Today Jill, Paul, and myself left Kaysville, Utah at 5:25am for Keller, Texas. We went with a longer route (1,379 miles) that is supposedly faster (19 hours 55 mins). Except for a few miles, the whole route is entirely freeway — that would explain the faster. If you’ve never traveled from Utah to Texas then this post will probably be of no interest to you. However, if you have gone this way before let me know what route you prefer and why. Perhaps I can amend my return plans with your suggestions.
We entertained ourselves (when we weren’t driving) with a cell phone, a Blackberry, two laptops, GPS navigation, two MP3 players, a CD audio book, and several movies. We can’t tell you what the countryside looked like. :) After traveling 950 miles in 13 1/2 hours we stopped over in Salina, Kansas. Time to get out the laptop and blog!
Update
17 Mar 2009 The next day (14th) we left at 6:30am and took 5 1/2 hours to drive the remaining 429 miles to Keller.
21 Mar 2009 We left Keller yesterday morning utilizing an alternative route back to Kaysville suggested by Derek. This time I had my GPS collect data as we drove straight through. At 1,236 miles, this route was 143 miles shorter. Our moving average was 67.8 mph with a moving time of 18.16 hours. This compares with a moving time plus all stoppages (minus overnight stop) of 19 hours for the longer route. If stoppages were added in for the shorter route, the longer route would actually be faster, though not by much.
Electronics can come in handy