This is a bit of a travelogue. It's not about my wife's voluntary two weeks caring for my aged & ailing father and stepmother, or about my joining her for the second week.
No, this is about the drive home, during which I did the "impossible:" I drove more than 700 miles at an average speed of over 70 miles per hour.
If you don't care, I don't blame you. This is not nearly as important as DKos's daily struggle to restore the Rule of Law. However, if you consider long-distance driving a challenging art, then read on. (The RKBA tag refers to the perils & challenges of legally carrying two loaded Glocks across multiple state lines...)
Background:
My dad and stepmom live in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. They built a lovely and handicapped accessible home 20 years ago, when neither of them were handicapped. Since then, my dear stepmom has suffered a few severe falls and broken bones... most recently in May, when she re-broke her hip and thighbone.
The day she came home from the hospital, my father suffered a brain aneurysm. This left him mostly unable to walk.
I visited in July shortly after the aneurysm, and my wife decided that she wanted nothing more than to spend her two-week vacation in Oklahoma tending to their needs. (Yes, she is a saint). I drove out after the first week. We are halfway through our drive home today, and that's what this diary is about: doing something my father told me was "impossible" 40 years ago...
This was his engineering logic, which is quite valid: by the time you stop for fuel, food, and other bodily needs, it is virtually (he left that word out) impossible to average 60 miles per hour -- one mile per minute -- on a day-long trip to anywhere.
We're from the East, so I have never tried such a thing on the Autobahn or the back interstates of Montana. However, I have spent the last forty years judging my driving prowess by measuring it against "a mile a minute" -- on such difficult courses as Provincetown to Atlantic City on the Sunday after Thanksgiving -- and then telling my dad "I did it again."
On the second leg of the trip to Oklahoma, six days ago, I set a new personal record: I drove the last 540 miles at an average speed of 68 miles per hour. I dared to dream of breaking 70 for a longer day, and I set a darned-near impossible goal by reserving a hotel room in Dayton, Ohio... 738 miles from his house. This time, I had a few things going for me.
The greatest asset was my trusty steed Elwood:
Mr. Blues(mobile) is a completely stock 2001 Ford Police Interceptor with about a hundred thousand miles on the clock... barely broken in, as such cars go. This car is designed to travel all day long at speeds that would get me put in jail (and on the six o'clock news, after the arresting officers counted my ammunition). It also looks very much like an unmarked police car, so most left-lane loungers move aside with some alacrity when it thunders up behind them.
The second asset is my sainted spouse, who likes to be driven... fast. (I will eschew the standard "rode hard and put away wet" joke here, which almost got me fired in a meeting until someone pointed out that it was an equestrian reference). She is perfectly comfortable with my driving, and serves as a rather skilled navigator when needed.
The third asset was the route itself: my father's house is about three minutes from the Interstate. We broke the mile-a-minute barrier ten minutes from his driveway, and never looked back.
We fell into a routine: we fueled up into the filler neck to maximize the car's range, set the cruise control at 84 mph, and drove until the gas tank was almost empty, which took over 300 miles even at such speeds. We kept our fluid intake to a minimum to avoid wasted stops, and took advantage of the two extra stops to disarm before entering Illinois where my carry permits are not valid (unload guns, place in box, lock in trunk) and rearm after leaving same (retrieve box, load guns, insert in Safepacker holsters) for bodily needs. (One thing we did not do was speed in construction zones: I've seen one highway worker killed by a truck right in front of me, and that was enough for a lifetime).
What did we see?
--Not many vacationers. Hotels are empty, and the highways are surprisingly clear for a fall Saturday.
--Lots of closed businesses. We passed more retail and commercial devastation than I've ever seen. Everything seems to be for rent, and nobody seems interested.
--Lots of "Beverly Hillbillies"-style family moves. Some of the truck and SUV-trailer combos we saw had everything but Grandma and her rocking chair on top.
--The nation's vehicular fleet is aging. I don't have scientific data, but the cars seem older than usual (and I'm a car guy). I saw a few '09 and '10 Mustangs, but people seem to be sticking with their 1998 Saturns.
The bottom line, for me, is that I set a new personal record of 70.5 miles per hour... door to door, including stops & delays. Most experienced travelers know how hard that is, at least in the USA.
So... congratulate me, tell me I'm slow, or call me a psycho... and maybe the poll will help: