapped up his party's nomination first ended up winning in November.

15% of voters believe, wrongly, that Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Commercial airlines took longer to get from place to place in 2007 than at any time in the past two decades because of congestion and time spent idling on runways. For example, a flight from Las Vegas to New York that took four hours and 37 minutes two decades ago took six hours and 10 minutes last year.

Berty's flight was 50 minutes early, arriving in Seattle well ahead of scheduled time.