HANOVER, Maryland – The trip ended here at 5:38 p.m., Eastern Time on Saturday, making this a 2,547.2-mile, 106 hour, eight minute jaunt through America. That’s total time. I did not keep track of the actual driving time but I should note here that one of my goals was to complete the trip without exceeding the posted speed limit. I accomplished that, to the dissatisfaction of some of the drivers behind me.
The last leg, from Dayton to Maryland, allowed me the chance to drive through a portion of West Virginia, my first visit there. I stopped to buy gas and spoke to a nice woman. My unscientific study of the people of West Virginia indicates that they are all very nice and all have Goodyear tires on their red pickup trucks.
Saturday’s leg included some mountain driving. The mountains in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania are green this time of year and are quite pretty. There were some climbs, but not so steep that the Aveo had trouble. The speed limit was usually 65 mph, but it was 55 in several areas and that allowed for some extended gas mileage. The total stats for the trip are below.
There is a very famous tunnel, I guess, that I had to drive through on one of the turnpikes. It is almost exactly one mile long and it gave me the creeps. The upper portion of the tunnel is lined with tiles and there are large patches where the tiles have fallen off. It made me wonder what other maintenance work has not been done recently and I was perfectly happy to get back out into the sunshine.
I traveled with a Garmin GPS device, though I didn’t need it for the first 2,543 miles. I used it to negotiate the final few miles to the hotel and we had a little difference of opinion. The Garmin gave me clear instructions to get off at ramp 10 A, but after departing the highway I was able to determine that the men in US Army uniforms and guns were probably not part of my official welcoming committee. I figured out they probably had something to do with Fort Meade (the gate and wire fence were keys to this theory) and I returned to the highway. Garmin again instructed me to use exit 10 A, which is the ramp I used to ENTER the highway this time. Exit 10 B is a few hundred yards down the way and, as I approached this exit, Garmin informed me with an exasperated tone that it was “RECALCULATING.”
I could have done without the attitude.
I finally arrived at the hotel and eventually got some sleep. I visited with my son and his wife Sunday. I’ll have lunch with my son again today, pickup my daughter at the train station tonight and fly home Tuesday.
The final stats:
Miles: 2548.8 (Including driving to the gas station from the hotel)
Gasoline: 74.1 gallons
Mileage: 34.3 mpg
Duration: 106 hours, eight minutes
Traffic jams: 2; St. Louis (traffic rolled but slowly) and some area near Indianapolis (road work).
Wrong turns: 2; somewhere in Oklahoma (I picked the wrong lane to be in) and near Hanover, Maryland (dispute with Garmin).
Weather: Mostly hot, even during the severe thunderstorm in Dayton, Ohio. Got some rain here in Maryland on Sunday.
Highways: Easy to remember. 40 to 44 to 70 to Maryland.
Hope you’ve had a nice week. Thanks for reading.
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