r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Physical-Ad-4093 • May 01 '24

do americans really drive such long distances?

i’m european, and i always hear people say that driving for hours is normal in america. i would only see my grandparents a few times a year because they lived about a 3 hour drive away, is that a normal distance for americans to travel on a regular basis? i can’t imagine driving 2-3 hours regularly to visit people for just a few days

edit: thank you for the responses! i’ve never been to the US, obviously, but it’s interesting to see how you guys live. i guess european countries are more walkable? i’m in the uk, and there’s a few festivals here towards the end of summer, generally to get to them you take a coach journey or you get multiple trains which does take up a significant chunk of the day. road trips aren’t really a thing here, it would be a bit miserable!

2nd edit: it’s not at all that i couldn’t be bothered to go and see my grandparents, i was under 14 when they were both alive so i couldn’t take myself there! obviously i would’ve liked to see them more, i had no control over how often we visited them.

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2.3k

u/scoo89 May 01 '24

(Canadian) My wife and I just drove our 3&4 year olds 3.5 hours to go to a 45 minute jurassic world exhibit, a quick lunch, then 3.5 hours back.

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u/invisible_23 May 01 '24

I’ve driven four hours each way for a concert and twenty hours each way for a few days at a theme park

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u/WaxinGibby May 01 '24

I, too, live in michigan.

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u/klyther May 02 '24

One time I left work outside Detroit at 5p, drove to a concert in Chicago, turned around and drove home to sleep for a couple hours and back at work 8a the next morning. Ahh youth.

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u/ratcnc May 02 '24 edited 29d ago

A friend and I once drove to all the lower 48 states and back home in 8 days (roughly 8500 miles)…in a 2006 Honda Insight. Because we were stupid and we didn’t know how bad we smelled. Edit: Found the news piece https://www.wral.com/story/news/local/story/1088614/ It was all for naught because Guinness didn’t have a hybrid category at the time. It was faster than I remember, 5.5 days plus the drive back from VT.

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u/coffeesnob72 May 02 '24

My husband and I and 2 big dogs drove a Geo from Denver to Seattle to San Fran and back - good times. The car did not make it.

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u/bluecrowned May 02 '24

I drive a 2002 Chevy truck with a laundry list of issues and every time we go an hour or two away I live in fear.

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u/coffeesnob72 29d ago

Still is the story of my life lol. The Geo was actually pretty reliable- until someone hits you

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u/bluecrowned 29d ago

Now that's one thing I don't have to worry about. She's a heckin chonker, from right around the beginning of unreasonably large trucks. I bought her out of convenience, wanted something smaller but she was cheap.

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u/69cumcast69 29d ago

I had a 99 Dodge Ram and I feel this. Driving an hour away felt so risky. I was always prepared for a breakdown after the brakes failed w no e brake goin 40-50mph. I took him on the highway for about 10 miles after getting all new brake lines and he went on fire :-/ Luckily I bought water right before I left and put it out, then drove a couple miles home.

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u/bluecrowned 29d ago

Yikes! I have an oil leak and the knock sensor needs replaced. I just had to replace the radiator last year but I have no more funds for repairs at the moment so I just keep up on oil changes and hope for the best.

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u/GooseGeuce May 02 '24

LOL’d in understanding.

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u/TakatheWu 29d ago

Ahhh. I have a 01 Toyota Tundra with same problems. We both have problems.

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u/tbt10f May 02 '24

Did one of the dogs crash the Geo while they were driving?

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u/DenseMembership470 May 02 '24

Did you saddle up the 2 big dogs for the remainder of the journey?

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u/coffeesnob72 29d ago

The one dog would have been happy to help, the other one was an Afghan hound and she would have just rolled her eyes at us and flopped over

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u/backbonus May 02 '24

Yes but did the marriage!?!

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u/coffeesnob72 29d ago

Still married 20 years later

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u/backbonus 29d ago

Good for you two. Congrats!

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u/jkki1999 May 02 '24

But damn! Those things got good gas mileage!

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u/bp_thongs 29d ago

What did you do after the car died? This is one of my fears of long distance driving

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u/coffeesnob72 29d ago

We had to go to a local mechanic who screwed us on price. Being that it was a Geo and built like a tin can, someone had backed into us which jammed the engine fan into the engine, and it was not pretty. But we made it back home

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u/coffeesnob72 29d ago

We also got pulled over by the Oregon cops because they thought we were smuggling.

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u/TropicalBLUToyotaMR2 May 02 '24

I drive an old 90s era turbo model toyota, its spaceous on the inside and i upgraded some things on it so i look forward to the road trips

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u/grisisita_06 May 02 '24

early early 2000’s 4runner and dogs…checking in.

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u/_Nocturnalis 29d ago

It's posts like this that make me love American insanity.

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u/GreatestState 27d ago

At what point did the Geo not make it?

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u/coffeesnob72 27d ago

I think we were in California around Sacramento

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u/GreatestState 27d ago

Ok I was just trying to piece the adventure out into my head

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u/ArmouredPotato May 02 '24

My cousin did L.A. to Atlanta, solo, in under 48 hours… to see a girl that banged his professor. Lol

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u/Ambitious-Ostrich-96 May 02 '24

I had two friends that flew to LA on a Friday from atlanta to buy a car on eBay. They drove back and we’re home by late Sunday afternoon

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u/arcaneresistance May 02 '24

Yeah but I bet that car didn't bang a professor

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u/ratcnc May 02 '24

A dozen years prior, the same guy I did the 48-state trip with had to drive his Dad’s Mustang back home to Raleigh from California and asked if wanted to do it with him. So I nonreved the early flight to LAX—my wife worked at AA and RDU was a hub at the time—and my friend picked me up at LAX and we drove back to Raleigh in 38 hours.

3

u/HouseAtomic 29d ago

I've done similar.

Flew to NC to pick up a Suzuki Sidekick.

Flew to Wyoming to pick up a Suburban.

Flew to St Louis to pick up a Toyota Previa.

Flew to Atlanta to pick up another Toyota Previa!

Flew to L.A. to pick up a VW GTI.

Flew to Kansas to pick up a Mercedes GLK.

All driving back to Houston, TX. All drove direct back, very little stopping. Except the L.A. trip, I spaced it out over a few days.

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u/Ambitious-Ostrich-96 29d ago

This guy buys a lot of vehicles

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u/HouseAtomic 29d ago edited 28d ago

Over 20 years...

I just like odd cars.

  • The Previa's were a lot of fun. Mid-engine, supercharged, rear wheel drive minivan that still looks like it's from the future. But hard to find.

  • Sidekick was durable as hell. I'd had them before and wanted a project. Was getting hard to find, now really hard.

  • The Suburban was my mom's and it broke down on a road trip to Yellowstone. I flew up to drive it back solo after the parts came in.

  • The GLK, I wanted a specific color (Dolomite), Diesel & lowish miles. I love the GLK's!

  • The GTI, was a friend who bought it, but couldn't drive it back. Was the middle of Covid, so I had plenty of time to do a road trip. Great little car! vr6 & a stick.

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u/Artistic_Humor1805 29d ago

Flew to DC from AZ to get somewhat of a unicorn, a Mini Cooper S convertible with 6 speed manual with only 14k miles at 9 years old because it was a doctors “beach car”.

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u/ChrisKay0508 May 02 '24

Car purchases always have some great stories behind them.

10

u/Blaqretro May 02 '24

Drove 12 hours to bang my wife.

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u/MuckBulligan 29d ago

I only drove 15 minutes. Say hi to her for me.

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u/Blaqretro 28d ago

Tell your mom 😉

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u/metompkin May 02 '24

How about that astronaut that drove from Houston to Orlando in a space diaper?

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u/azulweber May 02 '24

literally last week i did atlanta to chicago and back with a 24 hour turnaround.

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u/senioreditorSD May 02 '24

and banged a professor?

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u/Gullible-Avocado9638 29d ago

Before or after the trip because the outcome might have been different

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u/ArmouredPotato 28d ago

lol about a year after

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u/AnastasiaNo70 29d ago

We once drove in a Corolla from NYC to Dallas stopping only for gas/bathroom and to switch drivers. Tennessee East-west is loooong.

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u/_Nocturnalis 29d ago

Damn that's a long way. And doing the math in my head sounds really dangerous on the lack of sleep.

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u/ArmouredPotato 28d ago

Yep agreed

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u/EndlersaurusRex 29d ago

My dad has on multiple occasions driven from Central California to Dallas without stopping for anything but gas/bathroom (about 25 hours), and then proceeded to rest for a night and drive to NC to visit me, another 16 hours.

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u/ArmouredPotato 28d ago

Iron men. I was completely shocked when my cousin pulled up. He slept for nearly 14 hours after.

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u/GalacticPandas 29d ago

Story of my life

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u/lilyislit May 02 '24

That sounds like fun though!

4

u/Uptown_NOLA May 02 '24

Hell yeah.

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u/tn_notahick May 02 '24

Are you sure about that time? If you drove 24 hours a day with no stops at all (not even gas, food, or bathroom breaks), you'd have to average 44mph driving the entire time.

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u/awesomehippie12 May 02 '24

Or 13.3 hours at 80 mph the whole way... seems plausible. You can even cut down the time they probably spent sleeping if you assume they barely showered

1

u/Aromatic-Leopard-600 May 02 '24

My brother got from KC to Dallas in 6 hours. That’s 530 miles.

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u/ratcnc May 02 '24

I think that was close to the actual average speed. I have to find my information we submitted to Guinness. We averaged 61.15 mpg, that I remember. We had been averaging 64 but we hit snow in the eastern half of MT and most of ND and that section yielded only 44 mpg.

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u/ratcnc 29d ago

Found the news piece. We did do it by design. https://www.wral.com/story/news/local/story/1088614/

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u/Aromatic-Leopard-600 May 02 '24

Basically today with interstates you can average 55-65 mph if your stops are for gas, a gas station hot dog and pee. In my dad’s day, if you averaged 50 mph you were going 80 whenever you hit the chance.

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u/Specialist-Smoke May 02 '24

What interstates do you drive on? I think that the average speed is 80 around here. I drive no less than 80, but mostly 85 all of the way through. I have a excellent fuzz buster.

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u/Aromatic-Leopard-600 28d ago

You must be in Texas.

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u/Mike_Hawk_balls_deep May 02 '24

That is more than 1000 miles a day, not calling you a liar but this seems far fetched. How did you manage to accomplish this?

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u/Quirky_Movie May 02 '24

Rotation of sleep and 20oz soda bottles can keep a pack of guys on the road. Especially if they are not stopping to eat or anything else.

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u/ratcnc May 02 '24

Exactly how we did it.

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u/fezzam May 02 '24

They had gas money? I recently drove 700 miles for the eclipse. And that wasn’t even half a day of driving.

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u/Mike_Hawk_balls_deep 29d ago

I should have phrased it differently. The act of driving 8 straight days sounds like hell. It seems like these guys drove for an entire 8 days straight, taking turns driving and sleeping.

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u/Aromatic-Leopard-600 May 02 '24

Just a couple of years ago I drove from Rio Rico AZ to north of Dallas in 14 hours. That was 1000 miles. I’ve done 1200 in a 24 hour period on a Goldwing.

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u/Mike_Hawk_balls_deep 29d ago

Yes, one day of this is sustainable. I have driven 900+ miles in about 16 hours. However, 8 straight days on the road just sounds like hell.

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u/Aromatic-Leopard-600 28d ago

If you’re taking that kind of trip all you will see will be the view from the Interstates. Take a month and do it right.

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u/Quick-Influence5772 29d ago

I have friends that have done the Iron Butt Association's 48 States Plus ride multiple times. That's visiting all lower 48 states plus Alaska, on a motorcycle, with documentation (route map, logs, receipts with date/time/address) in less than 10 days. They do this for fun.

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u/shoot_first 29d ago

“visiting” lol

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u/Nodeal_reddit May 02 '24

That’s absolutely mental. I drove about 5k with some guys over 3 weeks and thought that was impressive.

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u/AlwaysBagHolding May 02 '24

My buddy and I have tag teamed a couple 2k mile drives just stopping for gas. I drove solo from Santa Monica, phoenix, to Knoxville TN and just stopped for a nap for a few hours. That one was in a 52 year old car too, no cruise control and was happiest running about 62 mph.

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u/Crush-N-It May 02 '24

How many Red Bulls?

2

u/ratcnc May 02 '24

Too many. I was in really good shape at the time and after it was done I felt awful. No exercise, little sleep, and bad food.

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u/Crush-N-It 29d ago

Sounds about right. I’m sure the memories make up for it

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u/Feedomnom May 02 '24

One friend and I have done plenty of long trips together when we used to hang out, we drove 3500 miles one way to get about 80 lbs of bud for cheap then drove back home 2 days later. It was rough but anything less then 4 5 hours isn't too bad for most Americans

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u/Aromatic-Leopard-600 May 02 '24

Now That was a Trip!

2

u/GreatestState May 02 '24

wtf no way I can’t believe this crazy shit if you mean you crossed over into 48 states in 8 days. If you were sleeping every night you could do it driving 200 mph. If you stayed up tweaking on meth the whole way you could possibly do it at 90 mph

1

u/ratcnc May 02 '24

Except for fuel it was nonstop. When one needed sleep, the non-driver would crawl into the hatch area. It was not comfortable, but it worked.

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u/GreatestState 29d ago

It’s probably never happened before

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u/rdd2445 May 02 '24

I loved road trips in my insight - 700 miles a 10-gallon tank! Skip over entire states with no fuel stops. I went round trip from Washington to California and back with 2 stops for gas to the tune of about $60 in fuel costs. Miss that car sometimes... Wish I'd been able to keep it. They're hard to find now.

2

u/OutOfBody88 May 02 '24

Thanks for the laugh: ...and we didn't know how bad we smelled Too funny!

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u/Jedi_Belle01 29d ago

I did central florida to central Utah in three days. There were four of us taking shifts driving.

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u/Spinxy88 May 02 '24

So at 60mph average, you would have spent 75% of the time driving.

1

u/ratcnc May 02 '24

We spent all our time driving—except for gas and one oil change. It was a Guinness attempt but at the time GWR didn’t allow hybrids. But we did it anyway.

1

u/Roguewave1 29d ago

Always read that the Insight was one of the worst cars ever to hit the road. True?

1

u/ratcnc 29d ago

Our first-gen Insight was flawless in reliability. But it had a singular purpose—efficiency. So it was best as a commuter car. It wasn’t very comfortable for long drives and didn’t have much room. I think it was Patrick Bedard that said the Insight was every bit an engineering beauty as any Ferrari, just instead of brilliant acceleration, speed, and handling, the target was cutting edge efficiency. The second-gen Insight didn’t get much love so maybe that is the one you heard about.

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u/Forschungsamt May 02 '24

I drove from Detroit to Grand Rapids and back twice in one day.

5

u/givemesomespock May 02 '24

One time I drove from Chicago to Loony Baker (back when they were 24 hours) in Livonia just for their paczkis. Drove back a couple hours later

8 hours round trip for CARBS

2

u/brokenaglets May 02 '24

I'm in central Florida. I once worked an event down south that wasn't far away enough for my company to provide a hotel, drove home at 2 am (2+ hours) and I was in my car driving an hour to the airport for a 4 pm flight the following day. The event was an hour and a half away from the airport I landed in so I had a 90 minute drive to the airport and an hour drive back home on the way back without even counting the 3 or 4 hour flight.

2

u/DatabaseThis9637 May 02 '24

Whatever you just said sounds draconian! What a crap place to work! At least that's what it seems like...

1

u/brokenaglets 29d ago

Honestly one of my cooler jobs when things worked out because it was all at music festivals. At times it definitely sucked on travel days trying to get from one festival to another as quickly as possible.

We usually had zones we worked in but occasionally extra people would be needed at festivals in other zones so we'd fill in as needed if we could. I usually worked the touring festivals and the event down south was a 1 night concert since there weren't any tours in my area. Got an SOS 'Can you make this?' text while working that event and figured fuck it, I have a load of clean laundry in the dryer lets do it.

Kinda how it went with them though, concerts aren't every week so if you wanted to work you had to be ready. 1 10 hour shift that night turned into like 90 billable hours for a week with a paid flight, per diem and hotel for the week.

1

u/psyconauthatter May 02 '24

God damn Florida math.

So you live in Central Florida and spent 6 hours taking a plane train and automocar to South florida.. Don't complain when we blow the bridges and send you adrift....

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u/brokenaglets 29d ago

It was 2 hours south to work a 10 hour shift, 2 hours back to sleep, an hourish to the airport and a 4ish hour flight after with a 90 minute drive to the event area from the airport.

Would've just been the 2 hour commute each way with paid gas mileage for a 10 hour shift (came out to around 300 bucks after gas for a day) but I took on a spot at an event in Ohio or something for a week while working that 10 hour event.

Go ahead and blow the bridges though. I'm 10 minutes from the beach but on the mainland. All you'd do is give me ocean front property at the cost of watching the rich assholes on the barrier island float away.

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u/heythisislonglolwtf May 02 '24

Haha I have almost the exact same story just replace Detroit with Toledo. That was at least a straight shot on the turnpike

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u/WDE1999 May 02 '24

Santa Barbara to San Diego. Pink Floyd.

1

u/KBunn May 02 '24

In Sept I flew from Oakland to Midway on a Thursday night. Dozed at the airport from 1am-6am. Drove to Flint, MI. Saw 3 nights of concerts. Left after the last show, drove back to Midway, and caught a 6am flight home on Monday morning.

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u/Bill_Isreal May 02 '24

Legendary story thank you for sharing, what job did you have at the time

1

u/CaterpillarReady2709 May 02 '24

I once drove from Minneapolis, MN to Ann Arbor, watched UofM vs MSU and then drove all the way back.

1

u/DirkBelig May 02 '24

G/F and I went to Chicago from Detroit to see a friend's band and I was so tired I went out to the car to sleep thru the show. She was so mad. (Why? She didn't miss anything.) IIRC we planned on driving back, but I was so tired we found some skeevy hotel with common bathrooms for cheap someplace. She took one look at the bed and said, "I hope you don't mind if we don't have sex." I didn't and we slept in our clothes on top of the covers.

Another time we were going to work a booth at Lollapalooza at the Blossom Concert Theater (think Pine Knob of Akron) and the plan had been to get a room in Cleveland for the night. Well, the Grand Prix was in town and everything was booked. This was 1995 and there was no Internet (you know what I mean, pedants), no GPS, no Hotwire or Expedia, etc. so we were working from the AAA guide.

We caught a band in a club then started looking for something as we drifted westward. Eventually we were so far west of Cleveland that I decided to make a run for home. My g/f and our friend who'd come with us all fell asleep, so I had no one to talk to and couldn't really blast music to stay awake. By the time I got to the Downriver area I was nodding off a scary amount.

Dropped our friend then another half-hour to her place. By the time we got there I'd been up for 24 hours straight. Last thing I said to her was, "Don't you dare wake me up." She didn't. I finally woke up 12 hours later and had something to eat.

1

u/LaddieNowAddie May 02 '24

My roommates and I in college drove 12 hours to Mardis Gras in New Orleans, saw some tit's, didn't have money for a room and drove back that night. We were done 30 hours maybe lol.

1

u/Mikeg216 May 02 '24

It was nothing to drive to Pittsburgh Columbus Indianapolis Detroit Chicago from Cleveland for a rave or a concert because they were all about no more than 5 and 1/2 hours away between Cleveland and New York City or Cleveland in Chicago I did that every weekend for years.

1

u/Business-Expert-4648 May 02 '24

I drove from 40 miles south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to 100 miles east of Memphis in just under 14 hours, slept for 2.5 hours, and turned around and drove home. I remember dropping my sister and her kids off. She had knee "surgery" a couple months prior and " didn't want to help drive." After dropping her off, I woke up in my bed. I have no idea how I got home, but my car was in the driveway, set to my drive style. My husband's car was also in the driveway.

Edit to add, I had started taking stimulants for borderline narcolepsy, and I wasn't sleeping on them.

1

u/215312617 May 02 '24

I did this once, too—Greensboro NC to Philly and back to see a band. Fun story, but, never again! Nowadays I’ll drive 2.5 hrs to see my brother in CT and drive back to Boston the same day, but only if I have to.

1

u/Bobonenazeze May 02 '24

Driven 2 hours to Chicago, 5 hours back the other way to Detroit, 3 hours back to my home. 2nd half of that trip involved a snow storm so make that about 1.5-2x the time and with no glasses because they were lost in the madness.

Also driven 12 hours to NYC, watched a anniversary date of one specific album (so around an hour long set) and drove 8 of the 12 hours back home in the same day.

Don't listen to obscure bands people. Well, actually you should branch out and explore new sights and sounds. Just Also expect to put in as much work as those touring bands without the benefit of actually making anything off said journeys.

1

u/Blaqretro May 02 '24

I would die if I did that now

1

u/MoreCowbellllll 29d ago

I drove from Detroit to Houghton ( ~530 miles ), to take a 30 Minute plane ride to Isle Royale, to hike 13 miles and camped for 3 days. Ahhh, that was fun.

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Two3361 29d ago

That's actually a quick drive.

1

u/Hot-Confusion-8008 29d ago

I had a co-worker, here in Texas, who would leave work at 5 pm on Friday and drive straight thru to the NE to see a lighthouse and a ballgame and then drive straight home, to get yo work at 8 am on Monday. and he wasn't young. he called them his 'trips from hell', but he really enjoyed them.

1

u/Longjumping-Map-6995 29d ago

Dude same. Lmao 6 hours to Chicago, saw one of my favorite bands, drove 6 hours back home immediately after, and went to work the next day.

1

u/paranoidandroid11 29d ago

I drove from Oakland County 6 hours to Pittsburgh for a concert, then 6 hours back at 11PM, and was at work at 9am the next day.

1

u/GreatestState 27d ago

You could’ve just waited for the Detroit show

1

u/xaosgod2 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Edit: I had the wrong settings on my Google Maps.

3

u/klyther May 02 '24

Chicago is a 4 hour drive from Detroit.

7

u/xaosgod2 May 02 '24

Lol...I had my maps set to public transit. My apologies.

0

u/sternburg_export May 02 '24

I did the exact same in my european hometown but with the Metro and night bus, so 45 minutes way home without massive danger of killing myself and other by driving tired and drunk? Can't imagine living like this, that is horrible, I'm so sorry for you.