I just got back from a wonderful beach week with my wife’s family in South Carolina.  We ate well, laughed often, and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company for seven days.

The only downside of the whole experience was getting there and back.

Now in my younger days (as a single man), I used to enjoy a long road trip.  It was a challenge to see how fast I could pound out the miles.  I’d make each pit stop for gas, a quick bathroom break, and maybe a snack like a Formula One experience, timing myself to see how fast I could re-fuel and get back out on the road.  I’d calculate landmarks and town distances in my head, trying to shave off precious minutes and set a personal time record to get from point “A” to point “B”.  I had the Florida to Maryland trek down to around fourteen hours in my prime – not bad.

But that was then.

Now, I have a family in tow (rather than my lone driving days), and more people means more stops.  Bathroom breaks are needed.  Sit-down meals are requested.  I’m also not as young as I used to be, and long driving stretches make my back hurt, my knees ache, and I creak and groan like an antique armoire being moved in an attic every time I exit the car.

Traffic isn’t what it used to be, either.  We traveled the majority of our route down I-95, and we must have come to a complete stop on the highway at least half-a-dozen times on the trip down.  We’d slow for a fender bender on the side of the road (not blocking traffic), we slowed once so that everyone could rubber-neck a family who had pulled off to let their young kids pee in the woods (no, I’m not making that up).

The most frustrating slowdowns were caused by?

Nothing.

One person would tap their brakes, followed by the driver behind, and then the driver behind them.  This cascaded into miles and miles of slowdowns and stops for no reason at all.  Maybe there were ghosts on the interstate, or perhaps a random Sasquatch sighting.  Whatever the mystery cause, once the traffic would get back up to speed, it was “rinse and repeat” just a few more miles down the road.  It was enough to make the Pope curse.

Map Quest (an online mapping app) quoted me an eleven hour drive time for the 650-mile trip from my home in Maryland to Fripp Island, South Carolina.  It took us thirteen and a half.  Coming back was even worse.  It started raining in Virginia (below Richmond), and it took two and a half hours (in crawling traffic) to go the 60 miles between Richmond and Fredericksburg.  I finally gave up on I-95 and came up Route 17 (towards Winchester).

Final road time for the return trip?  Fourteen hours.

Those are some long shifts, my friends.

Even though it’s usually cheaper to drive a family of four than it is to fly, I don’t know how much longer my body can take these long haul routes, and I’ve got another Florida trip planned for this fall.

There may be some airline miles in my future.