Would you want to drive for 16 hours straight with two adults and two kids in a minivan? Last year, my answer to that question would have been an emphatic No; but of course, this is 2020, when surreal things never stop happening. So three weeks ago, we did exactly that. At issue here is that we live in Virginia, but planned a weeklong visit with family in Missouri, nearly 1,000 miles away. We make this trip often, usually taking two days, and spending a night at a campground or motel. However, due to all of this year’s weirdness, we wanted to complete the actual travel part of the trip as quickly possible, and with as little contact with other people as possible. That meant doing the whole trip at one time, with only a handful of brief stops… think of it as re-creating the Cannonball Run, but with members of your own household.
While not the most relaxing way to traverse nearly half a continent, it was effective… and it may be the sort of trip that others may need or want to take as well, so I figured it would be helpful to explain how we did it.
The most important aspect to tackling such a trip is to have a suitable vehicle, and for that, our 2018 Kia Sedona (writeup here) is up to the job. It’s roomy and flexible, and the seats are supportive enough that we remained comfortable and alert even after a half-day of traveling. Our kids are 11 and 13 years old – old enough to have opinions about whether or not cars are comfortable, and so far they’ve had no complaints about traveling long distances in the Sedona.
When planning a trip like this, it’s vitally important to leave early, particularly in November when daylight is at a premium. Accordingly, we timed our long drive so that we’d have roughly equal amounts of dark driving hours in the morning and in the evening – and that meant leaving home at around 5:00 a.m. Not the easiest thing in the world to do, but important enough that we packed most of our belongings the night before and dragged ourselves from bed in seemingly the middle of the night. We were a little late – 5:20 – but close enough.
Our family has driven this particular route countless times, and I could probably drive it with my eyes closed – which was tempting, given our brief night’s sleep. For those unfamiliar with North American geography, this is about the same distance as from Paris to Budapest, but with much different scenery. It’s about 940 miles total, and we stopped the car only five times… twice for gas (shown above) and three times for restroom breaks. When all was said and done, we’d averaged 59 mph, including stops. Not too bad.
We made it well into the Maryland Appalachians by sunrise, a fact that shed light on a benefit of leaving in the pre-dawn hours… we completely missed the Washington, DC area’s typical traffic hassles. In fact, the scene above shows the light traffic volumes to which we were treated for the first several hours of our trip. Maybe this one-day trip idea isn’t such a bad idea!
Overall, our 2,000-mile round trip was undramatic, but we did see a tractor trailer use one of Interstate 68’s runaway truck ramps, which isn’t something one sees every day. The truck stopped safely, though the driver seemed a bit displeased.
Warning: This image contains scenes of clutter.
Fortunately for us, our kids are terrific travelers, having made long-distance driving trips ever since they were babies. This helps a lot. I can tell you that those early trips with babies and toddlers weren’t exactly easy, but the payoff was that our kids became extremely comfortable being in a car for hours on end. They keep themselves busy by drawing, reading, playing fighting with each other, and looking out the window… and fill up the back seat area with their mounds of stuff. I have no idea how they can sit amidst all this clutter for so many hours, but they insist that they’re comfortable back there.
Another ingredient to keeping the kids (and adults) happy is music. We use a USB device that contains several dozen albums – and all four of us rotate turns selecting the music. Yes, I realize this is not the most high-tech music option out there, but it works for us, and the kids have learned to take turns too, which isn’t a bad thing.
My wife, who’s a classical musician, recommends “anything with a beat” for long, monotonous trips. Slow songs will put even music-lovers to sleep, so we listened to upbeat music for 16 hours. The slow stuff can wait til after we get home.
Crossing the Ohio River on US-50… not much traffic!
One might assume that we took the most direct route possible for this journey, but that’s not quite the case. Instead of following Interstate 70 through western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, we followed the lesser-traveled US-50 and US-33 through Parkersburg, West Virginia and Athens, Ohio. This route rejoins I-70 in Columbus, and though it adds about 20-30 minutes in travel time, it avoids a section of Interstate that is chronically busy, and full of aggressive drivers. The mountain scenery of this southern route is pleasing, and there’s virtually no traffic to speak of. Definitely worth an extra few minutes.
As much as we’d love to continue to our destination on calm, scenic roads, we need to bow to reality at some point, so we joined I-70 again and drove due west. Not the most pleasant part of the trip, but at least we’re heading in the right direction. Every mile we get away from the crowded East Coast becomes just that much more calming. By this point in our trip it was mid-day, and we’d been on the road for about seven hours… still less than halfway there!
Napoleon is said to have remarked that “an army marches on its stomach.” Well, a family travels on its stomach, too. And since we were intent on not stopping at restaurants, the bring-along food became vitally important. Our consumables for this trip can be separated into three categories:
Drinks: To cut down on restroom breaks, we obviously didn’t want to guzzle liquid, but people do need to stay hydrated – and awake. Therefore coffee (in an insulated, non-spill thermos) became our most important provision. We also had water bottles for each of us – and grapes. Grapes are a wonderful road food, and can fill up your stomach and simultaneously quench thirst; I highly recommend them.
Snacks: An assortment of cookies, and fruit such as clementines, kept the kids satisfied. And the adults, too. We placed a cooler just behind the front seats for all food that needed to remain cold.
Food: Food that’s easy to store, prepare and eat while in motion gets the nod for these types of trips. By far, the most efficient single food is hardboiled eggs (I call them Energy Orbs for the amount of oomph they pack in a single helping). We also traveled with the fixings for simple sandwiches – lunchmeats, bacon, cheese, etc. Believe it or not, we ate well on this trip, though it did require a good amount of advance planning.
All in all, this assortment of food kept us satisfied, alert, and ready for more miles… which is what we needed.
In the early afternoon, we made it to Indiana, with our journey taking us along the Indianapolis Beltway, our only encounter with big-city traffic. Luckily, even here, traffic wasn’t much more than a nuisance on this day.
Once past Indianapolis, this journey typically becomes much more relaxing – the traffic peels away with each passing mile and the terrain gradually opens up into prairie farmland. One thing that was noticeable in this trip was the distinct paucity of out-of-state license plates. Ordinarily these highways are full of cars from all over North America, but economic and social restrictions have taken their toll this year… it was unusual to see cars from more than one state away.
The upside of this year’s lack of mobility was that places like rest areas were all but deserted. Of course, it’s easy to maintain social distance at a public restroom. Still, we kept such stops to a minimum – just three on this trip… using the facilities, taking a few quick stretches, and then back on the road. Incidentally, our kids didn’t even get out of the car until this rest stop in Indiana.
Daylight ran out on us in Illinois – which, after staring directly at a setting sun for about 90 minutes beforehand – was somewhat of a relief.
For the last two hours or so, we drove in the dark. Given the low traffic volumes and clear weather, the night-driving portion of the trip wasn’t too bad. Incidentally, when we bought our Sedona, I was a bit worried that the red dashboard lighting would become irritating on long trips, but we’ve had no complaints about it. That the speedometer and tachometer displays are white helps to avoid the 1980s Pontiac video-game look.
We arrived at our destination in northeast Missouri at around 8:30 p.m. – tired but still reasonably alert considering the miles we had covered. Accomplishing such a trip in a one-day marathon drive has advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, driving for 16 straight hours is draining, but then again, we got more time to spend with family than would otherwise have been the case… and of course we didn’t need to hassle with hotels and restaurants, which was a definite bonus this year.
Our visit with family lasted slightly over a week, after which time…
East bound and down…
…we made the same trip again in reverse. In the above picture, we were treated to the sunrise over Interstate 72, rather than the sunset of the prior week. Thankfully, we had clear weather for both travel days – I wouldn’t be eager to undertake such a long (and dark) journey in the rain, and in fact would probably postpone our travel in order to avoid rain.
But assuming good weather, a good vehicle, and willing passengers, this isn’t a bad way to travel long distances. In fact, I have a feeling that we’ll travel this way more often in the future. While it may seem daunting at first, this type of long-distance drive isn’t nearly as overwhelming as it may seem. And it can actually be fun.
Wow, that sounds like quite the trip. It’s amazing how driving a familiar area at an unfamiliar time adds a new dimension to it. Your driving the stretch of I-72 from Hannibal to Springfield, Illinois, in the dark likely helped to make that drive less monotonous.
Earlier this summer I was talking with a friend who had also just made a multi-state trip with his family. He said they were so intent to avoid public toilets they had a five gallon bucket one-quarter full of kitty litter for those just in case instances. It was a brilliant idea, one I’ve since suggested to my wife.
I’ll admit I’m a bit envious. Living with two nocturnal females, 5 am is not much past their bedtime. Leaving at that time is so appealing to me, yet so unrealistic.
Your friend’s idea of a bucket and kitty litter would be a good idea if such things didn’t use up five gallons of valuable storage space and extra weight. I tend to argue against such eccentricities, but usually lose.🙂
Regarding leaving at 5 a.m., I insisted that we leave by 4:30, knowing that by doing so, we might leave by 5:00. It was quite an ordeal to get everyone out the door by 5:20. And for the return trip, rinse & repeat.
Well done! You can’t beat a minivan for family long distance travel.
We were just reminiscing on the weekend about our trip to Florida from Dec 27-Jan 5th last year. We drove home from Florida in one day, left at 4am and arrived home at 1am. What made that possible was three drivers, our 19 year old son did a couple of shifts. We’re so glad we did that because it sure isn’t happening this year!
And, I might add that driving home from Florida in one day was an interesting experience, but one that I do not want to repeat. 🙂
Florida to Ontario is quite a one-day trip! Or a two-day trip, depending on how you count it.
I’m looking forward to a few years from now when we’ll have an extra driver in the family — can extend our range!
Being the sole driver in our home means these long drives don’t happen in our home. Which is a shame since we live in the heart of the Red River Valley (Altona) Manitoba and our boys and their families both live in Alberta. Having collected a pretty decent portfolio of birthdays, 65 in fact as of next week, there just seems to be a lot of joint rebellion if I maintain a seated position for 14 hours in a day. This seems strange to me as I have always been very sensitive to my physical needs. I now ask that you readers be sensitive and NOT ask my wife on the accuracy of the last sentence. Anyway, thanks for sharing your story! Super interesting and I hope you get to repeat the trip before too long.
It’s been two decades since my last one-way road trip longer than 300 miles. Five hundred miles non-stop without a pee-break when I was 24 with a sexy blue sport coupe able to cruise at ninety is something at which I fondly remember but also shudder at with 45 years of age in my cask. And I am never, ever doing that drive with the friend who asks the state trooper if he wants to take a ride on the Tops supermarket donut bus ever again.
Now, with a chariot much smaller on the inside than your Sedona if only ten inches shorter on the outside and with two offspring whose age average is six years younger than yours – a pair whose sitzfleisch is, uh, not so developed – we have employed similar strategies for the medium distance car rides we’ve taken in the last few years.
Pack the car the night before. Prepare endless snax. Leave before the cock crows day. I’ve timed drives to neatly side-step every rush hour between NYC and DC, giving us full days at our destination. The problem with medium distance destinations – inlaws and parents at 100-130 miles distance, second home at 140 miles – is the temptation to try to combine the drive with other necessary activities in the same day, which is always excessively ambitious and ultimately counterproductive.
I think every car I have ever owned has had cruise control? Cruise control in central Ohio is great! Less useful on I-80 going through the Alleghenies. But I have to say, the adaptive cruise control with the variable following distance in the Outback’s Eyesight – I have never been as dead tired exhausted after a long-haul since buying this car. Four hundred miles in a B-body station wagon ended me for the day, even at 20. But Eyesight? I am much more chipper after hauling four hours down the Jersey Shore than I ever was with the old Legacy.
“And I am never, ever doing that drive with the friend who asks the state trooper if he wants to take a ride on the Tops supermarket donut bus ever again.”
I’m going need more details about that story….
Summer of ’98, going to Origins in Columbus, Ohio I was doing 44 in a 45 on 417 bypassing construction on 17 (soon to be I-86!) near Olean when a trooper pulled me over – probably because there were four big guys in a ’90 Daytona with board games and packs of collectible card games in the see-through hatchback. He asked to search the car, I consented, the fuzz found the half-decade old Tylenol packets from Dad’s office – nothing special, just extra-strength Tylenol from the J&J drug rep – and Chris, well, Chris flunked out of his Cornell Physics PhD program to deliver pizza and was and is remarkably stubborn, and he had brought assorted donuts from the Ithaca Tops market, which came in a box. shaped. like. a. school. bus.
So he offered doughnuts to smokey. Oy vey.
(nobody was arrested, but he ran everybody for outstanding warrants.)
Two friends and I drove straight thru from Portland (OR) to L.A back in 2000…in a ’96 Ford F-350 Crew Cab diesel. Took about 21 hours, stopping only for fuel (truck had dual tanks) and switch drivers. Two sat up front and the person who just drove got to nap in the back seat. Fun times indeed. I have never been married, have no kids and now that my chick magnet days have fallen like the leaves on our walnut trees, I wouldn’t mind a Sedona to go with my ’83 Ranger.
With kids involved, usually the number of stops increases exponentially with the number of them in the car. Ask me how I know.
You are right though, it’s all about the planning. Our most recent banzai trip was from Phoenix back to Colorado in one go, about 975 miles and a very long day. Not always ideal but it beats being near others these days.
We have tended to power through on long trips too. Our longest was Indianapolis to Dallas with two toddlers in the back of an 85 Crown Victoria. The boys were good travelers, though the younger one fought like the devil every time we tried to put him back in that car seat for the next several weeks. 🙂
I was a little surprised that you went around Indianapolis on I-465 – that time of day straight through the city on I-70 is usually just fine. Rush hour is another story, but then 465 is not that fun in rush hour either.
Looking at that interior shot with the family clutter made me smell the McDonalds breakfast sandwiches that have usually been a part of our travel routine. But I would probably avoid that now as well. On snacks, I tend to be a pretzel stick muncher – they help offset the drinks and keep me alert – you can’t very well fall asleep when eating. 🙂
It seems like whenever we take I-70 through downtown Indianapolis, there’s construction, closed exits, random tie-ups and potholes. Maybe we’ve just had back luck, but to lessen our chance of encountering such things, and to avoid the inevitable I-told-you-so’s, we just took the Beltway.
My father worked the third shift in an auto fastner company in Chicago, where I grew up in a family of seven. Annually, we would take a three week road trip across the US, ending with family in Colorado. The last day of each annual trip was a 1,000 mile drive across the Central US, returning to Chicago. We left at night, mimicking my father’s work hours. By the time we awoke in the car, (pulling a pop-up camper), we were in Iowa.
I was always too excited to sleep, and sharing a rear seat with three others, meant curling up in ball jammed between brothers. I would sit in the center and peer over my father’s right shoulder, watching I-80 slowly roll by. Having a 9 PM bedtime during the other 49 weeks of the year, meant I cherished these midnight runs across Nebraska.
I-80 rest areas at 3:00 AM are mysterious and foreign. Being a summer night, the air was filled with insects with a warm steady breeze crossing the flat blackened farm fields surrounding us. Few trees. Crossroads were easily marked in the darkness by clusters of python-headed sodium expressway lights illuminating the empty cloverleafs. The soft breathing in a car filled with sleeping children, punctuated the radial tire hum beneath us. A soft rhythmic slapping of the expressway tar strips could have been the clacking of railroad cars in a distant dream.
I wanted to see every exit, every sleeping Nebraska hamlet, and every darkened filling station. Discovering how the world around me appears when I am normally sleeping, was as fascinating as a bedtime story.
Those 1000 mile overnight trips across the great breadbasket of America were unforgettable.
Loved your reminiscence.
I love your descriptive abilities–you have a bit of a poet in you. You instantly took me back almost 50 years. I too grew up in Chicago, and my family took similar road trips, to Missouri and Florida and California. From the age of 10 I got to sit in the front seat with my dad with a map in my lap and be his navigator while my mom sat in the back seat with my younger brothers encouraging them to nap, and occupying them with various board games when they couldn’t. I especially remember the huge foreign moths and butterflies and bugs at the various rest areas far from home. Thanks for sharing your memories.
I do a 2000-mile round trip a couple of times a year in a minivan. Your observation about maximizing daylight is spot on. Denver-Chicago in June is a breeze and I almost always drive straight through, 14.5 hours total. But I did the same trip last month and I had to stop about 600 miles in each way because after nine hours in the seat driving in the dark is tough. I used to do it 20 years ago, no problem, but no more.
Nebraska rest stops are good, Iowa rest stops are the best: the cleanest in the country. Both trips this year the traffic was so light that I encountered no one else in the restrooms because so few people were traveling.
The 75mph speed limit in CO and NE is a godsend as you can safely set the cruise control at 81 and make really good time. IA and IL it drops to 70 though so the cruise gets cranked down to 76. And gas is dirt cheap as I never paid more than $2/gal in any of the four states. 1000 miles / 24mpg x $2 = $83 each way. Tough to buy a plane ticket for that money and I don’t particularly want to get on an airplane during an epidemic.
In June, I was shuttling my older boy back and forth from the Jersey shore to NYC to get covid-19 tested for a month with grandparents and we stopped at the Cheesequake plaza on the Parkway to pee and that was our experience of completely empty travel plaza. Atlantic City, NJ to Kew Gardens Queens in one hundred minutes. (not including the stop. you would not believe how fast people were driving on the Parkway in May and June)
We regularly made ~14 hour one-way trips from Central IL to my Mom’s in GA for Thanksgiving or Christmas, then 16-hour trips to Dad’s after Mom passed.
All of your points above are good, and I’d add that books-on-CD or radio dramas really help the miles melt away – in fact, we listened to a drama about Sqaunto last week on the way to a Thanksgiving gathering (only an 8 hour drive), and then several Christmas OTR (‘old time radio’) dramas on the way home.
One family we know would cook a meal while they drive (no, not on the exhaust manifold!) using a crockpot and 12v inverter. I don’t think I could stand the smell of food cooking for hours, though!
An OTR trucker once told me he ate sunflower seeds to stay away because they stuck in his teeth – trying to worry them out with his tongue was enough mental activity to help him stay awake. I eat popcorn instead of sunflower seeds, but it seems to have a similar effect.
Books on CD are another good choice. We’ve done that a few times (though the current car doesn’t have a CD player, so I need to transfer them to USB first).
I like the sunflower seeds idea — I’ll have to try that.
My wife’s uncle used to make solo driving trips of several hundred miles until he was well over 90 years old. And he’d drive through the night, too. I once asked him how he did it, expecting some sort of expert advice, and he just said “I don’t plan anything… I just get in the car and go!”
For years we drove from Virginia to Ft Lauderdale to visit parents with our children. Always drove through the night to let the majority of the trip pass in kid sleep. With modern cars being almost!self driving, cruise control takes much of the strain off my back and legs.
That’s the way to do it; early in the morning. We took a lot of long trips with our older two kids and they were both fantastic, as long as there was a big stack of books, as they were voracious readers.
Driving in the Promaster changes everything, as it’s all on board: bathroom, kitchen, beds, etc. We can stop when and where we want to, or not. It’s hard now to imagine a long road trip without it.
We use it regularly even for day hike outings. After a 6-10 mile hike, it’s great to make tea, eat, read or take a nap, or whatever.
Well-planned, well-executed, and a nice looking van that I’m surprised doesn’t sell better.
The last time we did a drive this long was pre-children; Willamette Valley back to SLC to see relatives for the holidays. Fourteen hours in the car…in a ’93 Civic clearly not optimized for extended 80 mph travel. We get about 10-11 hours out of the kids now.
Two questions: I didn’t see mention of your kids requiring screens for entertainment and that impresses me. Is this true? Also, what kind of fuel economy did your van achieve? I ask this because driving our 4Runner into stiff Idaho headwinds at 80 mph with a big dorky roof box on our last road trip yielded an appalling 17mpg, the worst I’ve seen on a highway tank.
Correct regarding the screens. I know that everyone is different about this, but I prefer a trip without screens for the kids. My experience is that when kids have screens available for entertainment, they’ll focus on that exclusively. I realize that works for some folks, but I find it irritating, and now that our kids are a bit older, I’m glad I didn’t give into the screen temptation when they were younger. I have a feeling there’s no going back. One of my requirements when we bought our minivan was that I didn’t want one with built-in screens for the back seat.
As for fuel mileage, we had an overall trip average of 23.5 mpg, which included a week of small town/rural driving, as well as driving over the mountains, where economy is lower. On the purely flat sections of Midwestern Interstate, the Sedona averaged 27 mpg.
Thanks. I fully agree on the screens, we’ve kept our kids entirely off of them in the car for all of the reasons you stated. We had our warning event when they were one and a half, when we put on a kids show for the last hour of a long drive late at night, hoping it would stop the impending fussiness of little toddlers stuck in the car too long & too late. Well, it did stop the fussiness in the car, but it completely wired them and wound them up so badly that we reached the motel it took another hour to get their engines back to an idle and off to sleep. Never again!
That’s good fuel economy for how roomy and comfortable it is.
We did a 3+ week California to New York and back trip 12 years ago when my kids were 8, 10 and 11. The Honda van we owned came with screens, much to my chagrin. They watched movies some for the first couple long days (Christmas movies IIRC, since it was July), but after seeing the Tetons and Yellowstone they started reading and watching the terrain (and playing punch bug of course). So the rest of the trip was books on disc. Crossing the Mississippi was the perfect segue to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with being in the car together giving the chance to discuss the book, its language, and what it all meant.
In both 2018 and ’19 we drove out west — in ’18 to South Dakota and Wyoming, and in ’19 to Texas (we made those trips in a series of 500- or 600-mi. days). Both times, they kids really enjoyed seeing the scenery slowly change as we headed westward… definitely a more rewarding experience than flying.
We were in our forties for the second one, so we broke down and allowed screens. And even had unlimited data on a mobile hotspot so we could stream Mickey Mouse from the home server. However, joke’s on them! The older one gets carsick now, so he likes to look out the window.
My longest one way trip with kids was from Canby Oregon back home to San Jose. We were in a minivan and we left at 5:00 am. That was made about ten years ago, gas was really expensive. Just last month we drove to Big Bear lake. It was about a 600 mile,one way, trip. We didn’t leave early enough and the last four and a half hours were driven in the dark from Barstow to Lucerne Valley, to Big Bear City. It was so dark that I didn’t realize that we were in the middle of no where, just a two lane road in the middle of the desert. We got to see the “scenery” on the way back. I made this trip in my ’07 F150 which thankfully has good headlamps, but no cruise control. I have to do all the driving, my Wife doesn’t help at all. Still I enjoyed the trip even though I just turned 66 when we got back. We’ve been all over this Summer, Depot Bay Oregon, Lake Tahoe twice, Pismo Beach twice and Big Bear, Just before the snow fell!
Sounds like a well-planned and executed trip. I have long believed that late autumn is the best time of year to take a road trip, with bright, sunny dry days and cool temperatures the best combination for long hours behind the wheel.
We also took a pandemic-influenced trip this year, to get away from the house after working from home began to feel more like living at work. We drove from Dallas to the beaches of the Florida panhandle, timed to avoid summer and Labor Day crowds, as well as one of the many hurricanes to hit the Gulf Coast this year. We chose this destination because they were the nicest beaches within a 13-hour drive, which is as far as I was willing to drive in one day. We only made a few stops for gas and restroom breaks, brought most of our food and provisions with us, and rented a spotless condo rather than a hotel room, and enjoyed a relaxing week without mixing with hordes of people.
We are veterans of long road trips and I have found that I’m good for about 14 hours in one sitting, especially in summer when the days are longest. The killer is when our destination requires two back-to-back 12-13 hour days, such as a trip from DFW to visit family in New York and New Jersey, when construction and accidents cause delays and make the day even longer. Oddly enough, the worst delays are in smaller places like Cookeville, TN or Texarkana, as I usually plan the trip to traverse major metro areas during off-peak hours. Incidentally, I avoid night drives for two reasons: 1) I don’t want to hit a deer or other animal; and 2) night construction on major interstates can cause major delays. I agree with Eric that driving is more relaxed the further one gets away from the I-95 corridor and major cross-country truck routes like I-70.
Minivans are ideal for these sorts of trips, although I must say that SUVs can be equally accomodating, as long as noise levels are low and the ride at speed is smooth. The best seats were in our Volvo V70, bar none, and that car also had a great sound system. We did resort to screens when our kids were little, and, yes, they missed seeing the sights while traveling, but, on the other hand, there was rarely back seat drama.
Those random, gigantic tie-ups in unexpected places are horrible, but we try to remember to check Google Maps Traffic periodically to check for such things. If we can spot those sorts of things early enough, we can usually detour around them.
But of course there’s no avoiding the I-95 corridor. My wife and I joke that the 1,000-mi. trip to visit her brother in Missouri is less stressful than the 300-mi. trip to visit my sister in Massachusetts.
In the decade-or-so process between Dear Old Dad “Declining Gracefully” and DOD just plain “Declining in the Hospital”, I would pop out to visit him–and clean house, and talk to his doctors, etc.–between two and four times a year. Twice a year early-on, more frequently as his mental and physical health got progressively worse..
This involved a ~1800 mile solo trip, generally in a Lumina Euro 3.4. My record was 28 hours. 30 was not too difficult, and 35 allowed for a nap somewhere along the way. I tried to do the section from Rawlins to Casper at night; If there was clear sky and no moon, I’d have the best views of the Milky Way.
I can’t even imagine doing this trip with carpet apes. Including children in that journey would have involved someone–them during the journey, or me afterwards, getting blackout drunk.
As for driving myself the longest has only been 545 miles to Las Vegas although I made the San Diego to Bay Area run at 475 miles about two dozen times in a variety of cars. The Las Vegas run could almost be done without a gas stop if the car had 20 gallon tank instead of 18. The San Diego run was done twice in my 86 626 without a gas stop so non-stop leaving at an appropriate time to avoid Los Angeles traffic.
Longest was Catonsville MD to the San Fernando Valley in 1966 at the age of 12 so not driving. As an adult not driving, in a Ford E350 from Alameda to Bremerton Naval Yard all in one day with gas and food stops.
Remember myself and a friend back in ’81 had this driveaway to deliver. We stopped off at Las Vegas for a few hours and then kept heading west. It was my turn to drive leaving LV and, whilst my friend went to sleep, I decided I’d had enough of the bloody desert and wanted to see some of the wet stuff.
He woke up to the glourious view of the Pacific Ocean as I had gunned it all night to arrive at the Santa Monica seafront for the sunrise. He was not pleased!
A quick search found zero results for “Covid” or “Pandemic” in this article and I think that speaks volumes as to some persons prerogatives during this unprecedented time.
That runaway truck ramp is very familar — it’s on Sideling Hill on I-68 just beyond the spectacular rock cut through the mountain. We find I-68 to be a welcome bypass from the PA Turnpike for making the trip from our home in central VA to see family in Pittsburgh. It’s more scenic, less busy, and toll-free.
Yep, that’s it! Traveling from the east, Sideling Hill is quite a landmark… quite literally a Gateway to the West.
The descent afterwards is a big one, so I’m glad the trucker had the foresight to test his brakes and use the runaway ramp.
I absolutely love my Pacifica minivan, we managed to fit 6 adults plus luggage in it for a 5 day trip to orlando. It was tight but those under floor bins were super helpful. Suvs on the same minivan platform have so much less passenger and cargo space and access for passengers and cargo is so much more difficult.
The minivan has the added advantage of doing truck duties and whatever you load in it is locked and covered. It’s lower with larger doors than an suv so easier to load a washing machine and dryer or 2000 lbs of tile plus the help you need to load and unload it.
I have never been in so much of a hurry to get anywhere as to resort to kitty litter or a camping toilet (my aunt and uncle did this in an economic in the 80s) and as god is my witness, I never will be. Godspeed to y’all though.
I really miss the underfloor storage compartment that our 2010 Odyssey has. I’d store tools, towels, a tow rope, jumper cables and lots of other odds & ends there… all hidden from view. One of the (few) complaints that I have about the Sedona is that it lacks some of the storage compartments like that. But overall, these minivans are terrific traveling vehicles.
Sounds like a drive to remember. I assume you had 2 drivers?
During the summer, we planned a trip to southwest France (someone’s got to do it, for England) and the airline options looked slim for a while, so we planned a drive. It would have been around 800 miles, probably 1.5 days (we don’t do 5 am) and carefully chosen hotel. Highly likely the driving conditions on French motorways would have been light but pricey, except for getting round Paris.
In the event, we found a flying option that worked pretty well.
Yes, I probably should have mentioned that my wife and I rotated driving duties. One of us would drive a fairly long (4-5 hr.) stint at the beginning of the day, but we changed it up a bit more frequently as the day wore on.
If our trip involved crossing the Channel, and trying to navigate around Paris, I think I’d choose flying too. Actually our trip did involve driving through Paris, but it was Paris, Missouri… a bit less intimidating to drive through.
I drive between No Florida and No Vermont twice a year as sole driver, 1500 miles each way, usually in 2.5 days. My short minivan has a bunk, a way to make coffee and a 5 gallon bucket–with a shopping bag draped inside and clipped to the rim. (This alternative on the portable loo leaves space for storage, so long as I don’t need to use it–which so far I never have). (For the record, sawdust is a MUCH better complement than kitty litter for humanure). My minivan is 25 years old, which means a slower pace (I don’t exceed 70) but I get 500 miles on a fill up. I am 80, which means less night driving. Provided I skirt Charlotte (worst traffic other than DC in this country) and the interstates in eastern PA (inevitable traffic jams) I can get up to 700 miles per day.
The last two trips have been Pandemic trips. My theory is the less you put in, the less comes out. So I eat and drink very sparingly and rarely have to stop. And, as Paul mentioned, if you have a place to sleep, you are ALWAYS home.
Happy Trails
Norm, it’s great to hear about your trips. And my wife will be glad to hear there’s someone else out there who travels with a bucket…
Many moons ago- 1983? I drove, solo from Brisbane to Melbourne in about 24 hours. 1900 odd Km, all on two lane blacktop. In my Holden Gemini van. 4 speed, no A/C, vinyl seats. I don’t know why I did it that way. Perhaps because I could. These days, a 1000 Km day on our ****y roads is enough. I’d much rather a road trip on the USA’s interstates. it’s a hell of a way to cover a lot of ground. Even on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. And car.