Friday, July 23, 2010

Two geographers on the road in a 1990 Celica

No, it is not anything to set up the punchline for a joke. 
For real: two geography faculty are on their way in the London-Tashkent rally.  (Well, neither London nor Tashkent is a starting or ending point; more details here, but a subscription might be required)

David A. Fyfe, a geographer at York College of Pennsylvania, hopped a plane to London 10 days ago to embark, with a fellow geography professor, on a planned 5,000-mile road rally across Europe and Central Asia in a $150 Toyota Celica.
Mr. Fyfe was kind enough to describe his "London-Tashkent" adventure for an article that appeared this week on The Chronicle's Web site. (Spoiler alert!) He wrote us this week from Ukraine to say that his car's radiator and head gasket had blown in Germany, just two days into the drive, so he and his teammate, Tracy H. Allen, decided to bid a less-than-fond farewell to their vehicle.
Mr. Fyfe hopped in with the rally organizers, and Mr. Allen went with a German team that ultimately got stuck in Poland because they had the wrong registration papers for their car. Border authorities had blocked their exit, so Mr. Allen jumped in with a pair of Scottish motorists who, at last report, had to tie their radiator with a rope to keep it from falling out of their Nissan.

No comments: