What you should know before embarking on a road trip.
1. Leave all your workout DVDs, equipment, and gear at home. The cheap hotels are too small to work out in. You think you will use them to work out, and you can certainly try, but you are better off running laps around a local park.
2. You will gain weight, having to eat out for every meal. If you are training for a marathon, or a half marathon, taking a road trip will set you back some. The mid-west is all about buffets. Sometimes that's they only place you'll find a salad bar.
3. Do NOT rely on just a GPS/navigator. It will tell you to turn left onto a one way street or drive off a cliff. Bring a road map as a back up.
4. Women, bring a romance novel with you. Even if you never read it, claiming to have been absorbed in a romance novel which was being read out loud is a great segway for flirting with the cop when you get pulled over. Find one with the trashiest cover.
5. Gas is cheaper if you pay in cash. Credit cards have surcharges.
6. Bring extra cash when driving through the Navajo Nation in Arizona. Along the freeway, tons of wooden shacks serve as Navajo Trading Posts. You'll find authentic Native American Jewelry there. But they never seem to have change so bring small bills.
7. Vegas doesn't look that impressive during the day. Big whoop.
8. Arizona and Co are on CA time during the summer but during all other seasons, they are on Mountain time.
9. Truck stops do not have any bobble heads. They do have, however, tons of jerky. If you're lucky, they may carry turkey or ham jerky.
10. Learn to love coffee if you don't already. You think you can drive for 6 straight hours without it, but you are WRONG. Tea will not cut it. Not all hotels provide coffee/tea makers in the rooms. Ask the locals where you can get some decent coffee. Contrary to popular belief, Starbucks has not taken over the world.
11. Learn how to shift to your low gears in case your drive through CO. Passenger cars will have trouble driving up those steep Rocky Mountains.
12. Invest in an iPod converter for your system if you HATE Country music.
13. National Parks charge entry fees. Expect to pay $25 for the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park each.
14. Yelp.com has great suggestions from the locals and where to spend your money for a decent plate of grub.
15. You will not get much cell phone service in the mid west. Beware of Roaming charges.
16. Do not try Asian food between CA and NY unless the locals on yelp.com recommend it. Your GI track will thank you.
17. Colonial Williamsburg will charge you an arm and a leg to cross some of its preserved colonial village streets. Same thing applies to ENTER most colonial homes there. It's ridiculous.
18. Gettysburg tours do not charge as much as Colonial Williamsburg but it's getting there. Do the free walk through their museum. Do pay the $7 tickets for the Ghost Walk. Cheesy but so much fun.
19. New York streets are a bitch to drive through. Bring extra cash. Every NY bridge have a toll BOTH ways, and trucks get charged more for crossing them. All Express ways (smaller pseudo freeways) at some point have a smaller $1 toll BOTH ways. Watch out for the one second merges off the Express ways. NYers don't really drive often so they 1. don't know how to drive 2. don't know what to do with their cars, 3. don't have any concept of merging.
and last...
20. Be flexible. You may need to make changes along the way.
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