2011 gathering chatter thread

Larry, we thought we'd give you some of our experiences from our trip out to Bend last July. We traveled 2,231 miles from our house to Bend (the estimate from MapQuest was 30+hours). Eliminating our side trips it was a comfortable 3 day trip without pushing it. On MapQuest it says that from Bend to Effingham (I know you don't live in Bend!) is 2032 miles and 30 hours and 40 min. We always figure 2 hours for every 100 miles and since we are 230 miles east of Effingham (it's almost 4 hours from our home) then you could probably deduct the some of the 30+hours it took us to get to Bend. Another idea is to ask Dick Countryman (vettecountry) because his daughter lives within an hour of Bend and he has driven it several times. On the trip out to Bend, we averaged about 650-700 miles per day. This did include our trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. When we left Yellowstone we drove 10 hours to meet Dick & Jill in Nampa,Idaho (we got there at 10pm-long day!), but mostly, we drove about a 9 hour day and that's with time to get out and stretch our legs and get a bite to eat. We tried to not drive over 4 hours at a time because of the need to move our legs and get hydrated. Actually, we'd both do the trip again, it was beautiful. Larry, this is really a big personal preference whether to drive straight thru or take a little side trip or two. After the Gathering you might want to consider going straight South on I-65 from Effingham to the NCM in Bowling Green. You never know when you'll get this close again! It's like with everything else in life-personal likes and dislikes. Hope this helps you some and if you need anything else, feel free to e-mail.  Butch