I left Fairview on April 18th and returned 61 days later on June 17th. It was really only 60-1/2 because yesterday was the second shortest drive of the whole trip, I was home by mid-morning. Wethersfield, CT, to Springfield, MA was the shortest at 30 miles.
There were 35 driving days, ranging from 3 hours all the way up to 9 between leaving one place in the morning and arriving at that night’s stay. The average was probably around 7 or 8 hours with stops. I traveled through 31 states, including five new to me; Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, Montana and Idaho. This leaves just one state out the 50 I have not spent any time in – Alaska. I also crossed one Canadian province, Ontario
Now let’s talk about how far I drove. Day before yesterday I mentioned 526 miles until I discovered that the odometer only went up to 9,999.9 miles in Coeur d’Alene, ID. I added that to the 9,500 I had at the coffee stop in Billings and got a total of 10,026 miles driven. Because I always enter my gas info into the Fuelly app when I fill up, I downloaded all the fill ups from the trip and added up the total mileage and the figure was 10,025.1! Perfect, right? Not so fast there sailor. I went out to the car this morning and got the mileage from yesterday’s morning’s fill up in eastern Oregon. It was 163.3 giving a trip total of 10,188.4 miles. Things got interesting when I checked the B Trip number, it read 445.6. Add that figure to the 9,999.9 and you get a grand total of 10,445.5. And that number is the minimum, because, remember, I didn’t know how long B Trip had been maxed out. I’m rounding it out to 10,500 miles.
That last twist also means I didn’t capture a gas fill up that covered 450-ish miles. All told, I used a total of 277.876 gallons (that I accounted for) at an average price of $3.829 a gallon. The lowest price paid was in North Dakota of $2.839 and the highest paid was $4.999 in Maine.
I spent 21 days at the houses of friends and relatives. There was 18 days in hotels, 16 days in Airbnbs and 5 in VRBOs. The most expensive night was an Airbnb in Rochester, MN at $258.49, but it was nearly the nicest place I stayed in, plus it was walking distance to downtown and the Mayo Clinic Hospitals. The cheapest night was at the Holiday Inn Express in Lubbock, TX, but only because it was free, I used my IHG points. The real cheapest was the Airbnb Sally and I split the cost of in Hammond. The lowest I paid for a room for me was $96.11 at the Quality Inn in Robbinsville, NC. I’m always saying that staying in an Airbnb is almost cheaper than staying at a chain hotel, well, its close, but not true. The average for the hotels came in at $142.37 and the Airbnb and VRBO came in at $163.63, but I think it is worth the extra dub (or double sawbuck.)
How much money did I spend on the trip total? I know the gas costs (sort of) I know the total of how much it cost to spend the night out and I can tell how much cash out I took at ATMs, but I don’t feel like combing through every purchase using the charge card to find out where it went on all the incidentals, so a ballpark figure would be $10k. I decided to do just that. Went back to the May & June credit card bills and crossed out all the stuff is all the streaming services, my internet and a couple Amazon purchases that weren’t trip related. Grand Total: $7,920.67
Was it worth it? Hell yes, and then some. Will I do it again, probably. I know the Miata’s trim level is called GT for Grand Touring, but the next time it will be in a true GT car. This 70-year-old body still has no trouble getting in an out of a Miata, but is more the car’s lightweight and single suspension setting that beats up my aging internals.
