On Saturday we drove to Caldwell, Idaho (just west of Boise near the Oregon border) to visit with friends and then drove back on Sunday evening. At just over 6 hours each way it made for 12 plus hours driving in the van over one weekend. It’s been three years since we’d done a family road trip of that size and all that driving gave me time for a few observations:
- The kids didn’t use the dvd player much and did quite well without it.
- This was Michael’s first road trip (he is a year old) and he fought sleeping for most of the trip.
- There is close to nothing north of Brigham City, UT until you get to Burley, ID (along I-84) and even those two towns are tiny.
- There is close to nothing again from Burley / Twin Falls, ID until Boise, ID.
- The fact that roads like I-84 got built at all is pretty amazing.
- I had forgotten what it was like to drive on a freeway at night without street lights.
- Any future family car we purchase will have cruise control, I used it for 90% of the drive there and back and it was great.
- There is a whole lot of empty space left in the United States.
- With large gaps between gas stations (measured in hours) I didn’t fill bad about stopping to fill up two or three times on a six hour trip.
2 replies on “12 Hours, One Weekend”
Hmmm… You obviously haven’t had to drive across Wyoming any length of time, have you? It’s when you can’t even get any FM stations to tune to that you know you’re really in BFE.
No, haven’t driven through Wyoming yet. Your point about radio stations is valid though, bringing along your own audio content (or going with a satellite option) is well worth it for long trips.