Road Trip! 1900 miles in 2 days (long)

[kaisen]

I recently purchased a 'new' winter car on eBay. I live in Minnesota, where snow, slush, ice, and salt cover the roads half the year. I've had SUV's as winter toys, but I've also had four Audi Turbo Quattros (5000CS TQ, 200 20V TQ, urS4, urS6). With gas prices, I figured another Audi wasn't a bad idea.

The car is a 2001 Audi A6 2.7T. I really wanted a Black on Black 6 speed manual (rare) and I ended up finding one in Boca Raton, Florida. Go figure! So I win the auction and make arrangements.

It would have been much easier, and even cheaper, to have the car shipped. But I'm always up for a good road trip, and my girlfriend wanted a mini-vacation.

So the only flight that worked was AirTran Friday night, stopping in Atlanta and arriving in Fort Lauderdale at midnight. AirTran screws up, we arrive in ATL late and miss our connection, the last flight of the night. They put us up in a hotel and get us on the first flight, which doesn't arrive til 11AM. They couldn't get us our bags so we shower but put on our old clothes, no deodorant, make-up, hair products, etc.

The seller meets us at the airport, we inspect the car, shake hands, and we're off. We have to make Nashville that night. Almost 1000 miles. We stop to fill up in Boca Raton and I spot a local fitness club / gym. My g/f has been *****ing all morning about having to spend the day in the car without freshening up. So I bribe the gym receptionist into letting us use their showers and we spend 45 minutes getting pretty, okay fresh.

It's now after noon, and we need to fly. We pull out onto I95 North and start making time. Saturday, light traffic, high 80MPHs feels right. The car has no vibrations, everything seems smooth. A few spurts into the 90s and the car keeps pulling, loves speed.

Daytona keeps showing up on road signs. I'm happy with our progress, and I know my g/f would like to put her toes in the sand and at least see a beach. We detour. Hit Daytona Beach at about 4 pm, I think. Water was very warm for the Atlantic. Had early dinner at Cancun Lagoon, near the Speedway and Airport. Always great food and drink, I go there every time I'm in Daytona.

Leave Daytona around 5:30PM. Feel a little anxiety now as we're not even out of FL yet and need to make it through Georgia and most of Tennessee. So we crank it up a bit, low 90s. Very light traffic, no troopers. See the century mark for about two seconds on a vacant stretch just to say we did .

Hit the Georgia border and decide to buy some citrus. Early twenties citrus stand attendant blatantly hits on my g/f. What is the point? He knows we're from out of town? What's she gonna do? Fly back for a day to hang out with his tatooed gold chain wife beater self? I take no offense, just think it's funny.

Good time for a driver change. She's apprehensive about driving a car she's unfamiliar with. She does fine, but I make her nervous. I promise her I'll sleep so she can relax and drive. I wake up a few times and glance at the speedo. You go girl! I go back to sleep.

She drives for a little over an hour and I take the wheel. It's dusk now and it's a little harder to maintain stealth and see troopers. I back it down a touch and put it on cruise. The car absolutley begs for more. How does the car know it was bred for the Autobahn? Does a cheetah born in captivity know too?

Hit the outskirts of Atlanta around 10PM and take the Western beltway, six to eight lanes wide. It's dark now. I'm still on cruise. I pass and get passed by the same white Civic with obnoxious blue headlights and an equally offensive flatulent exhaust. He obviously does not have cruise. A 350Z joins us. I increase speed a bit to distance myself from the two import racers. The swell of torque from twin turbos squirts us away quickly. Unfortunately, they think it's game on.

I maintain a reasonable clip, reading the light traffic ahead and pretty much staying in the right lane. The two ricers dart and weave through the left lanes and get ahead only to get caught with cars and I pass. All of the time on cruise, but with some prudent right foot. All through Atlanta. Probably made it through faster with those two bait cars taking the heat.

The rest of Georgia was uneventful. We were getting 400 miles out of a tank and those 4- 4 1/2 hours were her tank's capacity too. I gotta hand it to her for going 4+ hours without a stop. She's a trooper.

Crossing into Tennessee was a fun drive. The foothills of the Appalachians, about midnight. NO traffic at all. Down into Chattanooga I come up on a new 997, looked Seal Gray. He slips in behind and matches pace. Just out of Chat we pick up mist and fog. Beautiful. NO other cars, just the Litronic headlights of the 997 a hundred yards behind. And it's pretty twisty for a freeway. There are corners that the posted speed limit would be more than plenty for a semi or even a Suburban. But we still move safely at a greater pace. The fog lifts and I really appreciate the tremendous output of the Audi's high beams in the corners. Best lights I've ever driven, even better than the 100W euro-specs in my last Audi S6.

Somewhere in TN, we change time zones and gain an hour. We make it to Nashville and catch more street-racer types, this time Mustangs, blasting through 1AM bar traffic. No thanks. We take it very slow. There's quite a bit of traffic for that time, and there is road construction.

In fact, we are detoured off the Interstate. Lotsa police and emergency vehicles. Huge work lights illuminate a horrific crash just ahead. A large tanker truck is laying on its side in the median. What looks like the remains of a passenger car is tossed beside it. Another SUV is accordianed and pointed backward in the middle of the road. The off ramp we are taking passes within feet of the shrapnel. We never learn what the outcome was. But it didn't look good.

We finally reach out hotel, almost 1000 miles from where we started. The car was a real partner, behaved beautifully, and was very comfortable. Our average speed, *ahem*. We did average about 23mpg.

Nashville is a great city, and I've been there about a dozen times. There was a Tennessee Titans football game Sunday (against the Colts I think) and there were rowdies in the hotel. I was so tired when it was time to sleep that I never heard them.

Sunday was uneventful, and a fairly dull drive, so I won't expand. Kentucky was pretty, Indiana and southern Illinois is full of farms. Speed limits are lower, and safe speeds are slower. I used cruise religiously. Wisconsin has lots of troopers and I90/94 had more traffic. Slower still. We still made almost 900 miles that day, and it went smoothly. Nice to sleep in our own bed. Fuel consumption was slightly better at almost 25mpg.

A few things alway amaze me when I take a long road trip. First, US freeways are very safe. It seems they would continue to be safe at much higher speed limits, at least the majority. Second, we live in a beautiful country with a lot of diversity. Third, driving is more fun than flying. Give me a good car, and good company, and I'd be content driving anywhere.

E

[legion]

Did you cut over to Bloomington from Champaign on 74 from 57, or did you take 57 all the way up to Chicago (to take 39 to Wisconsin)?

My dad lives in Nashville, I've made the middle part of that drive several times. Never with the Porsche yet though...

[pwd72s]

Nice read, thanks...

[nut11]

Ditto!

[kaisen]

Did you cut over to Bloomington from Champaign on 74 from 57, or did you take 57 all the way up to Chicago (to take 39 to Wisconsin)?

Are you kidding!? I avoid driving in Chicago whenever possible. I love Chicago when I have to go.

I did see my first new 06 Corvette Z06 on that stretch coming into Bloomington. It was yellow and headed East. Awesome car.

E

[legion]

Bloomington Gold--one of the largest Corvette clubs in the country is here in town. There's a big Corvette show in town every year. In addition to a Chevy dealership, we have a Corvette dealership in town that sells all years of Corvettes (and only Corvettes).