The specifics of a road-trip

To the moon and back? That must have been some trip!

There is much to be said about the romanticism of road trips. Especially when the lovely wife is an accomplice on the road! I have been fortunate enough to been many road trips and experience the ever present joy of driving into the unknown and discovering new geographies, food, people and their accents. Each day is an adventure, especially if it involves crossing into new states.

And yet, one of my favorite aspects of long drawn out trips are the statistics that come from it. Once you compute the statistics, the observations and the conclusions drawn from these are even more fun to state. If you don’t prefer such black and white romantics it would be best if you stop reading now. If however, the facts interest you more than the feels, here is where it gets better.

The route

Here were the basic requirements

1. Head some place warmer
2. Arrive by lunch time or late afternoon
3. Leave after a relaxed breakfast
4. Spend the night in ‘new’ states

This ensured we need to head south and keep our daily driving time to 6 hrs or lesser. Here is the route we came up with that would give me Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri to add to my list.

The route 

The details

The observations

1. America is a big country, duh. If you don’t at least drive 300 miles each day, there is a good chance you won’t be leaving that state. Yes, the north-east has some smaller states lumped together but the mid-west and the wilder west makes up for that easily.
2. The average speed achieved is remarkable, considering I had to slow down for Ohio for about 4 hrs. The Germans have no speed limits on certain sections of the autobahns but I wasn’t ever able to reach this kind of average speed.
3. After day five, it does get tiresome to drive even 4 hrs. Growing old makes it worse.
4. Podcasts are amazing companions on road trips, especially if your partner likes napping in the front seat.
5. The Focus’s smallish gas tank means daily fill-ups are required. On some days, twice even!
6. At least one idiot will try to race with a Focus ST. Not yet sure why?
7. Regardless of the state, no one really moves back into the right lane after passing.
8. Most states have better roads than Michigan.
9. Trader Joe’s are quite rare to find in the country.
10. There are no such thing as coincidences, even if your hotel room alarm clock is showing the wrong date which turns out to be our anniversary date.
11. Unless you are OK with Starbucks, it is heard to find decent coffee/espresso on the road.
12. Hotels are much cheaper if you book them on the day of or the day before.
13. There is no such thing as a bad road trip 🙂