I have a challenge for anyone who is into Google maps and wild-goose-chases: it involved the last 30 seconds of a video I posted over 4 years ago already, back then it was called Episode One [above] of Project Pedal, but now, being that this video - along with the four episodes that followed - doesn’t smoothly tie into explaining FToM and its making-of, this video has been long-since collecting dust in the archives of Vimeo.

But, where was I?, right; the last 30 seconds of this video show a road bending slightly right, then slightly left, revealing a long, long stretch of desert highway somewhere between Goldfield and Los Angeles; more or less near Death Valley.

I need to find it.

I’ve been looking off and on for the last few months in Google maps / Earth for this exact stretch of road [update: road is running north to south, shot was filmed just before sunset and is actually playing in reverse: meaning we are looking dead north once we hit the straight shot] with little luck. So, the challenge being, if you haven’t guessed already, please help me find this lost place! I’ve marked down in Google maps the route between Goldfield and Los Angeles, and I also created a highlighted-boundary of where the above road almost certainly has to be hiding. 

I don’t know what the person who finds this stretch of road will get just yet - I’m trying to think of something really special… it might be something I have to announce in private with said person; but that depends on a few things. In any case, I will try to make it worth your while and effort. And even if you don’t end up finding the road, please let me know you tried, and I will be sure to thank you for making an effort. I set the map to public, so, technically, people could add markers to the map letting others know an area has been looked at and nothing was found - maybe with a few people working to limit the search area this road will turn up after-all. 

Update: 

So, the very talented Ann Arbor based designer, Alex Jacque, was the person who tracked down the road [pictured above] seen in the last 30 seconds of Episode One - I owe a huge, huge thanks to him for helping me find this spot… on top of this road being very sentimental and symbolic to me, it’s a road that will play a part in FToM. I’ll be taking a road trip to Daylight Pass Rd. in the next few weeks and when I do, I have something special in mind as an extra thanks to Alex. Also, I wanted to say thanks to Eric Buist for looking as well. […]

so amazing to rewatch this a few years later. still hits me as hard as the first time, and makes me long to go on another journey where failure is a distinct possibility… - Ayz Waraich 

It’s been quite some time since any of these older episodes from FToM have received much attention - granted, back then, the project wasn’t called For Thousands of Miles, it was tentivally titled Project Pedal - in any case, the above video was a beginning for me… I had been struggling to get the project off the ground with funding for almsot 3 years as I worked fulltime at Ikea and then iFilm, this episode specifically changed everything for Amanda and I. It feels like another life. 

Source: mikeambs

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback on the new site design - it was kind of scary making so many changes to sites that have tied into the project for years in some cases. But the move has been a huge weight off my chest - things feel new and lighter and more-relavant, I suppose.  A few branches of the site are still missing-in-action, for example: the roadmap (which was previously used on the For Thousands of Miles URL), the funding page, stockpile, and t-minus (which, most likely, won’t go live until another campaign). I’ll be sure announce here on the blog when any new pages are updated, and most recently I’ve re-launched: the project synopsis page (aka: hi, hello), the store + swag page, and our soundtrack page (where people can help shape the film’s final soundtrack). 
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Thanks to everyone for all the feedback on the new site design - it was kind of scary making so many changes to sites that have tied into the project for years in some cases. But the move has been a huge weight off my chest - things feel new and lighter and more-relavant, I suppose. 

A few branches of the site are still missing-in-action, for example: the roadmap (which was previously used on the For Thousands of Miles URL), the funding page, stockpile, and t-minus (which, most likely, won’t go live until another campaign). I’ll be sure announce here on the blog when any new pages are updated, and most recently I’ve re-launched: the project synopsis page (aka: hi, hello), the store + swag page, and our soundtrack page (where people can help shape the film’s final soundtrack). 

the story of: ‘rolling chair’

Six months later, Chuck and I rented an apartment outside of Ann Arbor together, with the hopes that it would give us the freedom to work on film-projects more consistently. Chuck began taking film-courses at Washtenaw – and at first, things seemed promising. We would often work on Chuck’s film assignments together, I was even allowed to sit-in during classes on occasion. A highlight of “Rolling Chair” was seeing two of our shorts played at an Ann Arbor film-festival in ‘The Michigan Theater’.

We’d completed a few shorts and shot several small projects, mostly just goofing around, but we never shot anything serious or wrote another script. Over time, I found it increasingly difficult to spark Chuck’s interest in personal-projects. Weeks between “Rolling Chair” projects quickly became months. Many of our works-in-progress never made it past a late night of brainstorming. In public, Chuck was quick to point out our interest in film – “Rolling Chair” though, was becoming more of a conversation-started for Chuck than an actual routine.

“Rolling Chair”, for me, continued to grow as an idea. I often spent my free-time working out details and storylines to a number of different projects; it was a form of release from my everyday life. I spent many nights pacing the top-levels of parking garages in Ann Arbor; several scrap pieces of paper and a pen in my pocket. The parking garages gave a birds-eye view of my favorite theater, ‘The Michigan’. But, it seemed the more my interest grew in film, the more distracted, on a monthly cycle, Chuck became with: his girlfriend going off to college, zines, stamp-making, aggressive-inline-skating, starting a sticker company…

By the next spring Chuck and I were no longer living together. The lack of hands-on filmmaking/ screenwriting had, over time, driven an uncomfortable wedge in our friendship. I hadn’t talked to him in months. He was living an hour away at his cousin’s, and I was now living with my girlfriend, Amanda, in a house just down the street from my first apartment.

At this point, whether I liked it or not, Rolling Chair seemed dead, and I was getting used to the idea of going-it-alone. Which almost brings us “Project Pedal” – but before “Project Pedal” there was moving to California, well… kinda.

Source: blog.projectpedal.com