Drive Cross Country: Share Your Adventure

[Borek]

About 10 years ago we get from Warsaw to Hvar - I was driving alone - in about 48 hours. That's about 1000 miles, but we had to drive through several cities (Warsaw peak hours, Krakow 8 p.m., Budapest 7 a.m., Split peak hours) which slowed the trip down, and we avoided highways (not there were many in that part of the world). I don't think I would be able to repeat it now.

 

[Alfi]

One thing I found about driving across the Canadian prairies.
If you bumped Manitoba into Alberta, you would never now Saskatchewan was missing.
That's one seriously boring stretch of highway.


I found out once, that it takes 40 hours to go from Toronto to Calgary if you don't stop for anything but food and fuel. 24 hours just to get out of Ontario.
Fun trip that one was.

 

[byronm]

The craziest drive i ever did was a 3 day round trip from Philadelphia PA to Houston Tx.. 24 hours each way there and back - left philly after work on friday and got to work monday morning.

 

[brewnog]

You driving it alone? I find long dull motorway trips to be a pita when you are solo, they arent too bad if you've got a 2nd driver.

Also, you actually from/live in Manchester? I just get that rather odd 'small world' feeling when someone from the interwebs lives remotely close.

The girlfriend's coming too, but I can't insure her on my car so she's on mapreading (satnav programming) duties.

I don't live in Manchester any more (I'm in Stoke, just down the road) but will be in Manc on Thursday evening. Where are you?

 

[Borek]

The girlfriend's coming too, but I can't insure her on my car so she's on mapreading (satnav programming) duties.

GF? It can be an interesting trip. Asking my wife to do map duties is a sure way of visiting places I would never find a way to.

Before you will even start the engine, make sure when she says "left" she means it

 

[byronm]

GF? It can be an interesting trip. Asking my wife to do map duties is a sure way of visiting places I would never find a way to.

Before you will even start the engine, make sure when she says "left" she means it

hahaha my wife is the same way..

I solved the problem by purchasing a tomtom that speaks the turns instead. My wife thought it was a useless toy at first and now she uses it more than i do.

 

[GeorginaS]

I found out once, that it takes 40 hours to go from Toronto to Calgary if you don't stop for anything but food and fuel. 24 hours just to get out of Ontario.
Fun trip that one was.

I've always wanted to. From Toronto, it'd prolly be 1/4 shorter (which would make it 52 hours by your accounting).

How many hours per day did you put in? I could put in about 8 if it were a straight drive through - so that's 7 days, one way.

What route do you recommend? Do you dip into the States at any point?

If you go down to the Falls, and cross there into the States, and come back up into Canada in Manitoba, you save yourself a whole bunch of travel time. The longest stretch from Toronto to Calgary, while staying in Canada, is the trip up to Sault St. Marie, around Lake Superior to Thunder Bay. Lake Superior is massive. Long, long trip that is. Really spiffy little towns all along the way, though. When I drove it, many moons ago, it was two lanes the whole way. Pure entertainment.

The prairies are a breeze. Flat, straight, and the horizon goes forever. It's fascinating at first and gets astoundingly boring very quickly.

 

[xxChrisxx]

The girlfriend's coming too, but I can't insure her on my car so she's on mapreading (satnav programming) duties.

I don't live in Manchester any more (I'm in Stoke, just down the road) but will be in Manc on Thursday evening. Where are you?

Ahhhh you can't beat a map, especially with women map readers. If you don't follow their instuctions you are 'an idiot' and get shouted at. If you do follow them but they read the map wrong, you are still somehow the 'idiot' and get shouted at.

I'm from Manchester, I acutally live in Denton, just outside the M60.

 

[Moonbear]

Probably the longest driving trip I did was from MI (near Detroit) to Toronto for a conference for a few days, then about a week of vacation driving through Montreal (I was going to stop, but got worried when all the road signs turned into French only, so kept going), entered the US through ME, down along the East coast, into MA, CT, NY, then down to VA and finally returning via WV, PA and OH back to MI. I also zig-zagged up and down the coast a little. I was going to spend most of the week in VA, but when there were thunderstorms predicted the entire week, after I got to NY, I headed back up to MA again for a few more days, and then did the trip home with just a stop to see Luray Caverns and various scenic outlooks.

It's the only time I've ever traveled without having reservations anywhere (other than for the conference in Toronto). It was great fun, because I wasn't committed to any fixed schedule. If I got somewhere and wanted to spend an extra day by a pool at the hotel reading a book, I could. If I didn't get to see all the sights I wanted to see in a town in one day, I could just book an extra day. I just stayed in cheap motels along the way, and never ran into any problems finding places with vacancies along my route. If a place didn't have any vacancies, I just headed to the next exit or next town and found a place that did (I wasn't usually driving late into the night before looking for a hotel...I pretty much was stopping around dinner time each day, so wasn't pressed for time). The biggest advantage really was being able to just change my mind at the last minute, when I saw thunderstorms headed for the beach towns I was planning to visit.

 

[Moonbear]

Ahhhh you can't beat a map, especially with women map readers. If you don't follow their instuctions you are 'an idiot' and get shouted at. If you do follow them but they read the map wrong, you are still somehow the 'idiot' and get shouted at.

http://smilies.vidahost.com/cwm/3dlil/nonono2.gif

If you can't read road signs, you have no business criticizing the map reader. I'm guessing you've more often fallen into the former category of not following their instructions, rather than the latter of them actually reading the map wrong.

 

[turbo]

Sounds fun, Moonie. I should add that I never traveled without reservations. Sometimes serious reservations! I hated being in the grips of the airline industry and I hate driving. It's a wonder that my career as an industrial consultant was so successful, much less profitable. I cleaned out a lot of my old records a few days ago, and had to throw away some airline tickets from Bangor ME to Tallahassee, FL. That was the cheapest way to get myself into the deep south so I could rent a car and drive until I was sick of it. Imagine! $1000 round-trip from Bangor to Hartsfield/Atlanta reduced to to $250 because I got off the plane (sometimes didn't even get off!) and took off from there on another flight to FL. That $750 savings would pay for my rental car, lodging, and expenses on-site for a week in south GA or AL. That's a big deal when you're running a one-man consulting business out of your house!

 

[jtbell]

If you go down to the Falls, and cross there into the States, and come back up into Canada in Manitoba, you save yourself a whole bunch of travel time.

The big problem with that is you have to go round the south end of Lake Michigan, past Chicago, which can be a real bear (and I don't mean the football team!). Plus you have to go through/past either Detroit, or Buffalo and Cleveland.

Of course the traffic in Detroit isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, because of the general downturn in the area economy that started long before the Great Recession hit. A few years ago I visited the area, and happened to drive from downtown Detroit to a northeast suburb along Gratiot Avenue, the main non-expressway artery in that direction. This was during the afternoon rush hour, and I was amazed at how little traffic there was. I got to my destination 15-20 minutes earlier than I expected.

 

[BobG]

http://smilies.vidahost.com/cwm/3dlil/nonono2.gif

If you can't read road signs, you have no business criticizing the map reader. I'm guessing you've more often fallen into the former category of not following their instructions, rather than the latter of them actually reading the map wrong.

Roundabouts in Italy are fun until you figure out how the signs work.

The road you want has the route signs on both sides of the road, pointing in towards the road you want. If you don't realize that and only see the first sign, you think the sign is saying the road you want is further around the roundabout and wind up skipping the road you wanted.

If you're lucky, you notice the sign saying the road you wanted is somewhere behind you, which seems like a really strange thing to say since you can only go one way on the roundabout. If you miss the second sign, you just wonder what happened to the road you wanted until you wind up passing it again.

I think it was about the third or fourth time around the roundabout before we figured out what the signs were actually trying to tell us: Aim your car between the signs!

 

[Moonbear]

If you don't realize that and only see the first sign, you think the sign is saying the road you want is further around the roundabout and wind up skipping the road you wanted.

That's like one of the signs in this town. To get to one town, you need to cross a bridge, which is a right turn from one of the main roads through downtown. The sign with the big right turn arrow is posted AFTER the bridge. When I first moved here, I kept missing that turn, thinking it would be the NEXT right, and then realizing there wasn't a next right.

Just before you get to that is also the place where the road changes abruptly from 2 lanes to three, with the middle lane just arising from the location of the white line between the original two lanes, and no instruction about which lane is the one that should yield to the other if cars from both lanes want to be in the middle lane. I think the rule is that the person with the most experience driving in NYC wins, since I usually manage to squeeze my way into that lane regardless of which side I started on.

I don't think I've ever seen a rule in any driving manual that explains that one. All they'd need to do to fix the problem would be to pick a lane and draw a dotted line to show that one gets the right of way and the other has to merge. I *think* the right lane gets right of way, but I'm not sure, and apparently neither is anyone else.

Edit: Just for clarity, I'm attaching an illustration of what the road does.

 

[DaveC426913]

GF? It can be an interesting trip. Asking my wife to do map duties is a sure way of visiting places I would never find a way to.

Before you will even start the engine, make sure when she says "left" she means it

Seriously. I wonder how my wife makes it from living room to bathroom for all her ability to navigate.

Every trip starts with the same orientation lesson:
"OK well, on most maps, the top of the map is North."

 

[Integral]

This can be hard to find on the coasts if you are taking the highways anytime during the day. Driving between the Appalatians and the Rockies is often as you describe. Some places you are more likely to see a tractor-trailer convoy than other cars. Those big trucks are on all the highways at all hours of the day or night.

We have pretty good truck traffic up and down I5 but it is NOTHING like I70 through Indiana and Ohio.

 

[xxChrisxx]

http://smilies.vidahost.com/cwm/3dlil/nonono2.gif

If you can't read road signs, you have no business criticizing the map reader. I'm guessing you've more often fallen into the former category of not following their instructions, rather than the latter of them actually reading the map wrong.

It's more A and B roads where I go wrong, the missus used to be a poor map reader and sent me awry more than once. To be fair she's much much better now and mistakes are quite rightly me not following/listening.However I postulate to you; that if one could read road signs, and the roads signs were that complete you didnt have to rely on a navigator to get to new places, then there would be no need for maps or mapreaders in the first place. And no one would ever get lost.

 

[Huckleberry]

We have pretty good truck traffic up and down I5 but it is NOTHING like I70 through Indiana and Ohio.

Looks like the truck traffic is growing there too. They want to build dedicated truck lanes on I70 from Missouri to Ohio. 28% truck traffic seems like an insane amount to me.

The volume of freight movement along I-70 states is growing. Current truck volumes are such that truck traffic is 21.5 percent in urban areas and 28 percent in the rural sections. The proposed corridor and changes in size and weight have the potential to attract freight movement from other parallel routes (Interstate 80 and Interstate 40), as well as other major north/south interstates. These options make I-70 a reasonable candidate for a tolled facility.

http://www.corridors.dot.gov/i70.htm

 

[Moonbear]

However I postulate to you; that if one could read road signs, and the roads signs were that complete you didnt have to rely on a navigator to get to new places, then there would be no need for maps or mapreaders in the first place. And no one would ever get lost.

Indeed, once you have a general direction of where you need to get to as your endpoint, you don't need maps. I don't travel with maps most of the time. If I do get disoriented, the best plan is to find the nearest interstate highway to get back on track. If I need to find a road I missed somewhere, my general rule of thumb that always works is until I find it or an equally suitable alternative, don't cross any bodies of water, a state line, or an international border.

Though, if people are so critical of their navigators, why don't you let them do the driving and you read the map?

If we're talking about a cross country trip, it's really quite easy. Pick a direction, for example, you want to head from the east coast to the west coast. Then, any time you are faced with a choice of roads that states East or West, keep picking West. If they are North/South, don't take them since that means you're already on the East/West road...unless you want to take a detour for some sight-seeing, of course. Big tourist attractions have tons of signs. Even little tourist attractions have tons of signs. If you don't see signs for a tourist attraction, you're not that close to it yet. The bigger attractions even often have a billboard after them saying, "You just missed... Turn around at Exit..."

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

The bigger attractions even often have a billboard after them saying, "You just missed... Turn around at Exit..."

After I passed the sign that said "Welcome to Rhode Island", I looked in my rear view mirror to see the other side of the sign. It said "Welcome to Rhode Island".

 

[turbo]

After I passed the sign that said "Welcome to Rhode Island", I looked in my rear view mirror to see the other side of the sign. It said "Welcome to Rhode Island".

If you take I-95 to Maine, you'll get that experience in NH, with about 10 actual miles in-state. Of course, they have toll-booths to make you pay well for those 10 miles.

Many states refund fuel taxes to truckers for fuel bought in-state but not consumed in-state. Not NH. They've got a cash-cow, and they're going to keep milking it.

 

[Moonbear]

If you take I-95 to Maine, you'll get that experience in NH, with about 10 actual miles in-state. Of course, they have toll-booths to make you pay well for those 10 miles.

Many states refund fuel taxes to truckers for fuel bought in-state but not consumed in-state. Not NH. They've got a cash-cow, and they're going to keep milking it.

Of course, they only hurt themselves, because truckers will know that if they can just make it another 10 miles, they can buy their fuel in another state and avoid buying it in NH entirely.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Indeed, once you have a general direction of where you need to get to as your endpoint, you don't need maps. I don't travel with maps most of the time. If I do get disoriented, the best plan is to find the nearest interstate highway to get back on track. If I need to find a road I missed somewhere, my general rule of thumb that always works is until I find it or an equally suitable alternative, don't cross any bodies of water, a state line, or an international border.

I'm not talking about getting from one major city to another, that is a piece of p, as you just use the motorway and get off at the right junction. It's navigating the A,B and green lane roads (country and back roads) that get you. For that you really really do need a map.

Though, if people are so critical of their navigators, why don't you let them do the driving and you read the map?

I do, I enjoy road rallying as a navigator, some on the fly route plotting in the pitch black gets the heart going. (although that's with my mate, not my missus.

 

[Moonbear]

I'm not talking about getting from one major city to another, that is a piece of p, as you just use the motorway and get off at the right junction. It's navigating the A,B and green lane roads (country and back roads) that get you. For that you really really do need a map.

Not at all. I find maps are usually quite useless for those backroads. Too few of the roads have signs on them to help you figure out where you are to orient yourself on a map, and then the map will be missing half the roads, so you can't figure it out just by counting intersections. It's even more fun in areas that have "paper roads"...the ones on the map that don't actually exist anywhere but on maps to mark places where a road COULD be put.

If all else fails, eventually, you will return to a sign for another interstate if you get hopelessly lost, and can start over again.

 

[Borek]

"Mommy, Mommy, see, soldiers have came! They stopped! They look at the map! And one goes here, they will ask for directions!"

 

[turbo]

Of course, they only hurt themselves, because truckers will know that if they can just make it another 10 miles, they can buy their fuel in another state and avoid buying it in NH entirely.

The problem with that theory is that only owner-operators are so motivated. When I was programming for a large trucking company, I wrote an application that tracked fuel-taxes vs miles in rebate and non-rebate states and found a lot of inefficiencies. It seems that truck stops in non-rebate states often lured drivers in with goodies to get them to buy their fuel there. The drivers would get a free sandwich and chips and a free Thermos fill-up for buying their fuel there, for instance, and get right back on the road with food and hot coffee.

After the program was in place and tuned up, the dispatchers could tell drivers when and where to fuel up to save the most tax money. For a company with a large fleet that did lots of runs from Fresno to the Northeast (including Montreal and Quebec City) hauling fresh produce in reefers, that represented some significant savings. It would mean that the drivers would have to stop more often to top off in rebate states so they could run right through non-rebate states, but the loss of a little time was insignificant compared to the savings in fuel taxes. The drivers were unhappy about the extra oversight, but the boss and her father (the owner) were thrilled.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Not at all. I find maps are usually quite useless for those backroads. Too few of the roads have signs on them to help you figure out where you are to orient yourself on a map, and then the map will be missing half the roads, so you can't figure it out just by counting intersections. It's even more fun in areas that have "paper roads"...the ones on the map that don't actually exist anywhere but on maps to mark places where a road COULD be put.

If all else fails, eventually, you will return to a sign for another interstate if you get hopelessly lost, and can start over again.

I'll trust my AA and OS maps ta. And if half the roads are missing the course of action i'd suggest is buy a better map.

The whole idea of maps is that you don't have to turn back and start again, you track your progress from start to finish. That would be a real crock of *ahem* to have to keep returning to control on a night rally because you can't tell where you are.

I think my love of maps over nothing/satnav is that if you know what you are doing, you will never go too far wrong. Even if you do miss a turn or something you can still quickly calcualte the fastest route to get back on track.

 

[DaveC426913]

Many states refund fuel taxes to truckers for fuel bought in-state but not consumed in-state. Not NH. They've got a cash-cow, and they're going to keep milking it.

NH. That's the state where sales tax is 0%, right?

 

[DaveC426913]

I think my love of maps over nothing/satnav is that if you know what you are doing, you will never go too far wrong. Even if you do miss a turn or something you can still quickly calcualte the fastest route to get back on track.

Near her town, my sister finds herself driving across open pasture according to her GPS system. Every thirty seconds it tells her turn around and return to the road. All her hollering at it that she's on the new four lane highway extension falls on deaf circuits.

 

[Huckleberry]

NH. That's the state where sales tax is 0%, right?

That's right. No income tax either. NH is where everyone from MA goes to get their booze and smokes and cars. But their property taxes and yearly car registration fees are pretty steep. Apparently, so are their road tolls. MA isn't any different in that regard.