Road Trip Warriors, Check In Here! (Road Trips, Anyone?)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Are there any road tripping dopers here? I think road tripping is something that gets into your blood at an early age, and if it’s not there by the time you graduate college, it’s not likely to take root. Not commonly anyway.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s growing up in the northeast, by dad was a college professor who liked to travel. With five kids born in 7 years (that family planning, Roman Catholic style) and on a professor’s salary and mom didn’t have a paying job, road trips were the way to go for us.

How about you? How did you get hooked? Did you get hooked? Or did (do) you hate long drives so much that anything longer than two hours is like pulling teeth?

We grew up in station wagons, a Ford then a Buick, then later a VW Microbus in those trusted steeds. Mile after mile of interstates and other highways. If you’re younger it may have been a minivan or SUV for you. What were your family land yachts?

Do you have fond memories of endless hours in the heat and no A/C and with my definition of hell on earth, the nonstop squeaking of a styrofoam cooler lid? (squikka squikka squikka squikka — STOPIT!!!) Do you have any epic road trip memories? Any epic fails? Any future grand plans? Any good road trip reports, and maybe with pictures?

So, who are our doper road tripper lovers or haters? Or just meh? Do you have any general helpful advice?

2

We didn’t do a lot of that when I was growing up, but enough to make me want to travel. We did a lot of berry-picking excursions, and a few longer camping expeditions. Once I went into the military and got into the traveling and moving every few years, it became the best part of the experience. My kids certainly had to adapt to long road trips and moving around.

The best part of my military career, bar none, was being posted to a U.S. consulate in Europe, where my job was to travel to European capitals to do work in other embassies and consulates. I continued to travel for a living after retiring from the military, and nearly right up to when I retired from working. It really gets into your head.

Nowadays, we do RV excursions that vary in length from a day or two to up to a month in duration. I still enjoy seeing new sights in the US, but I’m really glad I got overseas traveling out of my system during my working life.

3

Oh yeah, back in the 70s all of dad’s side of the family lived all over from Arkansas to Arizona to Oregon and mom’s brother lived in Big Creek California. Spend many a summer (and a few winters) in the 1970 International Travelal and living in the 15’ and then 20’ travel trailer we pulled behind it going all over the western US and once or twice to Bismark South Dakota to visit the Big Branch of mom’s side of the family.

about 6 years ago, the Mrs. and I (along with the Guestling) did a month long trip driving basically down the east slope of the rockies and back up the west slope. Got a scary (in retrospect) story out of that one.

4

I love heading out on the open road. I’ve taken two mega cross-country trips (San Diego to Key West and San Diego to Maine and back) and lots of 2 to 3 week-plus drives to places all over the West. I used to camp most of the time but I’ve gotten soft and now I stay in hotels, cabins and restored travel trailers when I can find them.

These days I take most of the month of May off. The weather can be iffy but I prefer hitting the touristy spots before the summer season starts up. I don’t make a specific plan, rather I choose a general direction and pick my destinations as I go along. Every night in my hotel I’ll hop on the 'net to check the 10-day weather forecast and check out Roadside America or do a map search for hikes or museums in the region I’m thinking about heading to. Last year I spent 3 weeks cruising around Oregon and had a fabulous time.

5

Ah, yes, it was roadtrips for our family vacations as well. My dad liked mountains, national parks, and the outdoors, although he didn’t hunt or fish. I saw all the major western parks, the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Devil’s Tower, Mt Rushmore, and so on.

I can still just recall the first trip we took when I was four, going on five, in 1959. It’s still referred to as “The Big Trip”. We saw Yellowstone, Yosemite, and we counted bears. Nineteen bears, and there was a youn one sitting up in a tree, with one leg hanging down, swinging back and forth. The humonjous pine cones from the sequoias impressed the younger me.

We always went west(from Kansas) never east. So I didn’t see the historic sites of the northeast or the south, Dad wasn’t into that. But I did see the Grand Canyon at sunset, and walked all the way around Devil’s Tower.

6

My parents always drove everywhere when possible. Well, Dad did; Mom stopped driving long before I was born. Dad owned a green Ford van when I was born and kept it until the year I turned three. I have one memory of a family trip in that van, stopping at some convenience store in Indiana for picnic supplies and watching the side door open. My eldest sister owned an Opel GT for a while and would drive me up to Indiana Dunes at least one per summer to give Mom a break.

Then there was the red '71 Ford Ranch Wagon. That was the family car until around '77. From grocery runs over to Kankakee to family trips up to Wisconsin and everywhere in between, Dad drove that red wagon.

“Hell” would have been the all-nighter in the four door '79 VW Rabbit from Brewster, NY, to St. Louis for the holidays. Dad & Mom in the front, me and the family dog (Husky/Samoyan/German Shepard) in the back.

One of the last family trips was in a loaded second-hand '84 Chevy wagon, from suburban New Orleans to Northern Illinois. One sister and her husband were driving up from suburban Houston and encountered us on the road in Southern Illinois. They were pulling alongside us and recognized the dog.

We’ve driven from the DC area to Northern Illinois a couple times. Last one was in an '89 Dodge Shadow; we have a video of that trip around somewhere.

7

I usually combine them with other interests. My best might have been a 15 day trip going to minor league baseball games. I saw a game in a different city every night, from Appleton WI to Savannah GA to Erie PA. Slept every night after the game in the stadium parking lot, on the reclined front seat of my Camry sedan, and drove on to the next town the next day.

Did it by myself. I never listen to the radio in the car – just the road sounds and my thoughts. Baloney sandwiches, tortilla chips, Dr. Pepper.

I’ve done some birdwatching trips, too.

8

My parents were both teachers. Every August, we were in the station wagon for 3-4 week trips all over the country. We camped every night, usually in a different spot. By the age of 17, I had been to all 50 states except Florida, Hawaii and Alaska. I’ve rectified the omissions now. We also went North and saw several Canadian provinces.

Particular favorites for me would be the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and Glacier (and up into Canada if you have time). There is also a nice swing you can do through Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion. Yosemite and Sequoia is a good shorter trip, throw in Mammoth if you can. If you have more time, you can keep going up to Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta. The Oregon Coast is great. Also Crater Lake! We would go up 101 and drive through Redwoods all the way. Washington DC is amazing, but we only did that twice. We were based in LA, so it was a haul.

Let’s see, other sights that are fond memories would include Devil’s Post Pile and Mount Rushmore. I’m sure I’ll think of more.

Camping in a different spot every night was not the best part of the experience for me. Bear encounters, bugs, storms, and setting up camp every freaking night just sucked. I’m trying to talk the husband into a small RV. Makes moving around sooooo much easier. We just did several days in Yosemite and he’s talking about the stars and the mountains, so my chances may have improved. :smiley:

9

As the kid who was always car sick? I always hated road trips. We had a Ford pickup truck almost all of the time. Sometimes we kids rode in the back under a bed cap. Sometimes we had one of those little campers that slide in the bed, and we kids rode there. Sometimes we just all crammed in the front (and my mother never seemed to grasp that, if she aimed the heater vent to blow under her face, it blew in mine, and I was pretty much guaranteed to be sick.) I have puked all along the highways and country roads from Florida to Oklahoma to Texas to Maryland - pretty much all over the southeast quadrant of the US.

Today, I’m slightly less prone to motion sickness, because I can drive or call shotgun. But with 4 bickering children at home, and a husband who believes that we should equip ourselves with everything (CB and ham radios! 3000 feet of tow straps and chains! 250 spare rounds of ammo! Etc.) the notion of a fun, relaxing road trip is as foreign as a cool relaxing nap on the surface of the sun.

Maybe when the kids are older and the dogs are dead…

10

I’m an OTR commercial trucker. I generally drive 2500-3000 miles a week most of the year. Slow periods can be a bit less than that. But it is mostly over the same roads to the same places all the time. And no pulling over to see the World’s Largest Golf Tee or the Desert of Maine. Nevermind any interesting sounding National or State parks.

So last year, for my 2 weeks of vacation, I drove from Ohio to Portland, then Seattle, and back. Hit the Geographic Center of the USA, Devil’s Tower, Worldcon, Mounts Hood and St. Helens, and Felicia Day’s book tour. Fun times.

Did the same kind of thing when I worked in a factory, took me 5 days to drive from NW Ohio to Chicago. Mostly because I went by way of Mt. Rushmore. And there was the time I took 6 days to go 600 miles from home to Baltimore, MD. By way of Montreal and Quebec City.

I kind of like road trips.

11

I live in Hawaii, so road trips are a little difficult. So we creatively visit Grandma and Grandpa in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Two years ago, we flew into Washington State and drove to Nebraska. We did the round trip: Passing by Little Bighorn, Black Hills, Mt Rushmore, Badlands, Devils Tower, and Yellowstone.

And by “passing by”, I don’t mean rushing through and get some snapshots. For instance, spent a whole day in the Black Hills attractions and two days in Yellowstone. We explored each park enough to earn Junior Ranger badges for the two little ones. We did 4 days driving there and 4 days heading back, driving about 6-8 hours a day and usually in the hotel town by dinnertime.

This summer, we’re visiting Grandma and Grandpa again! This time from the other direction: we earned our Hawaiian Air miles to fly into New York City. We’ll be passing by Philadelphia, Amish Country, Gettysburg, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and back to New York City. I’ll be asking for advice from you fine folks soon enough.

At the end of the summer, we will have mapped our way across the country. Technically twice, since they’re both round trips from the airports to Nebraska.

12

Some great trips so far. Lok, you being a trucker, you’re to be commended for doing road trip vacations.

I did one last month: 3 weeks, 9 states, 7,100 miles. There is SO much to see in the southwestern US.

Last month I talked to my mom and we decided to drive to Texas. I was pleasantly surprised she wanted to go. She is 77, so this would pretty much be the last of her long road trips. My sister and brother and two nieces live in the Austin area (ATX, as they abbreviate it), so we would visit them. Mom used to live in Houston, so we’d go there too.

It was a great trip and we had great weather. We missed the heavy rains and flooding in east Texas. Along the way we stayed off the interstates and took the long and winding road. On this trip we saw, in this order:

— The spring ‘2016 super bloom’ of wild flowers in Death Valley. Fantastic colors.
— Titus Canyon Rd., a scenic 4x4 route in Death Valley. Mom enjoyed the light off-roading.
— A quick stop in Vegas for a picture at the iconic Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada sign (Google Maps: ‘Las Vegas Sign’)
— An iconic photo by large, balancing sandstone boulders along the west side of the highway, about 100yds north of ‘Cliff Dwellers Lodge, Marble Canyon AZ’ - Google Maps. The balancing boulders were the size of trucks. Yes there are much bigger, elsewhere, but these are so close to the highway. At 77 Mom is not a hiker.
— Colorful Marble Canyon and the chilly Colorado River at Lees Ferry Boat Ramp
— A memorable roadside stop in the shade, out of the intense March sun, to crack open some young coconuts we brought with us. Fresh coconut water, and scraping the soft coconut meat. Tasty. We were just east of the Navajo Bridge at Marble Canyon
— Glen Canyon Dam at Page AZ
— Monument Valley, one of my favorite places
— Mexican Hat Rock, Mexican Hat UT, by the San Juan River
— Shiprock NM
— Enjoying home made pie, in tiny Pie Town NM
— The interesting VLA: Very Large Array, Socorro County NM
— White Sands National Monument
— Big Bend National Park (my SDMB thread about Big Bend)
— While in Big Bend we saw Santa Elena Canyon and Boquillas Canyon, and did 50 miles of off-roading. Again, Mom was a trooper.
— Family and friends in ATX, San Antonio, Houston
— The gravestone of NFL star (in the 1940s!) “Slingin’ Sammy” Sam Baugh in Rotan Cemetery, Rotan TX. It’s near the NE corner (about the 3d east-west path - drivable paths - south of the NE corner: approach from the east heading west to spot his gravestone writing; his gravestone is on the south side (left) of that path and about the 5th line of gravestones from the east end; his gravestone is readily visible from the path. Here’s a map, it’s not easy to find without help like we did it. Map: Google Maps). I describe in detail here for posterity.
— Artillery Museum, Fort Sill OK
— Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in OK
— US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where my brother graduated 30 years ago, the last time we were there
— Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods
— Gunnison CO to Ouray and Silverton CO, and the Million Dollar Highway
— Durango CO
— Mesa Verde
— Four Corners (FCTT: the Four Corners Tourist Trap)

Along the way I spent a lot of good time with Mom, catching up on many things and learning about family history. It was a great trip and she truly is a trooper.

13

I really love driving back roads, and if there’s a reasonable alternate to the Interstate, I’ll take it. Favorites include, but are not limited to, US 30 through western PA, US 36 across the Great Plains, US 90 west of Houston and, of course the remnants of Route 66 in Arizona.

Most of my big drives look place in the '80s: multiple trips Pittsburgh to Denver, Denver to Houston, Denver to LA, LA to Houston, etc. Usually I’d allow 3 or four days so I didn’t have to rush the trip.

Farther afield, I’ve made several lengthy driving trips across various parts of rural France, and in Zimbabwe, the run from Harare to Vic Falls via Bulawayo.

Last two really lengthy ones were 2011, Harrisburg PA to Houston, in the new (lightly used) Nissan I’d just bought, and a train-chasing trip circling from Denver to Fort Collins, Winter Park, Alamosa via Georgetown and back to Denver, in 2014.

These days, due to work and family demands, I don’t seem to have time to get more than a few hours away from Houston, but yeah, one weekend out of every couple of months I’ll go somewhere random, either overnight or as a day trip.

14

I am a road tripper.

I look forward to road trips, and there’s nothing like taking more crap than you need, because it’s your damn car and if you want to leave extra shoes in the trunk… blah blah blah.

My latest was 10 hours straight from South Jersey (USA) to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Two adults and three kids in a two-row SUV. It was fun. Had we done air travel, I would have hated it.

Next up: Lime Rock Connecticut.

Longest alone was this year: 28-hour round trip to Detroit (no sleep) to trailer home a car that I had when I was a teen. I am 48 now.

I also get up at dark and head out on my favorite drives. I plan to get to my favorite roads at sunrise. I live for back roads and my car club heads out on similar excursions (Porsche Club of America).

But when it comes to driving and exploring, eventually other people show up… and then I recall Sartre: Hell is other people.

Beep Beep. Happy Motoring!
.

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15

One day I want to drive to Alaska, all the way north to Prudhoe Bay. That’s 3,500 miles from home.

And I want to drive an ice road too. This is a couple of years away, so the permanent road between Inuvik and Tuk will be installed. Oh well.

16

I like long road trips. Years ago, I lived in Toronto, and my buddies and I drove to New York City, Princeton NJ, and so on. Compared to what I’d do later, those were easy little drives.

If you add up all the drives I’ve taken in Canada, I’ve been from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia at least twice. Certainly, I’ve done Calgary-Toronto five times, all through Canada, by the northern Ontario route. But I’ve also done Toronto-Denver once, Toronto-Halifax three times, Calgary-Vancouver twice, across Newfoundland a couple of times, and so on.

I like long drives. You see so much more than if you flew. To paraphrase a once-popular travel slogan, “It’s not the getting there, it’s the journey.”

17

No road trips proper in my childhood, but our vacations always included a lot of day trips. For example, when we went to Rosas, in the Costa Brava (which we did more than once, we even repeated the aparthotel), most of the other tourists would just walk to the beach and walk around town. We’d go to the beach first thing in the morning, leave when the swarm arrived; one day we’d stay in town, one go to walk around Figueras or visit the Museu Dalí, or to Besalú, or to…
My brother Ed and his wife are of the “hotel to beach and back” variety. I get tired/bored just thinking about it.

I enjoy road trips. I like the driving itself; my last long project was in Sweden, I drove my car all the way up to Spain at the beginning (hey, it made a lot more sense than having to rent one every two weeks) and all the way back at the end. It actually is something I enjoy. Visiting the places where I stop… pchs. Actually not as much (don’t tell anybody). I like seeing whatever I see, but the stuff my brother Jay does, where he spends weeks preparing exact plans of being in such museum at such hour and eating in such restaurant and he pretty much has his meal picked before setting foot in the place? Sheesh man, I’m on vacation, I don’t want to do any planning!

Years ago I was supposed to get a week off between some work down in Houston and needing to be back in Philly. My plan was to hire a car and drive back, stopping in NO along the way - other stages, way undecided. I wasn’t able to do it: I flew back to Philly and spent my week of vacation going to work every day to badger HR about certain issues we were having, then walking around town or driving to nearby locations. It’s in my bucket list, along with driving the whole length of US1-I95 (I’ve already been to Key West and I’ve lived within meters or even in the shadow of I95 three times). Maybe I can badger a few Dopers into going to lunch together, along the way :wink:

18

That’s… “up from Spain”. D’oh.

19

For a while when I was growing up my parents had a Scotty trailer. They would pull it with dad’s F-150 pickup with a camper top. We 3 kids rode in the back of the pickup on top of a mattress that mom had purchased specifically for that purpose. The kids could sleep, play, yell, whatever while the adults kept an eye on us from the mercifully quiet cab. The trips were not terribly long, mostly around the southeast, but he arrangement worked for everyone!

20

Bismarck is in North Dakota.