Road Trip!
 

So after much procrastinating I have finally set a date for my cross-country road trip, currently it looks like about 12,000 miles and I have a month to do it. I'll be leaving July 1st and returning August 1st (In case anyone didn't know how long a month was:rolleyes:...). Despite warnings from every person in my life I am convinced Serenity will make it with little to no trouble even with 410,000 miles.
My questions are.

• What would you bring? (Tools, fluids, supplies, parts)
• What would you check before/during?
• What would your replace before leaving?
• Any suggestions for destinations or scenic/interesting routes?

AAA membership.

Fuel filters

As many tools as you can bring.

Fluids (Oil, ATF, water, etc)

Towel

I would not drive 12,000 miles without changing the oil. I would change it every 5K at most.

tools, fluids, rags and AAA just in case **** happens. Have the car checked out throughly. As for trip suggestions whats the general direction

Post your route.
Line up Forum members for "meet and greet".
Take lots of pics.
Update this thread --- if it will be your "trip thread.
GRAB the "Silver Star" and take it with you --- Leave it with someone. See the "Open Discussion" and search for "Silver Star".

It works out to be 400 miles a day. It seems to be a lot of driving to me, not enough time to enjoy the scenary.

I don't plan on dividing the driving equally between days. The first few will be long hauls to albuquerque. From there I'll slow down to enjoy.

I've done 3 cross country trips in old Mercedes, and I know you don't think so now, but 12,000 miles in a month will NOT be enjoyable. I'm the type of person who can't doze off with the TV on, and certainly never get that feeling behind the wheel. 15 hours of straight driving brought it on for the first time in my life. That was from Costa Mesa, California, to Amarillo, Tx, a bit over 1000 miles in one day. I couldn't get myself up the next day to finish the trip either. I didn't hit the road until noon. You can't expect to have more stamina than professional truck drivers.

I suggest you try and cut that number in half and stop and enjoy yourself. Be sure to take photos. I may only have one or two cross country trips ahead of me before I become a grown up and can't take off for two weeks. At least I'll have the pictures.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/241323-ol-turbos-cross-country-trek-boldly-go-where.html

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/258419-ol-turbo-again-another-cross-country-trek.html

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/off-topic-discussion/268615-second-cross-country-trip-photos.html

As long as you have the means financially to handle a major failure along the road, be as prepared as you can for emergency repairs and have fun. If you don't have access to cash just in case, it will be a foolhardy venture. Do not go into this trip with serendipitous expectations despite the car's name.:D

During the month of July there is always a big Mercedes GTG in Texas. You may want check with Htownbenzboy to see when he plans on throwing it this year.

I'm planning it for late May this time. It's a bit cooler outside around then.

Sounds fantastic to me. I should wake up for this one. :D

Yep, that July heat will put you back to sleep in the form of a heat stroke induced coma.:D

You will need a credit card with a high limit!

That depends on the person. I too have done a number of crosscountry road trips - 3 in the 300 td (one of those was 11000 miles carrying four adults and a crapload of gear), 1 in the 500sel, and one in a chevy truck.

For quick runs (2 or 3 days) driving 15 or 18 hours at a time is no problem for me (I once did Santa Barbara CA to Austin Texas in 23 hours, but that did require a 1 hour nap at the 20 hour mark). djustin973 wont know if that sort of driving agrees with him until he tries it. He just needs to keep some flexibility in his schedule.

One thing I definitely recommend: Audiobooks. An unabridged audiobook is just about right for filling a day's worth of driving, and it keeps you from getting too bored out of your mind (or sleepy!) when you're driving through a thousand miles of cornfields or desert. Load an iPod up with some good books, and of course toss some podcasts and your music on there too for the sake of variety.

Edit:
Some quick calculations say he can get to Albuqerque (2000 miles) in 2 15 hour hops. Assuming he does something similar on the way back, he'll have 26 days to cover the other 8000 miles, or 5 or 6 hours driving per day on average. Certainly doable, driving wise. The only thing I'd be concerned about is having enough time to enjoy the places he'd be stopping in. My 11000 mile trip took 2 months, so we could spend at least a full day or two (sometimes more) in each destination.

Edit 2: Based on the long hauls to Albuquerque comment, I'm imagining an itinerary something like this. However, that's only 7,600 miles. I can't imagine what kind of zigzagging might be needed to cover an additional 4,400 miles if you're going to mostly ignore the eastern 2/3 of the country.

djustin973, in case you're curious about what my itinerary was for my trip, here's part 1 and part 2. The markers are the fuel stops that we recorded, not the destinations we visited. We went to the Grand Canyon (camping), Four Corners (brief stop), Mesa Verde (camping and checking out lots of interesting Native American history), Santa Fe, Dallas, New Orleans, Memphis, Metropolis (brief stop to check out the Superman statue. Yeah, really.) St. Louis, Mount Rushmore (boy was there a lot of driving just for that!), Minneapolis (visiting friends), Chicago, Cleveland (visiting relatives), Niagara Falls (briefly), Montreal, Boston, NYC, Philadelphia (briefly, thank god), Washington DC, and then basically a straight run back with one final stay in Nowhere, Kansas where a friend has a farm. Pretty much all of those places were interesting; of course, you live near all the east coast ones anyway :P.

81 Wagon understands my plan exactly. Two days to New Mexico, a month in the west, two days home. I would like to add one important note, I will not be the only one driving. We will rotate between the three of us. The reason for the high miles estimate is a ton of zigs and a few zags. I have about 2 dozen stops/destinations planned, but more importantly I have planned my route between them around scenic routes. For me its the trip, not the destination I look forward to.