Can you believe we drove a straight 3500 miles last month? All the way across America. 3500 miles with no incidents other than a dead battery and a defective cargo carrier.
And then in the last week I’ve been in two car accidents!
Well, one car accident and one car incident.
Yes, just this evening while pulling out of a parking spot at Wal-Mart (oh, how I hate that store!) I failed to notice the woman pulling out behind me. And she failed to notice me. We tapped bumpers. (I’m fine.)
Yes, I was driving the rental car given to me while my car is being repaired. So there’s that added layer of embarrassment and paperwork. Ugh.
As a result, I have decided to retreat back into the relative safety of that 3500 miles and post a bit more about it.
Why? Because you, oh surfers of the internet, have asked for it.
You see, WordPress has this great feature for bloggers: the stat page. On it I can tell how many visitors I am getting each day, what they are reading and how they find me. One of the ways people find this site is by the use of search engines, and my stats page will even tell me what my readers were searching for when they ended up here. It’s pretty cool.
Quite a few people have recently stumbled upon this site by googling something like “drive across America”. I assume those people either are contemplating doing something like that themselves or have just come to shake their heads at my family’s perceived insanity.
If you are in the former group, this post is for you.
In order to escape from my present reality (no, I’m fine, really) I thought I’d take a moment to share some long distance travel tips.
Tip #1: Sit down with your travel companions and make a list of “must-sees”. Unless you plan to be on the road for a very long time, keep it fairly short. I’d suggest 1-2 attractions for every three days.
Tip #2: Map out your route incorporating the must-see destinations. Make a rough timeline, but be flexible. Don’t try to plan every minute. Build extra time into your schedule so you can stop and see The Museum of Medical Oddities (Philadelphia) or The Birthplace of Melvil Dewy (Adams Center, New York) as you see signs for them along the highway.
Tip #3: Speaking of mapping, if you are planning to go off the beaten path at all, I’d highly recommend investing in a GPS tracking system. Unless you like stopping to ask the locals for directions. We did not like it much at all.
Tip #4: Bring lots of distractions, for example:
- Movies, books on CD, coloring books, and/or simple craft projects are great for taking little minds off the long, long road ahead. But don’t give them out all at once. Your little travel companions will figuratively devour them within the first 200 miles and then whine about how bored they are. Try giving out one new prize a day.
- My dear friend Gina packed a bag for our daughter containing enough envelopes to open one every 100 miles. In each envelope she placed a simple prize. Really simple – like a sticker, a travel brochure with pretty pictures, a scripture quote, a pretty rock. It didn’t really matter what was in the envelope. Just having a little something to look forward to really helped the miles pass by.
- I also kept a secret reserve of fun snacks for those times when we needed a little boost. I highly recommend Banana-cream Reeces, if you can find them. (If you do happen to find them, can you tell me where? I can’t get enough of those things, but they are hard to come by.)
Tip #5: Know your limits, and those of your travel companions. Stop well before you need to. And a hotel with a pool after a long day? Heavenly.
Tip #6: Institute this bathroom rule rule: “When one goes, we all go.” Enough said.
Tip #7: Take pictures of everything! Not only will those photos trigger memories of the trip-of-a-lifetime, but they will also make an awesome slide show to entertain that pesky Amway salesman that keeps coming over.
Tip #8: Most importantly, don’t forget to pack your sense of humor. Things will go wrong, but getting angry about it won’t help. And later, you really will laugh about it.
Come to think of it, tip #8 should be followed a closely as possible in every situation.
I’ll try to take my own advice.
Ha ha hee ho.
And now I’m off to call my insurance agent again. Maybe I’d better put him on speed-dial.
PS: If you have any travel related questions, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.
Well, I supposed you’re well enough to be driving, so there is that bit of good news. But, um, yeah, you probably should be careful! (of OTHER drivers, apparently).
Congrats on your own domain name…that’s great! And I like it, too.
[...] when we drove my car 3500 miles across the country? Was that really three months ago? Somehow it seems longer… TRUE [...]