Road trip - Calgary to California and back

[InsteadIHaveWifeandKids]

That is great. Must have been an experience.

We drove 2600 miles, round trip, Savannah to Bar Harbor. We did that in a comfy SUV. You must be young to do 4400 miles in a TWIN.

[Ro_Ja]

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

- noticed on the highways people like to camp out in the left lane and so you have to use the right lane to pass. I found this kind of backwards. What's worse is sometimes they would speed up to try and prevent you from passing...

This is the most annoying thing about US drivers. Drives me insane.


All-in-all, sounds like a great trip! I'd like to do a trip similar to what you did, except I'll be starting in SF.

[Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by InsteadIHaveWifeandKids

That is great. Must have been an experience.

We drove 2600 miles, round trip, Savannah to Bar Harbor. We did that in a comfy SUV. You must be young to do 4400 miles in a TWIN.

Yes it was a good experience. and if you consider 29 young, then yes. thank you.

[everythingsablur]

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

Overall it was a pretty enjoyable trip. I would definitely do another road trip in the future with this car. It's not too practical if you have a lot of cargo to bring or if you have more than 1 other passenger but it was absolutely fun to drive. That's all for now. Any questions let me know. Again, for photos check out 86smpg on instagram.

Hard to check out your pics when you are set to private.

Sounds awesome. Why did you cut out the return up through LV and Utah?

I've only taken one big (and rather impromptu) road trip with my wife, and that was a weekend trip from Toronto to Charlotte NC and back maybe 3 years ago. I'd been working in Charlotte for a couple years and flew back and forth regularly, but a series of business trips were cancelled and I had literally a mountain of packages sitting at the hotel. Seeing as she had never been and I had always spoken highly of that quaint little southern city, we did the 12+ hour drive on a Friday and came back on a Sunday. Single shot each way in my MINI Cooper S, and me as the only driver (she doesn't have a license). Made the requisite stops for gas, food, and bathrooms, but the only other breaks were an outlet mall stop in either direction (good'ol Pennsylvania).

Years before I had driven a 2002 Celica from SF to LA (drop stuff off with her sister) to NY when my cousin decided to move home from the Bay area. We stopped in AZ (Grand Canyon), Albuquerque, OKC, Memphis, Nashville, somewhere in VI/WV, then just pushed on up to NY/NJ. Really nice drive, very scenic for the most part. It's such a diverse country that every day ended up looking fairly different (and smelling... I'm looking at you north Texas panhandle!). Highly recommend if you have another good road trip in you to go West to East.

[Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by everythingsablur

Hard to check out your pics when you are set to private.

Sounds awesome. Why did you cut out the return up through LV and Utah?

I've only taken one big (and rather impromptu) road trip with my wife, and that was a weekend trip from Toronto to Charlotte NC and back maybe 3 years ago. I'd been working in Charlotte for a couple years and flew back and forth regularly, but a series of business trips were cancelled and I had literally a mountain of packages sitting at the hotel. Seeing as she had never been and I had always spoken highly of that quaint little southern city, we did the 12+ hour drive on a Friday and came back on a Sunday. Single shot each way in my MINI Cooper S, and me as the only driver (she doesn't have a license). Made the requisite stops for gas, food, and bathrooms, but the only other breaks were an outlet mall stop in either direction (good'ol Pennsylvania).

Years before I had driven a 2002 Celica from SF to LA (drop stuff off with her sister) to NY when my cousin decided to move home from the Bay area. We stopped in AZ (Grand Canyon), Albuquerque, OKC, Memphis, Nashville, somewhere in VI/WV, then just pushed on up to NY/NJ. Really nice drive, very scenic for the most part. It's such a diverse country that every day ended up looking fairly different (and smelling... I'm looking at you north Texas panhandle!). Highly recommend if you have another good road trip in you to go West to East.

haha oops, I forgot about that - I set it to public now.

We ended up cutting out the LV/Utah part out because I drove down with my cousin (who's from CA) and drove back up with my wife (who flew down). She wanted to see SF, Portland and Seattle so we went back the same way. I didn't mind but will have to check out the other route one day.

Funny, my wife drives a mini cooper and we also took it on a road trip to Vancouver, quite comfortable and amazing on gas mileage. I would like to drive out to eastern Canada one day but would probably need 3+ weeks to do so.

I would definitely want to do a west/east US road trip one day. Maybe in a couple years or so.

[BigFatFlip]

I'm a road trip guy myself (always been too broke to fly) so I love seeing other's do these types of trips. Growing up on an island, it always blows my mind how huge our country/continent is.

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

- further to that, I noticed my gas mileage was worse in the states. For example from the part from Calgary to Vancouver I averaged around 6.3 L/100km (37 mpg). I think this was because my car was compensating for denser air at lower elevations (Calgary is roughly 1000m above sea level) and partly because I was driving more aggressively in the states...

With the amount of driving you've been doing, I would think your ECU would have compensated for elevation almost immediately. I'm willing to bet it is more the fuel that played a part in your mpgs (91ACN is horrible)... and probably your right foot

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

- saw a few twins in other cities (Seattle, Portland, and a few in Cali) and gave a nod or wave as I passed. Most of them waved back. Maybe some of you are on here? I was a Dark grey BRZ with Alberta plates

In our very last road trip (in the brz) to Yellowstone, I've noticed that 86 owners near cities tend to ignore me while I get waves/duces/shakas back in the out skirts. Probably just less 86s out there than in the cities.

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

- noticed on the highways people like to camp out in the left lane and so you have to use the right lane to pass. I found this kind of backwards. What's worse is sometimes they would speed up to try and prevent you from passing...

Originally Posted by Ro_Ja

This is the most annoying thing about US drivers. Drives me insane.

I think its more of a CA thing than a US thing. I've driven up and down the Pacific coast and haven't seen that in OR or WA but the moment I cross the CA border, everybody starts to hang out on the fast lane. In some states, its actually illegal.

[M12Power]

I’ve been taking a few road trips myself lately between Texas and California in my stock FR-S (planning to do it again maybe in November.…). It’s actually a very nice and comfortable car to do it in, even through 110+ degree weather in Arizona and the Mojave Desert in July….

The drive can be boring, but I still love it, and you do get to see different scenery and landscape.

One section along the way I find quite entertaining is climbing over the steep and twisty Transverse mountain ranges north of the San Fernando Valley on I-5. When I drove through there last December, I was blowing by everyone on the uphill run (all in 6th gear), even a Mustang that I was following for quite a while eventually got out of my way to let me by. And almost two months ago when I drove through there again, I was shadowing this C7 Corvette (we came across each other in the San Fernando Valley before hitting the mountain ranges). We were not racing or anything. I would get ahead of him or he would get ahead of me depending on traffic. We were not crazy fast, but the two of us were blowing by everyone, on both uphill and downhill runs. There was one Lexus that wanted to stay in front of me, but eventually he gave up. I stayed in 6th gear the whole time again. It was a lot of fun. After coming down the mountain ranges, I followed the Corvette all the way to the middle of the Central Valley area where he slowed down quite a bit, presumably running short of gas….

As for drivers hogging the left lane on the Interstates, I agree with the comment above that the practice is much worse in California than in other states like Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, etc. Michigan is pretty bad as well....

[gravitylover]

Left lane camping is alive and well all over the northeast too. You guys out west aren't special

[chaoskaze]

I drove along the coast line all the way down from Vancouver to LA. It's a nice drive if you have like a week to do it slowly & stop by all the tourist spots like red wood forest...( to be honest red wood forest can take 2 to 3 days if you wanna stay there)


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