Lafayette, IN to Torrance, CA in 31 hours, or how to move an apartment cross country
#1
01-08-2008, 07:30 PM
Lafayette, IN to Torrance, CA in 31 hours, or how to move an apartment cross country
As the title suggests, I recently had the pleasure of spending 31 quality hours with the Fit, traversing the states of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, a tip of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and the south of California. This trip could have been a five hour jaunt on a plane, but I have six months to spend out here in California (working for Honeywell Turbo, aka Garrett as an intern, woot!) and six months without the Fit would be a pretty bad six months.
This trip would not only test the bounds of the Fit in terms of cargo holding and unbridled performance, but also in the abilities (madness?) of the drivers, myself and some hobo I picked up at the Indianapolis airport BP station (more on him later)
I awoke on the morning of the January four at five in the morning to finish packing the Fit with the last bits of my apartment, braving the zero degree and snowbound outdoors in my pajamas. As you can see, saying that my car was a little full was an understatement.
One benefit of having most of my worldly possessions stuffed into my car was it gave me a preview of what my car will look like once some suspension bits are installed... in the rear at least. An astute eye will notice that I was on new Falken Azenis wrapping a set of 15x7 RPF1 wheels. Why summer tires in a snow-covered state? Because I was driving to a sunny state filled with some fine canyon roads and a number of racetracks.
By six o clock, I was on the road,slowly, due to aforementioned Azenis, but the only snow I would encounter would be in my neighborhood, thankfully. After the hardest part of the trip, saying bye to the fiancé, who could not join me in California due to her finishing out her stay at Purdue this semester, I was off to Indianapolis.
Remember the hobo I mentioned earlier? That's Dan, a goofy guy who I worked with over the summer who also thought that a drive of over 2000 miles in just over one day was a good idea. He was at the airport dropping his car off so he could drive himself back to Lafayette after his super-red eye flight on the sixth.
We made quick work of both Indiana and Illinois, with a few photos, mostly of flat land and trucks.
Big trucks, little trucks, but always trucks. It's the midwest after all, and the Truck is the way of life. That and erecting massive statues for the guy in charge upstairs.
We then crossed into a state of misery, Missouri and we were greeted immediately by more flat land. Exciting business, no? Shortly after seeing the famous arch from a distance, we found our way into some hilly terrain, but the interstate remained straight as ever.
Of note in Missouri, was this guy.
Some random dude came up to me while I was letting my dog do his business. He joked about how rat terriers would help him clear out his house of rats. Then this house-full-of-rats-grizzly-panel-van-driving yokel punched me in the arm and laughed. I didn't. Also, cool bridge over the river.
Luckily, Missouri was followed by Oklahoma. Oklahoma, a truly thrilling plot of land, stuck in the middle of our great nation. Rivaled in popularity only by North and South Dakota, or Montana. If there's one thing worth noting in Oklahoma, they think that the Turnpike is serious business. We were constantly reminded that speed limits were "STRICTLY ENFORCED" as were fines for littering, and tolls, which, by the way were on the order of magnitude of stupid. Why did I pay around ten dollars in tolls to drive across the state? The sheer width of the state made this much worse, with a number of $3.50 tolls, dotted with $1.00 tolls to pepper the oft-one lane turnpike, with a strict speed limit of 55 mph in areas. Nothing much to report from what I saw of the OK state, other than the mysterious signs flanking the road, reminding me "DO NOT DRIVE INTO THE SMOKE", which raises questions about this smoke, where does it come from, what does it do, why is it so mysterious? My dog, Diesel, expressed his shared dislike of the state by breaking some posted laws.
We celebrated.
]
Also to note: my car was very dirty. Very dirty indeed.
By the time we had crossed the semi-god forsaken state of OK, night was upon us and I could only manage this Blair-Witch-nausea-inspiring picture of the decidedly busy road.
So in the little portion of Texas we experienced, I saw a strange and massive field of red lights, not an airport, possibly an oil field or something. Either way, it was strange and big and red. Texas was still better than Oklahoma though. Going back to Oklahoma, I got attacked by a bird there as well.
After the stint in Tay-has, we found ourselves in New Mexico, an upgraded and more compact version of the country to our south. I'm not sure what all was included in the Mexico 2.0 update, but the state seemed pretty nice, although the gas station we stopped at had water-free urinals by design, which seemed strange, but the designers of Mexico 2.0 must have seen some merit to letting the yellow mellow. Personally, it just smelled bad. New Mexico was fun while I was awake however, (Dan had been driving for some time now, with a break for me to conquer Texas) with a great deal of elevation change and curiously, snow. I had crossed a number of states that I would expect to find snow in and was greeted by none. I wake up from a New Mexican nap to see snow coming down at a good clip. Thankfully the Azenis didn't mind too much. We stopped in the middle of the desert to relieve our hummingbird-sized bladders and a driver change was had. I thought that I was somewhat awake at the time (18 hours or so into a cross country trek) but Arizona would teach me otherwise... New Mexico picture!
Arizona- the last line of defense between us and our Californian aspirations. It's a simple polygon and mostly red and bumpy from a topographical standpoint. Though some of those bumps are sizable, in a 10,000 ft high sort of way. Again, due to the night-ness of the drive and my piloting the Fit, no pictures were had. I was making quick work of Arizona, fueled by determination and my Mom's finest chocolate chip cookies-phenomenal- when suddenly my eyes decided that focusing wasn't something they felt like doing anymore. Blurry vision while driving at extra-legal speeds in the dead of night in a desert isn't necessarily something to strive for. So I decided to run the Driver switch option, with a driver who had only had and hour of sleep... We made it an extra 45 minutes when we had a moment of weakness- the only real stop in our non-stop trip was a 9 minute pause on some random off ramp in the bufu of Arizona. No sleep was had on my part though, as I was too worried about getting to Cali on time, oh yeah, I forgot to mention- I had to be in Los Angeles by 12.00pm for a drug screening. So, with nine hours to go, I did the only thing I knew how to do- drive like a bat out of hell. Arizona flew by and by flew by I mean it took a really freaking long time. California, here we come.
Lore of California tends to stick in your head. It's mountainous, verdant, heavily populated, metropolitan, and on the ocean. At least that's the part you remember from your last visits to California.No one talks about the Mojave desert. We flew across the lake of Havasu, with high hopes and sleep deprived visions of the golden state. Needless to say, we were a little surprised about what we saw. My first experience with gas prices in CA was in the lovely town that goes by the name of Needles. Needles, a nice name for a town that if it were in a bar and some other small town spilled its pitcher of PBR, it would make short work of the clumsy town.
We crossed the Mojave at a good clip, catching a good deal of rain, a rarity in those parts, judging by the struggling flora.
We began to reach more populated areas of California. Simplistic freeways soon became a tangled web of a number of different options to get you to any number of destinations in any number of places in southern California. At this point, the Garmin GPS Christmas present (thanks Mom and Dad) began to prove its worth. Exchange after exchange on the convoluted freeways was announced in a truly breathless manner by the computer simulated version of a british woman named Emily. With her unerring assistance, and healthy doses of Powerade, Torrance was soon reached. Let's say that I lucked out- on the way I spotted a multitude of automotive specialities, including a number of rust free CRXs (an oxymoron to me), a Mugenized RSX/Integra, bunches of Bentleys, packs of Porsches, and some of the finest classic American Muscle I had ever seen. I knew I was going to like it here. We navigated our last few exchanges on the 405 and soon arrived at my new home, the Homestead of Torrance, a nice (and free) extended stay hotel, minutes from work.
So what can I say about the trip? 31 hours is a mind-numbing amount of time to do anything, let alone pilot a subcompact car, filled to the brim with an apartment's worth of belongings across a number of the US's larger states. A life-changing experience? Yes. Do I love the Fit more than ever? Yes. Was endurance tested? Yes. Is Oklahoma really as bad as I portrayed it? I think so. So there you have it guys and girls, one epic journey, as presented by yours truly. I hope to meet some of you during my stay in Torrance and I hope to take in as much California as possible while I'm here. If you read it all, thank you. If not, you might enjoy it when you have some free time to kill. Enjoy the rest of the pictures and feel free to comment as you will.
Alec Cervenka
AlRedCar/Lafayette to California in 31 hours - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
This trip would not only test the bounds of the Fit in terms of cargo holding and unbridled performance, but also in the abilities (madness?) of the drivers, myself and some hobo I picked up at the Indianapolis airport BP station (more on him later)
I awoke on the morning of the January four at five in the morning to finish packing the Fit with the last bits of my apartment, braving the zero degree and snowbound outdoors in my pajamas. As you can see, saying that my car was a little full was an understatement.
One benefit of having most of my worldly possessions stuffed into my car was it gave me a preview of what my car will look like once some suspension bits are installed... in the rear at least. An astute eye will notice that I was on new Falken Azenis wrapping a set of 15x7 RPF1 wheels. Why summer tires in a snow-covered state? Because I was driving to a sunny state filled with some fine canyon roads and a number of racetracks.
By six o clock, I was on the road,slowly, due to aforementioned Azenis, but the only snow I would encounter would be in my neighborhood, thankfully. After the hardest part of the trip, saying bye to the fiancé, who could not join me in California due to her finishing out her stay at Purdue this semester, I was off to Indianapolis.
Remember the hobo I mentioned earlier? That's Dan, a goofy guy who I worked with over the summer who also thought that a drive of over 2000 miles in just over one day was a good idea. He was at the airport dropping his car off so he could drive himself back to Lafayette after his super-red eye flight on the sixth.
We made quick work of both Indiana and Illinois, with a few photos, mostly of flat land and trucks.
Big trucks, little trucks, but always trucks. It's the midwest after all, and the Truck is the way of life. That and erecting massive statues for the guy in charge upstairs.
We then crossed into a state of misery, Missouri and we were greeted immediately by more flat land. Exciting business, no? Shortly after seeing the famous arch from a distance, we found our way into some hilly terrain, but the interstate remained straight as ever.
Of note in Missouri, was this guy.
Some random dude came up to me while I was letting my dog do his business. He joked about how rat terriers would help him clear out his house of rats. Then this house-full-of-rats-grizzly-panel-van-driving yokel punched me in the arm and laughed. I didn't. Also, cool bridge over the river.
Luckily, Missouri was followed by Oklahoma. Oklahoma, a truly thrilling plot of land, stuck in the middle of our great nation. Rivaled in popularity only by North and South Dakota, or Montana. If there's one thing worth noting in Oklahoma, they think that the Turnpike is serious business. We were constantly reminded that speed limits were "STRICTLY ENFORCED" as were fines for littering, and tolls, which, by the way were on the order of magnitude of stupid. Why did I pay around ten dollars in tolls to drive across the state? The sheer width of the state made this much worse, with a number of $3.50 tolls, dotted with $1.00 tolls to pepper the oft-one lane turnpike, with a strict speed limit of 55 mph in areas. Nothing much to report from what I saw of the OK state, other than the mysterious signs flanking the road, reminding me "DO NOT DRIVE INTO THE SMOKE", which raises questions about this smoke, where does it come from, what does it do, why is it so mysterious? My dog, Diesel, expressed his shared dislike of the state by breaking some posted laws.
We celebrated.
] Also to note: my car was very dirty. Very dirty indeed.
By the time we had crossed the semi-god forsaken state of OK, night was upon us and I could only manage this Blair-Witch-nausea-inspiring picture of the decidedly busy road.
So in the little portion of Texas we experienced, I saw a strange and massive field of red lights, not an airport, possibly an oil field or something. Either way, it was strange and big and red. Texas was still better than Oklahoma though. Going back to Oklahoma, I got attacked by a bird there as well.
After the stint in Tay-has, we found ourselves in New Mexico, an upgraded and more compact version of the country to our south. I'm not sure what all was included in the Mexico 2.0 update, but the state seemed pretty nice, although the gas station we stopped at had water-free urinals by design, which seemed strange, but the designers of Mexico 2.0 must have seen some merit to letting the yellow mellow. Personally, it just smelled bad. New Mexico was fun while I was awake however, (Dan had been driving for some time now, with a break for me to conquer Texas) with a great deal of elevation change and curiously, snow. I had crossed a number of states that I would expect to find snow in and was greeted by none. I wake up from a New Mexican nap to see snow coming down at a good clip. Thankfully the Azenis didn't mind too much. We stopped in the middle of the desert to relieve our hummingbird-sized bladders and a driver change was had. I thought that I was somewhat awake at the time (18 hours or so into a cross country trek) but Arizona would teach me otherwise... New Mexico picture!
Arizona- the last line of defense between us and our Californian aspirations. It's a simple polygon and mostly red and bumpy from a topographical standpoint. Though some of those bumps are sizable, in a 10,000 ft high sort of way. Again, due to the night-ness of the drive and my piloting the Fit, no pictures were had. I was making quick work of Arizona, fueled by determination and my Mom's finest chocolate chip cookies-phenomenal- when suddenly my eyes decided that focusing wasn't something they felt like doing anymore. Blurry vision while driving at extra-legal speeds in the dead of night in a desert isn't necessarily something to strive for. So I decided to run the Driver switch option, with a driver who had only had and hour of sleep... We made it an extra 45 minutes when we had a moment of weakness- the only real stop in our non-stop trip was a 9 minute pause on some random off ramp in the bufu of Arizona. No sleep was had on my part though, as I was too worried about getting to Cali on time, oh yeah, I forgot to mention- I had to be in Los Angeles by 12.00pm for a drug screening. So, with nine hours to go, I did the only thing I knew how to do- drive like a bat out of hell. Arizona flew by and by flew by I mean it took a really freaking long time. California, here we come.
Lore of California tends to stick in your head. It's mountainous, verdant, heavily populated, metropolitan, and on the ocean. At least that's the part you remember from your last visits to California.No one talks about the Mojave desert. We flew across the lake of Havasu, with high hopes and sleep deprived visions of the golden state. Needless to say, we were a little surprised about what we saw. My first experience with gas prices in CA was in the lovely town that goes by the name of Needles. Needles, a nice name for a town that if it were in a bar and some other small town spilled its pitcher of PBR, it would make short work of the clumsy town.
We crossed the Mojave at a good clip, catching a good deal of rain, a rarity in those parts, judging by the struggling flora.
We began to reach more populated areas of California. Simplistic freeways soon became a tangled web of a number of different options to get you to any number of destinations in any number of places in southern California. At this point, the Garmin GPS Christmas present (thanks Mom and Dad) began to prove its worth. Exchange after exchange on the convoluted freeways was announced in a truly breathless manner by the computer simulated version of a british woman named Emily. With her unerring assistance, and healthy doses of Powerade, Torrance was soon reached. Let's say that I lucked out- on the way I spotted a multitude of automotive specialities, including a number of rust free CRXs (an oxymoron to me), a Mugenized RSX/Integra, bunches of Bentleys, packs of Porsches, and some of the finest classic American Muscle I had ever seen. I knew I was going to like it here. We navigated our last few exchanges on the 405 and soon arrived at my new home, the Homestead of Torrance, a nice (and free) extended stay hotel, minutes from work.
So what can I say about the trip? 31 hours is a mind-numbing amount of time to do anything, let alone pilot a subcompact car, filled to the brim with an apartment's worth of belongings across a number of the US's larger states. A life-changing experience? Yes. Do I love the Fit more than ever? Yes. Was endurance tested? Yes. Is Oklahoma really as bad as I portrayed it? I think so. So there you have it guys and girls, one epic journey, as presented by yours truly. I hope to meet some of you during my stay in Torrance and I hope to take in as much California as possible while I'm here. If you read it all, thank you. If not, you might enjoy it when you have some free time to kill. Enjoy the rest of the pictures and feel free to comment as you will.
Alec Cervenka
AlRedCar/Lafayette to California in 31 hours - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Last edited by AlRedCar; 01-08-2008 at 08:09 PM. Reason: Pictures were teh hugeX0r5
#8
01-08-2008, 09:08 PM
looks like you had a pretty fun time! (i hope you did
)
that was really one dirty fit! it was so sad too see- i wasnt sure if someone was gonna try and beg me to donate 5 cents a day .............
)that was really one dirty fit! it was so sad too see- i wasnt sure if someone was gonna try and beg me to donate 5 cents a day .............
#10
01-08-2008, 09:23 PM
Thanks for all the comments! It was definitely a blast, except for Oklahoma haha!
The headlights I actually just painted silver, gives it a different look I think, a little more "normal" I guess you could say. I was never too keen on the red housings, but I liked the look of the japanese Fits without the color-matched housing.
The headlights I actually just painted silver, gives it a different look I think, a little more "normal" I guess you could say. I was never too keen on the red housings, but I liked the look of the japanese Fits without the color-matched housing.
#11
01-08-2008, 09:59 PM
GOOD GAWD!!! YOU DROVE FOR THAT LONG...AND THOUGHT TORRANCE WAS A GOOD DESTINATION!!!
HAAAHAAaaaa
J/K
Torrance is also called "borrance" (not kidding on this one) but it is
IMH(of most H)O a great cool mellow hub for everything around it!
I would make a "wash me please" joke but that is even too low for me
Anywho Welcome to Torrance!
Your story hurt my chest
with sympathy pains(I am injured from a recent wreck...and can only drive comfortably for about 20min )
I have a NHBP Fit Sport, I will keep an eye out for ya. (you should be easy to spot...well... if you dont wash it )
Check out the Socal subforum here, you might dig it since you are in town, there might even be a meet or something...Someone needs to buy you a drink! There is even a Fit sightings thread...
Interesting internship.... and your story made for an interesting read....bravo!
If you should feel so inclined throw a pm
HAAAHAAaaaaJ/K
Torrance is also called "borrance" (not kidding on this one) but it is
IMH(of most H)O a great cool mellow hub for everything around it!
I would make a "wash me please" joke but that is even too low for me
Anywho Welcome to Torrance!
Your story hurt my chest
with sympathy pains(I am injured from a recent wreck...and can only drive comfortably for about 20min )I have a NHBP Fit Sport, I will keep an eye out for ya. (you should be easy to spot...well... if you dont wash it
)Check out the Socal subforum here, you might dig it since you are in town, there might even be a meet or something...Someone needs to buy you a drink! There is even a Fit sightings thread...
Interesting internship.... and your story made for an interesting read....bravo!
If you should feel so inclined throw a pm
#14
01-08-2008, 11:26 PM
I have a NHBP Fit Sport, I will keep an eye out for ya. (you should be easy to spot...well... if you dont wash it
)Check out the Socal subforum here, you might dig it since you are in town, there might even be a meet or something...Someone needs to buy you a drink! There is even a Fit sightings thread...
Interesting internship.... and your story made for an interesting read....bravo!
If you should feel so inclined throw a pm
#17
01-09-2008, 12:06 AM
The best part about this trip is that after we drove 31 hours, guess what we did.
More driving. https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...t-highway.html
More driving. https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...t-highway.html
#19
01-09-2008, 01:13 AM
Hello all, I am Dan the Hobo, the hetero life mate of Alec and companion on the grand adventure. A little background, I have also driven to and from Miami in 3 days in my M3, it was 48 hours on the road in 72 hours total... and after the flights back from Los Angeles, which started at 10pm, ended at 9am, I worked a full day and played 3 hours of basketball this evening. I am pretty sure I am insane. Tomorrow, I think I will sleep in.
A little update on Alec's thread to fill in some of his time he was asleep.
-We didn't have any snow in New Mexico (Mexico two dot o). In fact, New Mexico was a highlight of the trip for me. Coming out of Albuquerque we drove into the mountains, and actually into clouds, it was pretty amazing.
-The snow was in Flagstaff, AZ. Alec needed his nap time (some people aren't cut out for the road) and I drove head first into about 1" of snow on certain parts of the interstate. It really wasn't too bad at all, but at 3-4-5ish in the morning, with little sleep, it was a bit tense.
-Right near Wildorado, TX was a HUGE field of flashing red lights. I am pretty sure they inspired Kanye West. The field lasted maybe 5 miles long, Alec wouldn't detour to figure out what they were, I hate him to this day for that. If anyone could tell me what the field was, I will take you off my "People Who's Asses I am Going to Kick" list.
-And yes, I still can't feel my left butt cheek.
Dan
A little update on Alec's thread to fill in some of his time he was asleep.
-We didn't have any snow in New Mexico (Mexico two dot o). In fact, New Mexico was a highlight of the trip for me. Coming out of Albuquerque we drove into the mountains, and actually into clouds, it was pretty amazing.
-The snow was in Flagstaff, AZ. Alec needed his nap time (some people aren't cut out for the road) and I drove head first into about 1" of snow on certain parts of the interstate. It really wasn't too bad at all, but at 3-4-5ish in the morning, with little sleep, it was a bit tense.
-Right near Wildorado, TX was a HUGE field of flashing red lights. I am pretty sure they inspired Kanye West. The field lasted maybe 5 miles long, Alec wouldn't detour to figure out what they were, I hate him to this day for that. If anyone could tell me what the field was, I will take you off my "People Who's Asses I am Going to Kick" list.
-And yes, I still can't feel my left butt cheek.
Dan
