Geek Gestalt

On the left is the BGAN mobile satellite modem CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman used to get online from the middle of a national forest in Wyoming during Road Trip 2009.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

LAKE GRANBY, Colo.--The question was: is it possible to set up a functional workspace deep in the wilderness?

That's what I set out to do, as one of my last goals of Road Trip 2009. I planned on driving well into the mountains of southern Wyoming to see if I could get some work done far from any modern communications infrastructure.

To that end, I ended up driving south from Rawlins, Wyo., and headed into the Sierra Madre mountains, not far from the Colorado border. However, the campground there that I had intended to try out had been stripped bare of any trees as part of a program to try to manage a pine beetle epidemic that has plagued millions of acres of forest throughout the West.

Hoping for some shade, I abandoned the Sierra Madres and drove east, where not that far away are the Medicine Bow mountains. After trying out a few campgrounds, I settled on a wonderful, small U.S. Forest Service campground called Lincoln Park, where I was able to snag a sweet little shady spot alongside a creek.

The real question, though, was whether it had a clear view of the southeastern sky. That would be crucial for using the Inmarsat BGAN satellite modem I was depending on for getting online. Other parts of my experiment, including being able to print wirelessly with the HP Officejet H470 printer I was testing out (see video below), didn't require any particular kind of location, but if I had any hopes of being able to do research or file stories, let alone photographs, I'd need to be able to get online.

Cell service in the forest?
My first attempts at using the BGAN at Lincoln Park didn't go well. Despite there being a small stand of trees just to the southeast of me, the device seemed to indicate it was getting a strong signal. Strong enough to get online, at least. And at first, it did connect, albeit only enough to run an instant-message application. I couldn't get it to load a Web page, access e-mail, or do anything requiring any real bandwidth.

I was a little panicked because I had a deadline to meet and wasn't sure what to do.

Bemused at seeing a camper pounding away at a computer, a pack of tech gadgets nearby, the campground host came by to see what I was doing. When I told him, and said I was having trouble getting online, he pointed out that only about three miles away was a small bar and grill with Wi-Fi. It was after 9 p.m., so it was closed, but I decided to see if I could grab a little of the place's signal.

It turned out to be called The Place, and while they were closed, I got permission to sit in their parking lot and use their Wi-Fi. So for that first night, I was able to get my story and photos out, despite the frustratingly slow speed of the connection.

When I got back to camp, I was quite tired, so I retired to my tent. I pulled out my iPhone to set an alarm for the morning, and as I did, I noticed it had a signal. Indeed, I was able to make a phone call right from my tent in the middle of the forest. Who knew?

In fact, I was awakened the next morning by the phone ringing, a wholly unexpected development.

Getting BGAN working
Things were a little more relaxed now, as they should be in the woods. But I still had work to do, and assuming that I wasn't going to be able to get the BGAN to work, I drove back to the bar and grill and this time sat down inside and worked for a couple hours. However, this was definitely not what I had wanted out of this experiment.

I went back to the campground and, taking advantage of the cell phone service, I called my contact at Inmarsat to see if there was something I should be doing differently to get the BGAN working. We went through a series of diagnostics, but everything seemed like it was correct. The one thing I should do differently, he said, was try connecting BGAN to my computer while the laptop was shut down.

The advantages of working in the wilderness: stunning views of the Rockies, as seen from Lake Granby, in Colorado.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

I tried that from a picnic table not far from my site--this one had a clear view of the southeastern sky--and voila! There was the Internet. It wasn't as fast as I had hoped, but it worked, and I was able to get done most of what I needed to.

Another part of the experiment was to see if I could make phone calls from the forest using the Iridium 9555A satellite phone I had with me. Frustratingly, this really seemed inconsistent, just as it had been earlier in the trip when I'd tried to use it. I've used Iridium sat phones on previous Road Trips, so I wondered if I was doing something wrong. But I had a very clear view of the southern sky, the antenna was up and the signal seemed to go in and out. I got a call through, but it was not an ideal experience.

Moving on to Colorado
I had wanted to try this mobile office experiment in a couple of different places, so I set out in search of another campground. After a wonderful drive through Rocky Mountain National Park, I ended up on a hilltop at a campground overlooking Granby Lake. Tall Rocky Mountain ranges were visible in every direction, and the lake itself was absolutely stunning.

But true wilderness this was not. For one thing, I had four bars of Verizon's EV-DO signal. That meant that I could sit at my campsite and work without having to deal with any potential BGAN problems. Not that I had any when I tried out BGAN again, just to make sure I really knew what I was doing with it.

Still, I was fully off the grid. Well, as off the grid as you can be and still have enough power to last for a couple of days of rather heavy computing needs. And that meant that at Lake Granby, and in the Wyoming wilderness, I had had to plug my various devices into the Audi Q7 TDI I've been driving on Road Trip to recharge.

Ultimately, though, I'd say that while there were some false starts and some cheats--relying on a bar and grill's Wi-Fi isn't really the same thing as setting up a mobile office in the woods--the experiment was a success. I proved (to myself, at least) that it was possible to work deep in the woods.

And while I'd rather have been relaxing that whole time, I had work to do. But it was nice to be among the trees and creeks and lakes for a few days instead of in motels and on the road.

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

It wasn't Craters of the Moon, or Glacier National Park, but reaching 5,000 miles in tiny Hiland, Wyo., presented the opportunity for this picture of the Audi I'm road-testing framed against a huge, gorgeous sky.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

HILAND, Wyo.--I've been in a lot of small towns over the years, but in even the very smallest, I've never seen a city limits line like the one I saw here.

It happened that I hit exactly 5,000 miles of driving on Road Trip 2009 in this one-store-seems-to-be-it town in central Wyoming. As the odometer rolled over to 1000.0--which in the case of the Audi Q7 TDI I'm road-testing equates to 5,000 miles since the odometer resets to 0.0 when you hit 2,000 miles--I was able to pull into a parking lot in front of the town.

Hiland, Wyo., where I hit 5,000 miles even for Road Trip 2009, has a population of 10.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

That is to say, Hiland has a population of...10. And just one or two buildings that I could see.

Which is to say, it was a perfect place for a Road Trip thousand-mile milestone. On this trip, that's happened in several different places, obviously, the two most interesting being at Craters of the Moon and Glacier National Park. Usually, based on my experiences over the last four years, the milestones come when I'm along some nondescript highway.

In this case, 1000.0 miles on the odometer means 5,000 miles total on Road Trip 2009.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Not to demean nondescript, of course. Those highways have featured things like attractive mountains, large meadows, huge forests and other natural wonders. And in Hiland, it was no different. Central Wyoming, which is Continental Divide country, is dominated by rolling hills and abrupt rock formations. It's fun. Plus on some of them, the speed limit is 75 miles an hour. I'm not sure I'd seen that before, or if I did, I wasn't paying attention.

In just a few days--and a few hours of driving--I'll be hanging up my Road Trip 2009 hat, so it's likely that this was my final thousand-mile mile achievement. Until next year, that is.

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

The Glenrock Wind Farm, a 237-megawatt project that can produce power for 66,800 households, sits on the site of the former Dave Johnston Mine.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

GLENROCK, Wyo.--Walking across the former site of the Dave Johnston Mine here, about half an hour outside Casper, you'd never know that over the course of 42 years, 104 million tons of coal was taken out of the ground.

But now, instead of having a heavy carbon footprint--and coal certainly does--these rolling hills have a green footprint. Today, the site is home to a 158-turbine wind farm that produces 237 megawatts of power, enough electricity for 66,800 households for a year.

And what's particularly notable about the site is that while the wind farm is among the newest and most state-of-the-art in the country today, it is also likely the first full-scale wind power project to be installed on the site of a former coal mine.

From 1958 until 2000, the Dave Johnston Mine stretched for 9 miles through this otherwise barren landscape. But in the late 1990s, after the mine's operator, Rocky Mountain Power, determined that it was no longer economical to run it, a full-scale reclamation project began.

Photos: Wind farm rises up from former coal mine

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As part of Road Trip 2009, I visited the wind farm to get a first-hand look at how such a scar on the earth can be successfully converted to a graceful and clean power project.

According to Rocky Mountain Power, a division of PacifiCorp that provides power to Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho residents, "Full-scale final reclamation efforts to restore the nearly 9-mile long stretch of land affected by mining began in 1999 and were completed in 2005. Mountains of dirt were moved, miles of land reseeded with native vegetation and major contouring performed in order to return the landscape to its pre-mining appearance. More than 85 million yards of earth were moved to accomplish this feat."

A big part of the reclamation project was providing long-term grazing land and habitat for a variety of wildlife. To that end, Sagebrush and many other forms of vegetation were planted throughout the property as a source of habitat and food for animals such as pronghorned antelope and deer. Further, the team behind the reclamation concentrated on habitat for birds, including building five nesting platforms for eagles and cover for other, smaller bird species.

And more than 120 "rabbitats," rock shelters for rabbits and other small animals, were built around the property.

All told, the Glenrock Wind Farm is home to antelope, deer, mountain lions, foxes, bobcats, rabbits, and golden eagles.

There are about 1,400 antelope and 600 deer roaming the Glenrock Wind Farm.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

While it's easy to link the reclamation of the former coal mine and the new, giant wind farm, Rocky Mountain Power didn't originally set out to convert its property from greenhouse gas-intensive power to green power. Rather, the company realized after the decision was made to shut down the coal mine that the property was ideally suited to building a big wind farm.

And that's because the company already owned the property, had a significant system of transmission lines already installed nearby, and understood that these rolling hills had the wind strength to support a multi-hundred-million-dollar wind project.

But Rocky Mountain Power has by no means abandoned coal. In fact, it still has a coal-processing plant adjacent to the former Dave Johnston Mine, which is one reason the transmission lines are still there. Still, the company, and other power generators, have certainly begun to see the value--and the economics--of wind farms like these. Indeed, the day after I visited the Glenrock Wind Farm, the front page of the Casper, Wyo., newspaper had an above-the-fold front-page headline trumpeting another giant wind farm that will soon be developed in the same area.

Twenty-one species of vegetation
My hosts for the visit to the wind farm were Chet Skilbred, Rocky Mountain Power's vegetation scientist at the property, and Doug Mollet, the director of wind operations at Glenrock Wind Farm. Skilbred explained that as part of the reclamation project, he and his team were required to replace all the indigenous plants that had been there prior to the coal mine. So, a big part of the project was the planting of 21 different species of vegetation, including warm season grasses, cool season grasses, shrubs, and many more.

But, with 158 soaring wind turbines dominating the landscape today, Skilbred told me a joke about the process: "I had no idea my seed mixture included wind turbines."

This is a photograph of an aerial image showing the coal mine when it was fully operational.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

To get back the remaining $2.6 million of an original $56 million bond that was put up when the coal mine was opened, Rocky Mountain Power must monitor the land through 2017 for things like ground water and surface water hydrology, wildlife, and vegetation. But I have to hand it to them: If they hadn't told me there had been a coal mine here, I never would have known.

Instead, I would have been simply overwhelmed by the majesty and breadth of the wind farm. (See video below, but turn your volume down because of the wind noise.) Big enough to be visible from many miles away, the 158 turbines are breathtaking up close. That's in part because, when the tips of the 125-foot-long blades are pointing upward, the turbines are 340 feet tall.

That, of course, casts a large and long shadow. Many of the animals on the property--no matter where we went, we would see some of the 1,400 head of antelope or 600 head of deer bounding about--use those shadows to escape the intense Wyoming sun.

In a sense, because there is so much new habitat for animals, as well as the fact that there is no hunting allowed on the property, the wind farm area is tantamount to a nature preserve, Skilbred said.

Indeed, while there had been wildlife on the property before, life is better for them now, Skilbred said: They are no longer getting stuck in the mud inside the mine.

Company sees energy mixture in its future
When in operation, the coal mine was at least 180 feet deep, and 9 miles long. So to complete the reclamation project, Rocky Mountain Power had to dig up the mine, reconstitute the soil, and replant all the vegetation.

But to Skilbred, the project has been a big success. "You couldn't ask for a better ending for a coal mine," he said, "to go from a carbon footprint to a green footprint."

For Rocky Mountain Power, wind is just one power source, and the company sees a mixture in its future: wind, natural gas, coal, geothermal, hydro and, likely, nuclear.

But here, driving around amid these giant turbines, it's hard to think of anything but wind power. And what's amazing is that the turbines are so big, you feel like you're always right in front of one. In fact, however, they are a minimum of a half-mile apart, east to west, and 600 feet, north to south. Put them too close together, and the vortexes coming off the blades affect the wind flow of other turbines.

The actual placement of the 158 turbines, done in what is sort of like a staggered, Z-shaped configuration, was done by turbine specialists who examined the property and developed placement models based on the terrain, the topography and the prevailing wind conditions.

You might think that a company spending several hundred million dollars on such a project would expect full-time production. But that's not realistic. Mollet said that over the course of a year, the best the company can expect is 40 percent average production. But of course, that's an average. Between November and March, that number is much higher, and between late August and September, it's much lower.

The turbines, while a simple concept, are controlled by advanced electronics. And among the tasks those systems have is shutting down the turbines if the winds go above 60 miles an hour--otherwise, they can be destroyed--as well as figuring out where the wind is coming from and automatically rotating the head so that the blades are always working with the best wind. The heads can spin around three full times in search of the strongest wind, in fact, before the system runs out of wire and must reset itself.

Tracking the wind is a major innovation for modern turbines. In the past, the heads were stationary, and so wind farms had limited production when the wind shifted. But now, Rocky Mountain Power and other companies with such projects can maximize the power production.

$2 million a 'stick'
Mollet said that the cost of the turbines averaged about $2 million "a stick," and that they are intended to last for 20 to 30 years. However, Rocky Mountain Power thinks of them more as 100-year assets, given that they can replace aging systems within the turbines, or even the blades themselves.

Keeping them working properly means constantly monitoring how they're behaving in the wind. So the wind farm utilizes two types of equipment, anemometers and wind vanes to measure wind velocity and direction to ensure that the pitch of the blades is optimal and won't result in them rotating too fast.

This is all new technology, something previous generations of wind farms couldn't take advantage of. But today, wind power is a growing resource and companies like Rocky Mountain Power are demanding new technology. They're also demanding more people who know how to run and maintain these systems, despite there currently being a shortage.

That's why, for example, the company is working with local colleges in the Casper area to create new, two-year associate degree programs in wind turbine technology.

"We're going to build 1,000 turbines in the next 10 years," Mollet said. "We need to grow some people."

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

A calm, mild evening in Thermopolis, Wyo. On Road Trip 2009, I have seen a lot of America--nearly 5,000 miles of it--and there is one thing about it that is indisputable: It can be stunningly beautiful.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

CASPER, Wyo.--I come from California. In California there are almost 37 million people. We have several cities with more people than some states. So when it comes to things like getting vanity license plates, you've got a lot of competition if you want something good.

But over the last few years, I've been to a lot of states with far smaller populations. Idaho, for example, has 1.5 million people. Nevada, where I've spent more time than any other state besides California, has just 2.6 million. And Wyoming, where I am right now, has just about 533,000 folks.

That's why, last night, when I saw the Wyoming plate "DDS," I laughed. In California, to see the car that has that plate would be utterly improbable. Here, it's completely expected. And I've noticed it before. I can't remember what the plates were, but I remember awhile back, when I was in Boise, Idaho, seeing two plates in a parking lot that were very good. Something on the order of a URL like chris.com.

I was able to walk right into this minor league baseball game in Casper, Wyo., for free, and sit down in a seat right behind home plate.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

And last night, seeing that "DDS" plate, it just made me think: life is sometimes very simple. I saw it in the parking lot of a rookie league (think: low, low minor leagues) baseball game I had stumbled on by accident, across the street from my hotel, while out for a walk. It was the middle of the game, so they had clearly stopped checking tickets, and I just wandered in and sat down right behind home plate. That seat would have cost $50 or more at home.

I've been on Road Trip 2009 for a month now, and I've been deeply focused on complex things: military installations, national parks, rocket motors, fire technology, and the like. This ballgame was just simple. After it was over, they let folks onto the field to look at the sky through a big telescope, in honor of the rather huge event of Monday, the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.

In Butte, Mont., a dad and daughter drive in Uptown.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

A few days ago, I was in Butte, Mont., working on a story about that longtime mining town's deep environmental crises. It was sobering stuff. But then I was walking down the street and this old jeep pulled up to a red light. It was an old, retro Army jeep, with a white star on the side, which I assumed meant it had once been a general's car, or at least was painted that way. And behind the wheel was some normal-looking dad, and his passenger was his mellow-looking kid. It was a sweet scene.

Too late, I asked if I could take their picture, and while they said yes, I couldn't get the whole car in the frame. Yet, I think the shot turned out great. Whimsical. Fun. And simple.

It's not that there's no simplicity in big cities, or that there's no complexity in small towns. It's more that there's just a higher degree of probability of experiencing the simple in quieter places. That's probably even over-thinking it. Things are just slower and there's maybe just that little bit of time longer to appreciate the elegance of the uncomplicated.

Like a great sunset, for example. I saw one on the road in Wyoming the other day, out in the country. A big sky. Some amazing clouds. And the sun shining through. Gorgeous.

Sunset along U.S. route 20, in central Wyoming.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

For the next week, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation, and more in Wyoming and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

What should Road Trip 2009 do in Jackson Hole, Wyoming? If you have a great suggestion that I end up incorporating into the project, and you're the first to make it, I have a nice prize for you.

(Credit: Jackson Hole Central Reservations)

COLUMBIA FALLS, Montana--For the past three-plus weeks, I've been driving around states like Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and now the Big Sky state, writing stories and producing photo galleries and videos as part of my Road Trip 2009 package. Almost everything I've done was pre-scheduled and coordinated long before the trip started.

But for some reason, a few things on the agenda seem to have fallen through in the last few days, and I find myself, among other things, looking for a perfect Road Trip story to do in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

And this is where you come in. When I've asked for this kind of help in the past, as I did recently for my visit to Boise, Idaho, you've come through with terrific suggestions. So I'm turning to you again: can you help me find something to do in Jackson that fits into Road Trip's mission of giving exposure to the best this country has to offer in a wide range of fields including technology, military, science, space, architecture, aviation, nature, and so on?

In this case, however, there's a twist: my visit has to be on a Saturday. That complicates things, I know, because most businesses are closed, and few people want to host a reporter on the weekend. But schedules being what they are, that's my situation. Still, I know you will have terrific ideas, and I want to hear them. If you're the first person to make a suggestion that I actually end up incorporating into Road Trip, I have a nice prize for you: Either a Flip Mino video camera or DVD sets of Dexter, seasons one through three.

Please let me know your ideas as soon as possible, and send them, via e-mail, to daniel--dot--terdiman--at--cnet--dot--com. I look forward to hearing from you.

For the next two weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

Hoover Dam was a big hit from Road Trip 2007. What will be the biggest surprises of Road Trip 2009?

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

In the United States, the major east-west Interstate highways are denominated by multiples of tens: I-10 goes from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Fla. I-40 goes from Barstow, Calif., to Wilmington, N.C. I-80 goes from San Francisco to New York.

The north-south Interstates, meanwhile, are denominated with fives. I-5 goes from the U.S.-Mexico border, through San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., and Seattle and ends at the U.S.-Canada border. I-15 goes from from San Diego to the Canadian border near Sweetgrass, Mont. And I-95 heads north from Miami all the way to northeast Maine.

Over the last three years, I've spent part of each summer doing a project called CNET Road Trip, and each time I've driven long distances through a specific region of the country. In 2006, it was the Pacific Northwest. In 2007, it was the Southwest. And in 2008, it was 4,593 miles through the Southeast.

All told, I've covered 12,853 miles and 17 states. But one of the little details about the three trips that I've enjoyed the most is that combined, I've driven at least a few miles on every one of those north-south divide-by-five interstates, except I-35. I spent a lot of time on I-5 on Road Trip 2006; I touched I-15 and I-25 on Road Trip 2007; and I actually hit I-45, I-55, I-65, I-75, I-85 and I-95 on Road Trip 2008.

On Sunday, I'll begin Road Trip 2009 in Denver. And looking back at that U.S. map, I realize that after this year's journey--which will take me through Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming--I'll have also driven on each of the divide-by-ten Interstates except I-30. Looking at that map, clearly there's a hole in the country I need to think about for future Road Trips.

Photos: High-tech gear complements Road Trip 2009

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Nevertheless, this time around, it's the Rocky Mountain region and a bit of the Great Plains. It'll start off with a drive--in the Audi Q7 TDI I'll be road-testing--to Mount Evans, due west of Denver, which features the highest paved road in North America. And given that the Audi has a so-called "clean diesel" engine, I'll be writing a fair bit about that technology and what it means for fuel efficiency and the environment.

There will be three major themes this year: military and defense; energy and sustainable living research; and America's natural wonders. To be sure, there will likely be plenty of little meanderings off those themes, but they will be the major backbones of the project.

That means I'll be visiting places like North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD/Cheyenne Mountain); the Air Force Academy; the Department of Energy's Idaho National Lab; a series of locations in and near national parks in Utah that were first put on a list by the Bush administration for drilling to private interests and then taken off the list by the new Obama administration; a firefighting technology center in Missoula, Mont.; a maker of commuter train engines in Boise, Idaho; an innovative wind farm in Wyoming; Air Force Space Command, also in Wyoming; Yellowstone National Park, also in Wyoming; the Badlands in South Dakota; a nonprofit working to help Boulder, Colo., transition to a peak-oil environment; and much, much more.

But even though I've worked out a more complete itinerary this year than I have in the past, I've still got plenty of wiggle room for unexpected discoveries. And I hope that you, dear readers, will get in touch with me as I go with suggestions for places to go and things to see.

Among the many high-tech gadgets Terdiman will be road-testing will be the new iPhone 3G S.

(Credit: Apple)

Along the way, I'll be blogging constantly, posting regular photo galleries and some video, Twittering like mad, organizing meet-ups through Facebook; and giving away a whole series of things, including DVD sets from Showtime, Halo: ODST game codes from Microsoft; lots of video games; and more.

As I have each of the three previous trips, I'll also be bringing a long a veritable Best Buy's worth of high-tech gadgetry to test out. Among the devices are Apple's brand-spanking-new 13-inch MacBook Pro and iPhone 3G S; Verizon's MiFi 2200 mobile hot-spot; Iridium's new 9555 satellite phone; Inmarsat's Explorer 500 mobile satellite modem; Amazon's Kindle 2; and LiveScribe's Pulse pen; and more.

Last year, I took thousands of pictures with Nikon's D60 digital SLR. This year, I'll have Nikon's new D5000 dSLR, which adds HD video capabilities. I'll also be shooting some HD video with Flip Video's UltraHD. And I hope to edit some of the photos and video with the applications in Adobe's Creative Suite 4 Master Collection, and will be printing photos on Hewlett-Packard's Officejet H470wbt, a fully mobile printer.

And when I need to chill out and watch a movie, I'll have a pair of Sony's MDR-NC22 noise-canceling headphones to listen with.

On Road Trip 2009, Terdiman will be taking thousands of pictures with the Nikon D5000, which can also take HD video.

(Credit: Nikon)

I intend, during the trip, to blog about my experiences using each and every one of the products I'll have with me.

As in previous years, Road Trip 2009 will be both a great deal of fun and a tremendous challenge. I'll be working nearly nonstop, posting stories constantly, driving several hundred miles a day on average, and even trying to get a little food and sleep. And I'll be by myself most of the time.

But I will have plenty of good music to listen to, thousands of miles of beautiful country to look at, and the chance to visit some of the most interesting destinations this country has to offer.

It is a tough job. But as they say, somebody's got to do it.

Starting today, please check out the Road Trip 2009 page frequently, follow my Twitter feed, and join my Facebook fan page. I'll do my best to bring you along with me.