Road Trip!
By Larry Sribnick
My daughter and son-in-law had a 2005 Toyota Prius that
had 110,000 miles on it. The car was in perfect condition, but they decided
that it was time for a new car. Rather than trading the car in, I decided
that the Prius would be the perfect replacement for my 2001 Chevy Suburban
that only got 15 miles per gallon. The kids said I could have the Prius if I
wanted it so I had to decide if I wanted to have the Prius loaded onto a car
carrier and transported back to Bellport, or if I wanted to drive it back
from Scottsdale,
Arizona
myself.
Like most of you, my driving experience has been limited
to a day or two of driving with a single overnight. This 2,700 mile trip
would mean four or five days of driving with three or four overnights and I
would have to do it all by myself.
Luckily,
my good friend, Irv Gordon, was the perfect person to ask about the trip.
Irv lives right here in East Patchogue and
is the original 3 million mile man! Well, actually, the 2 million, 925
thousand mile man. Irv has 75 thousand miles to go to break 3 million miles.
He’s in the Guinness Book Of World Records as being the highest mileage,
non-commercial driver in a single, original car, his 1966 Volvo P1800.
Irv patiently answered all my questions, made a bunch of
great suggestions, and decided I was good to go! So, I flew out to Phoenix
on Friday, had two days of meetings with my daughter Erin, who works with me
designing and operating Bellport.com, and bright and early on Monday morning
I was on my way back to good old Bellport, New York all by myself.
The
first part of the trip was to head north out of Phoenix to
Flagstaff,
Arizona, 146 miles, on Interstate
17 where I would pick up Interstate 40 east bound. It also meant climbing
from about 1,400 ft. in Scottsdale to almost
8,000 ft. near Flagstaff.
The terrain started off very flat in Scottsdale,
but was mountainous by the time I got to
Flagstaff.
Once
I reached Flagstaff,
I’d be on Interstate 40 for several days. Interstate 40 is the high speed
replacement road for the original Route 66 and I would see remnants of Route
66 all across my route. The trip that day would take me from
Scottsdale,
Arizona, to Phoenix,
Arizona, to Flagstaff
Arizona to Albuquerque,
New Mexico, to Tucumcari, New Mexico.
If
you follow along with the photos, you’ll see how the terrain changed as I
drove along. Scottsdale
was flat, red, desert with lots of sbarro cactus. As I climbed, the cactus
changed and the trees were more like the pine barrens here on
Long Island. Climbing higher, there were taller pines and the
outside air temperature dropped to 37 degrees F..
It
took 10.5 hours to travel the 642.1 miles from Scottsdale, Arizona to Tucumcari, New
Mexico, my layover for the first night. The weather
was great and I was amazed that from
Flagstaff
to Tucumcari I averaged 54.5 miles per gallon with either no wind or a very
slight tailwind. My speed was pretty much 75 miles per hour all the way. I
had decided that I didn’t want to tempt fate so I would set my cruise
control at whatever the speed limit was. It turned out that I averaged 64
miles per hour for the entire trip, which included 2 hours of stop and go
traffic going through New York City.
The
scenery was great, red outcroppings of all kinds and shapes along the way.
Every few minutes there was something new and interesting at which to look.
The second day took me from Tucumcari,
New Mexico, to Amarillo,
Texas, to Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, and on to Clarksville, Arkansas,
602.5 miles in 10 hours; Lots of rain and a strong headwind towards the
end
of the day. Arkansas is more like here,
rolling hills and lots of foliage with fall colors, but Texas was flat... I mean
F.....L.....A.....T!!! Oklahoma was a
little better and
started to turn a little green with more to look at, but Texas is FLAT!
Day three took me from Clarksville,
Arkansas to Knoxville,
Tennessee, 634.6 miles in 10.75 hour passing
through Memphis and Nashville,
Tennessee.
Lots of rain, wind, and crazy drivers. I know we all complain about the
drivers around here on Long Island, but Memphis
to Knoxville is taking your
life in your hands. I longed for New Mexico, Texas, and
Oklahoma.
I may have been alone on this drive, but I had plenty of
technology to keep me company. I had a portable GPS, a hands free cell phone
system, XM radio, and the Pandora internet music system. If you haven’t
heard of Pandora, visit Pandora.com for all the details. It’s an absolutely
wonderful free, or very inexpensive, internet music service that I can’t
live without. I was surprised that Pandora, which I was accessing the
internet through my cell phone, only had trouble connecting for a few
minutes going through the middle of nowhere in Texas. Other than that, it
worked flawlessly for the entire trip.
I also had AM/FM radio, a CD player, and a cassette tape
player, but I didn’t use any of them on the trip. It just shows how much
things have changed. Five years ago, they are probably all I would have used
to keep me company on the trip.
I had planned to leave Knoxville
and travel north on Interstate 81 to
Harrisburg
Pennsylvania the fourth day. I
would then head home to Bellport on the fifth day, but it all depended on
what time I would reach Harrisburg.
It also meant that I would travel through Virginia
and Maryland to get to Pennsylvania. I got an early start, 5:30am,
so I pulled into Harrisburg
at 2 pm. It was really too early to stop for the day so I
decided to push
on, heading east on Interstate 78, and finish the trip on the fourth day of
driving. That meant 776.3 miles and 15 hours of driving. Needless to say, I
was pooped. The 18 wheeler on the
Belt Parkway hitting an overpass didn’t help any
either. However, I averaged 56.6 miles per gallon for the last 139 miles of
the trip going through New Jersey, Staten
Island, and Brooklyn.
Overall, the trip was 2655.6 miles long, took 41 hours and
51 minutes of driving, averaged 64 miles per hour, and I got an average of
48 miles per gallon from the Prius. The entire trip only cost me $184 for
gas!
Would I do it again? Absolutely, but probably only the
western part. This was my first time in New Mexico,
Texas, and Oklahoma. I hope to be able to take a
leisurely drive just poking around in the area at some point in the future.
From Memphis home is pretty much like driving
on
Long Island except, as I mentioned, for the
crazier drivers.
Let’s see, I only have about 2 million, 972 thousand miles
to go to catch up to Irv. Piece of cake!
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