12,000-mile Road Trip

Maintenance/Repairs
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21

I just don’t see how 700 miles a day with a full house could be entertaining or enjoyable at all.
Covering 700 a day strictly on the interstate is going to require 12 hours a day at a high speed cruise with minimal and short stops for gas and food. One venture onto a side road will kill that average PDQ.

I went on a motorcycle run once with about a dozen other bikes with about half the guys taking their wives and girlfriends along. This was to be a roughly 150 mile one-way trip to a lake, mostly on the interstate. Due to the constant barrage of someone wanting to stop and stretch their legs, I wanna drink of water, need the restroom, etc, etc. that 150 mile trip took 10 hours.
Me and another guy bailed out on the rest that very evening and that was the first and last trip by committee I was ever part of.
:slight_smile:

22

I’m guessing this is a ‘drive through all 48 contiguous states’ thing, that it takes about 12k miles, and they have only 17 days to do it.

But yeah, not much fun. Driving Dallas - LA in 2 days is 1400 miles, wears me out.

23

At least the speed limit isn’t still 55 MPH.

24

It’s still 55 in some areas. Come to Ohio.

25

I WANT TO GO WITH YOU!!! Got room for an onboard mechanic?

Also you are right on time for your T-belt service…when I say T-belt I mean EVERYTHING that the T-belt rides on…The idler pulley bearings…water pump (most times) belt tensioner AND front main seal…etc…its not just a “belt job” SO…you have to decide…if you are going to do a FULL T-belt service before your trip or after.

If it were me…I’d do it AFTER the trip…it is highly unlikely that the belt will self destruct by going only say 20K beyond the service limit timer… Many people change it at DOUBLE the rec mileage…while I don’t condone this…it does happen often, so by being on the mark for the T-belt…just know that you will have to do this job when you return…SO…pass the hat around the van, bec you are going to have to save some money up for this one… I usually do the FULL T-belt service for about 750 on a van…around 400ish on a car…But I am CHEAP…I should say affordable…bec I don’t cut corners nor do I use inferior parts…this is a VASTLY important belt service so it needs to be done correctly and with proper quality parts. Unfortunately there ARE inferior CHINESEUM parts out there, and they are everywhere!..STEER CLEAR of them!!! I cannot stress this enough!!!

If you would like me to look on ebay for a high quality kit for you…I will, no problem… You can buy the kit and find an independent shop to install your selected parts…You would just need to shop around for a shop to do the labor…MUCH more peace of mind this way…when you KNOW what parts went into your engine…the main reason I suggest this is because shops will sub in those CHEAP parts from china…and you will have problems later…TRUST ME, please…

26

@OK4450:
Guy at work hates going on bike trips with his girlfriend for about the same reasons as you. She always has to stop for a smoke, or at a Harley shop to buy something(he rides a Yamaha cruiser bike), or some other reason. Or it’s just a quick jaunt of 20 or 30 miles; he wants to RIDE, not pop over to the next town.

27

Nothing grates on me more than having to stop every 20 minutes. It’s like watching grass grow. The last time I decided to go to Sturgis (about 2000 miles round trip) I went by myself and found it much more enjoyable. The only stops were for gas after hitting reserve and two at Rushmore and Crazy Horse to see the monuments.

28

@Honda Blackbird

Stay tuned, we just might end up having room for you! haha we will be changing the timing belt before we go!

Now I am no car expert by any means, but I imagine having my Odyssey pull 6 people and luggage up and down the mountains and all the way through the desert will put a little strain on all of its parts.

I guess I would really just like to know, what things do we REALLY need to be worried about and what should we be checking every day on the trip? You guys think we are ok with only one oil change on the trip?

As for you bikers… I’m not too worried about having to stop every 20 minutes. I just got back from a 630 mile trip to Arkansas with my family (we had 6 people in the car both ways) and we made it in about 11 hours both ways including stops for breakfast lunch, and gas! And I thought to myself… “could I do this 17 days in a row with 5 of my closest friends? … yup.” I don’t want to come off like a jerk, as I really really appreciate all of your help and concern, but we’re doing what we have planned, and if it turns out to be a little hellish, then at least we will know what not to do next time! I would, however, be very open to hearing suggestions for where we should stop and smell the roses (like @Bing suggested the Badlands, which we had forgotten to include until I read that).

Thanks again for all of your help, and I look forward to keeping you all updated on the planning, and eventually the trip!

29

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Just go for it. I’m glad to be able to enjoy travelling these days. I have been end to end of Interstates 55, 40, 20, 10 and 12 in recent years and hope to see the northern end of 95 this year. I have enjoyed some of the best food in restaurants that most people would avoid like the plague. Have fun.

30

Your van has plenty of power to take you, your friends, and your luggage on your trip without undue strain on the engine and drive train.

31

Well, I wish you the best on the trip although it’s not something I would want to be part of. Rubbing elbows wears my patience down pretty quickly. :slight_smile:

I drove straight through one time from L.A. to Oklahoma with no stops other than gas, one flat tire, and one (per the usual) stop by the Albuquerque PD. Every time I go through that place I get stopped for no reason at all and have yet to be arrested or ticketed for anything. Apparently the PD get bored pretty easily there.
After 1500 miles straight I was fried and didn’t want to even see a car for a week. (And to answer the obvious, only coffee and pop. No illicit chemical help at all.)

32

Make sure that all of your service work is done at least two weeks before you leave. If anything is done wrong, you want to find that out at home, not on the road.

I’d guess that your oil change interval is 7,500 miles. I’d stick with that. These will be easy miles on the engine, overall. Changing it more often just gives more chances for something to go wrong on the road. If you’re still concerned, put a synthetic oil in. Make sure you carry an extra quart of oil in the car.

Are you still on your original battery? If so, I’d bite the bullet and replace it now, as you’ve gotten most of the life out of it anyway.

You definitely want your timing belt (and water pump) done before you leave, of course. Having it snap would be a disaster.

Do you have cloth seats? If so, considering the amount of eating that will probably happen in the car by all of those people, I’d consider a Scotchgard treatment. A hand-held car vacuum might be nice to have. I’d bring plastic garbage bags, paper towels, and lots of moist towelettes.

What are you doing about music? Do you have satellite radio? Do you have an iPod input? If not, you can probably have an aux input of some sort added.

Do you have enough sockets for everyone to run and charge their electronic devices? You might need some splitters and extension cords.

One of those thermoelectric coolers might be nice if you have room, although you’d have to watch that you don’t overload your electrical system with this plus the other electronic devices.

You could save some money by using the GasBuddy smartphone app or web site on the trip.

Can your car carry a full-size spare tire instead of the compact spare that I assume you have now? If so, that would be handy if you get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. You could also consider carrying one of those cordless tire inflators. You definitely want a tire gauge (preferably a good dial-type one for accuracy).

I assume you already plan to carry at least a basic tool kit. A small first-aid kit wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Make sure you have a good LED flashlight with lithium batteries. (I’m partial to Fenix, myself.)

I’d probably have an A/C shop check over the A/C system. I’d want it operating at peak performance with six people in the desert.

Do you have a credit card that gives you points for gas purchases? You could build up a lot of points during a trip like this.

33

Great ideas @lion9car

The seats are leather, but a hand-held vacuum is a great idea.

As for music, an incredibly long playlist including certain songs for certain places has been and is still being compiled onto an 80Gb iPod that will be played in the car. I don’t think we’re going to spring the extra $ to have an aux jack installed, which could mean lots of static headaches, but we already have a pretty solid FM transmitter so hopefully it will hold up well.

The electronics thing is something we’re still working on. With 6 phones, 2 laptops, 2 cameras, and at least one external hard drive, we will have plenty to plug in, but we have been looking into splitters and power converters to solve this. Any suggestions on that would be appreciated.

We will have a cooler, but I hadn’t planned on a thermoelectric one. While that would be nice, like you said, it would probably be too much strain on the van’s electrical system.

GasBuddy is awesome, and we have been using the site’s “Gas Price Heat Map” to figure out the best places to get gas so we avoid places like the entire state of California (obviously we have to get gas here a few times which is unfortunate).

Good idea with the tire, I’ll have to check on that one. I do have a cordless tire inflator and we will definitely be checking the tire pressure constantly.

A tool kit is honestly something I hadn’t thought about until others on here suggested it, but now we will definitely bring one, along with a first-aid kit, and a flashlight.

A/C will definitely be checked as we don’t want to be caught in the south in the summer without that.

Finally, the credit card is a genius idea. We will definitely consider that.

34

Those electronic coolers do not use all that much energy. The problem is, they only cool so many degrees below ambient temperature. We had one, and we stopped using it, because it didn’t keep things cold enough in hot weather. We now use a 5-day cooler, heavily insulated, and are much happier with it.

Also, the electronic cooler will need to keep operating when you are stopped for the night. We had the adapter, but it made too much noise in a motel room. Bummer.

The old way is still the best, IMO.

A reminder that long trips work best if every two or three hours, everyone gets out at a rest stop and walks up and down for 10 or more minutes. Sounds backwards, but we have been doing this for 14 years since we retired, and we can go up to 700 miles a day, just me driving. If you do not exercise like that, you get really beat down after 12 hours in the car.

We do take enough food to eat on the road. (No, I do not eat when other cars are close, or any time other cars are within a 1/4 mile of us, or in places with exits. Use common sense.)

35

Your planned trip reminds me a little of a movie made in the late 60s called “It’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium”. with Suzanne Pleshette (Bob Newhart’s “wife”). This was about a whirlwind tour of Europe by a typical US tourist. The whole thing becomes a blur if you go too fast.As pointed out by others, take your time on interesting things, and take lots of pictures and videos. If you don’t you’ll hardly remember where you’ve been.

I took a 4 month trip of Europe after finishing school. Excluding visiting some friends and relatives, I spent 3 months actually travelling. That included England, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Austria. Switserland, Italy, Spain, France, Monaco. I took nearly 1000 pictures (Color slides). The nice thing about Europe is that distances are small, I only put on 9000 miles in those 4 months.

The secret to seeing a lot while travelling by car is to traverse the uninteresting parts quickly. Also make a list of all thing that are worth seeing and allocate some time to each. Since you are travelling by car, you can be flexible.

36

Your Van will be looking forward to the good times… As for oil changes…I say you use FULL Synthetic and change it at the halfway point…that should do you…and if you want to be Pro active…go to Autozn or Pep Boys…or even Walmart and buy yourself a 5Qt container of the FULL Synthetic oil and a good filter…so you can hand that to the guy who does the oil change… Hell if it were me…I’d change it myself of course…and I mite even just leave the old oil filter in place…so that all I had to do/worry bout was dropping the oil out and refilling…leaving the filter… But I don’t usually leave the filter…I just said that to lessen the workload on you…(if you were going to change it yourself in the field as it were) Its just me thinking about what I’d do on a trip like that…If the filter was super ez to get to of course I’d swap it out…But to think again…this trip will be easier on your van than the normal daily grind it serves during a 12K mile interval…so this is actually LESS stress than norm.

What I would worry about and or buy myself IS a First Aid Kit (God Forbid) AND a First Aid Kit for your Tires! Grab a tire plug kit and a small 12VDC Air compressor…so you can fix a flat “on the go”…or at least 2 cans of Fix a Flat product and the tiny little 12VDC Tire pump/compressor…Nothing worse than trying to repair a tire on a FULLY loaded van/vehicle…if you ask me… SO First aid for the People…and the Rubber

A small kit of tools…The basics…Vice-Grips, Screwdrivers (both types)…and a small 3/8th drive socket handle and set or assortment of sockets…ESPECIALLY including the venerable10mm!! ALSO the 8mm, 10(again the 10) 12, 14, 17, …You can almost disassemble the entire engine and half the vehicle with JUST those sockets…and similar open end wrench sizes!! ALL fits in a Shoebox…or smaller

A 12VDC SOCKET SPLITTER…to power and or charge EVERYBODY’s cell phones and electronic devices…A 120VAC INVERTER may come in handy also…for whatever reason…EXTRA FUSES for the vehicle…buy a small assortment KIT at Harbor Freight…Enough fuses for 5 vehicles in there almost. in there for 5 bucks…On the same note buy a similar fuse kit of GLASS tube type fuses…these are for anyone’s 12VDC cigarette lighter plug adapter that mite pop a fuse…Buying this stuff “on the road” is always insultingly expensive… SO a blade fuse kit for the car…and a glass fuse kit for all those adapters…both kits will cost under 10 bucks.

*** AND a BIG roll of “Black Duct Tape for a Modicum of Class” if needed…Silver is SOO Ghetto these days!!!..LOL

BE SAFE AND HAVE FUN…if you roll thru Philly I would be happy to strap myself to the roof rack!..Speaking of roof racks…FOR THIS JOURNEY…I would HIGHLY recommend one of those roof mounted “Torpedoes”…You can throw almost EVERYTHING up inside that Aerodynamic Torpedo…and free up cabin space in a MAJOR WAY…OR (more difficult if you don’t already have the hitch mount) a rear tailgate…HITCH mounted cargo carrier…Can do MUCHO with that…but most people find the Torpedo more than enough…they can swallow SERIOUS GEAR!!! You would LOVE it…on a trip like this…and its Lockable…and Aero-shaped so it looks cool… Rather cheap too…OFTEN a Craigslist item…cheap

ALSO there are internet sites where you plug in where you are starting from…and going to and it will list EVERYTHING…to see of interest…from the Worlds Largest Ball of Twine to the Space Shuttle…Good luck…AND PICK ME UP…I bring the tools :wink:

Blackbird