Mathematically: about 3 hours and 20 minutes
Mentally: way too long.
You haven't lived until you've taken a long car ride with a group other than your family, preferably teenagers. The things you encounter may entertain you, shock you, scar you (literally or mentally), or completely drain your energy, but the memories you make last forever. At least, it feels like it.
Things I've done on several hour car rides:
- sleep
- attempt to sleep and ultimately fail
- listen to music on an iPod
- listen to music from the people around me singing
- sing along with the people around me
- create songs and parodies of songs with the people around me
- attempt to rap (and fail- don't ask)
- come up with random lists
- study
- not study
- laugh about my ultimate failure to study
- talk to people
- overhear people's conversations (It's physically impossible not to overhear things when all 12 or so of you are crammed into a space about the size of an apartment kitchen.)
- awkwardly stay out of certain specific conversations
- try to listen to the people in the front seat when I'm in the back and ultimately fail
- stare out the window for hours
- establish inside jokes
- read
- eat snacks that I bring
- eat snacks that other people bring
- hoard all the snacks between myself and maybe 2 other people
- make a mess in general
- draw
- attempt to draw (and fail)
- watch other people play games on their phones
- help other people play games on their phones
- play games on my own phone
- annoy the driver
- annoy people around me in general
- look at the GPS and see the three digit number of miles we still have to travel on a particular road and sigh
- get sick :(
- encounter situations that I refuse to admit occurred
See what you're missing? It may not look glamorous, but this is the spice of life. The more you learn to get along with other people and enjoy long car rides, the more fun they will be. It's a great way to meet other people or get to know people you never really talked to before, and even the friends you thought you knew have something new to share on a long car ride.
Of course, a long car ride isn't the main activity of a trip. You're either going to be stuck with the people around you for several more days or you're almost completely sick of them because you've just spent the last several days with them and only them. Once you get to your final location, the feeling of uggggh from how sore, tired, and annoyed you are all seems to be overwhelming.
Give it a week after you all get back, and suddenly it'll all be better. Mostly.
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