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Least favorite road trip you have been on?

Started by Roadgeekteen, May 17, 2017, 10:18:30 AM

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Jardine

Helped a friend move from the Midwest to the east coast in a U-Haul van.

His tiny bladder was the worst aspect.

We are still on speaking terms, but I don't know that I'd do it again.


Roadgeekteen

Quote from: Jardine on September 18, 2017, 03:03:54 PM
Helped a friend move from the Midwest to the east coast in a U-Haul van.

His tiny bladder was the worst aspect.

We are still on speaking terms, but I don't know that I'd do it again.
You would hate me.
God-emperor of Alanland, king of all the goats and goat-like creatures

Current Interstate map I am making:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=1PEDVyNb1skhnkPkgXi8JMaaudM2zI-Y&ll=29.05778059819179%2C-82.48856825&z=5

Sanctimoniously

Either that time I drove from Jacksonville, NC to Boston with less than 150 dollars in the bank and ended up violently vomiting in a McDonald's in Connecticut...

...Or moving from Norfolk back to my hometown in Louisiana, again with almost no money, and having my then year-old car break down about a third of the way in, getting it running to take it to a dealer where I found out the entire engine computer needed replacing, then having to beg my mother to use her credit card on a rental to drive me and everything I owned the rest of the way home.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 22, 2013, 06:27:29 AM
[tt]wow                 very cringe
        such clearview          must photo
much clinch      so misalign         wow[/tt]

See it. Live it. Love it. Verdana.

Roadgeekteen

Quote from: Sanctimoniously on September 20, 2017, 06:59:46 PM
Either that time I drove from Jacksonville, NC to Boston with less than 150 dollars in the bank and ended up violently vomiting in a McDonald's in Connecticut...

...Or moving from Norfolk back to my hometown in Louisiana, again with almost no money, and having my then year-old car break down about a third of the way in, getting it running to take it to a dealer where I found out the entire engine computer needed replacing, then having to beg my mother to use her credit card on a rental to drive me and everything I owned the rest of the way home.
How did the people in mcdonolds react to the vomiting?
God-emperor of Alanland, king of all the goats and goat-like creatures

Current Interstate map I am making:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=1PEDVyNb1skhnkPkgXi8JMaaudM2zI-Y&ll=29.05778059819179%2C-82.48856825&z=5

TheHighwayMan3561

Quote from: Jardine on September 18, 2017, 03:03:54 PM
Helped a friend move from the Midwest to the east coast in a U-Haul van.

His tiny bladder was the worst aspect.

We are still on speaking terms, but I don't know that I'd do it again.

On this note my buddy asked me a few years ago to go to his hometown north of Green Bay with him to pick up a dresser he and his brother had built. So we drove out there the five hours. We get there and now I find out the dresser isnt't actually finished and he and his brother were still going to work on it more, leaving me to on a whim plan how to kill time in an area in the middle of nowhere.

Far from the "worst"  trip I've had but certainly annoying.
self-certified as the dumbest person on this board for 5 years running

21stCenturyRoad

My least favorite trip was within a trip  :sombrero:
It was a trip to Avon, NC while visiting family in Eastern North Carolina. Man, NC 12 and US 64 were so boring . Apparently the best of the Outer Banks is by turning north on US-158, not South.
The truth is the truth even if no one believes it, and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it.

akotchi

I consider all ground travel to be a road trip of some sort, as I always find something transportation-related to see or photograph . . . This one had a specific purpose, though.

May of 2014, Philadelphia area to Parris Island, SC -- our son graduated from USMC Boot Camp.  Planned for two days down with stop in Lumberton, NC.  Heavy rains most of the way down, prompting many stops -- went through a tornado warning area in central NC, and discovering the town of Micro in the process.  A small portion of I-95 was open but flooded as stream-like flows crossed the highway -- north of Fayetteville, if I recall -- creating severe backups.  Ducked off on parallel U.S. 301, but it, too, was flooded in one spot -- luckily the access back to I-95 was south of that highway's flooding area . . .

Finally got to Beaufort SC safely the next day, but our first trip onto Parris Island was interrupted by another torrential downpour.  The briefing presentation we were to have the day before Family Day was cancelled because that storm caused a power outage on the island . . .

Family Day and Graduation went off with much better weather as well as the trip home, but the way down, which was more time-sensitive, was by far the more nerve-wracking.
Opinions here attributed to me are mine alone and do not reflect those of my employer or the agencies for which I am contracted to do work.

kphoger

Overnight drives are bad.  The only two times I've done them, I was in miserable shape by the end of the drive–mainly because I was the one who knew the route so, even if someone else was driving, I couldn't make myself fall asleep for fear of missing a turn.  The first was in 2002, leaving Chicago at around midnight and arriving in Ouray (CO) at 11 PM; I could do almost none of the driving on the way back, because I was just wasted.  The second was in 2010, leaving Wichita at 7 PM and arriving in Parras (Coah, Mexico) at around 4 PM; I was so exhausted upon arrival than I had to make my wife do all the unpacking while I just sat there like a bump on a log.
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

NWI_Irish96

March 1993 - Freshman year of college Spring Break trip from Indiana to Florida.  My best friend and I, plus an acquaintance of his who was hitching a ride home to Florida for the week.  Left Southern Florida early morning of Friday, March 12.  As we approached Atlanta, is was raining very hard.  After stopping to eat on the north side of Atlanta and heading north, the rain turned to snow.  I knew this was not good because March snowstorms were not common this far south.  Somewhere in or near Chattanooga, the weight of the snow snapped of the drivers' side windshield wiper--not just the blade but the entire arm.  We found a service station that was still open and they didn't have a replacement in stock but were able to switch the passenger's side wiper over to the driver's side.  We briefly debated whether we wanted to keep going or stop for the night.  (If we had stopped, we likely would have been stuck in Chattanooga for days.  After returning home, we found out that police stopped letting traffic out of Chattanooga on I-24 not long after we left).  We pressed on, and for most of the trip from Chattanooga to Nashville, we followed behind semi trucks that were more or less plowing out paths in the road.  At one point the one we were following exited and we ended up going about 20 mph in the right lane until another one passed us that we could follow.  After Nashville things lightened up and we made it home, but that was by far the most stressful road trip I've ever made.
Indiana: counties 100%, highways 100%
Illinois: counties 100%, highways 61%
Michigan: counties 100%, highways 56%
Wisconsin: counties 86%, highways 23%

kkt

In the early 1980s, driving from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay Area at the beginning of winter break.  I was catching a ride with my mom.  All through the Willamette Valley from Wilsonville all the way to Roseburg was thick fog.  We kept going, taking turns driving, just hoping everyone was driving cautiously and not rearending us.  Then at Roseburg we got snow.  Snow, snow, snow all the way to Grant's Pass where we stopped for the night.  In the morning snow was still falling, but at least it was freshly plowed.  Took about 16 hours for what's usually an 8 hour trip.  Plenty of time to contemplate the virtues of US 97, or airlines.

sparker

I would say definitely the one where my father passed away (congestive heart failure caught up with him) at a rest stop -- the first one on WB I-10 in AZ, near San Simon.  He got out of the car, used the rest room, and sat down on a bench and keeled over.  There was cell service there (late '90's), so I was able to contact emergency services -- and one of the other travelers stopping there was a retired nurse, so we attempted to revive my dad, but to no avail.  It took the EMT's about 75 minutes to get to the place from their base in Willcox; when they got there, the on-call MD was on the line, and pronounced my dad deceased about 10 minutes after their arrival.  The whole thing was numbing -- although he was 91 years old, he hadn't displayed any signs of acute problems aside from early-stage Alzheimer's; he had been staying with his sister in Oklahoma for the previous two months (she managed a care facility there, and was on the lookout for problems with my dad, given his age and condition). I was bringing him back to his home in SoCal after the Oklahoma visit (he hadn't seen his sister in a few years, and she was still living in his original home town, so he wanted an extended visit); ironically, he had an appointment with his principal physician two days after we were expected to return to the L.A. area.

The ambulance took my dad to a mortuary in Willcox that served as the "branch" coroner's office in that county; I followed, and after an hour or so of phone calls, we arranged to have the embalming done in Willcox, after which his body would go to Tucson and be flown to Dallas, where it would be driven to Broken Bow for the services and burial.  I drove back to L.A., spent 3 days getting his financial affairs in order (we were lucky he had a living trust), and then flew to Dallas, rented a car and drove to Broken Bow to arrange the memorial service and burial in the local cemetery next to his father & mother (what he had always wanted).  The whole ordeal took about 9 days -- arguably the most grueling 9 days of my life starting with what was to be a 5-day road trip (2 CA-OK, one in OK, and 2 back, stopping in El Paso each way).  I'd rightfully call it the road trip from hell!   

kphoger

Quote from: sparker on November 16, 2017, 05:14:55 PM
   

I don't even know why any of the rest of us should bother posting stories, after that one which obviously beats them all. 

It's a good thing you had cell phone reception, though! (small consolation)
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

bandit957

Quote from: cabiness42 on November 15, 2017, 04:29:24 PM
March 1993 - Freshman year of college Spring Break trip from Indiana to Florida.  My best friend and I, plus an acquaintance of his who was hitching a ride home to Florida for the week.  Left Southern Florida early morning of Friday, March 12.  As we approached Atlanta, is was raining very hard.  After stopping to eat on the north side of Atlanta and heading north, the rain turned to snow.  I knew this was not good because March snowstorms were not common this far south.  Somewhere in or near Chattanooga, the weight of the snow snapped of the drivers' side windshield wiper--not just the blade but the entire arm.  We found a service station that was still open and they didn't have a replacement in stock but were able to switch the passenger's side wiper over to the driver's side.  We briefly debated whether we wanted to keep going or stop for the night.  (If we had stopped, we likely would have been stuck in Chattanooga for days.  After returning home, we found out that police stopped letting traffic out of Chattanooga on I-24 not long after we left).  We pressed on, and for most of the trip from Chattanooga to Nashville, we followed behind semi trucks that were more or less plowing out paths in the road.  At one point the one we were following exited and we ended up going about 20 mph in the right lane until another one passed us that we could follow.  After Nashville things lightened up and we made it home, but that was by far the most stressful road trip I've ever made.

March 1993 was when Panama City FL got a huge snowstorm, even though it almost never snows there. I remember this because I had some friends in college who went on spring break there that week. Their spring break was utterly, completely, totally ruined. (But I didn't go with them.)
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

bandit957

Quote from: kkt on November 15, 2017, 04:39:59 PM
In the early 1980s, driving from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay Area at the beginning of winter break.  I was catching a ride with my mom.  All through the Willamette Valley from Wilsonville all the way to Roseburg was thick fog.  We kept going, taking turns driving, just hoping everyone was driving cautiously and not rearending us.  Then at Roseburg we got snow.  Snow, snow, snow all the way to Grant's Pass where we stopped for the night.  In the morning snow was still falling, but at least it was freshly plowed.  Took about 16 hours for what's usually an 8 hour trip.  Plenty of time to contemplate the virtues of US 97, or airlines.

Once back in 1992, me and my brother drove to Michigan and back, and there was thick fog THE WHOLE DAY. We couldn't see a thing. We drove through downtown Flint and couldn't even see any buildings. This was the thickest, longest fog I've ever seen anywhere.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

Brandon

Quote from: bandit957 on November 17, 2017, 04:19:48 PM
Quote from: kkt on November 15, 2017, 04:39:59 PM
In the early 1980s, driving from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay Area at the beginning of winter break.  I was catching a ride with my mom.  All through the Willamette Valley from Wilsonville all the way to Roseburg was thick fog.  We kept going, taking turns driving, just hoping everyone was driving cautiously and not rearending us.  Then at Roseburg we got snow.  Snow, snow, snow all the way to Grant's Pass where we stopped for the night.  In the morning snow was still falling, but at least it was freshly plowed.  Took about 16 hours for what's usually an 8 hour trip.  Plenty of time to contemplate the virtues of US 97, or airlines.

Once back in 1992, me and my brother drove to Michigan and back, and there was thick fog THE WHOLE DAY. We couldn't see a thing. We drove through downtown Flint and couldn't even see any buildings. This was the thickest, longest fog I've ever seen anywhere.

It was Flint.  You didn't miss much.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

Brandon

Quote from: Jardine on September 18, 2017, 03:03:54 PM
Helped a friend move from the Midwest to the east coast in a U-Haul van.

His tiny bladder was the worst aspect.

We are still on speaking terms, but I don't know that I'd do it again.

Quite the pisser of a trip then.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

jakeroot

Quote from: Brandon on November 17, 2017, 05:27:58 PM
Quote from: Jardine on September 18, 2017, 03:03:54 PM
Helped a friend move from the Midwest to the east coast in a U-Haul van.

His tiny bladder was the worst aspect.

We are still on speaking terms, but I don't know that I'd do it again.

Quite the pisser of a trip then.

I've always thought bathroom jokes were a bit shit.

Roadgeekteen

Quote from: jakeroot on November 18, 2017, 01:32:24 AM
Quote from: Brandon on November 17, 2017, 05:27:58 PM
Quote from: Jardine on September 18, 2017, 03:03:54 PM
Helped a friend move from the Midwest to the east coast in a U-Haul van.

His tiny bladder was the worst aspect.

We are still on speaking terms, but I don't know that I'd do it again.

Quite the pisser of a trip then.

I've always thought bathroom jokes were a bit shit.
The bathroom joke you made was crap.
God-emperor of Alanland, king of all the goats and goat-like creatures

Current Interstate map I am making:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=1PEDVyNb1skhnkPkgXi8JMaaudM2zI-Y&ll=29.05778059819179%2C-82.48856825&z=5

ftballfan

In January 2014, I was scheduled to drive to Indianapolis to visit one of my best friends from high school (she played college basketball at a school there). However, about a half hour after I started off, my engine started to make funny noises, so I ended up having to turn around and go back home.

More recently, this past June I was coming back from Kings Island. I suffered from heat exhaustion as I had been riding coasters all day without eating or really drinking anything in 100 degree heat. I tried to make the 3.5 hour drive back home, but I had to pull over a few times to puke before deciding to get a hotel north of Dayton. That night was not a fun one, as I puked a couple more times in the room. However, I felt well enough to complete the drive home the next day.

Both of these were solo trips. However, when I was with my family in 2009, the family car's alternator blew just south of Tifton, GA on our way back from Florida. Thankfully, it was early enough on a Friday afternoon that we were able to get a new alternator put in, but we didn't reach our planned night stop (north of Nashville) until about 2am Saturday.

US71

Around 2005, traveling with my parents from Missouri to Chicago for Aunt Phyllis' funeral. My dad was grumbly the whole trip, my mom was in a funk having just lost her sister. We got the last motel room for 100 miles (big golf tournament in town) so I would up having to share a room with my folks. Not a fun time.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Eth

In early 2011, I took an overnight trip from my then-home in DC's Maryland suburbs to the east side of metro Atlanta for a job interview. Left around 7 PM and made my way through Virginia and the Carolinas on I-95 and I-20. Late in the trip I got low on gas; unluckily for me this was on the ~100-mile stretch of I-20 between Augusta and Covington, GA that has pretty much nothing but a bunch of trees. I finally came upon an exit with a gas station only to find it was closed (it was around 4 AM or so), leaving me with little choice but to press on. By the time I managed to find a gas station that was actually open (at GA 142, I want to say?) my car estimated I had just 8 miles to spare. Disaster averted, but still not a great experience.

There was also the time in college (~2007ish) when I was traveling from one family member's house to another and blew a tire at 75 MPH in the middle of nowhere on I-10 about 25 miles east of Tallahassee. Lacking a spare tire and several miles away from the next exit (and pretty inexperienced in these matters in general, having only had my own car for about a year at this point), I ended up calling my aunt (the destination family member) for assistance. She was a solid two hours away, but eventually got there and helped me get to the nearest tire place, which was at the US 19/27 split.

Hurricane Rex

Is none an answer? I try to find the joy in all road trips.
ODOT, raise the speed limit and fix our traffic problems.

Road and weather geek for life.

Running till I die.

Thing 342

Haven't had any truly terrible trips (no breakdowns or illnesses of note), but easily the most aggravating drive I've ever done was heading back to Hampton Roads from Columbia, SC after the eclipse this summer. We had expected traffic, so we decided to avoid I-95 entirely by taking US-1 out of Columbia, then following US-64 from Raleigh to NC-11 and US-13 back home. What we didn't expect was the number of other people who also had this idea; US-1 was bumper-to-bumper all the way until Camden, and then nearly a parking lot until we gave up and bailed onto SC-341 at Bethune. Eventually, we used SC-341, S-13-23, and SC-151 to get over to US-15, which we followed back to US-1 at Aberdeen NC. By the time we left SC, it was nearly 6pm, about 4.5 hours after the eclipse. We made it to Rocky Mount without much additional trouble, but by this point it was nearly 9pm and most of the I-95 traffic had cleared up, so we decided to cut our losses and take the interstate. This worked out well, except for yet another accident on I-95 near Jarratt that stopped us for nearly an hour. We eventually made it home at around 1:30 a.m., for a grand total of 12.5 hours spent on a drive that normally takes us 7.

oscar

My worst road trip has to be last summer's mega-cross-country road trip, about two and a half months (with breaks to fly up to southeast Alaska from Seattle, and fly back home for a week from Sacramento), and about 25,000 miles. I got a lot done, but my pickup truck had three breakdowns along the way, each of which threw me a day or two off schedule and caused a lot of aggravation in addition to the cost of repairs. This wasn't my first mega-road trip in the truck (my summer 2012 "Bad Roads of the Arctic" 23,000-mile road trip was almost as long), but until 2017 my travels in the truck were mostly breakdown-free.

The first and most "interesting" breakdown was in El Paso, on my way from home to southern California. I took a short side trip across the border into Ciudad Juarez, in order to complete my border-to-border clinch of US 85 and also snag the west end of US 62. Both routes end at the border, which for me (not everybody agrees) meant crossing the border. Having crossed into Mexico, I crossed back into the U.S. as soon as I could. Only it was a hot summer afternoon, and the stop-and-go traffic surrounding me on the four-lane one-way bridge back to the U.S. pushed the air temps over 130F (per my truck's outside thermometer), so my truck overheated. I managed to drive to the crest of the bridge with the coolant temp at redline, then turned my engine off to coast down the other side. Only once the bridge leveled out, just short of the U.S. customs booths, my engine wouldn't restart, and there was no way to get a tow truck out to me in all that traffic. U.S. customs staff pushed my truck to the customs booth, and after a mercifully short interrogation, pushed it out of the customs area, by which time my engine had cooled down enough to restart. The local repair facility seemed to think my problem was not unusual given El Paso's hot summers, and didn't cause permanent engine damage. But I did need to hang around overnight before they could give my truck a complete check-up, replaced the thermostat as a precaution, and sent me on my way.

In early August, the lug nuts on one of my wheels worked loose, late on a Saturday afternoon. I knew something was wrong but couldn't figure out what, and hoped to limp to the motel I'd reserved west of Sacramento before getting the repair the following Monday. Just a few miles east of the motel, my left front wheel came off (shearing off the wheel studs), and was pushed up into the fender so I didn't lose the wheel but also couldn't drive on it. The towing and repairs were aggravating and put quite a dent in my wallet, but I was able to resume my trip that Tuesday.

Finally, in early September on my way back home, on what started as a pleasant day in central Montana finishing off US 89 and US 191, my fuel pump went bad, able to deliver some fuel to the engine but not enough for highway speeds. I was able to limp to the hotel I'd reserved (nothing closer in that part of Montana), but it sucked having to drive at 35 mph on that last stretch on an Interstate with an 80mph speed limit. To make things worse, the Nissan dealer in Bozeman had to order a new fuel pump from out of state, there being none available locally. Then that overnight delivery was a day late. I was able to do some low-speed local driving while waiting for the new fuel pump, but otherwise it was two days wasted, when I was starting to run out of time to complete my drive back home in time for scheduled cataract surgery. I did get back home just in time to scurry around the day before surgery (mainly for chores like grocery shopping and partially unloading my truck, which couldn't wait until the usual "no heavy lifting" post-op restriction was lifted), but I had to rush things more than I had planned.

After recovering from surgery, I finished emptying out the truck, then pulled the plug on it after only 182,000 miles, since I no longer trusted it for cross-country travel, and it needed repairs to keep it going that would've cost more than it was worth. I still have my Prius (now over 286,000 miles, but more dependable for at least east-of-the-Rockies travel), but I'm starting to shop around for a new car to replace the truck.
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
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CapeCodder

When I clinched I-72.

I was smack dab in between Jacksonville and Springfield when I was overtaken by a squall line. When I had left Hannibal I saw the cumulonimbi off in the western horizon and thought nothing of it. There was a truck fire just east of Pittsfield and that tied us up a bit. In that time I guess the individual cells had congealed into a solid line. I looked off to the west in my mirror and saw that it was getting dark...fast. I had broken free of the traffic and we got up to cruise speed. I think I may have been speeding, but in my storm chasing experience you end up getting chased by the line. I was in between the two cities when I pulled over and just let it overtake me. Hail and blinding rain commenced for a good twenty minutes. Vivid lightning too. After stratiform rain commenced I continued on. On the way back to STL later that night I was hit again by another line. Damn. most vivid lightning I've ever seen. I think there was a tornado warning with it too, because I was listening to a local station and they were doing their public service advising of a tornado somewhere in their listening area. Will never forget it.



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