Home sweet, safely home

[gerisullivan]

No total mileage for my SFContario, Battle Creek, carnyjack's 36th annual SundayBeforeThanksgiving Brunch trip as I accidentally reset the trip odometor somewhere around 900-1,000 miles into it. I am more than a tad surprised to report I drove the last 924 miles in one fell swoop Monday, leaving Jack's in in the Central time zone at 7:45 am and pulling into Toad Woods at 1:28 am in the Eastern time zone. That's pretty much 100 miles more than my previous longest 1-day solo drive(s) from Battle Creek. Long gone are the days when 400-500 miles was my max.

Many good times behind, and more ahead in my immediate future. I pick Gavi up for her Thanksgiving break Tuesday evening. Her roommate is coming here for a couple of days, too. We'll drop Tricia off at her aunt & uncles on Thursday. But first, I must unload the Cardis. Yes, it was another one of those "keep squeezing more into the car even though it's obviously already full" trips. I love my car and am thankful it carried me home sweet, safely home once again, just as it has so very many times over the past decade.

Comments

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Welcome home. :-)

[judith-dascoyne.livejournal.com]

Hurray for the home safeness

The Cardis is a member of the tardis genis after all and can handle "just one more thing".

924 miles in one stretch?
Clearly the Cardis has the space and time movement abilities as well.

[kgkofmel.livejournal.com]

Yay Cardis! Yay Geri home safe!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Dang, 924 miles is a lot of driving in once stretch! And I do mean stretch, as in the need to stretch after all that sitting hunched over a steering wheel.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I can't believe it is safe for a solo driver to drive nearly 1,000 miles in one go. You terrify me.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Does it help to know I was stopping for 15-30 minutes every 90-150 minutes, and that for the last 300 miles, I had hotels in mind to stop at as well as the willingness to do so if anything felt unsafe? The only time I was tired such that stopping right then was necessary was about 2 hours into the trip, well within the range of when anyone would think the average solo driver would be safe to drive.

I didn't have to get here yesterday. I knew that, and I even had hotels in mind (and discount coupons available) as near as 30 miles from home. Once I arrived, I was up for another couple of hours. The piece that made all the difference in the world is that I was up and on the road early, putting the end of the drive during my normally-active and high-performance night owl hours.

No one intends to drive unsafely, of course, and people don't always (or even often) recognize when they are. I've been doing long solo drives for decades, usually but not always breaking them up with one or more stayovers along the way. This doesn't mean my judgment will always be spot on, but it does mean I have a lot of experience assessing what shape I'm in and how far to go in any given trip. I've stopped within 50-100 miles of home several times over the years, usually on shorter trips than this one. I've stopped after 500 miles or so far more often than that. Yesterday, continuing on seemed reasonable, which is why I did. To me, it's not so much a set number of miles or hours, but a combination of driver alertness, road conditions, weather, and more.

[lakeboy-55.livejournal.com]

I wish I could still do 1000 miles at a stretch. I'd be happy to be able to manage 600 miles. what with my back problems and the different meds that I have to take, I can usually manage only about 400 to 500 miles. What is the cardis, btw, sounds like quite a vehicle? I recently purchased a 1991 Dodge van conversion camper and want to do some heavy traveling in it. At the moment, though, I still don't have a lot of trust in it. I have driven it down to Detroit and back, camping in a National Forest on the way back, and I have driven it down to Minneapolis and back. I had to replace a u-joint on that trip, which wasn't surprising nor devastating. The trip to Detroit was almost 1200 miles, round trip, because we meandered along the lake shore on the way back. The van performed flawlessly, so I think it will be fine. One thing I like is that, with the van, I can stop periodically, go into the back and lie down on the bed for awhile. I can drive longer distances that way. I'm looking forward to a trip out east one of these days, so maybe we can get together.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

The Cardis is a 2003 Toyota Matrix. Small car with suboptimal acceleration that more than makes up for it with its ability to hold everything and then some, carrying it wherever, whenever, with remarkable reliability.

Toad Woods has guest bedrooms; you're welcome to base east coast visiting from here. Even without that, it would be grand to see you.

[jimtrash.livejournal.com]

924 miles in one go.
I am in awe.
A damn useful skill to have living on such a large land mass.