Which Route Do Your Trip Out West?

Each year I get the question about my decision on what route I will take to get to the southwest.

Last year I drove through Pennsylvania into Ohio and Indiana, stopping just east of Indianapolis the first night.  I decided this based on weather forecasts.

It was two days out when I also planned to head from there to Oklahoma City and down to Dallas/Fort Worth.  The only problem was the weather in OKC was changing by the next morning.  OKC was looking at possible freezing rain.  I drove to Illinois by midday and decided to head south to Little Rock, Arkansas and then down to Dallas.  

You can gather I change my route at the last minute and on the fly.

This year the map above shows what I had to deal with.  Taking last years route would have been nice but a cold front was dipping down into MO/IL and there was a chance for some snow on the route I took last year.

This year I opted to head to Pennsylvania from MA and then head south on I81 through MD, WV, VA, & TN

I stopped for my first night just into TN before where I40 heads west.  There I could check the radar and forecast in the morning and decide to take I40 to Little Rock and save about 70 miles over heading to Birmingham, Alabama and picking up I20 to Dallas.

The weather worked in my favor and the cold front in Illinois would not be making it down to Nashville before I headed off to Memphis.

Saving 70 miles is about 1.5 hours of driving.

My first day and my second day of driving to get outside of Dallas were both in the mid 800 miles.

These are long days of driving and only stopping for breaks and fuel.  

Once I got past Memphis the sun came out and I’ll have good weather all the way to Arizona.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com