While I’m sure some of you regularly top this (my hat’s off to you!), I set a ‘personal best’ of over 32,000 miles on the road in 2014. Besides my normal commute, much of the mileage was accrued repeatedly making the 16-hour (all times listed are one-way) trek to my Dad’s home in Central Georgia – he has dementia and is getting to the point where he needs higher levels of care. Two additional 12+ hour trips were made for funerals, and the last 12-hour trip of the year was for a New Year’s Eve wedding in Jackson, MO.
To stay awake on long trips, I used to gorge on Coke and sugary snacks, only stopping for gas and ‘defueling.’ I’ve since gradually shifted my technique to making more stops, eating healthier snacks and only having a mid-morning and mid-afternoon coffee. A long-haul OTR trucking friend told me he snacks on sunflower seeds (still in the hulls), as it keeps his mind engaged (picking out his teeth!) while he drives. I’ve settled on plain popcorn, which seems to work well when I start getting that sleepy feeling. I’ve also gotten to the point where I will sometimes make the whole trip without ever turning on the radio, where I used to have it cranked up with lively tunes to keep me energized.
So what’s your favorite technique for staying awake on a long road trip?
On long trips a stop every 2.5-3 hours usually does it. I used to have a 4wd truck that went through a significant amount of fuel in the tank that made this necessary. Lately if I have to pass Toronto I leave before 5am to avoid the parking lot highway situation. That wears me out faster than driving at speed.
If I have to take a short nap I do so in the busy parking lot at a fuel stop. Many years ago after an extended work day I found a fuel stop that had a picnic area down a gravel road a fair distance from the main parking lot. While I slept an extended family from the old country, in several vehicles, set up a pig roast using my car to shield the fire from the wind. I awoke to the smell of melting plastic or hot paint or something and there was a raging fire less than three feet from the side of the car. I actually burned my fingertips touching the window it was so hot. Fastest get away I ever made and anger kept me awake for the duration of the trip. I have long since outgrown my 20 something anger issues and this is now the Gypsy barbecue incident.
Depends on the vehicle for me. My 95 Explorer? 14 hours in the saddle and I’m still fresh as a daisy, my 77 Chevelle? 3 hours is about all I can do in it before I have to stop and take a walk or just get out of the car.
There for a while I was doing yearly trips to Colorado Springs from D/FW area, my buddy and I would take my Explorer since it was roomier than his 1st gen S-Blazer and didn’t suffer from the obnoxious unbalanced 4.3 drone thanks to the Ford’s 60 degree V6, We’d leave Fort Worth at 7am, drive to Amarillo and get gas, swap drivers and eat lunch, we’d drive to Pueblo and get gas, and swap drivers again. We once pulled an allnighter to get there and that was miserable.
I did that same drive by myself a couple times and started taking the less direct ways and more of the two-tracks and gravel county roads, just to break up the monotony, I loved the drive, and it was pretty once you left the Cross-Timbers region of N. Texas.
I drove the Chevelle on the 2013 Power Tour from Arlington to Charlotte, NC, about 3-4 hours or a fuel stop was about all I could tolerate of that car’s saggy seat and lack of cruise control before my shoulder or butt would go to sleep.
Diet Dew. And lots of it. And Sirius sat radio, saves me from playing spin-the-dial looking for music I can tolerate, like Octane, Ozzy’s Boneyard, and Liquid Metal.
I’m curious to here of some personal bests regarding road trips. Mine, done way back in ’83 when I was all but 20, was Lakewood Ohio to Texarkana, Texas, about 1000 miles, stopping only for fuel, munchies, and potty breaks. Not sure I could do that now 🙂 .