Tag: road trip

November 19, 2024 – Preparations for Travel

November 19, 2024 /

We are going on our first ever Thanksgiving road trip. This year, we are headed to Montana for a week. The way the weather is shaping up, this could be a miserable doozy of a trip. It is a long way to go in winter weather and we are expecting feet of snow at the higher elevations this week.

The problem with cold weather is all the additional gear you need. Add to that a dog and two extra passengers, we will be pushing our space even in a full sized Navigator. I had to break out the car carrier for the first time in quite a while. This thing is great for extra space, but it also adds a lot of extra height to an already high vehicle.

At the hospital, we already hit the 6’7″ bar warning that a crash is eminent. I happen to know after years of experience that I am just fine. But, I don’t know how fine I am. So, I don’t push it and keep in mind that I may be a bounce away from some very expensive body work. I can say that my wife has tried to drive into our garage Fortunately, I was outside to stop her. The carrier stays on only as long as it has to be on.

A smart man would have gotten the car to a mechanic before we leave. I really didn’t give it a thought until last weekend. By then, it was pretty much too late. That is not to say that I have done nothing. Recently I started getting a ‘Tire Pressure Fault’. I have checked the tire pressure multiple times and chalked it up to more electronic gremlins that have been plaguing this vehicle its whole life.

But, I wanted to check on chains for our upcoming travel. My wife had been told that chains would not fit on the vehicle due to wheel clearance concerns. So, I asked about the tire sensor. I was educated that it was probably a battery. Who knew, inside the wheel has a sensor that communicated with the computer. After fourteen years, two of the sensors are dead. I always wondered how that was done.

All this being said, I would think that this would be something the tire shop would do with new tires. It turns out, no. Now, I have to break down each wheel and replace the batteries. It was suggested that we could wait until new tires are due, but with the Navigator’s reduced role, it could be years at this point. The best motivation is that my wife want’s it done.

Besides the obvious luggage for a week long stay, it would be good to take some extra precautions. The first is be prepared for extra time. The highway’s may be closed until the storm blows through and the snow plows do their jobs. This can effect the start time and the return time and there is absolutely nothing that you can do. Keep your schedule flexible.

Part and parcel with keeping your schedule flexible, make sure your vehicle is stocked with food and drink. You could spend significant time in slow traffic following a plow, an RV or in a snowbank waiting for a wrecker. If something does happen, stay with the vehicle. Leave a plan with someone you know so that they know where to look for you and having food, water and shelter significantly increases your survival odds.

There is all kinds of recovery gear you might want to have. But, if you don’t have it and likely have never used it, probably best to skip. That being said, stick to major roads for safety purposes. These will be the best plowed and most travelled roads anyway. A much better chance to be found or get help if you need it.

I am going to bring a portable CB. I am not expecting a whole lot but it gives a possible way for secondary communications. My past experiences have been pretty ho-hum, If things get ‘western’ than maybe it will be an option to get ahold of a trucker. Plus, it gives a little more experience on the road with a potential tool. It would be better if I had a permanent mount.

End Your Programming Routine: This is supposed to be fun. It is a week of vacation for me and the first whole week this year. I’ll admit that I have a few doubts but it should be alright. I would much rather gear up and not need it, than need it and not have it. But, you have to go through these what if situations and test them to really be ready for the situations.

April 6, 2023 – Best Advice: Rent a Car and Do a Road Trip

April 6, 2023 /

I was returning my rental car at the Des Moines airport and a car caught my eye. It was a Buick Enclave. I thought that it was a nice looking vehicle, I even did a double take to see what it was. Little did I know that when I flew into Portland and picked up my next rental, I would end up with a Buick Enclave for our road trip rental.

There was a lot to like about it. It was AWD which would come in handy in our snow covered road driving. It had a third row so plenty of room for four and the overstuffed luggage. I didn’t look under the hood, but I felt it had adequate power for the the 80MPH speed limits in the west and a 21 gallon fuel tank had over a 500 mile range. That is a good thing when you want to go or you are out in the middle of no man’s land desert. The seats were comfortable enough to drive for twelve hours a day if we had to.

You don’t spend all that time in a car and not find some things that you don’t like either. The controls were confusing, I still didn’t figure it all out after a week. We were trying out Android Auto and it worked pretty good until the last couple of days and we had consistent connection issues until we gave up on it for the last couple of days. Last but not least, the heating/cooling system we never figured out. It was always too hot or too cold. I specifically did not like the tiny back window and the small amount of clearing the little wiper performed.

Despite all the good things, our overall assessment was not to buy and the reason was ultimately the glitches left an unsatisfactory taste in the vehicle. I want to say that we are at a point that we expect the fundamentals of a vehicle to work. Adequate power, adequate economy, adequate comfort are accepted as baselines for any car. But if you cant get the heat right or settings always go back to a default set, it is kind of annoying.

I think everyone that has bought a car has had some form of buyer remorse. A couple of miles of test drive is just not enough to get a feel for certain aspects of the car. I remember when we bought our Navigator, we were literally leaving the lot and the parking sensors started going off. We drove back to the dealer and they smiled and said the deal is done. Since they were no a Lincoln dealer, there was not a lot they could do. We still have occasional gremlins that go off and don’t know why.

Taking a car on a road trip is a perfect test of a vehicle. You really get intimate with the features and capabilities. We are thinking of upgrading from the Navigator since it seems to be on it’s last legs. There sure are a lot of $50,000 cars out there which equate to a lot of payments over a long time. I would hate to decide years of obligation in 15 minutes.

Our current choices are weighted toward the Hyundai Tucson and the Ford Explorer. I have driven the Tucson several times but not the recent Explorer. I sure would consider renting for a weekend to see how I feel about each one. Ideally, you would also want to consider typical use conditions as well.

What I mean is that it is unrealistic to test moving 18 sheets of plywood if that is never going to happen because I have a pick-up for that. In software, we have a 95/5 rule. If something happens in the 5% window, it is worth considering the cost and complexity for coding the edge case scenarios. Or said another way, I am not going to buy a fifteen passenger van on the off chance that I will have 14 friends to haul one time. It makes no sense. So start by doing what you normally do and consider the edge cases on a specific basis.

A long time ago, we purchased a Ford Expedition. We had that about two years before we traded it for a Dodge Caravan. The justification was that it was lower so my wife could take her grandparents around. I think that happened a couple of times while we owned the vehicle (and the Caravan lifecycle is a story for another day). That was actually a poor financial decision for a false justification.

But here is a marriage tip, my wife should be able to have any reasonable vehicle. It turned out that with young kids the mini-van was much easier in and out. We had three extra seats that the Expedition didn’t have and we acquired some extra kids (another story for another day). The lower roofline was much easier to load kayaks which she did multiple times a year. I think it worked out alright despite the false premise to begin with.

End Your Programming Routine: As of late, we have had some pretty good longevity with cars. I think that we went through nearly thirty before we were aged 40. I have owned my pickup since 2003 and we bought the Navigator in 2012. Sure, I wish I still had the Mustang but that had to go for financial practical reasons. Neither vehicle is ideal in every circumstance. But, as I get older and smarter I want to make sure that I can live with the quirks if I end up paying $800 a month for six years.

November 30, 2021 – Lessons From the Road, Part 2

November 30, 2021 /

Let me just say that, I am bushed.  The drive home wasn’t as smooth as originally anticipated.  Day 1 we drove from Houston to Blythe, California, that is 1200 miles.  The plan was to drive from Blythe to home at a little under 1000 miles.  After Day 1, it should have been easier – nope.

Sunday, we were only able to get 200 miles in 10 hours.  I kept watching the arrival time get later and later.  We got to the point that our arrival time exceeded my start time for the work day.  The freeway traffic was showing red from LA all the way to Sacramento and we were running on 5 hours of sleep.  We decided to bag it for the night.

It still took us nearly 14 hours to get home yesterday.  By that, I will be getting to my finer analysis of the trip below.

  • I was worried about the weather, I never considered the traffic in the drive.  I5 was a parking lot all day Sunday and I never had any idea this would be the case.  I think about traffic during the weekdays but not weekends.
  • The original plan for the trip did not included driving my mother in law back (with all of her stuff).  We barely had room to move and when we stopped, we had to move stuff to move people to move stuff to get in and out.
  • Our overall planning for the time in Texas was weak.  I expected to work two days,  which I did.  That being said, the rest of the family did nothing on Monday.  We spent all day Wednesday driving to San Antonio (200mi one way) and back even though we past it both ways on I10.  I think that we could have done a better job of planning the trip so that we could have done more sightseeing while we were there.
  • It was extremely difficult to keep 11 people on track with only stopping for fuel and minimizing the down time.  I selfishly wanted to get home as early as possible because I wanted as much time as possible before work the next day.  No one else had the same urgency that I did.
  • I think a daily cap of twelve hours is probably a good limit.  That is still a long time in the car but it leaves a little more room for not keeping a blistering schedule.  There wasn’t a ton of sites that I would have liked to taken a little more time but having some proper rest in between days would have been beneficial.
  • Overall, the kids did a good job for the most part, the adults not so much.  There were several incidents of inappropriate behavior for no good reason.  For that reason, I will never do a multiple family unit in one vehicle again.  Between the difference in urgency and the plain ridiculousness, I will not do it.  It is not to say that I wont travel together, just not in the same vehicle.  That way, I have the freedom to go ahead if I want to.

I will probably post one more time about the trip and a different subject matter this week.  I plan to talk about my assessment of the states we crossed and how they compared with Oregon.  There are definitely some differences.

End Your Programming Routine:  I am not trying to be negative,  I am saying that I would do things differently if I could. Overall, this was definitely an experience for the memories.  And, I am not saying all memories are good.  The focus was on providing an experience for the kids and providing one more family get together as its current dynamic.  I think that was accomplished.  I am pretty sure the kids felt like this was an adventure despite what my opinion was exactly and that is the best I could hope for.

November 29, 2021 – Lessons From the Road, Part 1

November 29, 2021 /

Never having done anything quite like this before, some things sound like a better idea then before you try it.  This was a two pronged approach to getting from our place to Texas.  The first one was that it would save us some money ultimately.  The second one was that it would be a family adventure.

There is no doubt that we have accomplished both but I also think that there are some lessons learned this trip, this time and this approach.  The original plan was to drive 36 hours straight from our house to Texas, hot swapping drivers along the way.

  • We didn’t actually rotate amongst all the drivers.  Adding additional drivers raised the overall price of the rental significantly to where we were starting to lose some of the cost advantage of driving over flying.  All of the driving was done by my wife and I, with me doing most of it.
  • Starting our trip on Friday evening was a good way to getting started from a time perspective but we were already starting to feel the fatigue Saturday morning from being up all night.  We haven’t solidified our trip home plans yet but it might be better to not start through the night and make the first day longer.
  • We only made 21 hours on the first day.  We had planned to go to El Paso but we only made it to Tucson.  That is where we stopped for dinner.  The thought of four more hours and arriving at a hotel at one in the morning to leave by seven was too much at that point.  
  • Thirty-six hours in a van is a long time.  I would give it a slight edge over an airplane from a leg and elbow room standpoint.  Of course the ability to stop and stretch was an advantage, but it was also a disadvantage that I will talk about next.
  • To think that nine other people were going to have the same dedication to the schedule and forethought about when and where to stop was a mistake.  We rarely went more than 100 miles without stopping.  And when we did, it was an event to get everyone back in the van quickly.  Out of our 19 hours traveling yesterday, over three of it was out of the car.
  • I never realized that my wrists and hands would be sore from driving.  There were very strong winds most of the day which required tight control of the steering wheel for a high-standing van blowing all over the road at any moment.   By late last night, my wrists were aching.  
  • Cell phone service coverage made the drive largely peaceful.  I am generally not a fan of the kids incessant use of the phone, however there was almost no fighting or complaining for the duration of the trip.  Between fatigue and phones the kids did a great job getting along.
  • Starting the trip with two cases of water and a tote worth of snacks was a good idea.  I think that it helped stave off some of the complaining along the way as well.  It also may have contributed to extra stoppage however.  

Getting in at 1AM and starting work at 7AM is less than ideal after a twenty hour drive.  We did also lose two hours (time zone change) by heading east.  That time is important when schedule is driving behavior.  

End Your Programming Routine:  I will definitely have a final opinion and recommendations in part 2 tomorrow.  We are still on the road as I write this.  That will be part of the story.

November 22, 2021 – On the Road Again

November 22, 2021 /

This is new. It has been a long time since we have lived significantly apart from close relatives. We are on a big family road-trip from Oregon to Texas so that we can spend Thanksgiving with my wife’s mother. Our family has done some long trips, but we rented a van and we are also going with my sister-in-law’s family.

When you start to look at the economics of the situation, nine tickets costs roughly $3600. We plan on spending half by hot switching drivers and bee lining to Texas. Granted, we will lose time but this is an adventure. We may never do this again but it is something to try.

There are definitely risks. Weather and crossing the Rockies leave uncertainty in the trip. Looking at the weather mid-last week, it was looking clear for the shortest direction, due southeast. The actual decision for the travel route was decided right before we left.  We travelled the Southwest route which was nice because I had never been on that particular freeway.

Being new at my job, I barely have any time off. So, I plan to working a couple of days as well. It kind of sucks, but the real point of the trip is to provide the family with an adventure. I have stubbed out a couple articles for the week, so we will see if I can keep it up this week.

This is the culmination of a difficult fall. My in-laws originally went to Texas in the early summer to seek treatment for my mother-in-law. Between my father-in-law dying and my wife trying to maintain a job and manage treatment at the same time, hopefully this is a celebration of a new season. Because her prognosis is not positive, this may be our last Thanksgiving and so we are pulling out the stops to make it happen.

I am going to write more about this evolving situation, but not now. It is real, it is raw and it is personal. While everyone has the right to manage their own affairs and control information as they see fit, it doesn’t mean that those decisions don’t have a billiard ball effect. One person may be at peace with the situation while others may have different feelings. It may ultimately be your decision and your outcome but those decisions have consequences. We all have a responsibility to handle them in an appropriate fashion even if we perceive them as ‘not what we would do’ particularly when we are observers. That is so difficult.

Most of the post was written before the trip.  I am in Houston now and I will summarize some lessons learned next week.  I already have all of the posts for this week planned out since it was a holiday week and we were on the road I wanted to get a jumpstart on everything.

End Your Programming Routine: The kids are out of school all week, it is a holiday week so why not? Even though we have done similar things, my sister-in-laws family has not.  

After arriving last night at 1 AM, there are definitely things I learned about our choices that I will share.    For now, going to enjoy a little warmer weather and hopefully get a chance to see some new sights and enjoy some family time this week.