How amazing is my new suitcase? Thank you, Very Troubled Child!
Mitch here!
Today, I’m answering a question we get very often here on Kelly in the City:
Why, in God’s name, would you ever DRIVE back to the East Coast?
When I first started writing this, my family and I had just successfully completed another 24-hour, 1,600-mile, back-and-forth drive home for the holidays. We’d eaten McDonald’s four times in single days, circled the radio dial for hours, endured Hap Palmer’s torturous “My Mommy Comes Back” song hundreds of times, stretched our legs at countless gas stations, and chugged at least two gallons of coffee and formula.
This is the kind of drive during which you can turn off the GPS for a while because the next turn isn’t for 450 miles. It’s the kind of drive during which you eat in the car because you can’t even fathom tacking on an extra 30 minutes. (And a few lost french fries into the “seat abyss” is worth it!) It’s the kind of drive during which you run out of things to think about.
Anyway, let’s dive in a bit deeper.
Here are a few things we’ve learned on these drives over the years:
- People at truck stops are incredibly nice and talkative, especially in Indiana and Ohio.
- Take5 candy bars will brighten the most dire of situations.
- A dash of hot chocolate makes gas station coffee feel fancy.
- Avoid clicking around on FM radio. It will drive you crazy.
- The Prius is a beast for road trips. It’s freaky how far you can drive without refueling. Kelly often has to beg for bathroom breaks, simply because the car can run for so long without us needing to stop. (Don’t worry: Pregnant Kelly didn’t have to beg.) I highly recommend the Prius.
- Sesame Street is hilarious and can fill a few hours on the road.
- Use Amazon Prime as your personal Santa Claus to save trunk space when you’re traveling over the holidays.
- Listening to movies over the car speakers works pretty well for entertainment purposes. (This past trip, we listened to Star Wars and Star Wars only. The Force was not with Kelly.)
- No matter the packing difficulty, never compromise on seating.
- The app “Overcast” lets you quicken podcasts to motormouth speed without “chipmunking,” allowing for auctioneer-style podcasting.
- Late-night gas station wine in crummy hotels can brighten the end of a rough day of driving.
We’ve also developed a “Rules of the Road Trip” playbook to make the drive less painful:
- Driver is in charge of entertainment. (For me, it’s podcasts. For Kelly, it’s “alternative country.” For Emma, it’s “My Mommy Comes Back.” Again and again and again. Although, true: she’s never behind the wheel. But she still somehow calls all the shots.)
- Passenger finds the next pitstop. (Fun fact: Kelly will offer to drive in an effort to get out of this. She hates using Google Maps.)
- The car keeps moving until Emma wakes up. This often means that Kelly ducks and rolls while I drive around rest area parking lots so she can use the bathroom.)
Despite all of this, the drive is a little painful. Each one starts with traditional midwestern boredom, as there’s absolutely nothing going on near the Indiana Toll Road. Ohio rest areas are dope because they have the best food, and Eastern Ohio gradually becomes beautiful just as the sun goes down. The next six hours of driving is a nightmare hellscape of horrifying mountain passes in the darkest pit of the night. Usually this is when a storm hits with an absurd, almost comical intensity. Most recently we faced a blizzard on the way to Philly and a tornado on the way back. (This is true.)
So, why do you drive?! What in the world is wrong with you, you maniac?!
I get it. We’re kind of nuts to drive to cross-country multiple times per year. But hear me out! I swear it makes sense.
^ I made that. Yeaaaah.
Driving takes one measly extra hour, but we save $1,000, are able to pull off the road whenever we want, and can make the decision to stay an extra day if we feel like it. We also have our own wheels when we get to our final destination, which allows us far more flexibility.
What’s it really like in that tiny Prius?
Kelly in the Car:
Kelly sings along to country music to the extreme in the car. She usually waits until I’m napping and it gives me messed up dreams of trucks and blue jeans and cowboy boots and stuff. That said, Kelly is a terrible driver so she doesn’t often get behind the wheel. She sits in the back with Emma while I chauffeur them across the country.
Kelly’s Car Snack:
McDonald’s! Large fries, strawberry smoothie, double-cheeseburger with no onions or pickles. If there are onions or pickles on that burger, she’ll throw it away. I kid you not.
Mitch in the Car:
I drive s-l-o-w-l-y. My friends and family make fun of me because of it, but I’m a middle-school math teacher. What do you expect? I drive a Prius and I drive it slowly. These things are true about me. I am who I am. (Kira?! Tom?!)
Mitch’s Car Snack:
With no Taco Bells at any rest area between Chicago and Philadelphia, my car snack is McDonald’s Buttermilk Chicken Sandwich Combo Meal with an Apple Pie booster. Shout out to Sheetz and Cracker Barrel for hooking it up when we can’t stand another McDonald’s stop.
Emma in the Car:
Emma’s life in the car is basically the same as Emma’s life outside the car. She sits, eats, reads stories, naps and watches the occasional Sesame Street episode when we don’t know what to do. Luckily, our car acts as a giant bouncy seat to lull her to sleep. That said, Emma does have the occasional incident. On our last drive, she pooped so much that it filled her socks and we had to throw away her clothing.
Emma’s Car Snack:
Emma can’t eat McDonald’s so she sticks with formula and teething toys. In good time, though, she’ll join the masses.
What are some of the most interesting things that have occurred during your trips?
1. I saw a black bear off the road in western Pennsylvania.
2. The aforementioned tornado. Kelly nearly had a heart attack. She referenced all knowledge she’d gained from watching “Twister” as a child, and I’m pretty sure tears were shed when she recalled the scene in the barn.
3. We strapped a kayak to the roof and it miraculously stayed there.
4. We crashed into a van on I-76 at 2 a.m. (Before we had Emma.)
5. Kelly got a flat tire on I-90 while pregnant and driving home for her baby shower. She ended up sobbing on the side of the road to a state trooper who undeniably wished he hadn’t pulled over to help. ;)
Conclusion:
A 12-hour drive is a grueling affair, but I can’t say I mind it too much. Honestly, sometimes Kelly and I catch ourselves looking forward to it. It’s a break from our normally busy lives, and we’re able to talk and think and do something mindless.
LOL I read this whole post and found it interesting. Maybe bc I live in the Midwest I found it quite entertaining esp the comparison between driving and flying. Oh and I don’t do podcasts. (shrugs shoulders)
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! And its an app, not a podcast, but Audible is great and links right to Amazon, so you just buy a book and send it directly to your phone for easy car listening. The socks thing just made me LOL, so thanks for that! :)
I like Serial, Up and Vanished, Young House Love, and Accused. Stuff you should know it also good.
Love this Mitch post!
Podcasts: My Favorite Murder (True Crime Comedy Podcast) very funny and reached the top charts on iTunes
Crimetown (about the Mob in the 80s in Rhode Island)
Serial (because DUH)
Lore (all about folklore and its origins [mostly in New England!]
You Must Remember this Podcast (all about Old Hollywood throughout the 1900s]
OMG yes thank you for also liking MFM!!!! Also I LOVED You Must Remember This – SO GOOD!!!
I feel this so much! I grew up in the Midwest but went school and now live on the East Coast so I have driven and will continue to have to drive the horrible 13ish hours through what feels like all of the US. It’s never as bad as I think it’ll be, I mostly don’t mind the driving (probably because my dad made us drive EVERYWHERE when I a kid, no flying for us).
Podcast wise; Lore is great but can be a little spooky/creepy. Stuffed You Missed in History Class is good but the narrators change and I find some of them a little boring.
Growing up, my family would make the 15 hr drive from Buffalo, NY to Jacksonville, FL. It was always a long day but some of the funniest family memories were made on that trip! One year, my mom and I drove down ourselves while my dad flew down later because of work. She was the driver and I was the navigator and at about the 12 hr mark, tensions were high. My mom said “Look!” and pointed to a sign outside of my window and as I turned to face her, her finger went straight up my nose. Totally gross but honestly the best tension relief ever. We still giggle whenever anyone says “Look!”
As for favorite podcasts, I love “Lore,” it’s a good mix of urban legends, local myths and some true crime.
HAHAHA this is the best post ever. Mitch, I love you. Noted that Neal needs to drive on any future Loftus/Larkin road trips. He would murder you for driving slow. Kira will tell you to listen to “my favorite murder” but it’s actually one of the more depressing podcasts we’ve ever listened to and we had to turn it off. SERIAL!!!
I resent that.
Just kidding, I know I have a dark blob of a soul and listen to exceptionally strange things.
xoxo
I love road trips! But like Kelly, I mostly listen to country and alt-country on the road so I have no podcast recommendations, Sorry Mitch! I need something to sing along to so I keep going. But I want to tell you that in college, I used to drive the 1200 mile one way trip home about four times a year from Montana to LA and I hate flying it because I agree it costs so much more money and effort. My boyfriend and I now only take road trips unless its to other countries. Happy Friday and this post was great for a laugh this morning!
I drive from NY to FL for Thanksgiving every year so I totally understand the benefits of driving over flying. It saves us money which is totally worth it. Plus we can take our big German Shepherd, he wouldn’t be able to fly anyway.
Seriously…. the poop in the socks. Amaze balls!!!
I’m a big fan of The West Wing Weekly (although you have to have watched The West Wing first), as well as Pop Culture Happy Hour and Desert Island Discs. Yeah, being able to stop when you want to AND having wheels when you get there are both big deals.
Cannot. stop. laughing.
Also, Kelly you are not alone, I pretty much know how to stop a Twister in its tracks and it involves loads of diet coke cans sliced up to resemble… what, propellers?
Love you two!!!!
Great post!
Love Mitch’s commentary haha! My family and I make the 13-hour trek from NC to Upstate NY every summer and although the trip is long, it’s worth it to have your car and dogs with you for the vacation!
xoxo,
Katie
chicincarolina.blogspot.com
We do the drive from NJ to TN and people are always like “we can’t believe you do it” but it is so much cheaper and the time it would take us to drive to the airport, park, take the shuttle, wait for our flight, take a connecting flight, wait for our next flight, FLY and get to our tiny Knoxville airport…we’ve already driven the 11 hours! Nice to know we aren’t alone. We also recently discovered that driving overnight it seemed like the drive went SO.MUCH.FASTER.
asgoldasitgetsblog.com
Haha, loved this post! I always wondered why you drove, too. My boyfriend and I drove ~13 hours one way from Utah to Nebraska for a wedding last fall (before it started snowing thank goodness) and it was insane. (I also have a Prius so that helped a lot! We only had one issue: One of the tire pressure stems was loose so one tire was constantly losing air and we had to stop every ~40 miles during our last few hours to fill it up.) We actually stopped once at McDonald’s on the way back, and I hadn’t eaten there in years! (I only got the hash browns, though.) I also sing along like crazy in the car. ;) And my boyfriend prefers driving because my driving scares him (but I swear I’m a good driver…). He did drive the entire way back in crazy winds and was excellent, so I’m glad he handled that!
cottoncashmerecathair.com
Love road tripping, love this post. Keep up the great work!
Ok, this post is seriously amazing! One of my favorites, ever, on the blog. Favorite podcasts of mine include: Hollywood and Crime, Mortified (so dang funny but listen while Emma’s young and can’t understand), All Songs Considered, The Babysitters Club Club (also hilarious, give it a chance – you’ll both love it), and This American Life :)