Long Drive

So as noted in the last post R and I drove from Arkansas to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Now to be honest this was done completely because I am a cheap skate and didn’t want to use up our miles to fly R to VA and then spend money to rent a car on top of that. I had a perfectly good company car and while it would mean 250% more travel time it would save us hundreds of dollars. So that was the plan. Well I wasn’t sure how long the trip would take, Google maps gave me one time and Mapquest another. They basically said 16.5-17.5 hours. But I figured if I could keep my speed up and we didn’t stop unless we needed gas we could easily break those numbers.

To continue my cheapskateness (new word) I purchased a cold bag from Wally-word and a bunch of groceries. The week before I stored ice from the ice maker in my corporate apartment in a bag (to say $2 on store bought Ice) and saved some of my groceries from my meal allowance for the trip. So just prior to 5am in the morning, after going to bed just short of mid-night, we got up and packed the company car with our wedding best, luggage, food, soda, and snacks then headed out. R was good keeping me company for about 5 min then she went straight back to sleep. So I started to clock the miles as best I could.

In all honesty the trip went surprisingly smoothly. We were in Memphis in just over 5 hours (should have taken 5.5-6 per Google) and so we got in to see Graceland early. Of course I took longer at Graceland than I planned but it worked out because we arrived early. After lunch I took the first shift driving and after a few hours right before twilight R took over for a while. At which point it was my turn to sleep which was a good thing. R and I have very different styles of driving. I tend to be more aggressive and a bit heavier on the pedal and she like to stay in the same lane as long as possible. So the few times I did wake up I decided while she drove it was better if I slept to avoid the aggravation. She is better at putting up with my driving than I am with hers.

All in all it took from 5am to 11pm to get to my Grandmother’s house in VA. Of course we did stop for 2.5 hours at Graceland and again for a Blizzard in the evening. I figure if you remove the stops that is less than 15 hours of driving. So we did beat the internet times.

The drive on the way back seemed much longer because we didn’t take a break to see anything. We started out mid-morning and drove straight through. There are really only 3 things to mention here. 1.) The KFC we stopped at just outside of Little Rock is the most disgusting place I have been in recent memory. We will not be stopping at a KFC again. I’d rather go hungry. 2.) At twilight in Arkansas you will crush no lest then 10 gazillion bugs in ½ hour. I have never seen so many bugs over the road – the next day the car looked like it was covered in fur. 3.) We made it in 14.5 hour further beating both our previous time and crushing the internet times. W00T! But it was a long drive and honestly I think we spent as much time in the car as out of it that weekend.

But that was ok with me cuz I had my wonder wife next to me the whole time and that made the trip interesting. Well that and the mountains, Graceland, and some other sights and sounds. I get a greater appreciation for this country every time I take a road trip.