2013 Epic Drenched Roadtrip

[HBWW]

You missed Troy, MI, home of HBWW. It's not like it's really out of your way or anything lol.

Edit: Oops, my bad.

[marauder]

Troy is stop #25. Of course, by the route given it looks more like we'd just be meeting up with you for a fight, rather than picking you up for the trip.

A few things to keep in mind when planning this trip:
Allocate greater than 8 hours a day for camp site set up/hotel check in, sleeping, and eating.
For every hour spent on the road we will probably also want an hour worth of having fun. Being stuck in the car forever sucks.
72 hours according to google maps etc. means 3 FULL days driving. So, in reality, it would take longer than that to reach the destination.

[SEAL]

Yes, I included Troy. View the Photobucket page if you can't see it.

We can of course, make changes to the route. I don't think it can be drastically shortened though. The west coast is far away.

[marauder]

Yes, it most definitely could be shorter. I drove from Charlotte to New Mexico in 2 days on my "Wild West Road Trip." We drove as much as we could the first few days then slowed down our rate of travel once we made it out west. We spent as much time hiking and camping as we did driving after that. If your route takes 22 days just to complete, assuming 16 hours for driving and 8 hours for sleeping, then it would most likely take 30-35 days if we were to actually spend time at all the sites.

Alternate Route 1
Day 1: Easton CT to vicinity of Lancaster PA to battle Atvan. SEAL & Belisaurius would arrive at DX's house before this. ~4 hr drive
Day 2: ~Lancaster PA to Troy MI to battle/pick up CA99. ~8 hr 15 min drive
Day 3: Troy MI to Knoxville TN, meet the Oncoming Storm + me + Tiff for battle. Spend the night in Knoxville. 8 hr drive.
Day 4: Knoxville TN to Columbia, MO. Drop off my car at the Nashville Airport. 9 hr drive
Day 5: Columbia MO to Denver CO. 10.5 hr drive
Day 6: Denver CO to Grand Teton National Park WY. 8 hr drive
Day 7: Grand Teton National park in the morning, drive to Yellowstone by evening. 2 hr 15 min drive
Day 8: Yellowstone
Day 9: Yellowstone to Mount Ranier National Park WA. 12 hr 20 min drive
Day 10: Mount Ranier in the morning to Seattle by Evening. 2 hr 45 min drive
Day 11: Seattle or Olympia National Park
Day 12: Seattle to Vancouver & battle Soakinader. 2 hr 30 min drive
Day 13: Belisarius, Tiff, and myself fly out. You head wherever you want to.

Miles Traveled + very rough gas estimate (28 miles/gal at $3.50/gal) to Vancouver
4281 miles travellde by DX, SEAL, John, Keith, & Nick? $76.86
3518 miles traveled by CA99 $57.78
2987 miles by myself & Tiff $46.72 each

For everyone that doesn't fly back from Vancouver, you'd have additional miles, of course, depending upon which route you take.

[AMBUSH]

We need to go Redwood National park.

[marauder]

Alternate Route 2
Day 1: Easton CT to vicinity of Lancaster PA to battle Atvan. SEAL & Belisaurius would arrive at DX's house before this. ~4 hr drive
Day 2: ~Lancaster PA to Troy MI to battle/pick up CA99. ~8 hr 15 min drive
Day 3: Troy MI to St Louis. Tiff & I will meet you there & park our car @ the airport. Belisaurius could fly in to St Louis if he needs to cut 2 days off the trip. 9 hr drive
Day 4: St Louis to Denver. 12 hr drive
Day 5: Denver CO to Yellowstone. 9 hr 30 min drive
Day 6: Yellowstone
Day 7: Yellowstone to Glacier National Park (Columbia Falls, MT) 7 hr 10 min drive.
Day 8: Glacier National Park to Seattle. 8 hr 15 min drive
Day 9: Tiff and I visit her friends in Seattle. Everyone else has the option of Mt Rainier or Olympic National Parks
Day 10: Seattle to Vancouver. Battle Soakinader. 2 hr 30 min drive.
Day 11: Belisaurius, myself, and Tiff fly out. Where you head from here is up to you... Redwood... Mt Rushmore...etc.

Miles Traveled + very rough gas estimate (28 miles/gal at $3.50/gal) to Vancouver
3888 DX, SEAL, John, Keith, Nick? $80
3125 CA99 $51.92
2553 by Myself & Tiff $40 per person

Note... these are just ideas, to show what possibilities we have. Feel free to plug them into your app and post the map/pic up here. Would probably be useful.

[AMBUSH]

That sounds good.

[SEAL]

I'll come up with something later on. I can also try to work out where we stay and how long, to get a better idea of how long this will take.

[marauder]

Note, it will probably cost us about $20 per person for food per day. That is where the greatest cost will come from. Nick and I plan on looking up legendary restaurants and diners to hit up along the way. If we camp out most of the way lodging will not cost very much.

I calculated various routes, and no matter what, there's really no reason not to stop and battle with Atvan, unless he simply can't make it. Every route you take west from Easton or West Hurley (unless you go through Buffalo/Toronto) takes you within ~25 miles of the area he lives in. If CA99 can't make it you can probably shave off a day from the trip. If it gets to be too expensive or if you don't have the time I can meet you in Saint Louis instead of Knoxville, though we wouldn't be able to battle the Oncoming Storm. I quickly realized that NC would be out of the way and that it would be much easier for everyone else to meet me in Knoxville or Saint Louis. I would prefer to meet up with everyone that we can, but note that this will easily end up costing $300 per person or more for a 10-15 day trip.

[Poseidon2000]

I'm fine with that, but now I don't know when this is... or if i could come....

[soakinader]

I am excited to be on the list, and I can guarantee that regardless of the weather you will get SOAKED! XD. Just don't forget your passports!

[DX]

I can guarantee that regardless of the weather you will get SOAKED!

Well, it is Vancouver...here's their 10 day forecast:

Tonight: Showers
Saturday: Rain
Sunday: AM showers
Monday: Few showers
Tuesday: Showers
Wednesday: Few showers
Thursday: Partly Cloudy <-- yeah right
Friday: Showers
Saturday: Showers
Sunday: Showers

[soakinader]

Lol! Hey come on, it's late October! Don't you have a rainy season?

[DX]

Lol no. Northeastern weather is extremely variable which is why I have my fingers crossed about the weather for the war. It could be 70 degrees or it could be 10 degrees, with rain, snow, or a beautiful sunny day.

[marauder]

Here is another possible route, which highlights some civil war battlefields and other historic sites.

Day 1: Easton CT to Shenendoah Valley VA. Stop in PA and battle Atvan. Camp in the Shenendoah.
Day 2: Shendoah Valley VA to Chicamauga GA. Stop in Knoxville and battle the Oncoming Storm. Visit battlefield as part of Jackson's valley campaign in VA in the morning. 8 hr drive
Day 3: Chicamauga GA to Corinth MS. Visit Chicamauga battlefield in the morning, visit Shiloh TN battlefield in the afternoon. 4 hr 30 min drive
Day 4: Corinth MS to Natchez MS. Visit Corinth battlefield in the morning, visit Vicksburg battlefield and MS River after lunch. Arrive in colonial trading post and Spanish frontier town of Natchez in the afternoon. 5 hr 45 min drive
Day 5: Natchez MS to New Orleans LA. Spend most of the day having fun and battling in New Orleans. 2 hr 30 min drive.
Day 6: New Orleans LA to Cahokia IL
Day 7: Cahokia IL to Troy MI. Visit Cohokia mounds during the day.

[atvan]

When did I get dragged into this?

I will be in school until early June, so if you want to battle me, It will have to be a weekend. I would have to talk to the parents, but while I don't think they would like to give our adress to strangers, ther are some epic gamelands around here. The biggest problem we have is the complete lack of undergrowth.

[marauder]

It's just that, basically all routes go near your hood, so why would we pass up this opportunity? So long as your parents are cool with it. Plus, I think you mentioned before that you found it difficult to keep up with what everyone else was doing if you weren't involved... so obviously we want to involve you.

[SEAL]

I have created a new route. This time, I took into account exactly where we stop, and for how long. In a nutshell, my mom would take me to Easton and drive the car back. Then DX and I (and maybe Belisaurius) would blitz over to PA and battle atvan for 3 hours, then head to Troy to pick up/battle CA99, staying overnight. Then we'd go all the way down to Knoxville to battle Oncoming Storm, while picking up M4 and Tiff, or Belisaurius if he wants to shave off some extra days. From there on it's all sightseeing! Once we get to Seattle, we would drop off M4 and Mrs. M4, and head over to Olympic NP for two days (though I'm not sure about this; M4, would you mind missing out on it?). Then we'd go back to Seattle, pick up M4, and head over to Vancouver to battle Soakinader. Then M4, Tiff, and maybe Belisaurius would fly back home. From there on, those of us left would do more sightseeing. After that we'd go back to Easton, where I'd spend the night, and my mom would pick me up in the morning. If CA99 is with us, we could drop him off at Troy, then DX could drop me off in Kingston on his way home.

Map:

In case the board cuts off part of the picture (WHO F***ING DESIGNED IT THAT WAY?!?)

Stops (now including the time of arrival, departure, etc.):


This will take about 25 days. Not too bad; I think our 2011 trip took like 27, and we didn't go as far then. I also looked up the cost of renting a full-size 12-passenger van for that amount of time, and it will cost around $2,000. That's not even including the cost of gas, considering that vans aren't exactly fuel-misers. My brother suggested dropping off the van and renting a smaller, more efficient vehicle once M4 and others leave. We might want to consider it.

Also, why would we stop in New Orleans again? Does a board member live there?

[HBWW]

(WHO F***ING DESIGNED IT THAT WAY?!?)

I don't know if iSoaker has control over the style sheets php (it looks like the CSS is dynamically generated), but a simple insert of code "max-width: 100%" would fix the issue. Not sure what selector ought to be used though, but the end result seems to be "img { }". Of course, additional JQuery and PHP would be needed to allow users to view images in full resolution by a click. There are probably other effective solutions involving overflow-x and the min width of the parent containing element, but I haven't had success with those in Chrome yet.

Anywho, sounds like a plan, although this particular route seems to make you guys go out of your way just to get to me lol.

Let's build a destinations list and the purpose and importance of each one. (For example, CA99 for Troy, MI.) We can all weigh in on the sort of destinations we'd like to go to; for example, I'd like to make trips to some amusement parks if possible. (Six Flags Magic Mountain in particular, or Hershey Park and their Roller Soaker).

[marauder]

I like the proposed route. Posting these help improve the trip, and provide more options which we can whittle down next year. Also, I really like CA99's idea on building a list of importance. As for New Orleans, DX wanted to go there, and I can most likely meet you there if I have to fly back early, it's not too far from where I'll be moving. Also, if you go to San Antonio, you might as well go through NOLA on the way back, it's awesome.