Remember Sho and the Mitsubishi Extraordinaire?

July 26, 2009 by Heather 2 Comments

If you’ve been following this blog, you may remember my meeting a fellow traveler, Sho, a man from Japan, who’s battery I jumped at Monument Valley, UT.  This was in March during my return from CA to CO.

His alternator belt was fried and not recharging  the battery.   Sho shared a few tales from his 2 year tour of NorthAmerica with me that day.  Starting at the Arctic Ocean he made it to the FL Keys, through Mexico, Bajaand back into the US.  As promised, he just emailed me pics from that trip, along withrelated stories.  With his permission I’m sharing some below.

The original post can be found here:

 https://hfrank007.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/the-looong-road-home-ca-to-co-part-three-of-three-rhyolite-boom-town-tall-skinny-rocks-recharging-the-batteries/

 

Here Sho is, where he waved me down on the road out of Monument Valley, UT:   (Lens cover still sticks now and then.)

 

 

Sho shipped his trusty little 4×4 Mitsubishi to the US.  He started out visiting the Arctic Circle.  Describing driving on “blue ice” roads, his pics reveal a striking, vast, beautiful landscape (and cold!)

 

“Ice road, one of the most beautiful hwy in the world.”  Per Sho:

 

Wow!

 

 

Whitehorse, Yukon, the capital, I think this pic of his is so pretty!

 

 

Here, he tells of a scary twist:

 

 

“Dead Horse, Prudhoe Bay Alaska, the northern place where we can drive on a road.  No tourists in winter season and of course there are no Japanese.
It’s [a] big oil field, one of a goose neck of a life line of United States. 
[After taking this picture]  one or two minutes after, two police cars and three security guard cars rushed to me with big guns, I was taken [to] a police station…I was lucky that I [was] not Afghan or Russian.”

 

 Here, a heck of an accident:

 

 

Seems he went for help since there was no cell phone reception or people around.  After righting the vehicle, it started, to which he declared he “owes my life.”  
 

 He also spent his 66th B-Day sleeping in his vehicle, massively stuck in a snowbank.   “It was an unforgettable birthday in my long life.”

 

“Arctic winter drive is an adventure still now but this scenery changes our outlook on life.”
 

 

Not all his travels were above the Arctic Circle.  Show once worked in NYC.  Here he stopped to revisit:

 

 

 The FL Keys:

 

 

Baja, Mexico:

 

 

Despite peoples’ warnings of the danger in Mexico, Sho went. 
 
“I like Mexico and other countries of Middle of America.  They are poor… but they have something in their mind which we lost already.  From San Diego I tried to drive Baja, California and went to Cabo San Lucas…Whale watching [taught] us that [the] human race is not only a master of this planet.”

 

Mitsubishi Motors in the US caught wind of Sho’s adventures and tracked  him down, making him an honorary employee! 

 

 

“200-300 employees” threw him one heck of a party from what it sounds like!  I think that is so cool!

It’s been fun to exchange pics and stories forma  fellow traveler.  (Though I’m not on the two year itinerary as he was.  I wish!)  Sho wrote he hopes his next long trip takes him through South America.  (Pending family aproval!) 

 I’ll keep you all posted.