Last Wednesday, I began a cross country trek from SE Wisconsin to Western New York (or WNY as they seem to refer to it) to attend my oldest brother's college graduation. Previous to this trip, the longest I had traveled by car as the primary driver was a 5.5 hour trip a suburb of Detroit, MI for a friend's wedding. Of course, that was a very different trip from this one as gas was around $2.00 / gallon and I was not traveling with 2 kids under the age of 5.
As much as I'd like to say that a lot of preparation went in to the planning of this trip, that's not true. It's just not me to study the course, anticipate and plot potential problems, and make out contingencies. I searched for directions on various online map sites (namely Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and Windows Live) to ascertain that they all agreed on the route to take (they did). As we were leaving on a weekday, we planned to leave in the evening and drive through the night to make it easiest on the kids and avoid traffic in the metropolitan areas (e.g. Chicago and Cleveland). The return trip was scheduled for a Sunday making traffic a mostly moot point, especially since Chicago traffic would be normal that evening after the Cubs and White Sox played each other that afternoon. Therein lies the extent of my cross country driving plans.
So, five days later, my brother has graduated cum laude with a B.B.A and I've returned from my trip. What follows are my observations...
The round trip consisted of about 1,575 miles of driving. My car consumed 49.132 gallons of gas to complete the trip for an average gas mileage of 32 mpg. Surprisingly, this is exactly what the EPA highway mileage estimate is for the vehicle.
With the kids in tow, we considered driving my wife's minivan for the convenience factor. With a third row seat available for the passenger to snooze in, additional leg room, and a built-in VCR, it was a compelling idea. However, with a 24 mpg highway rating, we would have consumed 33.57% more gasoline or 16.493 more gallons. The highest gas prices seen were home in Wisconsin and next door in Illinois at $3.59 / gallon. The lowest price was $3.07 / gallon in New York. In other words, by taking my car we saved between $50 - $60 in gas money. And that's just the cash savings - don't forget the environmental savings of not burning that extra 16.5 gallons of gas.
Speaking of gas money, my credit card receipts show that I spent just over $160 on gasoline for the trip (approx. $3.25 / gallon). Ouch. It's a good thing I don't travel long distance very often.
Tolls, tolls, and more tolls. Wisconsin does not have any tolls. In Ohio, our route took us on the Ohio Turnpike (tollway) until shortly before Cleveland where I-90 turns north towards the tip of Pennsylvania's tail (the tollway continues east in to the heart of Pennsylvania). Since we only passed through a slice of Pennsylvania, we avoided any of their tollways. That left us with tolls to pay in Illinois, Indiana, half of Ohio, and New York. The round trip tolls broke down as follows:
- Illinois: $7.50
- Indiana: $8.80 (includes an extra $0.50 since the first toll stop ate my money without opening the gate)
- Ohio: $12.00
- New York: $4.24 (This is either incomplete, or all E-ZPass tolls for the day are deducted from my iPass account as a single toll. My usage history only shows 2 tolls while I was in NY, despite the fact that I passed through 4 toll gates - 2 each way.)
Illinois has the iPass system. New York is a part of the E-ZPass system. Both systems now accept each other's transponders which made for an easier toll "experience" than in the two states on the trip without electronic tollbooths (Indiana and Ohio) where you had to worry about losing a ticket and ensuring you had enough cash in your pocket to pay the fees. Wikipedia says the Ohio Turnpike is going to start accepting E-ZPass. Unfortunately, it won't be fully functional until 2009.
In a strange twist, the worst drivers encountered did not call any of the states we traversed home. Around here, Illinois drivers are consistently maligned for their aggressive driving nature that pushes the commonly accepted boundaries for exceeding the speed limit. There's a reason Urban Dictionary has 13 entries for FIB. My exposure to New York drivers was fairly limited, but I found them to be straight "right-of-way" drivers: if they've got the right of way, you'd better get OUT of it. I can live with that. Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania drivers resembled Wisconsin drivers. It's the Michigan plates you have to look out for. They're like Illinois drivers on crystal meth.
Shortly after beginning the return trip home, I turned 60,000 miles on my car's odometer. It now stands at 60,767 miles. I bought this car in November 2002 with 7,600 miles on it, which means I've driven it 53,167 miles in 54 months for an average of 11,814.84 miles per year or 984.57 miles per month. That's right in line with what automobile manufacturer's think is "normal", but is low compared to everyone else I know.