06 Jan 2024. ’23, Fun with Numbers!! I always like doing the fun with numbers edition as some interesting things happen over the course of the 12 months prior that create this. So let’s go!
As I have already reported, I made 49 trips this past year. Previous yearly record was 42, set in 2022.
Total vehicle relocation miles driven: 23,150. Three of my trips were over 1.000 miles and a fourth came in at 995.
- Denver CO to Chapel Hill NC, covering 1,657 miles
- Huntington CA to Prosper TX …. 1,448 (Prosper is a suburb of Dallas)
- Dallas TX to Waxhaw NC …. 1,054
This year, I also had my shortest paid drive ever.. 5 miles! In Clearwater Florida. The story behind that drive was, I had completed one delivery just outside of Clearwater. From there I went to a dealership and picked up a brand new ‘23 Grand Cherokee that needed to go just down the road, so I did it! Overall, my drives averaged 476 miles.
71 Hotel stays. As most of you know, I stay within the Wyndham group of hotels. La Quinta, Super 8, Days Inn and others listed in the link above. LIke all groups, they have their 4 star places and budget places (2 stars). Most of my stays are in the budget places but occasionally I am able to “afford” the nicer joints. 71 stays did earn me 10 free nights for future stays, so that is nice. Most expensive stay..$119.60..a Baymont Inn, Fort Walton Beach FL area. The place was nice but it wasn’t that nice!! However I do remember a very nice Mexican restaurant nearby!. Oddly enough, on that same trip, I had a prior night’s stay at the Waterview in Vicksburg MS. A hotel/casino combination situated right on the Mississippi river. Below is a map of hotel stays.
Of course with all my traveling, I ended up traveling through or at least using 44 different airports. In total, I visited those airports a combined 80 different times. This does not include my home airport of Atlanta. I “used” a few airports for the sole purpose of getting a one way car rental. The most often traveled through airport, Charlotte NC. A total of 10 times. Huge hub for American airlines. Definitely not one of my favorite airports. Dallas/Fort Worth came in at 7 visits. Once again, Florida had the most airports I traveled through. Oddly enough, no Orlando or Jacksonville, which usually occur at least once a year.
States traveled through:
I managed to travel through 75% of the lower 48 states (states colored in red).
Prior to this year, while in this business, overall I had visited 45 of the 48 states in some fashion. This past year, I added Arizona and New Mexico to the list. There is still one state I have not done “business” in, that being Vermont!
As I have mentioned a few times, it was a busy year. Traveling through the mountains in Colorado and Washington or the desert-like area of Arizona. Major snowstorm in Idaho while passing through Idaho Panhandle National Forest on Interstate 90 (picture below). Seeing outside temperatures of 123 degrees while driving east on I-40, through Needles CA.
Had a beautiful view of MT Rainier, flying out of Seattle.
Had my first delivery trip that literally took me into downtown NYC. I ended up getting to my destination about an hour ahead of time and of course no such thing as parking (well there is if you know what you are doing). For about a hour I circled the block and for most part this was my windshield view of NYC
It is not always a glamorous job. Had a short notice trip fall in my lap and the best way to make it work logistically was to take a Greyhound out of downtown Atlanta. It was a 5 hour ride, non stop. Thankfully there were plenty of seats so I had room to spread out.
That for the most part, wraps of 2023. I hope you enjoy reading my adventures as much as I do taking them. Remember, always free to comment, but please do via the website. Suggestions are welcomed as well. Also, don’t hesitate to review previous blog entries. As you know I do try to include pictures and maps of my trips if I feel they help paint the picture so to speak.
Cheers to 2024 and I don’t forget, I AM FOR HIRE!!!!!!