Duffbert's Random Musings :: So let's review this incredibly long two days from Orlando to Portland...

Category Everything Else
OK... I've had a couple hours of sleep, and the fingers are working relatively well again. No promises about the mind, however.

For the sake of argument, we'll round the trip off at 3000 miles. The odometer was at 125572 when I got an oil change on Friday, and it reads 128668 right now. The GPS unit is constantly changing, depending on how far off course you might be at any given time. :) I think it stated 3502 at one point *very* early in the trip, but that was an overstatement. Although it probably looked at the stretch through Nebraska and Wyoming and just freaked out...

Ian and I didn't start out with the plan to try and "see America" in two days or less. I figured we'd drive through the night on Saturday, get to somewhere around Cheyenne Wyoming by mid-afternoon Sunday, stay overnight, and then get in later on Monday night... still a long trip in a short period of time, but at least there would be sleep and a shower mixed in. What we didn't count on was the car packing. The addition of his hockey bag added a (lack of) space element that was not a factor going down in January. It went down with Sue under separate cover after he was already down there. By the time we packed the car on Saturday, the trunk was full, the back seats were very full, and it was not going to be a good idea to leave the car in a hotel parking lot overnight without emptying it out. And neither of us wanted to do that. So, we thought that perhaps a three or four hour stop at a rest area would be sufficient to take the edge off after the long drive. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

On Saturday at 11:30 am, we locked his apartment door for the final time and set out. We set the GPS for destination "home", shortest time. GPS units are a modern miracle. It was incredible to think that wherever we were at, we were never lost. Confused, but not lost. The route took us through...

Florida - flat swampy areas, and hot.
Georgia - OK. That was the only area we hit traffic slowdowns. Some accident south of Atlanta...
Tennessee - dark. Some "interesting" truck stops. That was the only place we stopped that was memorable. One truck stop was "full service", with condoms in the bathroom, a washing machine and dryer outside the bathrooms, a smoky room that contained video poker and slots (and was packed at dark-am in the morning), and truckers all smoking away in the restaurant. Very strange place.
Kentucky - also very dark.
Missouri - seemed to go on forever. At least until we hit Nebraska and Wyoming... Saw the St. Louis arch in the middle of the night. Also saw the "last rest area in Missouri" (an actual sign) twice. And Ian and I were both alert enough to have remembered the sign from a few hours back. :)
Iowa - just clipped a bit of Iowa on the way to Nebraska.
Nebraska - a green version of Texas, and just as freaking long to get through.
Wyoming - a green version of New Mexico, and just as long as Nebraska.
Utah - Saw Utah in the middle of the night, so I guess we can call Utah "dark".
Idaho - Nearing the end. Actually some pretty lights with towns laid out across the horizon when you'd come over some dark hill. We cleared Idaho sometime right before dawn this morning.
Oregon - never so glad to see home. I-84 took us up through the entire length of the Columbia River Gorge. Some impressive scenery with the sun rise and stuff. But that last two hours were painfully slow.

Will I ever do that again? No. I'm too old for those types of trips. Generally speaking, Ian and I would trade off at each gas stop (every 225 to 275 miles). He can sleep sitting up while Dad drives. I 1) don't sleep when he's driving (unless I've reached physical exhaustion) and 2) can't sleep sitting up (see #1). We did pull into a rest area in Idaho Sunday night around 11:30 pm to catch a few hours of sleep. I couldn't drop off sitting behind the wheel, and after an hour or so, we started back on the road again. I reached the point of "I can't go any further" around 2:30 am this morning, when I handed it off to Ian in some forgettable truck stop. While I still only slept for about two or three hours from there until we got home, it was enough to at least allow the eyes to uncross.

Random observations...

I find it interesting that the West is considered liberal, the South conservative, but yet it's the South that has the billboards advertising "adult stores" for 50 miles before you even get there.
Would it be too much to ask to put those little reflective thingies on at least every *second* center line on a freeway? When you're traveling down the road at 75 miles per hour, at 2 am in the morning, in the middle of "we-just-got-electricity-last-year" small-town America, I really don't like having my reflective reference point being the right edge of the road separating you and the ditch.
And to all those Utah Department of Transportation workers who place the barrel dividers cutting you down to one *very small, narrow* lane marked for 65 miles per hour in the middle of the night... Do you place every 10th barrel or so further out in the traffic flow just for laughs?
Senior tour busses that pull into a rest area at the same time you do, when you are desperate for relief, are a very scary thing.
There *is* such a thing as too much Red Bull and No-Doz tablets...
I can go for about 44 hours until caffeine ceases to have the desired effect. Unfortunately, the trip lasted 49 hours...
I probably have more insect samples on front of the Saturn than does the entire Ireland Museum of Natural History... although they aren't as old. :)
Best radio station we found on the trip... A Celtic fusion/jazz/modern sound show in the middle of... NEBRASKA!