5 Things I Learned on a Road Trip Through 7 States

When you are on a road trip, you think about a lot of things. My husband and I recently drove from Colorado to Illinois, then to northern Wisconsin and from Wisconsin back home to Colorado. We drove through parts of 7 states. Here are 5 things I learned on our road trip.

1. Construction is Going on Everywhere

There is always road construction somewhere when you are on a road trip. This year was no exception. In fact, it was the most construction work we had ever seen on a road trip. Maybe that is a good thing. The stimulus money is being used and it is putting people to work.

It's not fun to drive through construction, but I'm hoping on our next road trip we'll see some nice new roads and bridges.

2. We Love Food, Glorious Junk Food

You eat a lot of junk food on road trips. It's so much quicker and easier to stop at a fast food place right off the interstate than it is to bother with a sit down meal. Fast food fries are so hard to pass up when you're not sure when you'll stop again for a meal.

Also, you get the munchies when you drive and it's easier to munch on a candy bar or crunchy treat than it is to eat an apple or an orange.

3. Perfect Restrooms are Few and Far Between

You can learn a lot about restrooms when you travel through several states in one day. The perfect restroom has toilet seat liners, automatic flush toilets, soap (believe me, you still find the occasional restroom with no soap), automatic faucets and automatic paper towel dispensers or hand dryers. It also has a hook on the inside of the stall door where a woman can hang her purse if she chooses to bring it in with her. If the thought of putting your purse on the floor of a rest stop restroom is a disgusting thought, you will appreciate a place to hang your purse. I came across many restrooms without this feature and rather than put my purse on a dirty floor, I tried to hang on to it as I used the facility and trust me, it wasn't easy!

I must give a shout out to Minnesota's rest areas. They had the cleanest restrooms in all of the seven states we drove through.

4. Driving Gets Really, Really Boring

Driving gets pretty monotonous, especially along Interstate 80. There isn't a lot to see, although there is a huge wind farm in Iowa now. It wasn't there when we drove through last year. As for Nebraska, it is a bigger state than you think. It is roughly 450 miles long. Don't get me wrong. Nebraska is a great Midwestern state, but driving through it gets really boring. The road is so straight and flat in spots. It hypnotizes you.

To keep from getting bored or worse yet nodding off while I drove and my husband slept, I started playing road games in my head. My mind wandered back to years ago and road trips with our kids. I began to look for out of state license plates and started playing the ABC road sign game. (See my article http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1897042/kids_and_travel_road_trip_survival.html?cat=16 which describes these games and several others.) The only problem is that road trip games aren't as fun when you play them by yourself.

5. Sleeping in a Rest Area is not Easy

We decided to drive straight through to Illinois from Colorado which is roughly a 15 to 16 hour drive. We've done it before, so we're used to it. However, we came back to Colorado from northern Wisconsin. We figured it would add an extra two hours (maybe three, depending on traffic and construction) to our usual Illinois to Colorado route. We debated whether or not to stop for the night. By 8:30 P.M. we still felt like we could drive a little more. Once we hit 10:00 P.M. it was pointless to stay in a hotel for the night. Who wants to spend money on a hotel room that you will use for less than 12 hours?

I have trouble with night driving so my husband drove once it got dark. Worried that he might fall asleep, I stayed up to keep him company. By midnight, we both got too sleepy to go on, so we pulled into a rest area and tried to nap. We were in the middle of Nebraska. It was a warm, humid, August night. We didn't want to roll the windows down too much (rest areas are a bit scary after dark), so needless to say we didn't get much sleep. We rested there for 2 ½ hours and went on our way. A couple of hours later, we stopped again for an hour and then continued home.

The whole trip home took 22 hours with about 18 ½ hours of drive time. Who would have thought an extra 3 hours of drive time would seem like an eternity? Next time, we'll take a break sooner and get a hotel!