Starting mileage: 206,922
Ending milage: 207,309
Mileage for the day: 387
I started off the day thinking "the weather is really nice for this time of year," and "this is where the real adventure begins" because it would be the first night sleeping in the minivan.
Ok, so sometimes life is really random, and I'm often really random. It helps to be humorous, especially when life throws unexpected situations at you. Do you know the song "Holding Out For a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler? It's in the movie "Short Circuit 2" as well as being a big hit in the 1980s. Anyway, I heard it on the radio, and I heard a verse I had never heard before. I like the song. For that matter, I like Bonnie Tyler's other big hit, "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I grew up on the 80s, what can I say?
Changed states for the first time on the trip, crossed into Pennsylvania at 7 pm, and I saw a NY car with a mountain paint job. The entire side was painted like a mountain range. Also, Pennsylvania has tax on fast food at the drive thru. Being from Ohio, I find this quite odd, but every state I was in except Ohio taxed to go food.
My first potentially devastating part of the trip. My google map directions were slightly wrong, and I ended up in Bellefonte, and on the way to Bellefonte, my van stalled out a couple times. In Bellefonte, it stalled out a few more times. I asked some random girl on the street for directions to State College, and luckily they were easy. When I got to State College, the van stalled out at every single red light. I kept starting it again, and it would be fine until I started to move, and on average, I stalled out 6 times per stop, with the hills making it worse. I finally found a parking spot, and walked 4 blocks to the Phyrst for open mic. I got a decent reception there, though I left my camera, and my cell phone, in my van. I had no AAA, and no pictures either. Speaking of not having AAA, I didn't buy an atlas because I felt like $10 was too much. For the trip, I guarantee I wasted over $10 in gas because I didn't have an atlas, but hey, it was more adventurous with just some printed out google map directions, especially when the ones to State College were wrong.
The open mic host suggested that I go to AAMCO to get my car looked at. I found this to be odd because AAMCO works on transmissions, but I tried to take his advice. I followed his directions, and never found AAMCO, so I just kept driving on state route 220 until I got to I-80. The car was fine once it was over 15 miles an hour, so I figured I may as well get some distance going before finding a service station, not that I had money to get the minivan fixed anyway.
I filled up my gas tank about 80 miles later, just off of I-80, and once again thought about buying an atlas, but not knowing how much it would cost to get the van fixed, I passed. Once my gas tank was full, it didn't even threaten to stall out, so I kept the fuel above half a tank at all times for the rest of the trip, and the problem fixed itself. For those who are curious, I got 22.5 miles per gallon on my first tank of gas, and 24 on my second. I stopped keeping track after that, but 23 miles per gallon seemed to be about right.
My first night sleeping in the van was interesting. It was also my first time ever brushing my teeth at a rest stop. It was on I-80, 10 miles west of the Pocanos. I first tried to go to sleep around 3:45 am, and it was 35 degrees outside.
My car's dome light would not go off no matter how hard I tried, so I gave up, and decided to drive some more, thinking that if I started driving, maybe it would turn itself off. I drove for a few miles with the dome light on, which hurt my eyes when I was tired and it was dark outside, but it's ok. It was my own fault for being an idiot, and not being familiar with the van. I had somehow accidentally brushed the dimmer switch all the way to the left. Once I saw that, I was able to easily fix the problem, but the next rest area was 40 miles down the road, so I didn't go to bed until 4:30 am.
Onto Day 5