Thanks everyone, especially Slowmover! That is a huge amount of information! My sister actually lives in a small suburb of Phoenix called Gilbert and is moving to Tillamook. Just putting in "Oregon" sends me a couple of miles short of a place called Brothers, while Tillamook is another three hundred miles north.
Yay.
Interesting. My mom and sister argued over which was worse, Los Angeles or Las Vegas. I remember driving through Nevada when I was a kid and thinking of how ugly the desert is. One of the reasons she recommended going through L.A. was because of scenery, but California is a special place. I remember one trip where I kept seeing signs that we needed to pay an extra fifty cents for warm food.
Penske says their trucks get "up to" 10 MPG and have "up to" a ten-gallon tank. That is comforting!
How low do you let your fuel tank get?
Mom keeps saying Google says the trip is 1400 miles and will take 29 hours. That did not seem logical, but my brother-in-law pointed out places where trucks (or trucks with trailers) were required to drive slower.
I really do not like making left turns.
Set triangles twenty feet from the shoulder stripe, if possible, but highway lanes are usually twelve feet. Put it on the lane marker?
How many Army rations do you think a trip like that would take?
We already have the truck. I need to check the tires every two hours, right? I drove a school bus for 5.5 years and drove large vehicles for the Army for 8, but I only once drove a school bus outside of the valley, and the Army runs things differently. I used to pre-trip the civilian bus and my Sergeants would yell at me when I did the brake check. I never picked up a CDL manual to show them proper procedure.
When did trucks start turning off automatically after five minutes? I encountered this for the first time a year ago at annual training. For some bizarre reason, they said the nearest bus was at Fort Huachuca, 185 miles from our base in Phoenix. We had two short female Soldiers, barely over five feet. One announced she was driving and the other called Shotgun. I am 6'2" and the Sergeant is 6'3". He didn't care, so I just got in the back. It sure did not seem like the bus even idled five minutes. It shut down twice before I finished inspecting it and we left it there.
They had another bus waiting for us.
We used to have loads fall off our trucks in Afghanistan. We tightened the cargo straps as much as we could and periodically asked the truck behind us how everything looked. "Good--you lost something!"
I can definitely imagine what problems a shifting load could cause. I needed to look up load lock. How terrible is it we are just using rope?
I asked my sister if I was under orders to not attempt the entire drive in one shot. She said "Absolutely." My brother-in-law told me to go for it.
I drive three and a half hours each way to my mom's house once a month. The furthest I ever drove in Afghanistan was about ninety miles, but that is entirely different.
This is officially the furthest I will have ever driven, but several times as far as I ever drove a large vehicle. My roommate finished the semester and I offered to compensate him if he rode along, but he was not interested.
I am glad the truck has cruise control. Our school buses did not, but I never drove road trips. Army trucks definitely did not.
Should I stop at the first truck stop on the right hand side for Howe's Meaner Cleaner? Will it pay for itself in fuel savings?
Is Loves Travel Stop not as good as Pilot and Flying J? Do you now prefer Howe's to Schaeffer's?
Slow down until wolf packs pass? Perhaps people drive in wolf packs because they feel they need to be doing what everyone else is doing, which requires traveling with everyone else.
My sister's plans keep changing. She kept telling me she wanted me to leave Monday morning and I kept thinking I would roll out as soon as possible, but today she mentioned they have an appointment Tuesday afternoon, so they are leaving then. She mentioned driving into the sun would be frustrating, but she did not think it would be too bad.
Problem: If I take the Interstate as much as possible I go through California. Driving through Las Vegas is U.S. Routes most of the way, and is 1,137 miles of desert, until Bend, Oregon. If I drive through L.A., it is green once I pass Palm Springs, 300 miles.
You wrote I would average 50 MPH and said to not exceed 600 miles per day. "Start early. Before dawn is preferable. Stop early. Do not drive into the night. Get most miles out of the way by noon."
Is 4am to 4pm reasonable? I wish I could leave earlier on Tuesday, but the schedule seems pretty firm.
Thanks so much! I greatly appreciate all of your advice!