Four Corners in 1996

I decided to take a Four Corners trip this year. This means that I need to ride to the four geographical corners of the contigious 48-states: At each corner, I need to find some secret phone numbers, take a picture of my motorcycle in front of a landmark, buy some gas, and mail the evidence back to the Southern California Motorcycling Association.

Since I live near Seattle, I started by cutting east to Maine. I'm mixing pleasure with business by stopping off in Boston to do some presentations at Boston University's WinDev East '96 conference before continuing to my first corner, which will be Madawaska.

The trip logically breaks into four pieces, each a leg between the corners. I'll file trip reports here as they're available:

Informally, I've called these four trips "left to right", "top to bottom", "right to left", and "bottom to top". That fact should give you a clue about what the file names mean, and that will help you if I refer to the rides colloquially in my notes.

These are transcriptions of my real journal entries. I did not bring a computer with me: my vacation was to get away from computers. I'm not a nerd, and I'm not really that important anyway: there's no reason to for you to see what the view would be from the top of my front fender every five minutes of the day. My journal entries often contain personal reflection and sensitive insights. When I've felt uncomfortable with their content, I've edited them before posting them here. What's here is still the work of my own two hands, so please treat it (and me) with respect.

The tour took me through these states: Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rode Island, Maine, Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Oregon. That is, I was in thirty-one states of the fifty in The Union.

There are other interesting statistics.

Back to Mike's Road Trip Page. Up to Mike's home page. Send Feedback.

Last modified on 29 July, 1996.