Driving 460 miles on nearly no sleep sucks.

[Ohighway]

Got a call from the folks a few days ago. Dad needs shoulder surgery, mom can't drive....I offer to head to Dayton to help out. Planned to head out this morning around 9:15 after dropping the kids at school.

Not sure if it was related to the time change or what but I just could not sleep last night. So.... at 4:00am..... I wake my wife, tell her I'm heading out early. Shower , grab the last few things and hit the road at 4:45 am, having gotten zero sleep.

Maryland to Dayton. 460 miles. I did really well until I was just East of Morgantown on I-68. And then it hit like a wall. Yawning, trying to fight double vision. Lucky for me on the far side of Morgantown, just into Pa. on I-79 is a rest area. Stopped.... and slept.... for an hour. Then back on the road and a mostly uneventful trip. Arrived at 1:15pm. Said hi, then grabbed another 3 hours of sleep.

I'm "normalizing" now. Man.... never again....

 

[Sharpstik]

Been there.

Two Septembers ago, my daughter was living in Findlay, Ohio. Thats maybe 50 miles from the Indiana border. 560 miles from my house. She needed to come home. Now. From noon until 1 am, there I go. Never slept that night when I got there. Another 400 back that afternoon. I quit at Penn State. Brutal is too kind a word for that journey. And I found Ohio to be a featureless state.

 

[Ohighway]

Been there.
........ And I found Ohio to be a featureless state.

All the "features" begin below Dayton, Columbus, etc. It's the area South of where the glacier scraped the upper portion of the state flat (same with Indiana) Lots of hills, etc.

 

[CougarXR7]

I once drove from the Cleveland area into downtown Pittsburgh after spending 30 hours with no sleep (daylight hours out in the hot sun). When I got into downtown Pittsburgh, I spent an additional 1.5 hours in heavy construction traffic just to travel the 5 miles to get to my neighborhood. I was out as soon as I hit the couch.

I recall slapping myself often, and blasting the AC (rare, for me) right into my face to stay awake. I barely had the strength to keep my right foot on the brake.

 

[Ohighway]

Sounds like the biggest "slap in the face" was that bad traffic at the end of your trip.

My brake foot worked fine, my vision, not so much....

 

[VinylHanger]

I used to go from Columbus, Georgia to Aurora, Missouri every long weekend to see my wife before we were married. I would wake for PT at 5 am, then work through the day and leave between 3 and 5 pm, depending on the whim of the First Sergeant. Then it was a nonstop ride until I got there, about 700 miles or so.

I would try and take a catnap about halfway, but it never really helped much. Dr. Pepper and Skittles were my best friend. Funny but true, every time I pulled into Springfield, MO., Radar Love was playing on the radio. :scratch2:

The 4 day weekends were tough, but the three day ones were pure brutality.

 

[Ghog]

I drive a truck. Sometimes I can't sleep, but I still have to go. Sunflower seeds do it for me. Something about cracking and eating them keeps my mind occupied, and I can keep going. No substitute for sleep, but for a temporary fix, try them.

 

[70salesguy]

When I was working on a Power Plant Project in Clinton, Illinois, it was an 1100 mile trip back home to the coast of NC. That's a 20 hour drive!

I would usually try to get a Friday off, and leave Thursday afternoon at 5:30 pm. I would usually arrive at home about 1:30 pm on Friday. I would make that trip about once ever two months. It was brutal.

Fortunately, I was driving a late model Cadillac Eldorado Diesel with all the creature comforts, but I hope to NEVER again have to drive that kind of distance fighting sleepiness. There were a few times that I had to stop because the fog was so bad, only a fool would have continued to drive.

Flying wasn't very much of a better option. I had to fly out of Champaign/Urbana IL, which flew to Chicago. Change planes to Washington DC, then change planes to Charlotte NC, then change planes to Wilmington NC.

Leave Champaign at 6:00 am, arrive in Wilmington at 2:00 pm. Far less tiring, but since I couldn't fly out until the next morning, I didn't get home any earlier.

I drive a lot now, but the longest trip is about 5 hours, and most are 2 1/2 hours or less. I listen to music and drink a caffeinated soda and rarely have "sleepy" issues. Thank goodness.

And thank God I don't have to make those 20 hour drives anymore!

 

[Ohighway]

20 years ago..... hell even 10 years ago this wouldn't have been a huge issue for me. I must be gettin' old...

 

[Mark W.]

Wimps I just did 3300 miles in 5 days with a single day 8pm Tues to 4:30 am Thrus at my brothers place to pickup my mom and some stuff and haul it home. Virtually no sleep on a RV Table Wed night.

That was end of Jan

Last week did San Diego to Weed CA in one shot. 747 miles the trip down was three days for 1100 miles with 1/3 of that twisty mountain roads along the N CA coast and back and forth across the Coast range.


In a Dakota Pickup I'm 53

 

[Scuzzer]

I must be gettin' old...

I think that's it. I used to do monster drives and not suffer the double vision/smack you upside the head tired issues that I have had the last couple of times I drove larger distances. Labor day last year I drove to Yellowstone from Denver without sleeping the night before and we left at 9 pm. I got to within 20 miles of our destination and pulled over because I realized my short term memory was no longer working and I didn't want to risk it with my kids in the car. I think my functional awake limit has dropped to below 40 hours.

 

[kcollins4]

20 years ago..... hell even 10 years ago this wouldn't have been a huge issue for me. I must be gettin' old...

That's it in a nutshell. In my early 30's-late twenties, I could drive from Houston to Chicago in about 20 hours straight. Now it's two days and I'm pooped.

 

[Arkay]

Glad you made it safely! :thmbsp:

I can empathize with how that feels. Once, back in college days, I went six days and five nights with zero sleep (the longest period of no sleep I've EVER done, or ever will do - it sucked!). At the end of that time, I started driving from the Los Angeles area to Phoenix, AZ -- an eight-hour drive, give or take.

Partway there, I started having visual hallucinations: the long, flat road on the wide, flat land in front of me started to curl upwards toward the sky, like a giant tidal wave about to break over me. [Poor timing to say this, given what has happened in Japan, but that's what it looked like: a tsunami that, if it were real, would have been hundreds of feet tall.] It was scary, but I was motivated enough to keep going; I kept doing everything I could, pulling over and doing simple calisthenics, breathing, splashing water on my face... anything to stay awake enough to keep going. The last part, going through Phoenix itself to get to the suburb where we lived (Paradise Valley), was the scariest, because there were stoplights and traffic, and I'd keep having occasional visual distortions, and "black out" periods where I must have been driving "on autopilot" while half-asleep, because I'd suddenly be conscious of driving, with no recall of what I'd been doing a few seconds before... or maybe I was conscious the whole time, but very-short-term memory was failing? Anyway, somehow I made it home.

I have one memory of another hallucination right after I got home. I was sitting on a chair, and suddenly the carpeted floor zoomed up to be about three inches below my face. I could see every detail of the carpet, sort of magnified by its proximity, and my whole body and the chair were somehow comfortably compressed into that few inches. Weird hallucinations, and no, there was NO LSD involved, just extreme fatigue. Soon after, I was able to sleep, and except for a couple of brief awakenings for "biological needs" on the second day, I slept for three days and nights, straight. Afterward, I thought it was a danged miracle that I made it at all, without plowing into something enroute!

YEARS later, as a middle-aged adult, I discovered the role that foods play in our need for sleep, etc... After eating ZERO artificial additives or "processed" foods or refined sugars or sweeteners or caffeine or alcohol, etc... for a few months, just eating mostly vegetables, mostly raw, I went three consecutive nights without sleep, and only began to feel tired on the fourth day. On such a diet, I think six days (like that stint in college) wouldn't be all that tiring, and certainly wouldn't cause hallucinations. I'd guess that wouldn't start until after 9,10 or more days, on a "proper" human diet. I have no desire to test that, and am no longer on such a good diet, but if I knew I had to do something like that in the future, at least now I'd know how to prepare for it. Ironically, probably the worst thing one could do in such a situation would be what many people would do, to "tank up" with stimulants like coffee or Red Bull ---they'd get you through the early hours, but would lead to serious crashing a bit later on.

 

[trhee]

I love road trips. I've done road trips from NY to CA 3 times and from NY to Chicago, NY to Boston, NY to Raleigh and NY to Baltimore more than I can remember.

There was one time I decided to see how far I could drive without resting and it happened to be from NY to Des Moines, IA on the first day. Around 1100 miles but I was beat as a dog.

 

[Caminokid]

I used to go over the road and do 24 hour marathons picking up cars in Florida and Arizona and driving them back to Indiana. I would get to either state sleep for 24 hours...then go pick up the cars and head back out.

 

[merrylander]

Years ago when I still lived in Quebec we were working on a computer project for the IBM 360 we had on order. IBM let us use the machine in their main Montreal building from 12 midnight until 8:00 AM. I would jump in my car and drive the 25 miles to home on the South SHore. One morning I woke up heading toward a red light at 50MPH. Stopped in plenty of time but what shook me up was that I had no recollection since the previous traffic light. In between the two lights was a new curved section of traffic over and under passes. After that I stopped in Montreal for breakfast and coffee, then drove home.

 

[Ohighway]

"No recollection". Good point. I've made this drive countless times over the years, so bits of it I don't -specifically- recall while driving it..... it all blends together. However on yesterday's drive the portion of I-70 between Washington, Pa. and Wheeling, Wv. ........... recollection of traveling that part amounts to nil.....

 

[tx_polkhead]

Did just shy of 700 miles in about 11 hours with the wife and kids in the car. Two stops, one for gas and food, the second stop for push-ups to help stay awake as the last half hour was the hardest! I hope to never have to that again! On the way home we took a little more time and stopped a few more times.

 

[Sandy G]

20 years ago..... hell even 10 years ago this wouldn't have been a huge issue for me. I must be gettin' old...

Uhh-huh...I used to be able to drive from home to Richmond-375 miles-or back when I was in college & still be rarin' to go when I got to either destination...Now, at 53, I doubt if I'd be quite so chipper...Amazing what 35 years more on the clock will do to you...(grin)

 

[gewoonmaf]

Went to Barcelona once, driving a terrible van- loud, slow and crappy roadholding. Took me 12 hrs of straight driving from the centre of Holland to the south of France (Orange). 1200 km in 12 hrs, pedal to the metal all the way and only stopping for fuel. Amazingly, took me only a good night's sleep to get in the car early in the AM for the remainder of the trip.

I can't sleep when I'm on the move. On a plane, the train, in the back seat of a car- no way. Anyway, a couple of friends asked me to join them on a road trip from Boise ID to Colorado (starting at the end of a workday and driving through the night) when it was my turn to drive we were in Wyoming and it was 2AM, I'd been up until 6AM and still suffered badly from jet lag. The road was unlit and dead straight for miles on end with nothing but white picket fences on either side and ranch exits as the only diversion. That's when sleep kicked in suddenly, despite me driving with the window open, the blower on max and the stereo blaring (and my friends asleep in the back). Luckily, I managed to recover before hitting anything or even veering offroad, but it was a scary sign. I refused to drive any further and went for a walk first. Then I drove us to the nearest motel (tough to find in rural Wyoming), we continued the trip the next day. I think I was out cold before I even hit the bed. Never again.