John McLoone

I’m due for a vacation. It’s been almost a year since I took some time off and I think it was about five years before we embarked on a journey into the wilderness last summer.

I’ve been trying to think of places to go. The one important thing is that it has to be at a time when the weather is starting to get a little warmer. My vacation radius is about 10 hours from home base. I’m thinking of a drive that is a little bit uncomfortably long, but not too much so.

I’m not going to fly anymore, unless there’s something really, really important on the other end. All these planes are falling apart. Airports are a hassle. Flights are getting cancelled like crazy. There’s no guarantee you’re going to get where you want to go anyway.

That’s where my 10-hour rule comes in. I can get up in the morning, drive and easily be somewhere else for supper. And, it’s basically a distance where it really wouldn’t be that much quicker to fly. You’re going to have to go to the airport a few hours ahead, you’re going to waste a lot of time there, you’ve got your time in the air, you wait for your baggage. Plus, you’re not at your final lodging destination, so you either have to rent a car or download a ride service app and hope the driver isn’t a mass murderer. You get to the hotel, you’re exhausted and crabby. I know how you get.

On the other hand, I’ve had a very relaxing day. My wife and I have an arrangement where she does probably about 90 percent of the driving. So, the only thing different from me being chauffeured in a limousine for those 10 hours is the fact that it’s a Dodge, and I’m in the front seat. She likes to drive. She likes to take in the world around her. There are birds and deer and unique animals in different states. She likes to see them. Also, she isn’t a very good passenger. If she isn’t driving, she’s still mentally driving. I, on the other hand, am an excellent passenger. I was made for it. I feel like I could sit in peace for endless hours. I can read. I can become an expert on our destination, so we hit the ground running when we get to Point B.

Last summer, we stretched it a bit and drove to Yellowstone. Of the 3,400 miles we put on, I drove about 200 of them, 100 on each side of Fargo on the way home. The journey was further than my 10-hour rule, so we broke it into several days of driving both ways. It was a great trip.

The problem I’m finding in my research is that there aren’t many 10-hour destinations. We may have to change it to 12. That’ll get us comfortably to a list of cities that include Denver, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Nashville, Pittsburg and almost to Toronto.

Some pretty exciting vacation destinations indeed! I’ll have my wife wake me up when we get there.