On the third day of the trip, walking into a convenience store at a truck stop, and seeing absolutely nothing that even looks remotely palatable as a snack. You’re just so burned out on the whole damn subject you’d rather wait until you can get real food. And that’s several hundred miles away yet. Okay
@werehatrack yeah not sure about your travel habits, but I used to travel in a camper with refridg stocked with food from home. Could go over a week with my on-board stock. Never had to stop for meals or fast food. This time no camper but a cooler chest. Also found a Trader Joe’s and a good taco place today so am set for last few days of journey
@pmarin Back in my roaming days in the '70s, I could live from the cooler and dry box for days at a time, no problem. Most of my trips now have a more rigid arrival-expected schedule, and stopping to deal with anything beyond sandwich construction is just not in the plan. But when I hauled my stepdaughter and her son to a wedding in Wichita, she did an excellent job of being the chef in the shotgun seat, albeit still just sandwiches and the like. (I miss pulling over at a rest stop, getting out the Coleman stove, frying up half a pound of bacon, making toast, and assembling a B&T using a tomato that I’d bought from a roadside stand.)
@2many2no I think I took I-40 back east after going over the rockies in my house but 2010. Nice weather in February. Pretty terrain. Less traffic. I didn’t dislike the portion I drove but was just that side
@2many2no I’ll see your I-40 and raise you an I-70 through Kansas. Or I-10 west of San Antonio here in Texas. Miles and miles of “where the hell are we, anyway?”
@BioBill if on an actual road trip, I.e. interstate highways there’s wasn’t really any “stuck in traffic” and usually plenty of rest stops.
Where are you getting stuck in traffic?
If carrying passengers. Especially kids. Got to be watching for them and ask them as you go… Plan stops at attractions…
I honestly don’t know what it would be like today. We had no electronics. We had travel books. Checked out the max on our library cards to read. Played games in the car.
Now they have phones and tablets they should not even notice
@BioBill@unksol I remember playing a kind of bingo with pictures. Also our trips predated seat belt laws so my parents would fold down the seats in our old Volvo wagon and us kids would spread out and play games. I had a big box of Lego blocks. I’d make a box and hand it up to my mom and she would fill it with her homemade Chex mix and give it back to us to snack on. When we took the camper and pickup us kids would lay up top in the cabover and look out the big window. At gas stops my parents would buy us comic books. Over the years we accumulated quite a collection.
@BioBill@tweezak I’m not sure on the seatbelt laws. But we would go to the orchard to pick stuff and sometimes we had the seats folded back in the station wagon so we could play with those big blocks. I think half of mine were other brands grandpa picked up at their flea market. So were tom swift.
I do know dad had this little metal clipon thing that would route the over shoulder that would kill a kid back to the lap…
And I only recall him using it going around the 4-6 house block cause we wanted to be in front… So may not have been that common
@BioBill@unksol
Well,one time, at band camp. No, not that! I was going over I-80 pass Laramie-Cheyenne. Wanted to get over the pass because Laramie was going to be -26, and Cheyenne only -2. Road stopped due to ice it was seriously skating on ice. Some trucks had gone off in the median, and a heavy tow truck got stuck too.
Oh, yeah, we were talking about peeing! Only time I ever had to do it in a plastic drink cup. There was no safe way to pull over and if I tried I just glided on the ice so had to stay in traffic lane. Not sure if I ever re-used that cup.
@BioBill oh well I see your problem. You drove into a dead end.
Honestly I’ve only been to Florida once to see a girlfriend and I don’t recall standing traffic on interstates. But I was doing one shot 1000 mile drives so u was probably hitting them at midnight/off hours. She drove around Tallahassee but it didn’t seem that bad in the city. But yeah florida is kinda not shaped well. I would think intrastate issues vs interstate
@BioBill ugh yes, even compounded with sitting unmoving for so long and needing bathroom breaks. Constipation is a bitch on its own, but on gas station bathrooms? The worst.
Being substantially older. I have never owned a turtle as a pet. I have seen a few in my driveway cause there is a marsh situation a ways back. And crossing the road… Which you never want to see splatted
Funny this topic came up, I’m on a multi-day road trip now. A few days WA-Colorado, and now CO to North Carolina. A few days each leg.
Used to do it in a camper on a Diesel truck but now in a Tesla. Have to stop about twice a day for charging but it is fast. Charging is about $15 and a truck fill-up would be $200 now. But truck had some mechanical issues so had to try the car this time.
By the way not trying to pimp but I do seriously recommend a Tesla if you are “on the fence.” There is now charging everywhere if that is your fear.!Despite what you may think about creepy Elon but he makes good rockets and cars. There used to be a deal where I could send a referral link for an extra $500 off but not sure that’s still valid.
@pmarin there are better EVs and the simpler Tesla plug has been standardized.
I think it’s also worth noting Elon is not an engineer. He doesn’t do anything besides harass people. Teslas are fine. I would never buy a new car so… Meh. But if I were looking at an electric… It would have to be a good deal to consider a tesla
It would have to be a good deal to consider a tesla
There are some people whose pockets I refuse to line, and others I’ll avoid as much as practical. Happily, I have zero need for anything carrying the Tesla brand.
@pmarin@werehatrack I mean it would have to be an insane deal, second hand. My sister and her husband have one but that was back when he managed to pretend to be sane. So… States are pretty red and it’s a passive sedan. There was a time it would have made sense. And he was pretending to be a decent person who cared about the environment
Can’t judge people on a sensible car before he went full nazi… Looked positive for a brief moment
Longer ago… Staying hungry because you could not find any decent food. Maps had no nearby food listings. These days putting fuel in the truck getting 15 to 16 mpg and feeling good it was that high vs 10 to 11 mpg in town. Eating so much trail mix and beef jerky from truck stops that you are sick of it and won’t eat any more. These days there are a few Buc ee’s though.
@rustyh3 We take a small ice chest along with a few bottles of water and sodas, and some cheese and beef sticks. And some crackers in the dry bag. Thats it. We do not stop for meals on the road to avoid the possibility of getting tummy rumbles and needing to make #2 stops. But we also only make 1 day runs (up to 10-11 hours), not multi day trips.
One good thing is once we are out of ill annoy we can sometimes find pure gas, not the ethanol diluted E10 crap mandated here. Automatic 2-3mpg increase on the freeway and often a little cheaper due to not paying ill annoy taxes.
But we have had to stop for gas and found out the station only carries E15. Its a little cheaper per gallon but the mileage takes an even worse hit.
I remember as a kid, my parents would take us on a long road trip, total 14 hrs over 2 days. From Va to Fla, the land of Micky Mouse & the Space Centre. My Dad was on the construction that built the Space Centre. So we would visit friends also.
Yes in those days, NO electronics, just books Cow bingo. Or something like that.
@chienfou@mycya4me 5 kids pulling a popup so needed some space. I think it was a Chevy which would probably make it a Caprice. I just remember it was a wood grain v8. And then it sitting in the garage/driveway for a while. Not sure what killed it/was before I was past the “hand me a tool” stage lol
@chienfou@unksol It was a standard 4 door, non station wagon. BTW this was mid '60-mid '70. Just a standard AM/FM radio. In other words, no walkman or any other device, of course no phones/ pagers either.
We did stop by “South of the Border” for a long break, No we did NOT stay their…we stopped else where for the over nite stay. 1 bed room double beds.
Oh btw my parents were smokers (hey, they grew up on Tobacco farms. But Mom quit around '74, & Dad around '76, But for him the damage had been done. Both did it Cold turkey!
@chienfou@mycya4me yea this would have been mid 90s so sleeves of dads TDK cassette tapes instead of just hopping radio stations… I’ve got those tapes now.
As a child, road trips were miserable for me because I suffered from terrible motion sickness. A barf bag was a necessary item.
Fortunately, I got better as I aged and it went away right around the time I started driving.
@macromeh
My wife was the same way. May have been related into the fact that the vehicle was filled with secondhand cigarette smoke.
Thankfully my parents weren’t smokers.
@chienfou@macromeh that would be bad. I know some people have trouble reading in a car for some reason too. But now they can have audiobooks or podcasts.
Second hand smoke does a number on me. I get nauseous just walking through a smoking car on a train
@werehatrack oh they definitely were not leaving the US. Which was what was so weird. The amount of distance I could cover at the cost and time. And national parks… Roadside stops. Things you are just going to fly over. No road trips count
The stiffness and soreness in your old body when you get out of the car
@Cerridwyn And then feeling the need to sit down seconds after the stiffness gets worked out.
On the third day of the trip, walking into a convenience store at a truck stop, and seeing absolutely nothing that even looks remotely palatable as a snack. You’re just so burned out on the whole damn subject you’d rather wait until you can get real food. And that’s several hundred miles away yet. Okay
@werehatrack yeah not sure about your travel habits, but I used to travel in a camper with refridg stocked with food from home. Could go over a week with my on-board stock. Never had to stop for meals or fast food. This time no camper but a cooler chest. Also found a Trader Joe’s and a good taco place today so am set for last few days of journey
@pmarin Back in my roaming days in the '70s, I could live from the cooler and dry box for days at a time, no problem. Most of my trips now have a more rigid arrival-expected schedule, and stopping to deal with anything beyond sandwich construction is just not in the plan. But when I hauled my stepdaughter and her son to a wedding in Wichita, she did an excellent job of being the chef in the shotgun seat, albeit still just sandwiches and the like. (I miss pulling over at a rest stop, getting out the Coleman stove, frying up half a pound of bacon, making toast, and assembling a B&T using a tomato that I’d bought from a roadside stand.)
Worst part? Paying for the multiple tanks of gas. Worse even than having to monitor the weather reports.
@phendrick especially now with the inflated fuel prices.
Highway hypnosis.
There’s stretches of road that just knock you out.
I’m talking about you, I-40
@2many2no I think I took I-40 back east after going over the rockies in my house but 2010. Nice weather in February. Pretty terrain. Less traffic. I didn’t dislike the portion I drove but was just that side
@2many2no I’ll see your I-40 and raise you an I-70 through Kansas. Or I-10 west of San Antonio here in Texas. Miles and miles of “where the hell are we, anyway?”
How about having to go to the bathroom while stuck in traffic.
@BioBill if on an actual road trip, I.e. interstate highways there’s wasn’t really any “stuck in traffic” and usually plenty of rest stops.
Where are you getting stuck in traffic?
If carrying passengers. Especially kids. Got to be watching for them and ask them as you go… Plan stops at attractions…
I honestly don’t know what it would be like today. We had no electronics. We had travel books. Checked out the max on our library cards to read. Played games in the car.
Now they have phones and tablets they should not even notice
@BioBill @unksol I remember playing a kind of bingo with pictures. Also our trips predated seat belt laws so my parents would fold down the seats in our old Volvo wagon and us kids would spread out and play games. I had a big box of Lego blocks. I’d make a box and hand it up to my mom and she would fill it with her homemade Chex mix and give it back to us to snack on. When we took the camper and pickup us kids would lay up top in the cabover and look out the big window. At gas stops my parents would buy us comic books. Over the years we accumulated quite a collection.
@BioBill @tweezak I’m not sure on the seatbelt laws. But we would go to the orchard to pick stuff and sometimes we had the seats folded back in the station wagon so we could play with those big blocks. I think half of mine were other brands grandpa picked up at their flea market. So were tom swift.
I do know dad had this little metal clipon thing that would route the over shoulder that would kill a kid back to the lap…
And I only recall him using it going around the 4-6 house block cause we wanted to be in front… So may not have been that common
@BioBill @tweezak also would today’s kids even notice if they were up their iPad/phones.
Id be in a book and “look up kids” plus senic views. Lets stop and hike down this trail
Granted they used to be able to save up for 8 weeks off
@BioBill @unksol
Well,one time, at band camp. No, not that! I was going over I-80 pass Laramie-Cheyenne. Wanted to get over the pass because Laramie was going to be -26, and Cheyenne only -2. Road stopped due to ice it was seriously skating on ice. Some trucks had gone off in the median, and a heavy tow truck got stuck too.
Oh, yeah, we were talking about peeing! Only time I ever had to do it in a plastic drink cup. There was no safe way to pull over and if I tried I just glided on the ice so had to stay in traffic lane. Not sure if I ever re-used that cup.
@unksol
Travel on any of the interstates in Florida and you will be stuck in traffic.
@BioBill oh well I see your problem. You drove into a dead end.
Honestly I’ve only been to Florida once to see a girlfriend and I don’t recall standing traffic on interstates. But I was doing one shot 1000 mile drives so u was probably hitting them at midnight/off hours. She drove around Tallahassee but it didn’t seem that bad in the city. But yeah florida is kinda not shaped well. I would think intrastate issues vs interstate
@BioBill ugh yes, even compounded with sitting unmoving for so long and needing bathroom breaks. Constipation is a bitch on its own, but on gas station bathrooms? The worst.
Long stretches of boring landscape.
@lordbowen
Yeah, I love them. So Zen!
@lordbowen @pmarin same. I never find them boring. I just think about painting them.
@lordbowen @pmarin @sillyheathen Gotta be careful about that. Applying paint to the landscape is illegal in some places. [G,D&R]
I love road trips
@Sasha3398 I love turtles
@Sasha3398 @unksol I love stickshifts.
@unksol Wait - was this you?
@macromeh lol that’s the meme. Definitely not me.
Being substantially older. I have never owned a turtle as a pet. I have seen a few in my driveway cause there is a marsh situation a ways back. And crossing the road… Which you never want to see splatted
Funny this topic came up, I’m on a multi-day road trip now. A few days WA-Colorado, and now CO to North Carolina. A few days each leg.
Used to do it in a camper on a Diesel truck but now in a Tesla. Have to stop about twice a day for charging but it is fast. Charging is about $15 and a truck fill-up would be $200 now. But truck had some mechanical issues so had to try the car this time.
By the way not trying to pimp but I do seriously recommend a Tesla if you are “on the fence.” There is now charging everywhere if that is your fear.!Despite what you may think about creepy Elon but he makes good rockets and cars. There used to be a deal where I could send a referral link for an extra $500 off but not sure that’s still valid.
@pmarin the Riven look kooler & it is NOT made by Mr Creepy.
@pmarin there are better EVs and the simpler Tesla plug has been standardized.
I think it’s also worth noting Elon is not an engineer. He doesn’t do anything besides harass people. Teslas are fine. I would never buy a new car so… Meh. But if I were looking at an electric… It would have to be a good deal to consider a tesla
@pmarin @unksol
There are some people whose pockets I refuse to line, and others I’ll avoid as much as practical. Happily, I have zero need for anything carrying the Tesla brand.
@pmarin @werehatrack I mean it would have to be an insane deal, second hand. My sister and her husband have one but that was back when he managed to pretend to be sane. So… States are pretty red and it’s a passive sedan. There was a time it would have made sense. And he was pretending to be a decent person who cared about the environment
Can’t judge people on a sensible car before he went full nazi… Looked positive for a brief moment
@pmarin
I can understand not wanting Topsy diesel priced atm
zero desire to buy electric and considerably less than desire than that to buy a Tesla
I want something with mechanical roll up and roll down the windows
All of the above plus having to pee but the next rest stop is 60 miles away.
The worst part of a long road trip is “long”
@heartny yes. I can agree with that.
Longer ago… Staying hungry because you could not find any decent food. Maps had no nearby food listings. These days putting fuel in the truck getting 15 to 16 mpg and feeling good it was that high vs 10 to 11 mpg in town. Eating so much trail mix and beef jerky from truck stops that you are sick of it and won’t eat any more. These days there are a few Buc ee’s though.
@rustyh3 maybe I’m a simple man. What happened to packing a cooler with sandwich stuff lol. We def were not getting food anywhere
@rustyh3 We take a small ice chest along with a few bottles of water and sodas, and some cheese and beef sticks. And some crackers in the dry bag. Thats it. We do not stop for meals on the road to avoid the possibility of getting tummy rumbles and needing to make #2 stops. But we also only make 1 day runs (up to 10-11 hours), not multi day trips.
One good thing is once we are out of ill annoy we can sometimes find pure gas, not the ethanol diluted E10 crap mandated here. Automatic 2-3mpg increase on the freeway and often a little cheaper due to not paying ill annoy taxes.
But we have had to stop for gas and found out the station only carries E15. Its a little cheaper per gallon but the mileage takes an even worse hit.
I remember as a kid, my parents would take us on a long road trip, total 14 hrs over 2 days. From Va to Fla, the land of Micky Mouse & the Space Centre. My Dad was on the construction that built the Space Centre. So we would visit friends also.
Yes in those days, NO electronics, just books Cow bingo. Or something like that.
@mycya4me
… and conversation. Remember that?
@chienfou @mycya4me I mean. How much were you talking to your parents in the rear facing section of the station wagon vs elbowing your sibling
@mycya4me @unksol .
Ahhh … fancy car.we had a 4 door Ford Falcon and a Renault Dauphine!
@chienfou @mycya4me 5 kids pulling a popup so needed some space. I think it was a Chevy which would probably make it a Caprice. I just remember it was a wood grain v8. And then it sitting in the garage/driveway for a while. Not sure what killed it/was before I was past the “hand me a tool” stage lol
@chienfou @unksol It was a standard 4 door, non station wagon. BTW this was mid '60-mid '70. Just a standard AM/FM radio. In other words, no walkman or any other device, of course no phones/ pagers either.
We did stop by “South of the Border” for a long break, No we did NOT stay their…we stopped else where for the over nite stay. 1 bed room double beds.
Oh btw my parents were smokers (hey, they grew up on Tobacco farms. But Mom quit around '74, & Dad around '76, But for him the damage had been done. Both did it Cold turkey!
@chienfou @mycya4me yea this would have been mid 90s so sleeves of dads TDK cassette tapes instead of just hopping radio stations… I’ve got those tapes now.
Shits getting weird
As a child, road trips were miserable for me because I suffered from terrible motion sickness. A barf bag was a necessary item.
Fortunately, I got better as I aged and it went away right around the time I started driving.
@macromeh
My wife was the same way. May have been related into the fact that the vehicle was filled with secondhand cigarette smoke.
Thankfully my parents weren’t smokers.
@chienfou Yeah, no smokers in our household either (then or now).
@chienfou @macromeh that would be bad. I know some people have trouble reading in a car for some reason too. But now they can have audiobooks or podcasts.
Second hand smoke does a number on me. I get nauseous just walking through a smoking car on a train
I saw someone say “it’s not a vacation if you’re not on an airplane”. Which blew my mind
@unksol Obviously they undervalue cruises that can be reached via a short-ish drive. Or maybe they live in Kansas.
@werehatrack oh they definitely were not leaving the US. Which was what was so weird. The amount of distance I could cover at the cost and time. And national parks… Roadside stops. Things you are just going to fly over. No road trips count