Travels with Tackawanna 3: Ouchi Dam

I did it again.

I made plans to go south of Aizuwakamatsu on National Route 118, and then head west on Fukushima Prefecture Route 329, up north on Fukushima Prefecture Route 131, and then go up Fukushima Prefecture Routes 23 and 72. (Here's the route in question, by the way.) However, I got confused over the route numbers and missed the turn to Route 329, instead going further south on National Route 121. By the time I had realized my mistake, I had to pull over at the nearest Seven-Eleven and check the maps. (Here's the route for that.)

So this is what I've done. I've divided up the dash cam into two parts. The first part is the route that I took from outside central Aizuwakamatsu to the Seven-Eleven in Minamiaizu. The second part is the actual mountain roads that I took. (I had to edit out a quick two-minute stop of me taking a photo of the car.) Here's part one:

And here's part two:

As it turns out, driving in the evening is pretty nice. Less sun beating down on me, and way more breeze. You'll notice that it's a bit darker during the time I was filming compared to how dark it would be back home. Apparently that's a daylight savings time thing, which Japan does not recognize.

During my drive yesterday, I managed to get some sun on my scalp, which had been recently been liberated by a haircut earlier that morning. In order to prevent any more from getting on, I've researched a way to get sunblock on my hair without getting my hair all sticky. I mixed a teaspoon of sunblock into half a cup of water and rubbed it into my scalp. (I did not dry off my hair; I just let it sit and evaporate.) It didn't make the sunburn worse, so I guess that it works. I'll probably test it for real next weekend.

I finally have a nice picture of Tackawanna. Here she is at a scenic parking lot right next to the reservoir for Ouchi Dam.

Headlights go up for this photo

Still can't get over my love this car. It's a blast to drive, especially around here.

Now that classes for the first quarter are over, I have to catch up on my TAing, and then it's mainly research project work for the rest of the quarter. This week I'll also have to get the ETC card reader installed so that I won't have to pay for cash when using the toll roads. Then, next weekend I'll be going on another adventure. Maybe I'll go north this time...

-wp