Random observations from a cross country drive...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Denver, CO to Richmond, VA

Denver International Airport is actually quite a ways from Denver.

The people of western Denver seem to be a friendly, hard working type.

I never knew there were so many oil/natural gas rigs along the highway from CO to MO.

Kansas is not as flat as I would have thought.

People in Topeka do not speak well of Topeka.

Calling colby the “Oasis of the High Plains” is a bit of a stretch.

Gas stations are placed just close enough that you don’t run out…( I was getting about 4 MPG)

Kansas City is very quiet on a Sunday afternoon.

Each geographical area seems to have its own “flavor” of people that has nothing to do with race.

Southern Illinois is much flatter than Kansas.

There are places in each state where you can take lovely pictures.

XM radio seems to have more commercials than regular radio.

People on “Coast to Coast” are crazy as bedbugs. The various hosts must be rolling their eyes constantly.

Sometimes the wind in Kansas is shockingly hot.

There is a lot of open land in this country.

You tend to see the same people at rest stops and gas stations along the way.

I cannot understand anything said on a CB.

Cracker Barrel’s book on tape exchange program is pretty cool.

Unless you know the hotel, stick to name brand hotels.

The mountains of West Virginia are absolutely beautiful.

The novelty of sleeping alone in a hotel room wears off about midway through the 1st night.

When you don’t have internet access, you don’t miss it.

I think you get better gas mileage at lower altitudes.

Altell has mobile phone coverage 99% of the way across.

There is no place like home.

2

Hey, thanks for that.

I am dying to drive cross country - I just need a good chunk of time off. Oh, and when I have that chunk of time off, I promised my mum I’d visit her in Australia.

Damn.

3

How cool! I love roadtrips. If you don’t mind my asking, what were you driving that gets 4 MPG? I had to chuckle about your observation regarding seeing the same people at gas stations and rest stops. That’s so true. :slight_smile:

4

Random observation: You’ll get better gas mileage with 2nd or even 3rd gear. :smiley:

5

Once, a friend of mind in school drove his car down to Ausitn from his home in Wisconsin, and when he got to town, his car red car was very very gray from dust. He said it was actually pretty clean until he got to Oklahoma, and that’s where he his car got all the dust.

6

Ah, so you’re in the camp who think that anything below Springfield or Champaign is southern IL? Most of Illinois is flat, but proper southern IL (south of about Mt. Vernon or Carbondale) is very very hilly.

Central IL is flat, northern IL is flat, but I would only describe a few certain parts of southern IL as flat.

Sorry. :slight_smile:

7

Random Colorado and New Mexico notes of my own from roadtrip in early July:
(if that was the intention of the thread)

Pueblo, CO looks to be a real hole from the highway and felt like the hottest place on earth. Even the wind coming in the car windows was like opening a hot oven.

People in CO are friendlier, especially compared to the DC area. They seemed genuinely interested in the Ace bandage on my husband’s wrist (just a tendonitis flare-up) and asked if there was anything they could do to make him feel better. A gas clerk in some very old town with the word “Junction” in the name gave him a free Gatorade, convinced it would make him better.

Taking the “scenic route” exits are usually well worth it, especially in western Colorado.

The drive from Albuquerque to Carlsbad is unspeakably boring.

Using cruise control makes you feel very, very relaxed in the driver’s seat. Almost too relaxed.

The signs that say “Elk Crossing”? They’re not a joke. Sometimes a herd of 30 horse-sized elk come out of nowhere. Ask me how I know this.

Habanero Green Chile Potato Chips seem like a yummy local thing to try, which they are, but a good road trip snack they do not make. Try waiting 30 miles to the next rest station so you can wash your hands after accidently rubbing your eyes.

Those pretty mountains ahead of you in New Mexico look to be just a few miles down the road but in realty will take you hours to get to. I don’t know whether it’s the altitude or wide open space that messes with your depth perception.

8

Driven across many times One can get from Phoenix to Tucumcari New Mexico in roughly 8-10 hours. The ride on highway 40 from Flagstaff to Tucumcari is magnificent if you like wide open ranges. Texas is beautiful in the wee early morning ours between 4 and 5:30am in the summer.

Anaconda Montana is very nice in the evening - especially for a late day fishing jaunt.

Wide open spaces of the American country side - southwest, mid-west, North-central, North west - inspired me to be a free a thinker as I am. Thanks Nature.

9

Winnie, would that be “Grand Junction”?

10

After driving from Albany, NY to Naples, FL, I can tell you the following:

Cracker Barrles and Waffle Houses are at every other exit.

States I thought never got a lot of snow (the Carolinas) sure do. We didn’t really get “warm” weather until almost out of S. Carolina.

For some reason, people love leaving there cars on the side of the interstate for a week, as we did see some of the same cars on the way back.

Half the cars you see on the way to Florida are, in fact, from Ontario. (This is no lie, as soon as we startd to notice a lot of Ontario plates, we started counting. It came out to around 40% of all the cars we saw.)

A broken side mirror fixed with ducktape will survive almost 24 straight hours driving at almost 80 MPH, until you get to Florida, where the heat and humitidy make you reapply ducktape after every few hours.

Having someonw who doesn’t really know how to drive stick shift drive during a traffic jam is not good…the recomended procedure to remedy this is NOT to get out of the car and switch drivers on the interstate…still in your lane (it’s funny how the traffic starts to move the second you step out of the car.)

Driving is, in fact, easier (although not safer) when you had three hours of sleep the night before, drive for six hours, try to nap while the other two people are driving and fail, and then drive four more hours.

11

Yes, that sounds about right. Nice folks there.

12

Isn’t it! It also means the turn-off down to Cody, Wyoming isn’t far off.

::sighs and wishes the car didn’t leak oil::

13

Gasoline prices don’t necessarily reflect proximity to a refinery.

Somedays all the wind west of the Rockies tries to head east via a Wyoming interstate.

Forgotton blinkers never indicate a right hand turn, only left.

14

I learned quite a few things last summer on a cross country trip from Dallas, TX to Bay City, Michegan.

1)It is never a good idea under any circumstances to drive from Dallas to Springfield, Illinois in a convertible with the top down and no sunscreen. :eek:
2)People in small towns tend to frown upon using tourist types using non-standard credit card types (like the mini Discover2Go,which got us some wierd looks).

3)Always keep a radar detector handy for those backroad country cops who hide in the cornfields.

4)Iowa grows genetically modified corn.:eek:

IDBB

15

I was driving a 2003 Dodge Ram 1500.

But what was holding my mileage down was the 20’ enclosed trailer with the 3 Harley’s and a weeks worth of luggage for 5 people. On some hills it went down to 1 mile per gallon (per the digital overhead readout, which is pretty accurate).

16

Driving west to east on the interstates you get a real sense of the topography of the country.

But state highways are more fun.

Elkhart, Illinios, is one of the nicest placest I have ever been.
(No, I do not mean Idiana.)

I never get tired of motel rooms.

The Christian financial advice radio show gives good financial advice.

The Ozarks are beautiful.

17

Albany, New York to Longview, Texas. Back and forth a few times, made the last southward trip a few weeks ago.
If you don’t stop for the night in Chattanooga, you’re going to need to go straight through to Fort Payne, Alabama. There’s a motel in a small town in Georgia, but I wouldn’t recommend it, and it’s the only place to sleep between those two cities.

Louisiana police are unduly suspicious of New York license plates, and will give you a very loud third-degree about your reasons for being so far from home if they pull you over for speeding. I don’t see how the two are connected, but there you go. Speeding + Out Of State Plates = Being In Northern Louisiana For Some Nefarious Purpose.

There’s a stretch of I-20 in eastern Mississippi, just west of Meridian, where there are no gas stations for a good thirty miles. If you’re at your last quarter tank, gas up in Meridian just in case.

Never take an exit in Jackson under any circumstances; it’s hard to get back on the interstate.

The Smokey Mountains are gorgeous.

They’re also dangerous. They’re called the Smokeys for a reason; I’ve never yet driven through them and not had to fight for visibility through the fog.

US 80 is much more scenic than I-20 but I-20 is faster and in better condition.

When on I-81 South through Pennsylvania, don’t miss the Gihugic Paint Can on the southbound side of the road! (I think it’s south of Harrisburg.)

Harrisburg is apparently in a state of perpetual roadwork. Luckily, there’s an express lane. Unluckily, the express lane is exactly the width of a tractor-trailer, and that’s what it’s full of, and the turn-off areas are few and far between. Take care at night, when all you can see are their taillights.

The New York State Thruway almost atones for its high toll rates by its wonderfully-appointed rest stops. Most of them have Cinnabons and arcades and whole little food court mall things.

Don’t listen to the Pachelbel Canon at 11:00 pm on an empty highway when you’ve been driving since 7:30 am.

Waffle Houses make good 3 am wake-up stops if you have to pull an all- or most-of-the-nighter. The food’s bad enough that you won’t want to sleep after that.

Mississippi has very nice rest stops, if you need to pull over and nap. They have armed guards who will watch over you while you rest.

18

san diego - spokane, san francisco - spokane, boston - spokane, boston - greensboro, boston - tyler, etc. etc.

Jakes in Bend, OR has absolutely the best, and biggest, breakfasts I’ve ever seen.

The swamps in LA are incredible.

There is NO good time to cross the George Washington bridge in NY.

New Jersey is confusing to drive in.

Montana seems to last forever.

Second the above RE Mississippi rest stops.

CA has the worst rest stops I’ve been to.

The hotel discount guides you can pick up in rest stops save a fortune in hotel bills.

Are we there yet gets old rather quickly.

The world sure is a beautiful place.

I love road trips!

19

For serious travelers who want to see what the USA is really like, first read Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. Then make mental note that all the details in the book are decades old and subject to serious updating over the years.

All that aside, if you get off the interstates as much as practical (Moon himself had to get back on interstates for one leg of his trip since there were no real options) you get to see what makes for communities and the regional differences in the various states.

For reasons of efficiency (I must assume) the views along interstates and the cookie-cutter look of interchanges, offramps, and the commercialized areas nearby, you can’t tell where you are 80-90% of the time on the interstates. Okay, you can make out big features like mountains and lakes and rivers. But the sameness of the countryside is very misleading.

Unless we’re on a strict time schedule (and we like traveling when we’re not pressed for time) we stay off the interstates. White-knuckle driving and trying to keep up with folks doing 20 miles over the limit, just takes all the joy out of car travel for my money.

Just the simple 300 mile trip between Nashville and Montgomery, which I used to do quite often when my folks were still alive, is a prime example. I-65 goes the whole way, and even whacks 20 miles off the trip. But if you take US31 instead, you get to see what makes Alabama and Tennessee tick. Little stores, farms, and most of all people which are invisible from the interstates.

20

I recently made a drive from Kansas to Idaho, driving a U-Haul truck, to help a friend move here with me. I must agree with some of the OP’s observations, having gone through some of the same areas, though in the other direction. I was surprised, for example, that Kansas did have some low, rolling hills. It was damn humid there, though. I was also surprised to see that Denver’s airport was so far away from the main city, though given the amount of flights it handles I’m sure it would need to be away from most urban development.

Some other things I observed:

A place called Gorham, Kansas, was our first fuel stop after leaving Wichita. This place looked to be dreadfully boring. I don’t think I could have ever lived there or in any other rural community like it.

Colorado may be known for its Rocky Mountains, but a large part of the state is wide open flat land, much like Kansas. Driving through this section of the state made me think of that scene in Dumb and Dumber where they reach Colorado, but don’t see any mountains, and one of the guys says “That John Denver guy was full of shit!” I wish I had planned the trip through the Rockies instead of diverting northward to Wyoming, since I have always wanted to see the Rockies. I wasn’t sure how well the truck would handle the mountain passes.

I also learned that if I can drive a 17-foot U-Haul truck through Denver’s rush hour traffic I can handle just about anything.

If heading westbound on I-70 and you want to get on I-25 north, be ready. It’s very easy to miss that turn. My friend’s dad advised us of this ahead of time, and I still almost missed it (I had barely overshot the exit and I had to drive on the inside shoulder of the ramp to get back into the lane).

Wyoming is a virtual wasteland, at least from what I could see of it along I-80. We briefly went through some beautiful mountains and some trees, but it was getting dark then and I didn’t see much of it. I thought Idaho had some isolated areas, but at least here I can see some signs of civilization in the distance when traveling out on some stretches of the Intertstate, and most of the intertstate exits here will lead to at least some small town and to named roads. In Wyoming there were virtually no signs of life for much of the way, although I was driving through it at night. Still, there were no lights or anything I could see in the distance. I truly felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. One other oddity I noted in Wyoming was that every 20 miles or so there were stopping areas for trucks, and trucks only, and each one of them had about a dozen trucks parked in it. These weren’t rest areas with bathrooms, benches, grass and trees, etc., just places where trucks could stop. There may have been a truck stop or two in some of the bigger towns, but I don’t remember seeing them. Towns of any size were few and far between and one had to plan his fuel stops wisely. Some of the exits from I-80 were just short offramps that led to some unnamed area, and the roads often didn’t have names. We were going to stop in Rock Springs for the night, but we encountered some weirdness there that I won’t go into here (too much to explain for this post). Luckily for us, Green River wasn’t too far away and we managed to find a decent motel room there instead.

Idaho is known for its potatoes, but most of the potato crops are grown on the eastern side of the state. On the west side of Idaho where I live mostly corn and wheat are grown. Also, one may not think Idaho has any pretty forests or mountains if travel is limited to I-84 through the southern part of the state. You have to go off the beaten path, so to speak, to get to these areas, but we do have them.

We stuck to name-brand motels since most of the others looked too seedy, the kinds of places that attract hookers and other less desirable elements of society, so I’d agree with the OP on this one.

We didn’t have a CB, and we didn’t listen to the radio much along the way, so I couldn’t really say much about these. Incidentally, my friend is a ham radio operator and I learned through him that they tend to eschew CB radio users, and using CB lingo over ham radio is verboten, as is profanity.

Incidentally, my friend had lived in Topeka at one time and he’s never spoken very highly of the place. Any Topeka dopers out there who can either back this up, or perhaps defend these statements made against your community?

My friend also tells me that he finds the people in Idaho to be more friendly than back in Kansas. He likes living in a smaller city such as Boise as it is less crowded.

I had a lot of fun on the trip and I enjoyed the opportunity to see several places I had never been, but it isn’t something I will want to do for awhile. Gas is expensive, especially when driving a U-Haul truck.