OT: Talking Cars Tuesday - Best Road Trip

Ultimate road trip vehicle especially if you've got kids. Built in BLURAY player with separate headsets so the kids can watch their moves on the road and you don't have to hear it and you can still listen to music. Not to mention 23MPG, large tank so you can do 450-500 miles to a tank. Heated seats and steering wheel, AWD. Drove like a dream. Not fancy or classic or anything like that but a fantastic road trip car.  We drove in the bitter cold in late november for a hockey tournament in holland (from downriver) and loved every minute. great vehicle. 

There's no such thing as a good road trip. The only one I've had where everyone in the car didn't hate each other by the end was when I drove from NY to Miami, with a stop to drop my friend at her grandma's in SC. The whole trip took less than 24 hours.

And I took 2 weeks leave from the Marines. I drove alone with no AC and the windows down from Camp Pendleton, CA along stretches of old route 66, I played in the desert and swam in the Colorado River. Then I went along I-40 to the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, through New Mexico and then I tried to eat the 72oz steak in Amarillo, TX. I took back roads and highways through the Ozarks and then down to my hometown of Pensacola, FL. It was by far the best road trip I've ever taken.

In 2006 I had to move from East Coast to West Coast - Norfolk, to Detroit, to San Diego for a week-long school, to my final stop in Everett, Washington.  Perfect way to break in a new Mustang.  Made stops in the Rockies, the San Rafael Swell, Bryce Canyon, Zion, a couple nights in Las Vegas, then SanDog for a week and then up the coast.  This was the trip on which I opened up to 115 before spotting headlights that turned out to be the state police.  Time of year was September, and the Rockies were in full fall glory, which is mainly yellow from all the aspen trees.  If I were at home I'd be able to pop up some pictures of the Mustang high in the Rockies in front of the autumn splendor.

As a bonus, I got great odds in Vegas on Michigan against Notre Dame and cashed in a little bit when they laid the wood to Jimmy Clausen and the Domers.

Edit, nevermind.

I can't do that story justice in print.

 

The trip to my first safari in Australia.

I played Rugby with a guy who worked on the Plymouth Prowler. Part of his job was to evaluate the competition by driving other roadsters. On a road trip to a Rugby training session up north, I rode with him in a Lotus Spider. Not a bad way to attract the attention of the fairer sex.

Last June my younger brother and I went 8500 miles, went to 12 national parks, and spent nearly 4 weeks living in my car and camping. A great experience.

Not actually a car, but an RV (Ford V-10). Rented an RV for the Kentucky Derby. Drove from Ann Arbor to Louisville with 9 other guys, two kegs, and several handles of Jack and Crown. 2 guys drove (they were well paid), and the rest of us got shit faced. Multiple people slept on the roof, and one guy ended up sleeping face down on the hood.  

The shitter got backed up on race day, and it wasn't until the final hour of the trip back that we found the potty cakes which saved the day. That smell and a severe hangover is something I will never forget. 

For anyone who has not been, the Derby is a ton of fun (or was in my younger years).

It was a last minute trip, which are the best kind.  Just me and two of my housemates. Ride was 22 hours down and 25 on way back. Had a blast the whole week trying to get into different bars and spending the days on the beach.  Even the traffic jams were somehow fun. 

I guess I really missed out by not being here last week for the code brown stories.

Before my husband and I were married, we took a trip to France. At the time, I was working in a pastry kitchen in Chicago, so the agenda was French pastry. We rented a car in Paris - probably a small Renault (this was 20 years ago) - and drove from Paris to the south of France, with no advance hotel reservations, just a list of towns we should stop in. We stayed in a few medieval towns, hit the Dordogne Valley, which was amazing, and then ended up in Provence. The spontaneity of it was great, though the spur-of-the-moment lodgings left much to be desired. 

1. Was living in Salt Lake City after graduation with three other guys from Michigan so sometime in 1982.  One of my roomies had like a 73 MG that broke down in Reno the week before so that Friday, at about 11:00pm, we decided to drive to Reno and rescue it.  It was like a 8 hour drive and fueled by two cases of beer and a lot of pot we drove through the desert to go get that car.  When we got there I had exactly $25 bucks on me which i promptly lost in about five minutes (I had never seen a casino before) and we were planning on staying there till Sunday afternoon.  I borrow another $25 from one of my roomies (he didnt want to give it) and then for two days I could not lose at anything I bet on.  Paid for the hotel rooms, all our meals and still left with over $1,500 in my pocket.  It was wonderful and I've never come close to that in a casino since.

2. In 1987 I was living in San Fransisco and took a transfer from the bay area back to Lansing with my company.  I owned at the time a powder blue 1984 Mustang Convertable and I drove that car from SF to Lansing alone.  I watched the sun rise over the Bonneville salt flats, drove through the mountains with the top down and had an incredible experience just me, the car and the road for three straight days.

my best road trip was courtesy of a bus through Latvia in the dead of night.

Alaska was the best - the weather was in the 80s and the skies were perfectly clear.  Train from Anchorage to Fairbanks, and road trip all the way down to Valdez, car ferry across to Kenai Peninsula, back to Anchorage.  People so friendly, like Iowa with mountains.  Heavily featured: glaciers, midnight sun, pancakes the size of manhole covers,sled-dog puppies, drive-up espresso booths in the middle of nowhere, car ferry snackbars with fresh salmon as the main featured item.  Vehicle not memorable.

Uganda was the worst - I mean, it was a trip of a lifetime, but oh lord we were being driven around Western Uganda in a Toyota Land Cruiser when we made friends with a local intestinal bug.  And it's not as though you could jump out of the vehicle and resolve the issue behind a tree because a) no trees and b) people everywhere wanted to check out what the mzungu were doing and c) lions.  

Especially with the lions.

 

When I was 15 my dad drove me and my brother to Alaska from Chico, CA in a 1980s era Volkswagon Vanagon. We had built a bed in the back and stashed all of our gear under it... right over the motor (which, IIRC, was in the rear of the van). Strategically, this is a bad place for your stuff: The vehicle broke down no less than 25 times on the way up there - it kept over heating. We would pull all our stuff out, let it sit for an hour or two to cool off and then carry on.  My dad stopped and paid handsomely at two very nice dealerships for them to "fix" the problem. Neither time worked, so for six days we played stop and go all the way up to Fairbanks. 

As my dad, who had lived in Alaska before moving to Texas then California, was ready to get a new car, he took it to a friend of a friend who was a "Volkswagon specialist". We drove the Vanagon to a shack at the end of a dirt road and within 15 minutes it was fixed with some electrical tape around a wire that powered an engine-cooling fan. It was free of charge and that van gave my dad many more good years in California. 

There were so many more stories from that trip and from many others that I took across this country. Nothing is quite like a good road trip. 

As a kid, my family of 7 used to drive from MI to FL every other year for spring break. We had a white Ford conversion van that we nicknamed Betsy. It had flowered upholstery and curtains with a pop-up table in the back, two gas tanks (which required leaded gas), no air conditioning, and had the manual shifter up by the steering wheel.

The trips were mostly made up of of boredom, invasion of personal space, bickering, and having to listen to my parents' golden oldies on the radio ("driver's choice!"). That said, I have very vivid memories of the awesome little things that would help pass the time. As many of you probably have done, we played the alphabet game on signs and the license plate game. But we would also put up a suction cup basketball hoop on one of the windows and would play horse with a nerf ball. At gas stations we'd move the hoop to the outside of the window and all get out and shoot around from longer distance to stretch our legs. We had a bean bag in the van as an extra seat (this was pre-click-it-or-ticket times), had an empty milk jug for the boys to pee in so my dad wouldn't have to stop so often for bathroom breaks (somewhat of a balance challenge in a moving vehicle with worn suspension). We always looked forward to going through the cities to see the big buildings and sports stadiums for a few moments. We read books, we played a LOT of cards, we'd rush to the front of the van and reach our arms as far forward as possible to see who could be the first one to enter into Florida when we crossed the state line (and just the opposite when leaving Florida), and of course, we'd stop at the welcome center and get our free paper cup of orange or grapefruit juice while victoriously soaking that first bit of Florida sunshine into our winter-white Michigan skin.

It's funny how those few positive memories far outweigh the long stretches of boredom in between. I look at my kids now as we drive with them sitting upright in their 5-point safety harnessed child seats, watching DVDs, and can't help but feel a little bad. Yes, they are much safer now being buckled-in than we were as kids roaming about, and they are probably not as bored with a library of digital entertainment at their fingertips, but I wonder how they will reflect back. Hopefully they will find some nostalgia in the moments between changing movies.



TL;DR: I believe you're standing on my lawn.

In May of 2007, at my wife's insistence, I ordered a Saturn Sky Redline from a dealership with an open allocation in San Jose. Living in Seattle, this wasn't the most convenient location, but the local dealership was gouging people and claiming an 18 month wait.

In August we flew to San Jose, picked up the car, and drove south the Monterey to spend the night with a high school buddy (River Rats!) and his family. In the morning we headed north on Highway 1/101 and didn't touch I-5 until Olympia, Washington. It was a STELLAR way to break in a new convertible; with lots of twisties and also lots of straights with passing opportunities.

My wife, to her credit, transformed in those two days from "Don't pass here, we're going to DIE!" to "Oh, you can totally take them here!"

(taking a wild guess at image tags since the tool to insert them has never worked for me)

Picking up the car at the dealership. It was in "The Bubble" when we got there and I regret not getting a picture of it.

http://www.cascadeclimber.com/misc/sky/sky2629.jpg

http://www.cascadeclimber.com/misc/sky/sky2647.jpg

Argh. Copy/paste also doesn't work. Would so, so, SO like to get an upgrade to fully functional software for this site. It deserves an interface that matches the quality of its content.

My buddy and I drove from LA to Traverse City in a '94 MA Miata. 

It was a blast. We visited Hoover damn, drove through Zion. 

 

We did have a couple of funny incidents. The first was when the car started 'ticking' in the desert in Nevada. After some hasty internet research we discovered it was common for the 1.8 to have some ticking (valve lash? Can't remember) after it had sat awhile. It cleared up in about an hour. 

 

Then, we almost ran out of gas in Utah. I didn't know that the western approaches to the rockies have lots of deserts, lots of small towns, but not much in the way of gasoline. 

 

The little NA did really well. It was like riding in a gemini capsule, but man was it fun. The only rough spot for the car was in summit county. The 1.8 liter did *not* like the thin air. 

was driving from Brighton, MI to Wilkes Barre PA with my brother in his '95 YJ. This was in maybe '97. 

We went with the top down and the doors off the whole time. That was awesomely fun. 

senior year of high school my friend and I loaded up my Cutlass Supreme and decided on a spontaneous camping trip. I believe it was a 4 day weekend, we left from Lansing and made it to Ludington by nightfall. we ended up driving the cast of Lake michigan for a couple days staying at campsights. unfortunately the one thing we forgot to pack was enough cash. by the 2nd day we realized we needed to start rationing to make sure we had gas money to get home. by the last day, we had gone almost 2 days without food. we used our last $5 to get Arby's 5 for $5. it was the best Arby's I ever had, but I suppose starvation will do that. :) overall, the trip failed on many levels, but it was a fun memory of camping and bullshitting/drinking with a good friend my senior year.

Took a trip on 2008 with 2 of my best buddies from southern MI to Myrtle Beach. To be honest, Myrtle Beach kind of sucks, but we were basically wasted the entire time we were there. We stopped in Louisville on the way back and continued the adventure. Seems to be a trip we always recall whenever we get together now that we don't see each other as much. We drove my old Chevy HHR which got great gas mileage and was reasonably comfortable. Hooked up a laptop to the audio jack and bumped Lil Wayne for like 12 straight hours.

Spring Break 2001, was driving from Ann Arbor to a friend in Tallahassee: 

Within 5 minutes of entering the state of Kentucky:

• One gentleman appeard to be drinking beer out of a gallon sized milk
• Another gentlemen was receiving a blowjob while driving and leaned over to give me a thumbs up when he noticed I saw him. 

Within a couple miles of Knoxville, I twice had people race up to me, ask me to pull down my window, and proceed to yell "PEYTON" at me

 

Fuckin' SEC country

Not a multiple day trip but I drove from NC to Ann Arbor with my brother in my '15 Camaro. Probaby not the best vehicle to use but gas was cheap and I love driving that car. The mountains in PA were gorgeous and fun to drive.

I almost never post on the cars threads, but I certainly have had some ridiculous roadtrips. Most of them involve me driving from Virginia to Chicago, or from Virginia to Michigan. All of them are in either my first car, a 98 Camry, or my current car, an 03 Galant. Nothing special there as far as cars go (hence why I never post in the cars threads), but they've taken me on some pretty crazy trips. Prepare for the cool stories, bro.

• My sophomore year of college, drove from Lynchburg, VA to La Plata, MD after staying up all night studying and finishing my last three exams back-to-back-to-back. Still stayed up with a friend of mine until about 3am. Got 8 hours of sleep, then hung out with my friend for the rest of the day, drove up to Pittsburgh, went to dinner at midnight with another friend and hung out with her until about 6am, then finished the trip driving the rest of the way, on no sleep, to my brother's house in Gary, IN.
• Also my sophomore year, but earlier, was driving back home to Flint on Christmas Eve. Hit some snow on I-68 in the Maryland panhandle and saw a car on the side of the road at about 1am with it's headlights facing me and up against the guardrail. After some thought, I turned around and went to check on the people who had wrecked. It turned out to be a girl and her cousin, her cousin's husband, and their newborn baby. We waited for the tow truck to take their car away as it wouldn't start, and we piled into my car and I drove them through to Morgantown. Then I headed off the rest of the way home. What normally would take me 12 hours took me 18 on that day.
• After my junior year of college, also over Christmas break, took a tiiiiny detour on my way home to Flint to visit a friend of mine who left VA that semester and was up in Connecticut. Drove through all the big cities up 95 (I love big cities...purposefully drove straight through Manhatten on a Friday evening. Took me 2 hours to get through the Lincoln Tunnel. Yes I'm insane.) and got up there real late. Stayed with him for a night and then left the next day in a snowstorm. The worst of it was heading to the south shore of Lake Erie, so I didn't wanna go down through I-80 and back up like I normally would from VA, so I cut through Canada instead. Drove through at least 3 inches of snow the entire drive, just white knuckling it for 14 hours or so. Car slipped a few times near Buffalo, but other than that didn't have any problems. My mom was freaking out though.
• Had a couple other off-the-cuff trips to Chicago. My freshman year I took my eventual ex-gf and her roommate from VA to Chicago over fall break. Both of them were from overseas too, so I was the only one with a license. And I was sick the whole week before with the swine flu, back when that was an apocalyptic epidemic. So I slept all day, waited for them to get out of class, then drove 15 hours to my brother's house in Gary. That was on a Wednesday. We left again early Sunday morning, another 15 hours back plus we lost an hour.
• Another random Chicago trip was when one of my roommates and I were talking about pizza joints out there. He'd never had Chicago style pizza and I love it, so we literally drove out over a weekend so he could try Lou Malnati's.
• More recently, (not that college was all that long ago), I've taken a 2-week long trip from VA through Texas, up to Kansas City, over to Kentucky, down to Atlanta, over to Charlotte, and back home again. Then a few month later took a month-long trip from VA all the way over to Denver via Kentucky, Dayton, Chicago, Iowa, and Nebraska (with stops in all of those places), then up through the Dakotas, MN, WI, down through MI, back through OH and back to VA. That trip itself had some fun driving days, like driving from Lincoln, NE to Denver and then the very next day driving from Denver to Fargo with a stop at a reservation in SD, or when I drove from the middle on MN through the UP, down the bridge, and over to Traverse City. And those trips were in a minivan, which was the only company car available that could carry all my stuff. I somehow love AND hate that minivan now...
• Last one is less of a road trip, but the road part was still interesting. For my last semester of college I studied abroad in India. I left the country during the polar vortex a few years ago, and it was the morning after 17 inches of snow fell in Flint. We drove down to the Detroit Metro from Flint in those 17 inches of snow while it was -45 degrees with the wind chill. And I was going to a very warm part of India, so I didn't have a winter coat with me at all. When my parents dropped me off, I had like 30 seconds to say bye to them for the next 4 months before running in so I didn't freeze to death on the spot. Once I actually got the airport though, I had 40 hours of travel ahead of me. THAT was a crazy trip. Another story for another time though, I suppose.

sent the family on a plane to Michigan, but took oldest son (then 4 1/2 yrs old) and champ bird dog on a week adventure to fly-fish out west and head back to michigan in my old crew cab which i still have.   we fished, we hiked, we visited.  i woke him up when we were in n. dakota and the full moon came up and covered virtually 1/4 of the sky at the horizon as we drove.  it was a wonderful trip.

we had left the UP 3 yrs earlier b/c my beloved mgobride's parents had gotten sick.  i had no desire to leave the UP and it was easily one of the hardest decsions of my life, and one that i never thought would get undone, much less in 3 yrs time.  if you have ever heard that jimmy buffett song 'come monday', well, that's a loose story line on our life and was/is 'our song'.  i had not listened to the song since a few months before we'd left the UP b/c it broke my heart.  as we crossed into ironwood at about 0200 hrs i fired that song up and quietly wiped my eyes and thanked God we were home.   

My wife wanted to have an adventure a few years ago and out of nowhere, she proposed taking a tour she found that had you fly into Marakkech, Morocco and drive through the Atlas Mountains and across sections of the western Sahara Desert.  The nights spent in the desert were "glamping" with private tents, meals, etc.  We drove Mitsubishi 4x4s with 4-speed manual transmissions that looked a bit beaten up.  The tour guide was a crazy French guy with a souped up Toyota 4-Runner that we literally chased for 3 days.  He would pass everyone and everything going through the mountains on very twisty 2 lane roads.  I had lots of practice with sudden downshifts and flooring the accelerator to get around trucks and cars at hairpin turns.  Driving through the desert was amazing.  It's mainly rocky "high desert" land with huge piles (as in miles wide and long) of sand dunes pushed around by the wind.  We did some driving on the dunes, but we didn't have tire deflation/inflation systems with fat tires required to get through the deeper sand.  I was the last vehicle in the chain and had trouble keeping up given the huge plumes of dust we'd kick up.  I almost nailed rocks and stumpy trees several times because the wind we shift and I'd be swallowed in a dust cloud.  We got far behind at one point and I had to floor it to catch up.  No one warned us we were crossing a dry river bed.  I flew over the embankment and all 4 wheels left the ground.  That caused further modifications to the already banged up looking Mitshubishi.  As you can tell, I loved it.  It was the experience of a lifetime.