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Road trippin' with my two favorite allies [Road Trips Thread]
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Professional Beard GrowerRegistered User regular
Professional Beard GrowerRegistered User regular
Being 20 years old and lacking any kind of real Seen-the-world experience, I am beginning some tentative planning for a little road trip this summer. I mean it quite literally when I say that nothing has been decided about this trip. I have no set departure date, I don't know whether this is going to be a day trip or a weekend trip, I don't even know where it is I really want to go. All I know is I have absolutely no desire to sit around here all summer, and I'm getting desperate to just get off my ass, throw some shit in the car and go somewhere. And since I don't know where I'm going, I figure that might be the best place to start. Below you'll find four options that I have considered for this little excursion. I'd like to get some thoughts from folks about what would be the best course of action.
Thanks for your time and input.
- Go East Young Man (Levenworth, Wenatchee etc)
- The Wild North Holds True (Canada)
- Head South For Lolz (California)
- Oregon Is California's Canada (Portland)
Thanks for your time and input.
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If you aren't in AAA yet, sign up now. They are awesome...if nothing else, you'll make up your membership cost with free guide books and maps.
Bring more water than you think you'll need, especially if you're heading to Cali. Also, wear sunscreen, as you can definitely get sunburned in a car and it sucks.
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My step-father would burn his arm on every long car ride by leaving it in the edge of the window the entire drive.
I don't really have any real advice on taking a road trip, but since this isn't H/A I'll just tell my own road trip story. Take this as a cautionary tale.
I live in Ottawa, which is about 2 hours from Montreal. Between High School and University my best friend and I (and often one or two other people, but it was just in this story) would drive around in the middle of the night. That's basically all we did. She'd pick me up at 8 or 9pm and we'd drive around the city until 4am. Occasionally stopping places, or going to all-night Tim Hortons. We always used to joke that we should drive to Montreal, since it was so close, and finally one night we decided to do it.
Now we were in a car that I liked to call The Awesome Car since it had some pretty great features. Features like the horn made the sound of a dying duck, and sometimes when you'd start the car the speedometer wouldn't work, and when the speedometer would kick in, the doors were locked. It was a great car (For the record it was a 1989 Chevy Cavalier).
So here we go on our trip to Montreal in the middle of the night in a car of questionable quality. We didn't tell anyone we were going and neither of us had a cell phone. It was truly the best plan.
We ended up making it to Montreal, where we thought nobody would believe we were there, so we decided to steal something that could only be gotten in Montreal. It was election season, so we figured a Montreal district lawn sign might do it, but unfortunately the only ones we found were bolted to the streetlight, and while we tried to take it down looking all inconspicuous, we failed miserably and gave up. Eventually we found a phone booth and each took a page out of the Montreal phone book as evidence. Mine has something to do with industrial vibrators.
We were going to stay longer, but it appears the neighbourhood we picked was not the best one, as there was a clearly coked out prostitute not far off and a house with police tape on it not far away. Deciding it was time to leave, we tried to race the sun back to Ottawa. The sun won.
The sun always wins.
So that's my roadtrip story.
While driving pull over whenever you're drowsy. Even take a nap. A half hour's rest can do wonders for keeping you fresh. Bring something you can snack on continuously for a few hours that isn't going to give you any stomach trouble, and something to listen to too. If you don't already I'd recommend trying an audiobook as those have been far more enjoyable for me over long periods. My general rule of thumb for gas is to stop at a gas station once it starts dropping below half a tank, just to make sure I have enough but also as a good excuse to get out and stretch.
Also, if possible, take a friend. Road trips by yourself can be neat too, but with a friend they're generally far more enjoyable.
I personally have done road trips enough to the point where I'm not a big fan of them anymore. Since my dad took me as a kid with him during the Summer on his truck drives to multiple treks from MS to TX and WA and various points in between. It was fun, but now I'm at the point where I'd much rather take a train and read a book or play video games the whole way.
I like the idea of the pacific coast highway trip. I've always wanted to see the Redwoods down in cali that the Highway would eventually take me there. Also, if I was heading down to cali, I'd have to go through portland anyways so stopping there wouldn't be hard. I've got some friends down there as well so I'm sure they'd put up with me and my seattle smugness for at least a little while before they sent me on my way (by means of chasing me out of the city).
On my roadtrip of 18 hours I taught myself to drive with my knees. I go around town doing it all the time now.
It's fun every 50 miles to check out radio stations and find interesting ones.
Actually it is pretty nice around here in the Summer.
Do it. It's great.
I'm going on another trip at the end of July, making a pitstop in Chicago for Pitchfork then camping in the badlands and out to Salt Lake City to pick up a friend. THEN over to Yellowstone to go camping for a few days and then back home. I am excited.
OH, bring music. Blaring Wu-Tang Clan in an effort to scare away deer and keep myself awake as we drove through the darkest corner of Wisconsin praying for some sign of civilization was an experience.
EDIT: Definitely check out the redwoods. There are a lot of them and they are amazing. Also, have you been up the Olympia Peninsula? We camped in the rainforest up there for a night or two. It's like Ferngully only you have to wear a sweater. And the coast is gorgeous.
Fun fun! If you don't know where you're going or how long the trip will be, why not just pick a direction and follow it? Personally I want to drive up to Washington, and from there weave in and out of Canada while heading to New York.
I might just have to do that. The more I think about it, the more I want to just get up and go. I've been all over Washington and it's a nice place, but I've seen it already. I want something new.
In 5 days, myself and four friends are going to begin a trek across the U.S. (Orange County, California) across the south (through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina) then back again, visiting various places along the way. We're doing this in a very minimalistic fashion, with only clothing, a tent, my camera, and my harmonica. I'm basically going to be living off of Clif Bars for the majority of the trip, stopping every once in a while to sample the southern food, which I have a feeling will consist mostly of deep fried X or Y. My only real concern is the fact that we're taking a Nissan Sentra.
Edit: Oh, this is H/A.
If you're coming down to Southern California, I'd recommend West L.A. For whatever reason, I just like the atmosphere. It's sort of chaotic and freak-show-ish, but you often find yourself dining next to celebrities.
- Check your brakes. Seriously, get them looked at if you don't know how.
My friend and I had to deal with grinding rotors from about Kansas City, MO to Virginia because he didn't.
- Bring car supplies.
Brake fluid, radiator coolant, transmission fluid, spare tire, spare car battery, jumper cables, a jack, flashlight, etc
Make sure the first song you play on your stereo as you drive off is Truckin by the Grateful Dead. You will feel pumped.
Man...now I want to take another road trip. I just did the Virginia one. I did Wyoming and Colorado earlier in the Spring. Now I need to go to Cali I think.
1. Bring stand-up comedy. It's good for keeping you present and it breaks up the monotony of music; keeping background music on and getting lost in your thoughts over the course of six hours is not conducive to good driving.
2. Definitely, definitely pull over when you feel sleepy.
3. Avoid a lot of sugar early in the day; I usually start with caffeine (bottled tea), and then maybe grab an energy drink for the last stretch (like the last hour of driving). The goal is to avoid an energy crash while you still have six hours of good driving left.
4. Go in a car with cruise control.
5. Keep a trash bag in the car to keep shit from piling up everywhere.
6. On the way back from Burlington, I decided to push on a little late one night. I had gotten out a little late from Nashville, so I drove an hour and a half into Oklahoma. It was 11:30 at night, I had driven for nine and a half hours, and it was time to pull over. The first hotel I stopped at told me that there was a statewide law that you couldn't rent a hotel room unless you're 21 - I'm 18. We were faced with the difficult decision of going an hour and a half back to Arkansas and losing valuable time or pushing forward towards Oklahoma City and praying that someone let us get a room. At midnight we finally got a room thanks to one very kind individual. There are two lessons in this story:
A) Look up relevant laws in states you are going through - hotel laws, driving laws, whatever. In some states, you need to get in the left lane when someone is pulled off the shoulder; in others, you don't. In some you can't get a hotel room unless you're 21; in others, you can. Be prepared.
7. Be sure to register with AAA. Do it. Do it.
So my car that I am currently driving is an 84 Buick Century sedan that I got from my old neighbor lady for $1,500. This car is about as much of a granny car as it can get and still be a decent car. Here's the big plus: It's an 84' luxury addition. I have power windows, mirrors, seats, cruse control, etc. And to top it all off, when I bought the car it only had 68,000 original miles on it. Not bad for a first car. Needles to say I feel confident in driving wherever it is I plan on going in this car with the only drawback that I can see at this point is that it is an American car through and through. It eats gas like no vehicle I've driven in in a long time. I think my max mileage is somewhere around a 500-600 MPG tank; I'm not entirely sure. Granted it holds that gas a hell of alot longer on the freeway then it does in stop and go city commuting.
Which begs the question, should I consider another car for this driving excursion?