"For 2,000+ Mile Round-Trip Drivers Only!" (Part V)

Heading out to make the drive on Christmas Morning. Leaving from suburbs of Philly. Hopefully it's a smooth drive. Should not be much traffic out on the road.
 
So, did I run into someone from this thread a few hours ago? A man, 65 or so, stopped dh and I in Longhorn Steakhouse off 81 in Chambersburg, PA, and asked if we were Disney fanatics because we were wearing our 2010 Disney hoodies. We told him we've done five trips. He told us he was on Trip #34, which I took to mean literally that he was on the way to FL. We didn't have a chance to chat more because they were ready to seat us and he was heading out the door.
 
Small world - we live about 2 miles from Midway. :thumbsup2

Anyway, we usually leave after work on Friday (anywhere from 6-9 pm depending) and drive straight through too, weather permitting. In 2008 we had to slow things down quite a bit due to weather but we're pretty experienced winter drivers so it wasn't a problem. Most times it's the other crazy drivers around us that worry me.

Enjoy your trip and drive safely. We are leaving again on 12/19 so I'll be sure to post about road/traffic conditions when we get back. :drive:

Good morning fellow Midwesterners. -- Nice winter so far!! Little cold today, but it looks like no snow for your departures. We are leaving sw Wisconsin, for Fort Wilderness, pulling our Fifth Wheel bright and very early on the 26th. We are hoping to make it just beyond Nashville, staying in Manchester, TN, and continuing on the next day to Gainesville, fl, making our arrival for the 29th. Our daughter, son in law, and grandchildren following behind in their fifth wheel as well, so needed to find hotels with large parking areas for rv parking. We will still be winterized, so no camping till Fort Wilderness. I have been following the extensive road repairs just south of Atlanta, so will keep a heads up on our timing for that. We wish you all safe travels, a magical vacation. And, no snow or ice either way of traveling.
 


Greetings Driving Friends! We are in FL now, getting ready to return. Did a new thing. We often like leaving in the afternoon (I know, weird), but when the kids were really young, we'd stop. We did some non-stop trips, but never if we left in the afternoon. Finally I got a clue (for us -- trust me, we're weird, so I know this might not work for most). We left on the 2:30 ferry out of Cape May -- so 4:10ish departure from Lewes, DE. Arrived at the Whole Foods, Orlando parking lot a little before 8 a.m. BEST ride yet. We chilled at the "quiet pool" at BWV...did a few rides that night and then slept well. The next day we were up and out and went full out the whole week til just now. No "driving hangover" or such. It worked great. I had about three 1/2 hr naps on the way....husband slept a total of 3 hours. We had a really funny audiobook from Patrick McManus that kept us laughing most of the way. Probably would have napped more if the book wasn't so funny!

The other thing we noticed was the lack of people on the road - it was either that we were ahead of the Richmond/DC/Baltimore after dinner traffic or Friday Dec. 11 wasn't a night to be on I-95 in the South.
 
We will be driving down from New England on Monday evening. I've read about several routes to get through Washington DC - what would be your preferred route for getting through that area around 9 or 10 PM?
 
At that tine you might be OK with traffic, it's just a question of Inner Loop vs. Outer Loop. I'm a fan of the Waze app, punch that in and let it tell you which way to go.
 


The new year is fast approaching. Who will make the first long distance WDW drive of 2016?

All the best! :thumbsup2
 
$1.73 was the best credit price I saw last Sunday, though there were a number of stations with a cash price of $1.66-1.67. Not quite the $1.50 an expert had predicted by year end, but pretty good!
 
We are leaving central NJ on January 16 and driving straight through, DH drives a snowplow so he's used to driving all night.
Last time we drove straight through was Feb. 2013, we hit some nasty weather on the way in both directions that year. When we arrived home we had to shovel 2 feet of snow from the driveway just to park the car! Hopefully we won't have to worry about that this year!

Any construction going on that we should know about?
 
We're around $1.95 here in Wisconsin. We're heading on a drive to AZ and then Hollywood, CA in early March, so hopefully the gas prices maintain or go even lower by then!
 
Don't buy your gas in the Chambersburg, PA area of 81. We are sitting at $2.15, give or take a few pennies.
 
Now that is 2016, I can finally say "Next Year" when talking about my next Disney road trip. It can't come fast enough!
 
We will be hitting the road on Friday 1/8 for our next trip. This is the closest together we've ever driven having done our last trip in November. Last time was just DW and I. This time (as usual) DD-20 will be with us. Last time, we made it to Savannah on day one. We'll see how it goes this time.
 
Watch for pot holes and rough bridge crossings in South Carolina On I-95 heading north. We had a rough ride last night.
 

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