八戸 0.5

Tommorrow is the start of my brief vacation. As I had mentioned in the past, my limited time and budget prevented me from going to Hokkaido as I had wanted. In addition, the ferry costs to and from Sado Island, a spot in Japan known for its good driving roads, ended up disqualifying the Niigata area. However, I did not want to travel further south, as the heat and traffic in the Kanto region would not be that great. So I did some research, and I've determined my holiday destination: Hachinohe.

(That's the name of the city in kanji in the title, BTW.)

Hachinohe is a city located on the southeastern tip of Aomori Prefecture, the northernmost prefecture on the Honshuu (main) island. It has about 231,000 people, and the average high is about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Not a bad place to get away to.

I will be taking the trip with Tackawanna. Last weekend, I replaced the only fuel-related issue that is hard to access without jacks that could theoretically fail (fuel filter), and yesterday, the local Super Autobacs did a quick safety inspection and found no immediate issues. The only issue I have is that none of my suitcases fit in the car, and I am still on a budget, so I'll have to use my regular backpack as an anvil my suitcase.

The trip is going to go down as follows, by day:

1. Drive from Aizuwakamatsu to Miyako, Iwate Prefecture. I'll be taking the Tohoku Expressway and connecting to the Sanriku Expressway.
2. Drive from Miyako to Hachinohe via National Route 45, a coastal road.
3. Spend an extra day in Hachinohe doing tourist shit.
4. Drive from Hachinohe directly back to Aizuwakamatsu via the Hachinohe and Tohoku Expressways, and hope to FSM that the typhoon scheduled in the area for Monday pushes out farther east into the ocean and/or weakens.

As you would guess, day four is going to be the most travel intensive day: seven hours of driving total, with plenty of break time. The last time I drove that far for that long was over two years ago, when I had to drive to Maryland to appear in court. The first day will also involve some long driving times, but not necessarily as fast-paced.

So, regarding this blog. I'm going to try to give each day its own blog post. I may not be able to post everyday, however, but I'll try to stay consistent. I also purchased a larger memory card for the dashcam, allowing me to collect video for longer without having to stop and pull off the data to prevent it from being overwritten. I'll make a few videos for TwT 10 when I get back to Aizu.

Back to packing!

-wp

P.S. There was supposed to be a dashcam video in TwT 9, but there wasn't. That's been fixed now.