Road trip

For Shelby, 50 years of blowing other cars' doors off

LAS VEGAS, Nev.--It may be the most valuable American car ever made. Sitting inside what looks from the outside mostly like a non-descript suburban warehouse, the vehicle fills a lot of people with lust.

Still a striking and shiny blue, the 1962 Shelby Cobra 427 is the very first of its kind. And it is such an important entry in the pantheon of American muscle cars that someone recently offered $25 million for it.

Welcome to Shelby American, a company whose rare cars are built to blow by just about any competition, yet are designed to be everyday drivable … Read more

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 7/9: What is this?

Update (Monday, 7:45 p.m. PT): The answer to today's challenge -- which 133 people got right -- is the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone who played, and to all, please come back for Tuesday's challenge.

Welcome to the Road Trip Picture of the Day contest. This is your chance to win some cool prizes as you test your skills at recognizing pictures.

Each day, I'll be posting a new photograph from my various travels, and your job is to try to correctly identify it using any means at your disposal. Throughout … Read more

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 7/8: What is this?

Update (Sunday, 8:05 p.m. PT): The answer to today's challenge -- which 184 people got right -- is London Bridge, in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Thanks to everyone who played, and to all, please come back for Monday's challenge.

Welcome to the Road Trip Picture of the Day contest. This is your chance to win some cool prizes as you test your skills at recognizing pictures.

Each day, I'll be posting a new photograph from my various travels, and your job is to try to correctly identify it using any means at your disposal. Throughout … Read more

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 7/7: What is this?

Update (Sunday, 1:08 a.m. PT): The answer to Saturday's challenge -- which 53 people got right -- is the Old Trails Arch Bridge, as well as other pipeline bridges that span the Colorado River (and the border between Arizona and California) between Needles, Calif. and Topock, Ariz. Thanks to everyone who played, and to all, please come back for Sunday's challenge.

Welcome to the Road Trip Picture of the Day contest. This is your chance to win some cool prizes as you test your skills at recognizing pictures.

Each day, I'll be posting a new … Read more

How Nevada became America's Nuclear Age ground zero

MERCURY, Nev. -- From the side that faced away from the blast, you might never even have bothered to look at this concrete dome. But walk around the other side, and there's no question something extraordinary happened here.

Welcome to the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site. As part of Road Trip 2012, I've come to visit this 1,375-square-mile expanse of harsh desert and even harsher mountains that begins about 75 miles north of Las Vegas. Here, from 1951 through 1992, a total of 928 nuclear weapons exploded, many of them sending … Read more

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 7/6: What is this?

Update (Saturday, 12:43 a.m. PT): The answer to Friday's challenge -- which 152 people got right -- is Kitt Peak National Observatory, near Tucson, Ariz. Thanks to everyone who played, and to all, please come back for Saturday's challenge.

Welcome to the Road Trip Picture of the Day contest. This is your chance to win some cool prizes as you test your skills at recognizing pictures.

Each day, I'll be posting a new photograph from my various travels, and your job is to try to correctly identify it using any means at your disposal. Throughout … Read more

In the Mojave, an Army dress rehearsal for Afghan war

FORT IRWIN, Calif.--The shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenade was aimed at several U.S. Army soldiers trying to work their way through the chaos of an Afghan insurgent attack. This was not looking like a good day for the members of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Fortunately for those soldiers, the RPG wasn't real, and they weren't even in Afghanistan -- yet. They will be soon, though. But before deploying to the combat zone, the entire 4th Brigade from Fort Lewis, Wash., spent four weeks in the June heat of the Mojave Desert at the Army's National Training Center … Read more

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 7/5: What is this?

Update (Friday, 12:46 a.m. PT): The answer to Thursday's challenge -- which 17 people got right -- is Abengoa Solar's Solana solar power plant, a 280-megawatt parabolic trough plant currently under construction in Gila Bend, Ariz., that may end up as the world's largest such facility.

Under normal circumstances, all I do is post the day's answer, but Thursday's responses merit a special note. Usually, a large majority of the people who respond to the Picture of the Day challenge get the answer right. But on Thursday, just 15 percent were correct -- … Read more

How the Border Patrol uses tech to combat smugglers

TUCSON, Ariz.--It's summer in the Southwest, and there may not be a hotter border anywhere in the United States. For one thing, the mercury is easily over a hundred every day. And then there's the steady flow of organized smugglers trying to sneak themselves and their substantial cargo -- of migrants and/or drugs -- across Mexico's long desert frontier with Arizona.

There are nine U.S. Border Patrol sectors stretching across America's southwestern frontier. And back in 2000, the agency was snagging more than 2,000 people a day for crossing illegally into its … Read more

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 7/4: What is this?

Update (Wednesday, 10:40 p.m. PT): The answer to today's challenge -- which 52 people got right -- is the Spreckles Sugar Plant in Brawley, Calif. Thanks to everyone who played, and to all, please come back for Thursday's challenge.

Welcome to the Road Trip Picture of the Day contest. This is your chance to win some cool prizes as you test your skills at recognizing pictures.

Each day, I'll be posting a new photograph from my various travels, and your job is to try to correctly identify it using any means at your disposal. Throughout … Read more