Of Epic Journeys by Konnie Enos

Something has been bugging me this past week.

Writers are supposed to write realistic and plausible stuff, but sometimes it can be really difficult to do unless they’ve actually experienced it. Particularly road trips.

I recently went on a road trip. One I carefully planned for, studying all possible routes. And google maps was very helpful, giving me not only the distance, but a time estimate.

This trip was in four parts, each leg approximately seven to eight hours long. We planned our departure times accordingly.

Now if any of you understand what is entailed in driving anywhere long distance, you know you can’t just drive straight from point A to point B. You are going to have to stop once in a while or you could run into other obstacles. That estimated travel time doesn’t take into account any of that.

Not a problem. You can plan for that. Add thirty minutes for every two hours on the road. So guess that an eight hour drive should take about ten hours. Then plan to keep stops as short as possible. Always stop at traveler’s stops. (Food, gas and bathrooms.)

So you hit the road. But somehow it still takes longer than you thought it would.

Road construction, heavy and slow traffic, two lane hi-ways and some lower posted speed limits. And with all the delays, you have to stop more.

I was dreading the second leg (and by extension third) of our trip because our information said we’d have to drive through numerous construction zones, so lots of delays.

The reality? Both trips on that part of our journey took approximately seven to eight hours, with stops, traffic and construction zones. Not so bad.

Before we left I figured the easy part of our trip would be the first (and by extension last) leg of our journey. Only about eight hours, a fairly straight shot and little or no flags for construction zones.

The reality? Both times it took us twelve to thirteen hours, by far the longest most tedious stretch, and the return trip included about an hour on the hi-way moving maybe three miles per hour, if at all.

When I got home I realized writing stories with road trips in them just couldn’t come close to describing the reality of it unless a person actually tried it.

Plus when you’re writing there is supposed to be road blocks.

From here to Salt Lake City is about a six hour drive, it’s another, maybe three to where my sister lives. So about nine hours. A popular college is another hour’s drive beyond there. Do you think anybody could do a ten hour drive in just ten hours?

I’d be willing to bet it would be impossible, especially with a carful of kids.

And from what I heard, that hour drive between where my sister lives and that college town turned into something between three to five hours because of the eclipse traffic this past week. (College town was a point of totality.)

So knowing the distance from point A to point B and an estimate of how long it should take to travel that far doesn’t tell you how long it will take.

Now that I think about it, writing about a road trip should give you plenty of ways to throw in some obstacles for your leading characters to deal with.

Right now I can’t think of any stories I’ve read that included tales of being on the road, unless you count epic journey stories such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s books or “Eragon”.

  Can any of you name some that might be worth reading?

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.