Road Trip!
Well, we had been promising our older daughter, Sarah, that we would take her to stay with her Aunt Beth in South Carolina, and decided to visit my father-in-law and sister along the way.
I planned the route with Microsoft MapPoint 2004, and had anticipated a little under 2000 miles, and hopefully a little less than 100 gallons of gas. We wound up using 98.4 gallons of gas, according to the van's trip computer (2004 Chevy Venture). We also traveled 2185 miles, and averaged 53 MPH and 22.2 miles per gallon. I didn't keep track of gas prices, but they ranged from about $2.85 per gallon in many places to just under $3, in South Carolina.
On Saturday, we drove to my father-in-law's home in Germantown TN - 319 miles. Sunday morning, we took BethAnn to a minor care clinic for her swimmer's ear, and didn't get on the road until after noon. I intended to make it at least to Cookville or possibly past Knoxville for the night, but then we hit a traffic jam west of Nashville - 20 miles in two hours. We finally made it past Nashville to Lebanon, around 6pm. 229 miles, a lot less than I hoped for the day. Stayed at the Comfort Suites, very nice; full breakfast including sausage, biscuits and gravy, as well as cereal, bagels, etc.
I added 50 miles and a 30-minute stop by detouring to JR Cigars in Statesville, NC, but it was worth it. To Beth's house at Ft. Mill, SC was 423 miles, and we got there well before dark. Yes, I smoked a cigar on the back deck. Both nights, first the Hoyo then the JR Ultimate. We stayed an extra day - Lynn, Sarah and Beth went shopping while BethAnn and I read and watched Beauty and the Beast about five times and went for a nice walk.
Wednesday morning we said goodbye to Sarah and headed southwest. We stopped at Cleveland, GA for an hour or so, then spent the afternoon and night in Helen. About 250 miles according to MapPoint, but that doesn't include trying to find a store that carried Floam, which we had promised BethAnn. That was at least another 50 miles, and no one had any. We stayed at the Comfort Inn, which was pretty nice, althought it just had a continental breakfast. I guess in Europe they don't believe in meat at breakfast. Personally, I don't think it counts as a meal unless something died.
Thursday, we eschewed driving the back roads across northern Georgia and northern Alabama, and instead went to my sister Ann's home in Madison, AL by way of Atlanta and Birmingham, via interstate. MapPoint says it's 330 miles, about a hundred miles further than the back roads, but roughly the same amount of time. We found some Floam along the way. We stayed an extra day in Madison, too. The girls went shopping while I read and napped. Sometime during the afternoon, it rained, dropping the temperature to 90 or so - so I smoked a cigar on the back deck, although it was sweltering. This one was a Bolivar Fuerte that I'd brought from home.
Saturday was the longest day yet - over 500 miles, but BethAnn was in a good mood before lunch, and slept at least 3 hours after. Lynn slept at least an hour, too. Lynn kept telling me I could smoke a cigar in the car if I just cracked a window - she knows it's relaxing for me. I tried a Romeo y Julieta Reserve Maduro Petite (the size of a cigarette) (also brought from home) somewhere along the way, during and after a rest stop, but even though Lynn and the girls said it didn't bother them, I couldn't enjoy myself. So… no stogies on the road. We got home around dark, after ten hours on the road. Or eight days…
I'll do the math for you - we sat in the car a little more than 41 hours over the course of eight days. I had just returned from a week of training customers in Abilene, 350 miles west, hurrying to get ready Friday night for the trip on Saturday. I now understand the expression "I need a couple of days off to recover from my vacation!" So, we stayed home today - no Sunday School or church, just chilling. I keep hearing a cigar calling my name… poor lonesome things.
Some observations:
- Video players in cars are great ideas, but ours is hooked into the sound system. BethAnn (our 3-yr-old) had painful swimmer's ear for the first 5 days of the trip, and couldn't use the headphones, so I had to listen to hours of Care Bears, etc.
- Removable seats are great. We had plenty of room for snacks, trashcan, etc.
- Choice Hotels is a nice company. My Mensa membership gives me a 20% discount, and all I had to do was call and ask for a hotel in the area, and had a reservation within minutes.
- The Cabbage Patch Kids are still alive and well - we stopped at their "hospital" in Cleveland GA and watched one being "born." Handmade Cabbage Patch Kids are over $200. Fortunately, BethAnn just wanted a piece of candy…
- Helen Georgia is a neat little Bavarian-looking town, but only on the outside of the stores. Inside, there's not much to distinguish it from any other tourist area. Nice folks, though. Lots of family-type activities which we skipped.
- Traffic jams are hot. I sent this post from the road, in a construction area in Georgia. The outside temperature shows 129 degrees, but that's because we started moving. While idling along a few minutes before, it read 131 degrees!
- JR Cigars needs a professional merchandiser for their outlet malls, at least the one in Statesville. When you first walk in, it's not very impressive. It looked like all the nice stuff was around the walls. The walk-in humidor is awesome, though - biggest I've ever seen, (Stafford & Jones, in Richardson, TX has the whole store humidified, but it's a fourth the size) with an incredible selection. I picked up a half-dozen Hoyo Excalibur 1066s and a half-dozen JR Ultimate Cabinet Selections, a few humidification thingies for the trip, and a "cigar bobken," a device that either converts a cupholder to a cigar ashtray, or hangs itself on a door. It has a holder for a full-size cigar, and I have no idea what "bobken" means.
- For long trips, I prefer Interstates to regular highways.
- Next long trip, I'll have one of the new GPS navigation devices. A friend has one, and it's priceless when you need to change your route while driving.
- My dad always liked to stop at MacDonalds - he said the food was just average, but you always know what you're going to get. I think that applies to Cracker Barrel also, except that the food is great. Costs about twice as much, of course.
- I figured mountain driving would really cut in the fuel economy when I saw the instantaneous readout drop to 15MPG on a long climb, but then I noticed that it would read 99MPG on long descents. A trip to Dallas will usually yield around 24MPG, so 22.8 is pretty good.
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