I want to drive across Montana...

I think I remember hearing my parents talk about they'd like to retire there. They haven't. Im not sure how serious they were, but the idea stuck with me. I know nothing of the state. It has a few national parks, bears, and lots of room for a few people. Which is exactly why I want to go there.

Although I wouldn't oppose the idea of living there, in a different time in my life, right now I simply want to cruise, no speed across it's highways. And also stop for some food and drink. The same can be said for the Plains states. An open endless highway.

The appeal has nothing to do with the cliched reasons... freedom and possibilities, that doesn't enter into it. I like the mission. Like many things, it goes back to my parents, my dad. I remember driving with him, to New York, soccer tournaments, North Carolina, wherever. I should take this time to point out that my father is an excellent driver, a skill which I have also inherited. There is a natural sense of achievement that goes along with driving. Point A to Point B. Mission accomplished. Of course, the chance to see or do something outside the daily routine is nice as an experience in its own right, but for me, literally, the drive is enough.

Some early number crunching

So I was browsing eBay earlier looking for a car for the trip. Personally I want an early 90's Buick Roadmaster, or Chevy Caprice wagon. My dad was doubting its fuel efficiency, however I was fairly sure I had read that they tend to get 28 MPG highway, not bad for such a luxury ride. With a little more research I discovered I was in fact correct and read many reports of them getting 25-28 MPG on the highway. City milage aint's so pretty, it drops down to 16-19 MPG. The main problem with this car is the price. According to Kelly Blue Book would probably pay about $3000 for a model that would get us across the country, on the other side of the coin, there is that fact that we could sell the car after the trip for more or less the price we buy it for and we wouldn't be piling miles on to my car, or somebody's parents car.

Tell me this wouldn't be a great car for driving cross country. Its roomy, easy to fix, and classy.

So with concerns of gas prices in my head I've started to crunch some number, and well, its kinda scary. I figure we each go into this willing to spend $3 grand, this is a hopeful estimate, especially in certain cases. So with a budget total of $9000, I first looked at the cost of gas.

Triple A puts the national average at $2.99 a gallon, However, I have a hunch that come summertime it will have gone up, so I used $3.20 per gallon. Justin's route as posted earlier took us over 8000 miles and my route was over 9000 miles, I went with 9250 miles for this estimate. So, I figure my beautiful Roadmaster would average about 22 MPG. Our expected bill for gas would be about $1350, which I might be able to live with.

Next, I started thinking about how much time it would take to drive these 9250 miles, and things got a little ugly. We had sort of been operating under the assumption that we had about 3-4 weeks. Well, 9250 miles over 21 days is 440 miles per day (about 8 hours) and over 30 days is 300 miles per day (about 5 hours per day). This math rules out a 3 week trip, it would be all driving. I know that there are parts of the country were we will be driving basically straight through, stopping for only a few hours for food and drink, but there are without a doubt times we will want to spend more or less the entire day in one place. The bottom line is this: 9000 miles is a fucking long ways, and 30 days isn't that long of a time period.

But for the sake of this estimate I will continue with some math. So, of our $9000, we've spent 3 on the car and 1.5 on gas, leaving us with 4.5. Divide this by 30 and thats a daily allowance of $150 ($50 per person). Im not sure, this sounds a bit underwhelming to me, but not by that much, about $100-200. So now, if nothing else, I've given us starting point. I've developed theses overly complex theroretical formulas to figure out the breakdown of our basic expenses and our daily drive time, while accounting for the variables of (B)udget (our combined budget), (T)ime (number of day), (D)istance (miles traveled), dail(Y) budget (for all three of us), (H)ours of driving (per day), (C)ar (price of), (M)iles per gallon (of said vehicle), and (G)as price (we can keep checking the national average as we get closer). Our friend BD would be proud.

Drive time per day:
(D/T)/60 ≤ H
Average drive time must be less then 5 hours per day, so:
(D/T)/60 ≤ 5

On to the daily budget:
(B-C)-((D/M)•G) = Y
With my guess of $3.20 per gallon:
(B-C)-((D/M)•3.2) = Y

I think we spent about $900 on our 3 day trip to Voodoo, about $300 each. I feel this is were we need to be. Meanwhile, we need to save money and perhaps start working on a more concise route and keep working on a more affordable option for transportation, although I haven't given up on my wooden paneled baby. Its still early, we have at least 6 months. So if anyone reading has any great ways to earn cash fast, save money on the road, or advice in general please feel free to share.

Route Possiblities

Here are possible routes that Hoosier and I have concocted.
(The links will take you to a Google Map version of the journey.)

My proposed route
Hoosier's path to glory
The direction of the trip is still undeceided, we could head southwest cross the country and the come back east via the northern states, or do the opposite. Either way, we have started to establish a list of places we want to see.

Key stops-
(Please note these are not all the places we want to stop, rather the spots we have planned our routes around. Please see the linked Google maps we have setup to look at the path, not only the spots.)

• Nashville & Memphis, Tennessee
• Austin, Texas (Schlitterbahn)
• Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Denver, Colorado
• The Great Salt Lake, Springdale, Utah (Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty & Zion National Park)
  
• Las Vegas, Nevada (Hoover Dam & Vegas Strip)
• San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, California (Pacific Coast Highway)
• Vancouver, BC
  
• Montana (Glacier National Park)
• Wyoming (Yellowstone National Park)
• The plains of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, or Kansas

This a list of places Hoosier and I feel must be seen during the road trip, it center mainly around natural and urban landmarks. Along the way we plan on detouring for good people, good food, and things still unknown. They are two rough, very early blueprints. We look forward to Roc's own version and input.