We are not the first people to do this cross county road trip. And since we are going slow and not trying to get anywhere in a hurry, it should be fun.

I should point out that my husband has actually done it a few times but always as a child (or teenager) in the back seat, never as a driver and planner. What is more, his parents and sister have done it a whole bunch of times. His dad has done over 28 round trips… 56 one ways. So, we can totally do this.

C’s dad (Ed) gave us the list he wrote up a few years back for another family member. I will share it with you.

 Travel checklist

Car (Errors here are inconvenient in the home theater but possibly catastrophic on a cross continent trip.)

1. Complete auto check (? dealership) and service I-2 weeks prior to leaving
2. Do not leave without GOOD tires (at least 10,000 miles of tread left), inflated to the right pressure. Balanced and aligned! Check the pressure almost daily on the trip! Under inflated tires in the desert in summer are BAD. Have a good tire gauge.
3. Make sure your spare is good and inflated
4. Good brake linings.
5. Make sure A/C is checked and charged August; 110-122 degrees in the shade in some places for hundreds of miles! A/C failure is a disaster.
6. New wipers and full washer fluid
7. Very important! All hoses in good repair and radiator with no leaks and good coolant! Failure of this system will occw in the worst place, under the worst conditions at the worst time. You have long climbs to fairly high elevations in hot weather, 40 to 50 miles from any help
8. Make sure all your lights work.

Travel

1. Have drinking water with you.
2. Essential stuff to have and take in at night with you:
• A good flashlight with good batteries;
• A weather radio, with severe weather alert alarm;
• A backup set of car keys carried separately;
• Have your CS, Pepper spray or Mace.
• Pick up a simple doorknob travel security alarm (or other type) for the motels.
3. Pre-plan your stops and confirm a place to stay. You don’t want to arrive tired and late only to find poor or no accommodations and have to search an unfamiliar area. Some of these places are NOT where you want to wander around at night or day.
4. Watch the weather station before leaving each day.
5. Know the weather ahead (and what is coming behind you) for the day and don’t drive into black clouds. It is better to stay put for a day than drive into red-boxed weather! In Calif I NEVER experienced the kind of rain and weather you can encounter in the central and eastern part of the country. It can rapidly become impossible to drive and dangerous to stop! Since most of the big weather systems move roughly South/Southwest toward East/NorthEast if you don’t know what is going on you would end up driving in a system the whole way! Misery! You may see none of this, but. . .
6. Have an alternate route pre-planned or mapped whenever possible.
7. Have your maps, triptik and your GPS. Make sure your co-pilot can use them while you drive. It is good diversion too.
8. Make your fuel stops at big, well-lighted sites (major truck and auto stops) and don’t assume they are safe either.
9. Avoid “rest stops” in general.
10. Remember some stretches of road may have 50-75 miles of nothing. In Oklahoma them are two long toll roads about 100 miles each (basically no way around them) and you don’t want to have to exit them. The toll is something like $4.50 ea.
11. Don’t ever get below 1/4 tank of gas.
12. Assume you may be caught in construction delays and bad weather that will cost you I-2 hrs on any given day.
13. Remember driving east you lose l/2 hour of light and 6me every 500 miles. This is really harder than it seems if you are pushing the drive and/or sleeping late, especially if you lose added time to weather or construction.
14. Stay the Hell away from trucks! This is actually hard to do. Do not sit next to them or get trapped following behind someone who is not passing and just sitting next to them at 70 MPH On the open road it is often totally different than So Cal freeways (which are bad enough). Trucks often travel in clusters of five to ten (virtual convoys), pushing hard (some at75-85 mph) and changing lanes without much caution when they run up onto slow traffic. They may not see you! There will often be only two lanes. Also they will run up your back. Additionally, a recent change we’ve noticed is that trucks traveling at a slower “safe” speed in the right lane are often weaving! (Text messaging? TV? Who knows..).
15. There are many areas “mined” by troopers with a variety of radar, laser, and airborne support (OK, TX and Missouri esp ). In this economy they are likely to be fund raising. Best to travel somewhat behind the traffic that works for you and not be the point person of the group
16. Check-in with someone daily at least. We always do. It is a big place to try to track someone’s whereabouts.
17. Don’t trust anyone. Listen, but don’t give out too much real information in conversations (especially how far you are going or that you are traveling alone). You could always be meeting your husband at dinner, in the morning or in a few miles.
18. When you stop you WILL be noticed (by whom?).
19. Park you car at night close to the entrance and in the most secure lighted area possible. This is often difficult. Anything of value visible inside the car may be gone by morning, and a break-in will cost you two days at least. I suspect that in the current economy that risk is greater.
20. No one goes anywhere alone.
21. Almost everything noted above is &om direct and at times unfortunate experience! Radiators, tires, A/C, weather, truck encounters, tickets, being lost in bad places, break-ins, etc. We’ve driven across the country 26 round trips, i.e 52 times one way. At least 182,000 miles of cross country driving Even when prepared it can be tough.
22. You will likely have a GREAT trip if you keep all that stuff in mind There is a lot to see. Think of this like a pilot with a checklist. Forced landings are not good.