What is the greatest distance you have ever driven in a single day? What do you do to keep yourself entertained while in the car, whether you’re the driver/passenger, alone/with someone?
The longest distance I have personally driven in one day is the 530 miles between Kansas City, MO and Round Lake, IL. I went to KC with a friend of mine for the beginning of Spring Break, then we drove all the way to Steven’s house, and her boyfriend picked her up there and took her to Indianapolis. I think I have traveled much further in a single day, maybe with my family on road trips, but never driven that far on my own.
When I’m driving alone, I keep myself entertained by singing along to the radio or cds. When I’m with someone, it’s usually Steven, so we talk almost the whole way there, whoever is driving. I like to do SuDoku and logic puzzles, and read books and magazines, but I never seem to be doing those things when I am the passenger (I like to sleep too, but I try not to!).
Side Note: I apologize for being so far behind in responding to comments here and reading other blogs. It’s been “one of those weeks”!
640 miles… from Salt Lake to Garden Grove, CA (near Anaheim). Two stops for gas in a 1987 Honda Civic with my (then and now ex) wife and a good friend. It was January and we hit 3 snow storms before finally making it past Cedar City, where it cleared up the rest of the way.
Music is a must, although if you are with others, it really helps if all of you like the same type of music. Driving long distances now are great with Sirius (Howard Stern, commercial free music, news, comedy). Any liquids other than water are not good for me. Coke, coffee, Red Bull… can’t do them. Water is the only thing that keeps me awake. I know, it’s odd, but that’s how I work on the road. Oh and Twizzler cherry nibs….
longest was probably 450 miles, dc to myrtle beach. i had plenty of company in the car, but did the driving myself. i enjoy group sings to super-cheesy stuff, like britney sing-a-longs… 🙂
1,070+ miles – between my house in Colorado and my new place in Austin, TX. When I moved back to CO, I stopped somewhere in OK to spend the night and then regretted it the next day when I wasn’t home already.
~ 700 miles Urbana IL to Broken Bow OK, and the same 700 back a day or two later… I have almost no recollection of the journey except stopping for gas (both directions) at a real busy travel stop (i’m guessing around memphis) and getting 2 large pecan log rolls to munch on while driving … looking back, I suppose the sugar kept me awake, eh? There were no iPods then, so I assume I continuously station-surfed for tunes to keep me company. This was back in my college days. And I drove solo. Ah, the invincibility of youth 🙂
Nowadays I still don’t mind listening to the radio, but commercials and crappy songs will prompt station-surfing,,, and once that starts… Kosh & I do have an iPod shuffle that’s pretty much our travelling library – loaded with Meat Loaf and the Buffy musical soundtrack plus other miscellaneous songs, it’ll get hooked up once the station-surfing gets bad 😀
If I’m the passenger, I might engage Kosh in conversation, but usually I’m happy to sing along to the songs… can’t do any reading, not even sudoku – don’t know if it’s b/c of the slight astigmatism I have, or if it’s just me, but attempting to read in a moving vehicle tires me out and gives me a major headache! I’m always amazed at whoever who can do such things in moving vehicles.
Almost 1,000 miles from Chicago to Boston! I had finished up my college internship and my aunt and I were going to drive back to Boston (with a planned overnight somewhere along the way). Only, when we were ready to pack it in for the night somewhere in Pennsylvania, we couldn’t find an open hotel room anywhere. Something about a state fair. Crazy! By the time we were out of Pennsylvania, we were only 4 hours away from home. So, we kept driving. Not one of my brighter moments…
Hmm, hard to say as I’ve driven cross country a few times and done lots of day drives over the years. Alone, the furthest was probably ~550 miles. With other people sharing the driving, further.
Finding acceptable radio stations keeps me distracted, as does guessing distances, e.g., that overpass is .8 miles away and then seeing how close my guess is. I’ll check out any roadside attraction that catches my eye, but if I’m really going for distance, it’s all snacks and music. Pretzels, chocolate cat cookies for people from Trader Joe’s, fudge striped cookies, water, cheese nips…
900+ from some where north of Atlanta to home because there was NO way I was spending another night in a motel with you and your siblings! You probably don’t remember the time we drove straight through from Cedar Falls all the way to Page Arizona with 8 people and 2 dogs in a van. 1400+ miles. Would never do that again. There is no way to get any kind of rest trying to sleep in the back of a van and be anywhere near conscious enough for your next driving shift.
Okay, it’s not nearly as much as anybody else here, but it’s a boring drive that was almost emphasized by running out of gas in the Everglades and the tedium of the Keys Causeway…
But, if you wanna go back to college, this is the furthest one… NIU in DeKalb, IL to New Orleans. Straight through the night.
About 750 miles. My brother was in boot camp and wanted to come home and propose to his girlfriend. So I went to pick him up in Mississippi. I took a couple of days to get there but drove straight through on the the way back.
1600 miles. From Iowa Falls,IA to Kissimee, Florida. 27 years ago when we were young and foolish. And just wanted to GET THERE. We talked to the couple that was traveling with us via the CB. How many of you remember having a CB in the car?
And listened to the radio. We had a 10 yr old with us, so keeping her occupied was interesting. Looked at the scenery(when it was light enough to see it). Slept very little. Ate snacks, sweetarts,chips, soda. You know, all the stuff that’s really “healthy”. We had a GREAT time. And stayed overnight somewhere on the way home.
1 day… Batavia, IL to Branson, MO has been a good hike a few times when I was a kid: 548mi. by Google’s estimate…
The longest continuous driving I remember though was over the course of about 30 hours straight, back in (IIRC) 2000, my parents and I were returning from traveling to Arizona in an SUV + RV trailer during winter break. While stopped somewhere in Texas, we saw a weather report depicting “the great snowstorm of 2000” heading straight towards Chicago. We of course didn’t want to drive in it, and estimated that if we drove non-stop, we’d make it home with around 6 hours to spare before the storm hit. My parents took turns at the wheel, and we were right:we arrived home about 6 hours before the storm began dumping 2 feet of snow on the ground!