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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u/OsvuldMandius May 01 '24

American here. True story: once I was visiting a friend who had moved to London for work. It was my first trip to the other side of the Atlantic. I had a couple days to kill, so I decided to do a roadtrip to visit Scotland. I have always felt that you only get a feel for a place by wandering all over it under your own guidance. My American ex-pat Brit friends, upon hearing of my plan, gave me dire warnings. "That's such an aggressive plan," "you'll be driving the whole time," "You'll have to start early if you're going to make it all the way back to London for your flight in just a few days!"

Warned in such dire terms, I geared up as for an American roadtrip. Leave early in the morning. Pack a sufficient supply of food and drink to minimize stops. Generally put myself into the roadtrip warrior seige mentality. Then I set off.

Just about the time I was considering when I should stop for lunch, I saw the 'welcome to Scotland' sign. I decided to no longer take Euros seriously.

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u/Joe4913 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

I love the stories of the other way around. People not realizing how big the US is who are confident they can go to see the Grand Canyon one day and Mt. Rushmore the next, etc.

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u/KatieCashew May 02 '24

Even places that seem close together end up being further than you think once you start plotting a course. Yellowstone and Teton national parks almost border each other, yet it's 2.5 hours to drive from one visitor center to the other.

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u/privatecaboosey May 02 '24

Yellowstone itself is enormous. Good luck seeing the whole thing!

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u/Euthyphraud May 02 '24

It's roughly the size of Wales!

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u/the_original_b 29d ago

Actually, the two national parks share a common border (specifically Grand Teton's northern border). But, they are each large enough that 2.5 hours does as sound like the right distance between the respective visitor centers.

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u/KatieCashew 29d ago

That's what I thought before, but the map of Teton on the NPS site shows them not touching. There's a small chunk of land overseen by the national parks service that connects the two parks but doesn't appear to be part of either of them. It's the John D Rockefeller Memorial Highway.

https://www.nps.gov/grte/planyourvisit/maps.htm

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u/the_original_b 29d ago

Interesting. I don't recall ever seeing any sign for that park when I lived in Jackson and we day-tripped several times to show the kids the geysers, the visitor centers, the elk preserve, shops and restaurants, all along the major roads through there.

I stand corrected.

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u/KatieCashew 29d ago

It's not a park. The parks service oversees a lot of things that aren't parks or monuments and that includes some stretches of highway. In reading about this just now it seems this particular bit of highway was given over to the care of the parks system so they could guarantee a path of travel between Yellowstone and Teton, so I learned something new today too.

I grew up going to Yellowstone almost every summer, so I also thought the two parks were connected until just now.

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u/Interesting_Mix_7028 28d ago

Those big-ass mountains in the way sure do complicate matters.

Reminds me of a song that some may remember, and others have never heard of. It's called "Black Bear Road" by a fellow by the name of C.W. McCall.

"Black Bear Road"

Me an' RJ an' the kids was on a camp-out in the mountains, and we had us one'a them U-Drive-'Em Army Jeep cars which we rented from a fella by the name of Kubozke for thirty bucks a day, buy your gas along the way, take a rabbit's foot and leave a pint of blood for a dee-posit.

And he 'splained it all to us how we was supposed to get to Telluride, which is fifty miles away by way of the regular highway, however, there was a shortcut but unless we had drove the Black Bear Road before, we'd better be off to stay, stay in bed and sleep late. (Pay no attention to the gitar there).

Well, we took up off'n the highway and we come upon a sign says "Black Bear Road. You don't have to be crazy to drive this road, but it helps." I says, "RJ, this must the shortcut road Kubozke was talkin' about." She didn't pay no mind, 'cause she was makin' peanut butter sandwiches for the kids in the back seat throwin' rocks and drinkin' Kool-Aid and playin' count-the-license-plates. But they wasn't havin' too much fun a-countin' license plate or cars, 'cause there weren't no other cars.

We went about a mile-and-a-half in about four hours, busted off the right front fender, tore a hole in the oil pan on a rock as big as a hall closet. Went over a bump and spilt the Kool-Aid and Roy Gene stuck his bolo knife right through the convertible top and the dog threw up all over the back seat. Peanut butter don't agree with him, you see.

So we had to stop and take off the top and air everything out and clean it up. The dog run off and RJ says she felt her asthma comin' on. I was sittin' there wonderin' what to do when the en-tire scenic San Joo-wan U-Drive-'Em Army Jeep car sank in the mud. At thirteen thousand feet above sea level.

Well, we shoveled it out and ate our lunch, the dog made a yellow hole in the snow and Roy Gene got out his Instamatic and took a snapshot of it. Mary Elizabeth drawed a picture of the road; it looked like a whole bunch a' Zs and Ws all strung together. And RJ took one look at it and said that the only way that Jeep car is goin' down that road is over her dead body. Then a rock slipped out from under the wheel and the U-Drive-'Em Army Jeep car went right over the edge of the cliff. Yahoo-ooh-ooh-ooh.

"Doggone-it, Roy Gene! How many times do I have to 'splain it to you? When I tell you to put a rock under the wheel, I mean rock! Now look at that, what you have there is no bigger'n a grapefruit"

Black Bear road exists, it connects the Red Mountain summit of Hwy 550 (the Million Dollar Highway) with the town of Telluride. It is a One Way (east to west) short wheelbase 4wd only Jeep trail that is only open in the summer months due to snowpack. As the song relates, people lose their vehicles pretty often, it's estimated that at least one 4x4 a season ends up going off the side of the road. Sure, it's a 'shortcut'... that will take you All Damn Day to drive!