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A couple years ago I did 17 hrs (1075 miles) from Asheville, NC to Minneapolis, MN - alone - straight through.
I was never sleepy, I was so pumped with adrenalin, but I will never do that again. It took me 3 hours to get to sleep once I got home but even though I wasn't in danger of falling asleep, I believe your thinking starts to deteriorate.
about 10 hours from Minneapolis, MN to Devils Tower area in Wyoming... no sleep the night before and we started our journey at 2am, it was a beautiful drive once i hit the Missouri River in South Dakota and i got really tired around Rapid City but we stopped at Wall Drug for like an hour and that woke me up pretty good.
I have to drive from Minneapolis to Phoenix this Christmas and i only wanna stop for one night... will be 25 hours of driving total
Be very careful with drowsy driving. There comes a point where it doesn't matter how much caffeine you are on, your brain will shutdown even if you don't feel tired. I got very lucky, and merely totaled my car against multiple guardrails with no injuries.
To me the time of the day matters. If I am well rested, I will drive 12 hours (start at 5 am, stop at 5 pm). When I moved I split a 19 hour drive over 2 days.
However, if it is already 10 or 11 at night and I have to drive for more than 3 hours it gets dicey. Recently I had that happened and decided to split up a 7 hour drive and stayed at a cheap hotel by a highway exit.
I drove from Ft Myers FL to Akron OH in one shot. 1200 miles. Left at 800 am got home about 130 am. Had plenty of energy drinks and beef jerky, only stopped for gas.
Over the years I've done 8 hours from college to home to visit my parents - did that for all major school holidays and summer, then when going to homecoming as an alumnus.
A few times we've done the 12 hours drive from SC to NYC to visit family, including this past summer. Had we not been staying for 7+ days, we would not have been willing to drive.
Twice we've done the drive from SC to Disney World in Orlando, which is about 8-9 hours.
Many times a year we drive 6 hours to go visit my parents - major holidays and such. For some reason they rarely drive down to see us (even though they are the ones that are retired and have nothing but time on their hands).
I usually get drowsy about 3 hours into driving my "shifts" during family vacations, when it is ALL I CAN DO to stay awake. But if I get through that brief 15-20 minute block, I'm good to go for hours and hours after that. Fortunately, after 15 years of marriage my husband knows that's my "weak time" and will crank up the music, or start asking me questions to keep my awake, or get the kids to start harping on me to keep me awake. Back in my single days when I was a smoker, I'd wait and start smoking my cigs at around the 3 hour mark, knowing it would keep me alert since the window would be open - sun, rain or snow.
I drove from Ft Myers FL to Akron OH in one shot. 1200 miles. Left at 800 am got home about 130 am. Had plenty of energy drinks and beef jerky, only stopped for gas.
you averaged 69 mph over your entire 17.5 hour trip.
The longest was around 615mi - 14 hours with some food breaks and scenic overlooks. We were having a nice national park roadtrip vacation and were planning a 2-day drive from Page, AZ to Winter Park, CO with an overnight stop in Montrose, CO when our truck broke down in the desert of Arizona and we had to stay one more night in Page. On the second day we had to catch up all the way to Winter Park, CO because our schedule was pretty tight and the hotels were not refundable. Was very scenic and nice drive though.
I drove DFW TX - Chas SC a number of times back in the 90's by myself without stopping to sleep. Usually about 20 hours, 1125 miles. Loved driving late evening/early morning hours when the interstate (I20) traffic was light. Too old for that now, and just too dangerous.
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