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Awkward Times to Travel.

Started by BigMattFromTexas, August 07, 2010, 11:51:13 PM

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BigMattFromTexas

[Don't think this is road related, but if so then please move in]

One time I went to San Antonio and back in one night. We left at 8:30 pm. We had to pick up 500 dozen boxes of Krispy Kremes. We got back to Angelo at around 3:30-ish AM. It was pretty cool, but I was so tired, but I went down there with my sister and an other chick (;)) So it was all good. But how many of yall have driven at real weird times?
BigMatt


corco

The weirdest scenario I had was last Easter Sunday I had to take a day trip to western South Dakota to take pictures for a class project. I was in Belle Fourche around lunchtime, quite hungry, and went to get food and absolutely nothing was open. I combed the town looking for food and photo opportunities (and the weird 212 shields I posted in a different thread), and found one gas station open. I ended up getting a bag of chips- I was a bit annoyed.

agentsteel53

if you can survive Sunday on the Alaska Highway, you are good to go.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

BigMattFromTexas

Here food wouldn't be an issue, for two reasons. 1) There are Whataburgers all over Texas, 2) I've gone all day without eating anything (numerous times). But maybe there's something about being on the road that makes you hungry, it's happened to me a few times, haha. But that does suck.
BigMatt

cu2010

A so-called "breakfast sandwich run", also known as the BSR, which me and a bunch of friends did once after they were all good and drunk (I didn't drink anything that night, because I had to work the next morning...and being the only sober one, I had to drive), at 230 in the morning.  A bunch of us, in car, driving to the gas station down the street for a breakfast sandwich. Good times :D

(Normally, the BSR was just that- a run- but we were all feeling particularly lazy that night.  :-D)
This is cu2010, reminding you, help control the ugly sign population, don't have your shields spayed or neutered.

Chris

22 hours in a bus from the Netherlands to the Spanish coast, driving all night. One time and never again, next time I'll drive myself, and get there in 14 hours.

Another time I was on a bus coming from Poland, and the driver had to make his obligatory rest time, so we ventured into Berlin until 11 pm and drove through the night to the Netherlands, where we arrived around 7 am. Again, if I was driving myself it could've been done in 5 hours instead of 8, so no more stupid bus trips for me.

J N Winkler

One year I decided to make a sunshine trip down to New Mexico and Arizona after the New Year, rather than between Christmas and New Year.  When I got to Lordsburg, I discovered Motel Road half shut down because the surge of Christmas travellers had come and gone.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

Jim

We've made rides from the northeast to SW Florida a few times by leaving mid-day on Christmas and driving straight through to get in late afternoon on the 26th.  The food and gas options are definitely limited on Christmas night, but we tend to stick close to I-95 on those kinds of trips so there's always something.  At least traffic isn't usually bad going through Baltimore and DC on Christmas night.

Photos I post are my own unless otherwise noted.
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Twitter @JimTeresco (roads, travel, skiing, weather, sports)

froggie

Last year's 18-hour marathon drive the day after my father died began around 2:30am.

SP Cook

Christmas:  Traveled a little, never very far.  Many places that are "never" closed are closed on Christmas eve and even Christmas night.

Thanksgiving:  Here in WV, we are in our 83rd straight year of the Depression.  Thus the southbound tollbooths are backed up for miles on the Sunday following, as the majority of a generation returns to work in North Carolina, other than that, not much to notice.

Night:  I love to travel at night.  Often start trips at midnight.  In most places from about 12 midnight to about 4:30 or even 5:30 you can enjoy a cop-free, left lane bandit free, trip.   My metabolism is such that conv. store junk food is just as good a meal to me as cooked food, so the lack of restaurants is not an issue to me.  Have sometimes outdriven my plans in regular trips and found motels all full.  Once in rural southern Minnesota and once in Quebec.  Eventually found rooms well after 2 am.  Used to have a job with statewide travel, having to be somewhere every day at 8:30 am and not allowed to stay over night.  Never an issue.

Eth

Normally when I make one of my frequent DC-to-Atlanta drives I tend to leave around 6am (before morning traffic gets really bad), though this has the unfortunate effect of putting me in the ATL at about 4pm, which can be painful.  A few months ago I decided to try it overnight instead.  Leaving here at about 7pm on a Wednesday night, once I got out of the suburbs on I-95 south, traffic became almost nonexistent (my destination this time was on the east side of Atlanta, so I took I-95 south to I-20 west; once I hit I-20, there was a stretch of roughly 20 miles without another vehicle traveling westbound).

Lesson learned from this trip (my first ever overnighter):  always make sure you get gas early.  Along I-20 in Georgia between roughly Madison and Covington, it is very difficult to find a gas station open at 4am.  Thankfully there was one open in Covington; had it not been, I'd have been forced to just wait there until it did open as I was down to under 10 miles' worth of gas remaining.

huskeroadgeek

I haven't done a lot of overnight travel in a private vehicle(I've done more in a bus), but I've found that it isn't too difficult to find places open if you know where and when to stop. Lage gas stations/truck stops are almost always open 24 hrs-so if you plan your stops at such places, you should be fine.
It used to be more difficult about 40 years ago and longer. My dad has told me stories before about what it was like in the early 70s driving between Nebraska and Vandenberg AFB in California where he was stationed in the Air Force. He talks about how he used to have to watch the gas gauge with a wary eye because of all the open area you have to travel through where gas stations were few and far between in the daytime, and even moreso at night. Fewer people traveled at night at that time because of the lack of 24 hr services-he said that driving on I-70 in Utah (including the then-newly opened stretch between Green River and Salina) was something of an adventure because you could go miles without seeing a single other vehicle traveling either direction. He says it was necessary to drive with high beams on just to see the road since there was no other light available and no vehicles to follow behind to see curves in the road.

Truvelo

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the obvious awkward times - heading into a city at 7-9am and heading out at 5-6pm. In the case of London the main freeways can be jammed from 6am. Fortunately as I live near the centre of a large city I always head out in the morning so I go against the main flow of traffic.

Quote from: SP Cook on August 08, 2010, 12:44:51 PMNight:  I love to travel at night.  Often start trips at midnight.  In most places from about 12 midnight to about 4:30 or even 5:30 you can enjoy a cop-free, left lane bandit free, trip.

Nights are my favourite time too. We have a few cops driving around at night but our main problem, camera vans, are all parked up so in the small hours of the night 90-100mph cruising is something I undertake all the time. The only problem driving on deserted roads at night is the presence of deer. I wrecked the front end of my last car after striking a deer at 12.30am on a remote road in Scotland. For those who don't mind seeing a mangled wreck of a young deer there's a picture here. It also took out the radiator so I had to be towed the 350 miles back home.
Speed limits limit life

US71

I often find the further it is past 7pm, the smaller the chances of finding something to eat besides IHOP or Chinese buffet. If it's a small town, *maybe* you can find a Domino's open after 9.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

huskeroadgeek

It seems to me that most fast food places are usually open to at least 9. McDonalds is usually open a couple of hours later-24 hr establishments aren't uncommon, and some places like Taco Bell specifically advertise about their overnight hours. I have discovered though that even though places like Taco Bell are open 24 hrs., they are sometimes drive-through only during the overnight hours, and service can be very slow.

corco

That's something that amazes me about Laramie- it's a pretty important fuel stop for cross country travel (as well as a college town), and we have about a dozen fast food restaurants. Exactly one is open after 10 PM, that being the 24 hour freeway Wendy's.

cu2010

Quote from: US71 on August 08, 2010, 03:47:02 PM
I often find the further it is past 7pm, the smaller the chances of finding something to eat besides IHOP or Chinese buffet. If it's a small town, *maybe* you can find a Domino's open after 9.

In the small town where I went to school (in the middle of nowhere), the Domino's often stayed open well past midnight...despite being advertised as open until 11 only. Downtown, there were two pizza places open real late (one until 1am [which had the best damn pizza roll for miles, the so-called "fat bag"], the other 3...though only when the bars are open), and a local bagel shop open until 3am as well (which is a damn good time to go, since you can often get good deals on bulk bagels then...and that tiny little bagel shop was miles better than the Dunkin' Donuts up the road (at the expense of being slightly dirtier, especially when drunk college students show up...we often had to wipe the tables down ourselves. The food's good, though.)  2am bagel shop runs are fun (especially when you're 21 and able to drink in the bar beforehand!)

Granted, this is a college town we're talking about, and college students are the majority of the late-night business of many of those places...
This is cu2010, reminding you, help control the ugly sign population, don't have your shields spayed or neutered.

Alex

Before I cared about photography, I would base all of my long distance or "roadding" trips at night. Reason being, less traffic. That was when I swear it would just be me and a bunch of trucks, but nowadays when I am on a freeway at night, there are a number of other cars, suv's, pick up trucks, etc. In other words, it is no longer just for long-distance truckers...

Back then I mainly did highway video, and did not mind shooting it at night. So I have a number of freeway videos shot between 10 pm and sunrise.

Chris

I'm surprised how busy roads can be at night too.

In Austria, you have these peak travel days, where all traffic is funneled down through a two-lane tunnel. If traffic approaches a certain volume, they close the tunnel in blocks to avoid saturation and congestion (these tunnels are over 8 miles long). It's not uncommon to have these blocks already around 1 am on July Saturday nights, continuing all through the night. By 6 am, the waiting time can be as much as 4 hours, approaching 6 - 7 hours around noon, then subsiding slowly.

realjd

Along the east coast, I've noticed that night traffic comes in waves. On I-95 through South Carolina, it will often be absolutely packed at 8 or 9 at night with most cars having plates from NY, NJ, and other northeastern states, but then it will be near deserted at 8 or 9 the next morning. The same thing can be seen on I-95 in Georgia an hour later and FL an hour or so past that. It's more noticeable around holidays and during spring break season. The tourists will leave home in the morning and drive straight through to Florida, all making around the same speed.

I've started noticing this with other road trips though too. I'll see an abundance of license plates from my starting location throughout the day, mainly because we all left in the morning and are making similar time.



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