10 Spot Ramble: Road Trips

We hit the road this afternoon to make a rabbit trade.

 

I love road trips.

 

I love the rabbits.

 

This is a match made in heaven. Maybe you love road trips as well? (I won’t ask anyone to join me on the rabbit obsession just yet.) Let these random facts cement your love of wide open spaces:

 

1. Families spend an average of 10 hours packing for road trips; parents spend 21 per cent longer packing for a road trip than adults without children. We do not match the statistic as a family, we’ve been known to be actually in the car and decide to take a several hour detour. However, it is absolutely true it takes us longer to pack for a road trip now that we have the minions! Somehow needing a well-stocked diaper bag becomes important!

 

2. Seventy-nine per cent of families with children go on two or more road trips each year, which means parents take an average of 36 per cent more trips annually than adults without children. The only way I see this as true is if you consider all the trips to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Otherwise, single people must certainly travel more!

 

3. The two most-forgotten items when preparing for a road trip are cameras/videos (25 per cent) and toothbrush/toiletries (21 per cent). I live with the philosophy most everything you really need can be purchased on the fly. Toothbrushes, no problem – they’re even complimentary in hotels that offer air conditioning and clean sheets. The camera… little more difficult to come by…

 

4. Hitchhiking while holding an axe is not effective. Does this really need any more explanation?

 

5. Approximately 64% of people calculate fuel costs before leaving home. When we were regularly going back and forth across the country I could tell you to the mile what our odometer would read when we got home. These days, I don’t have a clue… my, doesn’t life change?

 

6. Interstates have an official name: “Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.” I find this fascinating! I also think it’s interesting the name “Dwight” has been repopularized thanks to the Office. That’s all.

 

7. Texas has the most interstate miles with 17 routes, totaling 3,233.45 miles. Everything’s bigger in Texas, including their roads. This number also means if you were to drive every inch of Texas interstate roads at 70 mph it would take you 46.19 hours. I bet your bum would be sore.

 

8. Best road trip interstate is I-95. the North/South I-95 covers 16 states (including Washington D.C.): Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

 

9. Dwight’s Interstate plan was logical. There’s a rhyme and reason to our country’s interstate system: Even Numbers travel east-west (I-4, I-8, I-10, I-12, etc.), Odd Numbers travel north-south (I-5, I-15, I-17, I-19, etc.). Also, routes ending in “0” are major east-west routes (I-10, I-20, I-40, I-70, I-80, I-90, while routes ending in “5” are major north-south routes (I-5, I-15, I-25, I-35, I-55, I-65, I-75, I-85, I-95).

 

10. You may have been fooled by the Interstates. It is not true that one mile of every five miles of Interstate highway must be straight enough to allow planes to land on it. This is an urban legend. This makes me sad an relieved all at the same time. I’ve always been concerned a plan would run me down while driving. Now, I can let that fear go.

 

That’s all from me tonight – do you have your own road trip trivia? Share it in the comments! In the meantime, Happy Trails to You!