Hello there world wide web! Excuse my absence but the holidays are upon us and that means family time. The thing is I am on one end of the country and our families are on the other and we wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. We had not seen them in 6 months!
The Mr. and I just did a cross country trip from Ohio to Texas and back for the Thanksgiving holiday and after being stuck in a car for about 19 hours each way, I thought I would share some things that helped us keep our sanity along the way since we drove it straight.
Enjoy!
1. Probably the most important one. Always have a buddy. We could not have done a straight 19 hours alone. When we moved up to Ohio it took us 3 days to get up here since we were in different vehicles hauling all our stuff.
2. Trivia games on your mobile device are a fun way to pass time. It keeps the passenger doing something if you are not sleepy and the driver with eyes on the road and talking to stay awake. It was also a good bonding experience for us both.
3. We found that 4 hour drive times each at a time was the magic number to switch places.
4. We have a Spotify subscription, but it does not go on for 19 hours straight so carry your favorite CD's (yes we still use them) and abuse the heck out of the "seek" button in you car. I find the constant change in stations keeps me awake.
5. If you need to pull over for gas, try to go to gas stations that are on the exit side of the intestate so you can hop on and off. It can get a little confusing going to gas stations on the opposite side and then try to find your way back across (trust me).
6. If you feel your belly button gnawing at your backbone around 10 pm -ish ....STOP... do not wait until after that because believe it or not, a lot of places are not open 24 hours. We made that mistake and found ourselves desperately looking for food for 30 min straight and we finally settled for a truck stop subway. Please do no stop at a truck stop subway.
7. Always carry napkins in your car because accidents do happen.
8. You get a 5 mile leeway before you get pulled over for speeding just f.y.I.
9. Carry some vitamin C pills and hand sanitizer, trust us this one because we are both sick right now. That is a lot of states to cover and a lot of gas station restrooms and tuck stops. Keep your immune system up my dears.
10. AAAAnd finally....................Sunflower seeds! yes people that's right. These salty little things are a life saver. Pop one at a time in your mouth and welcome to wide awake land. I tested it on this trip and it totally works, you are constantly doing something and you still have your eyes and attention on the road. My mom's boyfriend is a truck driver and gave me the tip and I owe him big time.
This is what we did to help us on our trip to and from so it might not be for everyone. It was a little exhausting but it was a lot cheaper than flying and dealing with the holiday time at the airports and having to rent a car to see all our family.
Do you have any tips for long road trips? We are going back in December and would love to hear from you. Thank you for stopping by.
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