There’s no contest here! The summer after I graduated from high school, my family took a road trip to Banff, Canada.
And let me tell you, that is really, really far from the east coast of the United States.
2400 miles, to be exact.
I believe it took us three straight days of driving to get there, and these were seriously long days of driving.
I remember writing in my journal during the car ride, “This had better be worth it when we get there!”
It was a really beautiful place, and I’m glad I got to see that part of the world.
But there has never been a day since where I thought, “You know what I’d like to do sometime? Drive to Banff again.”
If I ever go again, I think I will fly.
(My family did not fly because we were camping and one cannot really bring a family’s worth of camping gear on the plane.)
Or I would consider it as part of an empty-nest trek across America, with the drive broken up.
(On the way home from Banff, we broke the drive up into lots of stops, and that was so, so much more tolerable.)
But making the trip in three days? I don’t think I’ll do that again.
Gosh, I’ve done a lot of road trips. I’m not sure if southwest Kansas to Sonoma is longer than central Kansas to Walla Walla, though Google would surely be glad to tell me, and either way, it’s nowhere near 2400 miles! Most of the rest of my long drives have been just up and down the Great Plains.
Ever since reading a Janette Oke series in which the main character honeymoon’s at Banff, I’ve wanted to go there.
We took a lot of road trips when I was a (military) kid just to move every three years. Probably the longest was Fairbanks, Alaska to Tucson, Arizona when I was 11. In July. Where our air conditioning broke in California. That was a memorable one. Probably even more so for my mom, as she was the only licensed driver because my dad always went ahead to get our house and all.
As an adult, I have now driven between New York and New Mexico three times with my four young children. Our air conditioning wasn’t functioning correctly on at least two of those trips, either. This seems to be a theme in my life. I never knew how hot the midwest can get in the summer.
Oh! I think I read the same book long ago. Wasn’t he a mountie or something?
Yup. Wynn the mountie. 🙂
Oh man, that really takes me back. I think that was my first Janette Oke book.
Because I grew up in WV, and my father’s family was on the west coast, I’ve been back and forth several times. However, the summer I was dating my husband, my parents and I made a giant cross-country trek from WV up to North Dakota and on to Washington and down through California to the Grand Canyon and then southern New Mexico, Texas and then back to WV (through a few other states I’d not been to). The most fun thing about the entire trip was that we were able to visit family in most of those places.
When I was a kid it was when we moved from Michigan to California and I had to sit facing back in our station wagon most of the trip there. I remember being car sick a lot! Them when I turned 40 a few yess ago I took a road trip with 3 friends. We did a big circle of 6 states in 6 days (California, Oregon Washington, Idaho Montana,, Nevada). That was a great birthday.
I am so lucky that I do not get car sick. Otherwise that trip to Banff would have really been something miserable!
My husband was stationed @ Ft Carson, CO when he received orders his unit was to be deployed during Operation Desert Shield. After all the necessary arrangements were made, my husband & I, plus two dogs, then drove straight through for approx. 27 hours from Colorado to North Carolina, so I could stay with my parents while he was deployed. I’m glad that was a one-time trip. I enjoy car-rides but coming straight through like that was awful and taking turns driving didn’t help.
This isn’t entirely a road trip, but I’m counting it. My bicycle and I flew from Los Angeles to Boston where I visited with relatives for a few days. Then my trusty steed and I flew to Halifax, where we joined the rest of the crew for an Outward Bound cycling trip. For 21 glorious days, our ragtag little group circumnavigated Nova Scotia. Through summer’s heat, thick with mosquitoes, under stormy skies – yes, we encountered hurricane threats and still kept riding, we bonded as a group as we covered mile after mile on two wheels per. We finished off the trip with a gear-free “Century” ride. With no gear on our bikes, we felt light as air for 100 miles. But when the ride got extended to 106 miles, we thought we were going to d-i-e, hahaha. At 34, I was the oldest in the group. The youngest, at 17, was half my age. Luckily, we were pretty compatible riders, and enjoyed each other’s company. This trip was a big, audacious thing to undertake at that time in my life, but it was on my bucket list, so I “had” to check it off. I am entirely glad I did. I would love to go back and explore the Maritimes further. This time, I think a cruise would be the way to go. Obviously, I’m not planning on doing that this year, but I did win a free cruise, which included this itinerary as an option, so maybe it will happen next year, provided the cruise line doesn’t go under. We shall see.
P.S. I just saw Donna’s comment. Operation Desert Storm commenced during this trip. We had no idea. At the end of three weeks, we got to the airport and saw soldiers wearing strange desert cammos everywhere. We had no idea what was happening. Please thank your husband for his service, Donna.
From Fairbanks, Alaska, to NYC and back. We have done this 9 times, five times with two giant Irish wolfhounds with us. We planned to do that again in July but now it has been put off (and now we have a tiny lab, our wolfhounds having died).
What a great trip! So cool of your mom to plan and execute an adventure like that. I’m sorry for your loss and I hope you have lots of happy memories of her.
My mom and I did a big circle in the midwest starting from denver, colorado to visit almost all of the laura ingalls wilder little house sites. From colorado to kansas to Wisconsin to iowa to Minnesota to south Dakota then back to denver – over 3000 miles in 11 days. It was a great trip and a very special memory of spending time with my mom, who I just lost last January.
My kids flew from MI to Banff. He had some of the most amazing photos ever! Reflections of the mountains off the lakes. They had such a great time. They camped too. They ran into an Elk, have pictures of it and they walked right by it. I thought they were nuts to do so, they commented -no he was busy eating. Lol his rack was huge. Clearly young and didn’t understand wild animals. 😛
As a reader from Alberta, I recommend Jasper, AB 🙂 My longest road trip was Alberta to Newfoundland and back again. Basically from the west of Canada to the East coast! It took us roughly a week. Thankfully we broke it up and did things along the way. I have visited all 10 Canadian provinces but still have yet to visit our 3 territories.
When I was 20 we drove from Michigan to Orlando to spend a day at Disney World!! I’ve never been farther west than Iowa (though I would love to someday) so south has been my longest trip. My parents did one of those things where you listen to a talk and they give you 2 free nights in a hotel and 2 free tickets to Disney. We purchased 2 more tickets so all 4 of us could go and it was AMAZING.