that's where the car is registered - Technically speaking, since Gumi and Rin can't have a fixed address in the United States, the car doesn't belong to them, but rather to Hatsune Heavy Industries' American subsidiary, which is headquartered in Downey.

the bridge that carried them across the Mississippi - When doing a real present-day 66 tour, the Mississippi crossing is one of the places where a traveler is presented with a choice of alignments to follow. McKinley Bridge, the bridge that carried US 66 across still exists, but only connects surface streets in Missouri with an Illinois state route now, requiring a lot of fiddly maneuvering that can be tricky for drivers who don't know the area. Meanwhile, New Chain of Rocks Bridge, which was part of the 66 Bypass around St. Louis, is now part of I-270.

The old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which was replaced by New Chain of Rocks Bridge in 1966, also still exists, but is only open to pedestrian and bicycle traffic—and if you like '80s action movies, you've probably seen it, since it played the role of the 69th Street Bridge in Escape from New York.

an endearingly preposterous steakhouse in Amarillo - This is The Big Texan Steak Ranch, which is somewhat notorious for:

seventy-two ounces of anything - The eponymous Big Texan, a 72-ounce (that's 2.04 kg for you metric folks) steak. This comes as part of a set meal with a buttered roll, salad, shrimp cocktail, and a baked potato. It costs $72, unless you can eat it all (including the trimmings) in less than an hour, in which case it's free and you get your picture on the wall.

Full disclosure: I ate at The Big Texan on the way out to my ill-advised sojourn in California in 1996, but I did not order The Big Texan.

a monument made of partly buried automobiles - Cadillac Ranch. Not to be confused with Carhenge, which is in Nebraska.

the famous Wigwam Motel... I think this might be the only one left - IRL, there are three as of this writing. Note that, although the name of the place is the Wigwam Motel, the actual buildings are stylized as tipis, not wigwams.

milkshakes and Eagles covers in Winslow - The city of Winslow is famously namechecked in the Eagles' debut single, 1972's "Take It Easy":

well I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
and such a fine sight to see
it's a girl, my Lord! in a flatbed Ford
slowin' down to take a look at me

(This is supposedly based on something that happened to Jackson Browne, who cowrote the song, once when his car broke down in Winslow.)

Since this is about as prominent in popular culture as Winslow, population 9,655, is every likely to get, the city has immortalized it with a public park featuring a bronze statue of a musician loitering on the corner, a mural, and an actual flatbed Ford truck permanently parked nearby.

I wonder why they have a statue of a Reticulan - There really is a statue of a Grey at the Meteor Crater visitor center. I don't know why either, unless it's a reference to not-particularly-nearby Roswell, New Mexico, or to outer space generally.

(It should be noted that Meteor Crater is a privately owned and operated attraction, not a state or national park, and so the accoutrements are a bit... haphazard.)

RoadBlasters - A 1987 arcade game released by Atari. RoadBlasters is a combat racing game with weapons and power-ups, which is a pretty common theme nowadays, but was relatively fresh territory at the time.

your primary and secondary MTHD coils - In this context, "MTHD" stands for magnetothermohydrodynamic, which is the technobabble principle on which the Chrysler's fusion reactor (and indeed most fusion reactors in the UF universe) generates electricity. This comes in from BattleTech, where it's explained in a few of the game sourcebooks as some kind of circulating plasma flux that does Inducty Things to a magnet, by way of explaining how a BattleMech's fusion reactor makes electricity without an inconveniently bulky steam plant. If they were writing those rulebooks today, they'd probably have superconducting thermocouples or something instead.

a thirty-year-old Winnebago motorhome - If you're really curious, it's a 24-foot Minnie Winnie with floor plan 22R (no slideouts, queen bed).

Sunset Crater and Wupatki - A pair of National Monuments northeast of Flagstaff. The former is a volcano that has been extinct for, geologically speaking, a very short time (it last erupted around 1100 CE), the latter a complex of pueblo ruins a few miles north of the volcano which flourished ca. 500–1200.

the Hualapai-Havasupai Coalition - The Hualapai and Havasupai were historically one people (the Havasupai were one band of one of the greater Hualapai tribe's several geographic subsections), but were divided in the 19th century by US government policy, and have been separate long enough now that though they still speak the same language, they use different writing systems. The modern-day Hualapai reservation encompasses much of the western end of the Grand Canyon's South Rim, while the Havasupai reservation lies between their territory and Grand Canyon National Park in the east. The Havasupai capital, Supai (pop. 208), lies on the floor of the canyon itself, eight miles from the nearest road.

In this setting, the two nations have not fully reunited, but have entered into a coalition together to administer the Canyon, which has been returned to their ownership in a fashion similar to the Australian government's return of Uluru/Ayers Rock to the local Aboriginal people. This took place in the 2040s, as the impact of the Fog blockade was really starting to bite and the US federal government had enough problems that it seemed like an advantageous arrangement for everyone involved.

Under the agreement, US citizens are guaranteed free access to Grand Canyon National Park, and the United States National Park Service still operates the Park (the name of which hasn't changed, although exactly what "National" means is now a bit ambiguous) as it always has, but most of the funding now comes from the Coalition. Policy for the Park (which is significantly larger now that the Hualapai and Havasupai lands around the rest of the Canyon have been added to it) is set by joint agreement, but the Coalition has the final say, since it is now on their sovereign territory.

Ahmedabad - The most populous city of the Indian state of Gujarat (the sticky-out bit on India's west coast), and the center of an urban area with an aggregate population of around 6.4 million IRL. It's a major industrial center.

a stone's throw from the Colorado River - The spot where they're camping is based on Granite Camp, one of a number of official campgrounds in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and the scenery in the photos available at the link is representative. (The rafts don't stop there, though.)

Rusty did most of the work - For reasons known only to the loftily titled Master of Mules, this particular outfitting agency's synthmules are all named after 20th-century astronauts. The ones Abhi, Gumi, and Rin rented on this occasion are Rusty, Wally, and Gus.

I would never have guessed - Here's another indication of what a complete city kid Abhi was before this trip. Anyone with an even vaguely rural upbringing would have noticed the mules' distinct lack of... let us say excretory activity as the day went on.

a laundromat and a Tastee-Freez - Commemorates the laundromat and adjacent ice cream/burger stand (that one's a Fosters Freeze) on University Ave in Berkeley where Zoner and I usually did our laundry when we lived out there. (I just checked Google Maps and, amazingly, they're both still there!) Truly a brilliant juxtaposition of establishments.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

So, this got me to thinking. Gumi and Rin may have, as is noted, No Fixed Abode Under Penalty of Law, but this being a thing means that they've got some people "on their team" if need be who aren't subject to that limitation, in addition to the already seen Friends in the Damndest Places.

I don't know, I just found that kind of interesting.

> unless you can eat it all (including the trimmings) in less than an hour,

Sheesh, I'm not sure I'd be that enthusiastic about trying to eat all of that in an entire *day*.

> Under the agreement, US citizens the United States National Park Service

Either there's some missing words or punctuation here, or I'm just having trouble parsing it. (Or both.)

-IA.

(received information not interpretable)