My thoughts on driving

During my roadtrip, I got a lot of questions concerning driving - "Are you sick of it?", "Are you going alone?", "How are you doing with it?", etc. And while I am no expert in driving, I thought I could share my opinion on driving over 9500 miles in about 40 days.

First off, I have to say that I never got sick of driving. There were points in the second half of the trip that I got bored, but overall I got used to spending days in the car. I had a total of 15 "driving days" with an average of 550 miles and about 9 hours each day. I think this helped to break up the days, as I only spent what is considered a working day on the road, and depending on what time in the morning I left a certain space, I could be assured to be at my destination in time for dinner.

My car was essentially jam-packed and ready for the trip. I had my trusty huge snack bag which I managed to pick through for the entire trip (note for future road trips: don't buy things like trail mix or power bars that have chocolate in them when you are driving through super humid areas). I also had a 5 gallon container full of water which was more of a saving grace than I thought; it was convenient to be able to fill up my nalgene whenever I wanted to.

I ended up really enjoying driving by myself. While the company would have been welcomed at points, it was also very nice to travel alone, because that meant that I got to decide everything (I really am quite stubborn). When I stopped for food/gas/bathroom/random journey or not was entirely up to me!

Music turned out to be a bit of a problem. Nana does not have an antenna, as it blew off in Kansas last summer when driving from Ohio to California. As well, Nana likes to eat CDs that are put in the cd player. So my music selection consisted of select radio stations when located near a city (I got really good at seeing a skyscraper and instantly searching for stations) and the music on my ipod. While I enjoyed my music for the first couple of weeks, it got pretty monotomous after awhile (as did radio actually too).

I thought that I could pass my time in the car by talking to people on the phone, but that didn't always work out, because who knew that northeastern Wyoming doesn't have perfect cell phone reception? Boo. Whenever I did get a chance to talk to someone while driving, it was a good way to pass the time but also a distraction from noticing my surroundings.

And I know it is illegal in many states, but I have found an effective (and somewhat safe) way to text while driving. I take the phone (I have a flip phone) and hold with both my index fingers and thumbs at the top of my wheel. This way, my other 6 fingers are on the wheel and steering the car, and my vision is facing the road and I can still pay attention to driving (as much attention as can be expected).

I have also come to several realizations about driving on this trip.
-The best way to describe my driving is "absent-minded". In the past, I have been called "bad", "aggressive", "speedy", etc. But really, it's that I just don't pay a lot of attention to the driving process and all of my surroundings.

- Every state has bad drivers. While every state likes to brag (or not) at having terrible drivers, I can attest that they are everywhere. Bad drivers might look different in different parts of the country, but they are there!

- There are many lifesavers to a long drive - rest stops, travel plazas, cruise control, and funny signs at the end of the highway. And air conditioning.

- It says something about our country's dependence on oil when driving across the country for 5 weeks was much more economical and feasible than taking the train, bus, an airplane, etc. Seriously, I did the math, and I would have spent way more if I had flown everywhere, needed a lot more time to take the bus, and would have had to cut out certain cities if I took the train. If our highways are the veins of our nation (and from the amount of work I saw on them this summer due to the National Reinvestment and Recovery Act, they are), then we have to go back to the drawing boards to figure out how to wean off of our oil addiction.


That's enough rambling from me - if you read that all, you are a good person!
Joey