20 days, we took from December to January to drive to Maine (home to Maine? back to Maine?) Eric and I had decided that given our present circumstances - short on money but long on time - a drive with an extended stay would be our best course of action for a Christmas with families. When we decided this, sometime in early November, it seemed far enough away not to be daunting, but as our expected departure date drew close, we began to think we were a little bit crazy. It's one thing to get in the car and drive 1500 miles once, as we did to move here to Iowa. It's another to look at the prospect of driving the same 1500 miles both ways in a relatively short stretch of time. Crossing fingers that we wouldn't hit any winter weather and armed with the new DVD player Grandma had sent to save us from our older and tempermental model, we loaded our gifts, luggage, aging dog, and Lucy into the car.
Trip Statistics:
20 days away from home including
4 days traveling
2 days snowed in at Grandma and Grandpa's
4628 total miles including
1542 miles Iowa to Maine
1544 miles Maine to Iowa
1596 miles driven while in Maine
(10 trips between Waterville and Bangor and 1 trip from Waterville to Portland)
165 gallons of gas
$495 (at $3/gallon) spent on gas
231 miles averaged per day
$25 average gas cost per day
I contemplated going online and looking at the pounds of carbon each gallon of gas burned puts in the atmosphere and trying to compare that with the carbon released per passenger on a commercial flight as to look at how we did on overall environmental impact, but decided against it.
What really surprised me while we were in Maine was that the number of miles we drove while there exceeded that of our cross-country trip. We worked hard to coordinate seeing all the people we wanted to see with as few trips as possible, but no matter what we did the snow or people changing plans on us seemed to thwart our efforts. Next time we go home, we'll park ourselves somewhere nice (hopefully at camp this summer) and let all our friends and family come to us.
All in all, for the amount of time we spent in the car it didn't seem too bad. After 5 years will this drive be just another - ho hum - couple of days in the car?
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