I love road tripping. To me there’s nothing like seeing our great country by wide open road with  all little nooks and crannies along the way that make our country so good. I have been to most of the lower 48 via by road, and plan to see it all before I retire. I am currently missing Florida, Alabama, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Louisiana and Michigan, and plan on seeing them before I retire.

I like taking my vehicle with me when I travel. Maybe it’s a comfort blanket but, I would rather drive my vehicle than fly. I have road tripped with old cars like a 1996 Subaru Outback in 2006 and 2018, and with a new 2021 Ram 1500 in 2021 plus many others along the way. Over 90% of my road trips, I did not have any kind of roadside service to fall back on. If anyone ever tells you that they never have any problems on the road, they lie. I have had a couple of road trips from hell, but it really doesn’t change my tune, it makes it memorable: like the time my engine blew in New York, with my mom and two bottle lambs in the truck, and we had to be towed home from mid-state New York, (it took 6 hours to get home, with my mom, 2 lambs, in a tow truck, with us smelling bad from sheep shearing.)

In this part we are going to talk about the logistics with tips and tricks I learned.

What you should know before going

• I do not get gas from non-chain cheap stores. 9/10 they are named US GAS, America’s gas or Freedom gas. I am going to sound racist for 2 seconds, but the ones ran by people with foreign accents. Their gas is usually anywhere from 5-20 cents cheaper than everywhere else. My reasoning is first, I noticed my vehicles have burned through it quicker than gas from Wawa, Sheetz, or Exxon to name a few. Next, those tend to be the first ones to have water in the fuel, I don’t want or need that problem, especially when I have places to go, people to see, and the tow truck isn’t one of them.

• Food: I used to start out packing for the end of the world when I would go on a 5-day road trip. I would pack enough sandwiches to last the whole trip, chips and pretzels, all kinds of drinks, candy, fruit, and veggies. A lot of it would spoil. I came to the realization though, it’s a lot more fun to stop along the way. I also don’t waste nearly as much food. I like to find the hole in the wall diners where the locals hang out. You hear a lot more gossip and drama with your meal. It’s like dinner and a show without the exuberant pricing. I also don’t mind stopping at grocery stores and seeing what their prices are like compared to ours or what they stock. For instance, in Bally, Texas they still had a regular Walmart in 2021, not the Supercenter. It was cute, quaint, and brings back a lot of memories of taking the boys on a Friday night to play hide and go seek at Walmart before it got big, and I wasn’t tired after shopping.

• Have a crap hits the fan plan before you go: If you have a plan for that flat tire or rough running engine, it doesn’t seem so bad, and the stress doesn’t make you want to cry, (been there) because you already know what you are going to do (been there too). Are you planning on changing your own tire, do you have roadside assistance, and will they cover where you are travelling? If you do have to get minor repairs, where are you planning on going for instance: Walmart will not touch my vehicle, if I have a tire issue my plan is Discount Tire, because they will do a free patch if possible. AutoZone will read a code for free, and since I know a lot of the codes, if it is an Evap code, it will wait until I get home, but if it is serious, I am reaching out to the network that we have set up with various forums and meetings, because I have met some awesome shops that way. (Guess what? If you have a problem and you are out of the area, my network can be your network!)

• A good check over before you go saves quite a bit of headaches: If your wipers are torn, and you can’t use them for fear of scratching the windshield, well if you don’t get them replaced before you go, it’s still going to scratch the windshield and now you are in a unfamiliar spot and have to do it in the rain. Same thing with the oil change, or headlights, taillights, and all the other parts. Do you know how to change a tire and are the tools still in your vehicle to do so, can you get to them easily, (I have had jacks that were wedged in their cubby and really hard to get out in a parking lot let alone on the side of the road. Is your spare an actual spare or is it a compressor and a can of fix a flat. Does it have the right amount of air? If you know, then the stress and anxiety go way down. If you are packing an impact with sockets make sure the socket or your spare tire wrench or iron will fit over the lug nuts, not that the metal on lug nuts swelled and expanded and all that planning went out the window. Do you have the wheel lock key? What about the roadside assistance info? (it doesn’t help you sitting at home on the desk) Get it done at home by people you trust.

• Know basic car care- know what overheating looks like, what the warning lights mean, bonus points if you know what a flat tire feels like when driving, how to check engine oil (especially for trips 2000 miles and more), what kind of oil your vehicle takes and where to insert it, what kind of coolant and washer fluid and where to insert it. Also find out how to pump up your tire and what psi it should be. You can take care of these without a shop, for just the cost of the fluid and 10-15 minutes of your time.

• Plan to stop and enjoy yourself along the way. There are a lot of things to do and see that are not far off the interstate or out of your way. I have seen MT. Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, the drive through Safari in Virginia, the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Fort Worth Stockyards, The tops of the Rockies, and Appalachian, the Alamo and more. If you only drive straight through you never get to see that. Check out the biggest ball of Yarn, the Kentucky Derby or the best Barbeque in Kansas. It gives you memories and it breaks up the day. So, a 3-day trip might take 4, time is the only currency that you can’t make more of. Check out trippy.com for some ideas of where to stop. Do it! You will not regret it.

• Know where everything is stashed in your vehicle and try to make sure it will flow if you need it. If you are looking for something, it makes it a lot easier if you know a general location. For instance, for me, the tire jack is located under my front passenger seat and the impact and socket are in the front passenger door. If I need to change a tire, I can open that door freely on the side of the road and be able to get what I need vs. on the driver’s side I might need to open and shut the door a couple of times because of traffic if I need to get it.

It all seems general and easy when you don’t have to think about it, but when you are getting ready for your trip and trying to get everything done before you go, it can seem daunting.  After the third or fourth trip though it becomes second nature. 
In the Next part I will talk about being a young female on the road and being safe and secure whether with friends or alone.