Operation Homeward Bound

Today I get into my car and drive. Again. 
Over the past year, I have done a LOT of road tripping.  I drove to and from Vegas countless time, then I took this big trip out here.  It's about 1600 miles from my front door to Fort Knox.  Kind of a long trip.  Like I said before, I have some mixed feelings about heading out, but ultimately, the time to leave was going to come regardless of how I felt about it. 
It has occurred to me that a lot of people just don't do road trips.  Personally, I love them.  I don't mind a flight either, but driving across the country and watching the world change before my eyes on the road that stretches on for miles in any given direction may be one of my very favorite things.  This might be crazy, but I also love all that time to myself.  People think that a drive all alone would be pure torture, but I quite enjoy it. 
Seems how I've done so much distance driving, I learned a few tricks to make travelling down the interstate a little bit easier.  Because let's be honest, you can only listen to your favorite band so many times over the course of a 23 hour drive.  Here's a few things I've learned about making it down the road. 

1// Listen to an audio book. This is a new one for me.  When I decided to drive out to Fort Knox, I knew that music the entire way just might not cut it.  When I went to the store to buy a book, I asked the sale rep at Barnes & Noble for a "book-on-tape" she look at me like I was a Martian.  She looked older than I am, so I 'm not sure why she didn't understand what I meant.  Eventually, we got down to it and she helped me find an audio book.   For my drive back I picked out two Sophie Kinsella books that I can't wait to listen to!

2// Create Playlists of your favorite songs. When you don't have to scroll through your iPod to find the good stuff, life is so much better.  Personally, I like to use Spotify.  I can create all kinds of different playlists with different genres then save them to my phone.  I always find that I'm much happier when I have a variety of different music to listen to. 
3// Bring Snacks and drinks  I have a small cooler that fits nicely on the floor of the passenger seat.  I fill it up with string cheese and apple sauce and I'm much happier while I'm on the road.  That way I never really have to spend extra money on fast food and most of the snacks that are packed with me are things that I can eat while driving.  My go-tos are sunflower seeds, Garlic Butter Ritz Crackers, and the Duoz Chees-itz with Parmesan and Sharp Chedar 
4// Be comfy!  I usually drive in tennis shoes, but I always like to wear shorts or sweats, push my hair back in one of those stretchy head bands and have the chap stick on stand-by.  There is nothing more annoying than a random head ache or some other pain when your blazing down the road and you still have hours left of your journey...
5// Take an Atlas.   You are probably thinking I'm nuts.  Most people don't even know who Rand MacNalley is, but it is nice to have an atlas to look at the route and really see where you're at.  You don't know if you'll always have cell phone service.  Plus, what if that Garmin decides to put you in a lake? You might want to be able to get your wits about you with a map. 

 gif cred    Aside from all these little things, always remember to stop when you get tired, get out if you need to stretch and if you feel like texting and driving, just don't. Track your mileage, check your oil and don't forget to call your momma. 
Today  and tomorrow I'll be tweeting and instagraming my trip across America! Tune into #OpHomewardBound to keep up with me