8026 Miles

[Edit on 01/01/2009 - This post was the final summary post of our Great American Road Trip - 2008. For the start of the whole real story click here or the single most popular (and syndicated!) post click here].

To accomodate getting home on time for a set of family commitments, we had to make some late changes to the original schedule of the last few planned days of the trip. So, from St. Louis, MO, we made our way across Illinois and Indiana on US-50 to Cincinnati, OH to crash for the night with Jeff’s brother Adam and his family. From there, we headed back home to Rochester via one more stop in Pleasantville (Medina, OH).

The drive on US-50 was a good country drive across Illinois with lots of rolling hills of corn fields and the drive through the mountains across the center of Indiana was cool as well. While some of the driving from Cincinnati on home was via US-22, most it was on Interstate I-71 and I-90 to make it back home in time.

Some statistics of the trip

• Days on the road = 28
• Total Miles Driven by car = 8026
• Total Miles Driven by Jeff = 8026
• Total Miles accounted for on the Map = 7431
• Net Overhead miles = 595 (8%)
• Gallons of Fuel Used = 294.1
• Average Speed = 49 mph when car on
• Average Speed = 12 mph including sleeping
• Highest Speed Recorded = 110 mph
• Average Cost of Fuel = $4.38/gallon
• Average Fuel Usage = 27.3 mpg
• Highest Price of Gasoline Paid = $4.99/gallon in Crescent City, CA*
• Lowest Price of Gasoline Paid = $3.90/gallon in Jackson, NE*
• 60 unique blog readers per day (average)
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• Most popular article – I Peed In Montana (only article syndicated to other sites)

While this concludes the road trip portion of our journey, we’ll follow up this article with two more planned articles. First will be a summary of the trip noting the what we remember to be the best of the best, the disappointing and maybe some thoughts about a what worked and didn’t in case you want to plan your own road trip. The second article will be a review of the Corvette from a road tripping perspective.

Side notes:

• On the gasoline high and low prices. Not all gasoline was the same. We always bought the highest octane fuel available and tried to avoid stuff with Ethanol blends. The Corvette has a recommended minimum octane requirement of 91 and a maximum Ethanol content limit of 10% (E10 fuel). Many places out west we only had the option of E10. Additionally, we are used to buying 93 octane or 94 octane for the Corvette. Out west, basically the best you can buy anywhere is 91 octane and many more rural areas the “premium” fuel was 89 octane with the other choices being 85 and 87. When this was the case, we tried mixing in as little of the crappy stuff into the tank as possible. The cheapest stuff in NE was E10 with an octane rating of 89. The most expensive stuff in CA was 91 octane and also E10. You definately get lower fuel economy with E10 as it is a lower energy content fuel by volume.
• Unfortunately, as a result of running out of time, we did not make it to the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY as originally planned which I’m sure many of our fellow Corvette Enthusiasts following along would have enjoyed hearing about. Since we have been there before, we can say with confidence that it is certainly a worthwhile place to visit anytime you happen to be in the area. Both the Corvette plant tour (across the road) and the museum are excellent. We’ll definately go there again on a future road trip.