Statistics

On the journey here, we drove 6004 km in 11 days.  A direct route would have been 5472 km, according to TomTom so in side trips we added a little less than 10% to the distance.  The main side trips we did were to Niagara Falls and Bar Harbour.

We did most of the driving in the early days and eased up on the distances later on.  This was definitely a good strategy so as to get the long boring bits (sorry Saskatchewan) out of the way before hitting the more interesting parts.

We passed through (in order): Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan (for just a few minutes), Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

We drove at a fairly consistent (and conservative) speed above the posted limit.  In the early days in rural areas, nothing passed us at all.  As we neared the big cities (Chicago, Boston) we were the slowest vehicle on the road and then as we headed back into Canada it was like the beginning of the journey.

We spent $735 on gas and $3015 on hotels, food and incidentals.  If we had shipped the car and trailer and flown out (with Sam) it would have cost about $5,000 so if we treat the trip as vacation and don't value our time then we saved some money.

The car computer tells me we averaged a fuel consumption of 11.6 litres/100 km.  This is much worse than I thought it would be.  Without the trailer or top box we typically average 7.8 litres/100 km.  The car seems to have survived OK and is now well past the 250,000km mark.  It really doesn't owe us anything any more so every km from now on is a bonus.

Best meal on the trip was either the seafood restaurant in Cambridge Massachusetts or the last hotel we stayed in just down the road from here near Mahone Bay.

Most surprising place we visited was Chicago.  Surprising because we were expecting something similar to New York with rude, impatient people, honking cars, police sirens all night.  The reality was completely different.  Friendly well behaved locals, clean streets, clean air and a general feeling of goodness.

Would we do it again?  Probably not.