Road-Tripping Tips from the Master.

I got this text message recently: “Gonna be a long drive. Any advice, road warrior?”

And I thought yes, yes I do have advice about road tripping. That’s actually a thing I have extensive experience with. A lot of experience. My road-trip was driven by a cross-country move. Yours might be for a vacation, for educational purposes, or to visit family or friends. Any way you swing it, I think I have some insight or best practices from my 3,000 miles on the road.

Traveling alone, although not for the faint of heart, allows you to get started when you feel like it, stop when you feel like it, fart whenever you like without shame, be in complete control of music selection, and allow for uninhibited car-karaoke. Take some of my tips below to optimize your solo road-trip, or keep your buddy road trip in the not-suck-too-much zone.

Route Planning: 

 

1. Know your budget. If you’re on a higher budget, you can afford to be more lenient, and pick places to stay/hotels as you see them. If you’re on a lower budget, you need to plan ahead and carefully scout the areas you’re planning on staying in order to find inexpensive hotel deals (compare prices, and be sure to ask about things like AAA discounts, corporate discounts, and frequent traveler programs. I stayed completely at La Quinta Inns, and by the end of my trip, my rooms were free, and I never paid more than $90/night). 

2. Block off your driving time by picking a lunch/midday location and a dinner/evening location. This’ll give you about 4-5 hours of driving time in the morning and 4-5 hours of driving time in the afternoon. 

3. About 4 hours is about the maximum time you can go without peeing.

4. Any single person driving more than 10 hours a day might quickly go crazy. 

5. Write out your list of midday/evening locations (on paper, with addresses). You can check the driving time between these using Google Maps. 

6. Research tourist attractions and local food specialties for each midday/evening stop. Try to have planned one thing to do/check out everywhere you stop (if you don’t make it to everything/get too tired, no worries!). However, if you see something awesome beside the highway, stop!

7. I planned my route around how much I felt like driving on any given day, and this was a good call. You might add some mileage, but you get to explore more and feel better. 

Gear and Entertainment: 

1. Buy a car phone charger. They tend to be inexpensive (I got mine on Amazon.com). This is particularly important if you’re also using your phone as your GPS. 

2. Figure out in advance how you’re going to listen to outside music/radio. Local stations get weird/unreceptive in small towns, so know in advance if you’re going to an Ipod hookup/XM radio app, and double-check that you’ll be able to comfortably plug everything in (get a car adapter splitter if needed – these are also pretty cheap). 

3. If you’re in for a really long haul, consider a few different sources of media: music, audiobooks, podcasts – different genres. Otherwise the hours blend together and get really trippy. My favorite is ‘This American Life’. NPR records a lot of original content – it sounds dorky, but you get into it. The best rule to stick by is that if you’re driving for 10 hours, you want about 30 hours of potential entertainment. Options feel good. I never had to listen to the same thing twice. 

4. Pack some extra plastic bags in a variety of sizes – trash bags, sandwich bags, freezer bags, shopping bags, etc. Don’t ask, just do it. You’ll be thankful. 

Car Setup:

1. Things to keep within arm’s reach:

Place to put trash

Napkins or paper towels,

Snacks

Sunglasses

Hand sanitizer

A baseball cap

A zip-front sweatshirt or front-button cardigan

Cash in small bills and change.

Water 

2. Road change for tolls: EZPass is awesome where it’s accepted, but otherwise, it’s advisable for every day of driving to have $5 in singles and $3 in quarters. 

3. If there’s any possibility that you’re driving into a sunset or in a high-sun/heat area, you need both sunglasses AND a baseball cap. 

4. To effectively pack a car, first fill up the empty seat-feet wells. Then place large or rigid items first, then fill up empty space with other things.

Snacks and Drinks:

1. If you’re trying to minimize pee breaks, only keep 8 ounces of water or less nearby for any given 4-hour stretch of time (this method means you should aim to drink a lot of extra water at night, otherwise you’ll dehydrate and get headaches).

2. Water bottles with sippy tops are preferable to water bottles with twisty tops. This is a general statement, but it’s a serious preference for road trips, where using two hands to do something is dangerous!

3. You want a variety of snacks and snack types. Honestly? You will get sick of eating junk 24/7. You’ll feel less like self-hatred if you pack some healthy options. 

4. All fruits and veggies need to be pre-washed, and cut up into individual sized pieces. Also, keep these in a cooler or fridgepack. 

5. Food items necessitate the trash can. Be sure to empty this nightly or you will learn the olfactory glories of having a banana peel rot in your car for 3 days in the sun. 

6. Wash your hands with Purell or antibacterial hand gel after eating something sticky. 

7. Single-serving packages are superior to large packs. If you spill a single bag of crackers, could be worse. If you spill a large bag of crackers, you’re in FUCKING CRUMB CITY AND YOU WILL NEVER RECOVER. 

8. If you bring something chocolate or chocolate/yogurt-covered, it will melt and become disgusting and inedible. Limit your chocolate fix to M&M’s, or post-driving treats. Dessert is an excellent opportunity to check out local bakeries. 

9. Snack if you need help staying awake. It’s okay. Just remember that salty/sugary snacks might make you thirsty, so prep for extra bathroom breaks

10. Every morning, take advantage of fast food stops/hotel ice machines – fill a large, widemouth water bottle with ice. Use this to keep fruit/veg cold in the morning, and then use it as a source of cold water in the afternoon. 

Good veggie options: cucumber slices, celery sticks, baby carrots, bell pepper strips

Bad veggie options: whole butternut squash, raw eggplants, corn on the cob

Good fruit options: grapes, berries (stems pre-cut-off), apple slices (drizzle lemon juice on these to keep them looking fresh), bananas, mango cut into sticks

Bad fruit options: oranges, whole pineapple, coconuts

Good protein options: toasted chickpeas, edamame, shelled nuts or seeds, cheese sticks, turkey jerky

Bad protein options: turkey legs, gallon of milk, live cow, peanut butter + spoon

Good carby/salty options: Single-serving chips/snack bags (plantain chips, veggie chips, Popchips, Triscuit), granola bars (Kashi are my favorite), PB&J wrapped in a paper towel & tin foil.

Bad carby/salty options: Microwave popcorn (unless you have a car in your microwave), breakfast cereal (hard to eat), pita & hummus

Good sweet options: Gummy candy (NOT THE KIND COVERED IN THAT AWESOME SOUR SUGAR STUFF. IF YOU SPILL THAT STUFF, YOU WILL NEVER GET IT OUT OF YOUR CAR), pre-packaged brownies/cookies (No Oreos – crumb problem), jelly beans, dried fruit

Bad sweet options: Ice cream, pudding, candy bars, any baked goods not in pre-single-serving-sized packages. 

Tips To Not Feel Like Crap:

1. Every time you stop driving, do 25-50 jumping jacks and then stretch a little. Stretch the body parts that will feel the most repetitive use and joint stress from sitting all day: reach out to the sides and then overhead, return to neutral. Then, move your arms behind your body and try to hold your own hand to stretch your shoulders and chest a bit. With straight legs, reach over to touch your toes, then slowly try bending one knee at a time. Stand up slowly, rounding your back. Raise one knee up towards your chest, then press your knee and leg a few inches to the right and to the left – as far as you feel comfortable going, then rotate your foot in a few circles in each direction. Then do the other knee. (What’s happening here: the jumping jacks warm up your body a bit so that stretching is a little safer, and then you’re stretching out your arms, shoulders, chest, legs, back, hips, and ankles). Stretch every time you stop. Really. Otherwise you’ll get to your final destination at night and feel twice as tired, stiff, and shitty. 

2. Sunscreen any bare skin – face, arms, neck, shoulders, and legs. Otherwise you’ll have a terrible surprise  at the end of the day when you roll the window up and discover that you’ve partially turned into a lobster. Even if the windows are up, the glass will not save you. 

3. This is the time to wear PJ pants, sweatpants, yoga pants, leggings, and gym shorts. Do not wear anything you wouldn’t wear to a Starbucks. Be clothed while driving, but be comfy. 

4. Good driving shoes: no flip flops, no clogs, no heels, no winter boots. Sneakers work well, sandals with some kind of ankle-strap work well, comfy ballet flats work well, and moccasin-type shoes tend to work well.

Car and Auto Maintenance: 

1. Get your vehicle checked out by a mechanic about 1-2 weeks before leaving on your road trip. Do you know how many horror films start with a car breaking down in the woods somewhere strange? The quick-fix: DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOUR CAR WON’T BREAK DOWN.

2. Refill windshield washer fluid before you leave.

3. Refill your gas tank before it hits ¼ full. In Bohunk, NoWheresVille there is only one gas station every 100 miles. Don’t chance it. 

4. At every gas station, clean your windshield. Otherwise, the dead bugs dry out and get hard to remove. 

Safety:

1. If you are traveling alone, make sure at least 2 people know where you are staying every night, and be sure to check in with them regularly. These two people should also know how to contact one another. 

2. Bring pepper spray. Or a taser. If you’re male or female. The only true rule of the road is that there is someone out there bigger and weirder than you are. 

3. Only leave in your car what you don’t mind getting stolen. During the day, every time you leave the car, keep high-value items with you in a small backpack or big purse (Besides wallet, phone, keys… “high-value” includes your: passport, social security card, vehicle title, GPS, and any nice jewelry). Every time you leave your car, hide or remove proof of electronics (shove GPS/Phone mounts or cables into glove compartment). I unpacked my car every night, and repacked it every morning. Things it’s okay to leave in your car: trash can, paper towels, snacks (nothing you need to refrigerate). Call me paranoid, but I like my stuff.

Staying Connected:

1. Know in advance how you’re going to stay in contact with people you might meet on the road. I figured out which e-mail address I was comfortable with sharing and now I have some pretty awkward pen pals. 

2. Tell your friends you won’t be able to answer text messages as consistently on days you’re traveling. Don’t text and drive. 

3. Make voice memos of things you see or think about while you’re driving. When you’ve stopped, take pictures of everything – even dumb things. Share the details with friends. 

4. Know your budget for souvenirs and stick to that. You don’t have to buy something everywhere you stop, unless you’re aiming for those 50-states magnet collection. Buy things that will remind you of a place you stayed or explored that you can also use in everyday life – coffee mugs, apartment decorations, tee-shirts, etc. If you buy random crap, you will end up with random crap. No one likes pencils and you probably don’t need another keychain.

Road tripping is awesome. Everyone should do one at one point during their life.  

On the personal side of things, turns out I don't know what poison oak looks like. Holy fuck I'm dying. Can I scratch my legs off?

Shit That I Did at 23, and a Year In Photos

Dearest Readers, a warning: don't drink and blog. 

As many of you know, today I turned 24 years of age. 24 isn't really a good birthday. I mean, you can already drink. That isn't a new thing. I can't rent a car at a non-wallet-raping rate. I can't sign up for AARP. I can't run for president yet. Nothing new or cool comes with 24 years of age. Mostly, you get stuck between still having acne, making bad choices, and being forced to act like a grown up and take care of yourself because YOU'RE GODDAMN 24 YEARS OLD, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW TO DO YOUR OWN FUCKING LAUNDRY (...the last statement is a bit of passive-aggression towards an ex-boyfriend. I don't care how many Master's degree you have, there is no reason why you should constantly buy new socks instead of washing old ones). 

So yeah! I'll write more on my weekend, our adventures, and how myself and my family celebrated this (not) momentous occasion later, but for now, I present to you a list. 

THE INCOMPLETE LIST OF SHIT THAT I DID WHILE I WAS 23

1. I learned how to make bruschetta without an overly-aggressive garlicky flavor. 

2. I ran 3 5k races. 

3. I ran the Cleveland Half Marathon. 

4. I ran a zombie-themed obstacle race.

5. I painted my friend Ben's fingernails while he wasn't paying attention. 

6. I probably ate my weight in spinach. 

7. I presented original research about a relatively obscure topic at a national conference. 

8. I bought a suit. 

9. I dressed up as a zombie and went bowling. 

10. 4 punk bands crashed at my house. 

11. I taught a Master's-level course at Kent State university without actually possessing a master's degree. And they paid me to do it.

12. I made some pretty awesome friends. 

13. I kept some pretty awesome friends. Props here to the jerks I bugged in NYC for a weekend.

14. I learned the basics of several computering languages (Unix, Python, Javascript, assorted SQL-based query language, Regex...)

15. I paid off some $12000 in student loans. 

16. I won a wheelbarrow filled with alcohol in a raffle. 

17. I took a 3000 mile road trip. I peed in like, 10 states.

18. I got really drunk and told nearly everyone I know that I decided to become a giraffe.

19. 3 out of 4 of the guys I dated had jobs. 

20. I got a job at Google.

21. I watched a guy get so drunk that he tried to light up his house keys, thinking they were a cigarette. (*No, Really)

22. I paid my taxes on time. 

23. I felt really lucky about having the opportunity to do all those things. 

I didn't want this list to sound like braggy. To be perfectly honest, very few of these things would have happened without some really cool folks cheering me on, pouring the shots, or helping me up. Thanks for helping me live up until now. You guys did as much of the above list as I did. 

Except for the giraffe thing. That was just me being drunk. 

I'm off to drink a bunch of water, in hopes that tomorrow morning won't be hangover city. I leave you now with, "23, A Year in Photos"

 The PIB Horse Mask

 Roadfest '12 and Bad Photography

 The White Party, A.K.A. That Time Fish and I Wore The Same Pants

 Rob Zombie

 

Photogenic Goat At County Fair

The Arcade Before the DannyKara Wedding

 (*Proof)

Stephanie Falling in Love with A Kitten During the Wheelbarrow Party

THE MYSTERY CONTINUES!

A Running Joke: My Long Distance Relationship

Those of you who have known me for a very long time know that I have not always looked the way I do now. I used to have about 50 more pounds on me. You couldn't quite tell it was that much, because I can dress for my shape (unlike the unfortunate woman in white capri pants on the bus yesterday), but it was there.

Let's be perfectly honest, I was still pretty much the hottest thing to walk my corner (because extra weight means some extra jiggle where it counts, am I right?). I'd been getting family pressure to be slimmer since before I was 12, but I never really did anything about it until Fall of 2011, when I had my first 'big-girl' job out of school, I finally had some disposable income, some time to spare, and a company that reimbursed gym memberships. So I figured that working out every day would help fill out my schedule and help me meet new people in the area.

I became interested in how my body worked and what I can do to make it healthier, stronger, sexier, and function better. I did my research and learned about training techniques, recovery, muscular development, and calorie burning (fun fact: in an aggressive 20-minute interval run, you can burn more calories than in an hour-long jog). I also learned about the science of food, how digestion occurs, and what you can eat to change how you feel (do you know what food mimics the bodily response to D-chiro-inositol? I do! fun fact: buckwheat). I figured out what to eat and when so that I could have a bunch of energy all day long (without 4+ cups of coffee), recover from aggressive and intense workouts, and not be on a bunch of crazy supplements. A distinct part of my friend circle was just as health-conscious as I was, and we worked out together, hung out, ate grapes, and with some of them, I learned that I wasn't as unathletic as I'd always thought I was. I was encouraged to push my passion for running and fitness into my first half-marathon.

And I did it. But it sucked. So I figured I should keep doing these crazy events until it didn't suck as much, and I felt good doing them. My most recent, the Cleveland Marathon series' half-marathon went poorly, and I was left with the feeling that I could do better.

Because when you're in the kind of shape where a 10-mile run is an easy task, any other BS that gets thrown at you (psycho coworkers, jackass ex-boyfriend, student loans) seems easy. And I like carrying myself with a "Bitch, I can take you" attitude. 

So a bunch of pounds fell off, I've been looking pretty good.

However, my super-healthy lifestyle fell to pieces come holiday season 2012. I was stressed from leaving my job and the prospect of moving cross-country. I had a bunch of friends that wanted to go out and celebrate at my favorite bars and dinner spots in food-fabulous Cleveland. Following my resignation, I had a group of amazing former-coworkers that wanted to take me out to lunch and buy me beer to celebrate my transition, I had a traditional Jewish Christmas spent with my "extended" family to get my Chinese food fix, and I had just met this awesome guy that wanted to impress me by cooking me meals (some of which were much more successful than others). And then I moved to California (you all saw the food pics from the road trip... those were necessary). I met Rachel and Dave, who introduced me to sushi boats and the magic of Chavez Mexican food. I have a job that features 24/7 free snacks and 3 all-you-can-eat meals a day. I have an awesome aunt and grandmother that decided to send me 6 boxes of Passover candy. And... I finally have a group of friends that want to hang out, get drinks, and go out to dinner.

Only within the past month were my workouts rigidly regular, so naturally, a few of the pounds that were once jogged off found their way back on. And 8 pounds at my height is a lot.

I started thinking about things I can do to prevent gaining the full so-called 'Google 20', and I started thinking about that last half-marathon... how I feel I could have done better if I had trained differently, what time I can try for, how fun it was to be a part of the running community in Cleveland.

So I'm thinking that I'd like to do it again - another half marathon, California-style. I wanted to pick a trail-run, because it would be a new experience, something that couldn't be done in my previous running turf, and it would require the simultaneous weight-training that will help me reclaim last summer's four pack from my current two pack. I also wanted to pick something that was in early fall so that I can have lots of prep time and be less concerned with the possibility of another 90 degree race day. 

September 7th, 2013 - The Trail Hog Half Marathon. The event will be a bit smaller than a lot of the other races in the area (Wipro, Nike Women's...), it's only 20 minutes from my home (which means sleeping in on race day), and by doing a trail run instead of a flat course, I can work towards building up the endurance and balls to sign up for one of the Mt.Tamalpais trail races (biggest rock around).

You do a mountain run like that, and I can only imagine that you feel like a superhero. A superhero that won't be able to walk for like 3 days, but a superhero nonetheless. Maybe I can convince my cousin to bike beside me with a cattle prod in case I try to do something silly, like take a break. 

Here's what it boils down to:

Current events have me thinking about appreciating my life, my health, and the many many supportive people that have dragged me this far. 

I want to take charge of my new surroundings, conquer (symbolically and literally) this major uphill climb, and recapture the feeling of zen I get when fitness is the focus of my free time. 

Starting Sunday, I'm dropping down my weekly mileage and starting from scratch, building my weekly mileage from 7 miles/week (1 mile short runs, 5 mile long run) back up to 30 miles/week (8 mile short runs, 14 mile long run). I want to focus on building quality miles - properly strengthening my hip flexors, maintaining minimum-stress shoulder-elbow alignment while running, and slowly building back up the endurance such that an 8 mile run is still a 'short' run.

And if all of this time spent outdoors running about can help me build up a vitamin D surplus and maybe even a bit of a tan... I'm okay with it :-)

The Drunk Guy On The Front Lawn

I crashed at a friend's house. This is not uncommon, they live close to fun city nightlife, and I'm not a huge fan of drinking, driving, and crashing into walls. In fact it's been happening with such regularity that they know my Starbuck's order for the morning after.

It happened again.

We woke up, as usual, and he pulled on a hoodie and grabbed his keys, wordlessly making his way towards the door to go out and fetch me the one liquid that can turn me from a cranky zombie to a human being.

The door opened and closed. 

I stretched and did the usual - starting cleaning the area. If someone's nice enough to fetch me coffee, I'm nice enough to pick up dirty places, recycle empty cans and bottles, fold used blankets, and put away video game controllers.

The door opened and closed again. Well shit, that was fast.

I turned around and his hands were coffee-free. Dislike.

"You need cash or something?"

"No... there's. Well. There's someone sleeping on the lawn."

"What?"

"There's like... a dude sleeping on the lawn."

There was. Average looking white guy, dressed in pretty standard male attire - a tee shirt and jeans, jacket bunched up as a makeshift pillow, asleep there on the lawn. We looked down at him.

"I guess he's one of my roommates' friends."

"Huh." I paused. "Can you still get coffee?"

He went on his way down the street towards liquid life, and I went about cleaning up. And then I thought that we might as well be nice to the semi-houseguest. I took an old blanket from the couch and filled a glass of water, gently covering the lawn-slumberer with the blanket, and nestling the glass of water in the dewy grass.

One of the roommates woke up, and said he didn't know the person on the lawn either. But we didn't want the mystery lawn-man to leave without an introduction or an explanation. So we sat and watched him. 

Coffee came, and the three of us sat down on the front porch of the condo, staring at the small patch of lawn that was serving as a bed. 

Roommate #3 awoke, and decided to join us, slamming the door on his way out. 

The noise roused our slumberer. 

We all stopped whispering and stared intently. 

He sat us and dug his palms into his eyes sockets, clearly confused by his surroundings. 

"Morning!"

None of us knew him. He didn't know any of us. Apparently, he lives in one of the condos about two blocks away, and after stumbling home drunk, when his keys didn't work he just laid down on the lawn, assuming his girlfriend would let him in eventually. He was hungover, but was very appreciative for the water and for us not calling the police. He got up and went on his way, and soon I went on mine.

Things out here have been going alright. Mostly, I work, work out, and then go home. The DMV has been driving me nuts, and I'm hoping by end of day tomorrow I can finally have a vehicle registered in the state of California. It's been so frustrating, and I've whined so much that the California DMV actually followed me back on Twitter.

I'm homesick though. I hear from friends regularly, and their lives are all going on as normal. I missed the re-opening of Tremont Scoops, the culmination of nearly a year of work and research from some of my favorite people and oldest friends. People are moving, slipping into new jobs, traveling, and going to the Cleveland International Film Fest, and I'm here. I get texts from people and read about all the Cleveland happenings, and I'm still waiting for this new place to feel like home. 

The work week starts again tomorrow, so I've got some light prep work to do. 

Again soon.