Travel travel travel

Here I am getting ready to go to New Jersey. It's 914 miles of road that, without thinking about Pennsylvania in the mix, it would be a pleasant ride. Pennsylvania is over 340 miles long and it doesn't matter how fast you drive it takes you 4 hours to get thru.

Have you ever driven a long way, over 400 miles in a day, and gotten out of your car and felt tight and tired? I know that happens to me a lot and the question I wanted to finally answer is, what can I do to stop that feeling. So I did my own study on the way out to New Jersey.

First, we decided to drive as we (my wife and I) would normally. The only stops we were going to make were for gas and food and because I was driving the Camry I knew that I would not be making many stops for gas (maybe one. The night before I got good sleep and hit the road right after church. I drove thru Illinois, Indiana and then stopped in Ohio to fuel up and get something to eat. After fueling up and eating we then hit the road and struggled thru Pennsylvania. Once we made it over the Delaware Water Gap we then continued on to my dads house where we finally parked the car and got out and staggered inside and fell asleep. Throughout that trip, especially at the end, my back and neck really hurt and my legs, well they weren't liking me at all. They were stiff and sore. It took that all of Monday to get back to normal. By Tuesday I was able to get back to my normal activities.

Well, not to make a long story longer. On my way home I decided to do something different. I decided to try and fit exercise into my travels home. Here is the catch, I did not want to use any additional time nor did I want to get sweaty and tired. So this is what I did...

After driving thru Pennsylvania we stopped in Ohio to get gas. While the pump was on I went for a walk, exactly 200 steps and then I did two deep knee bends and then got back into the car and went on. A few hours later I stopped to get some food. After ordering I knew that I was going to have a few minutes so I got up and walked around the building a few times. It took 10 minutes and when I came back I was not sweaty nor tired. I sat down and a few minutes later my food was ready. Then my final stop was in Indiana and I got out for 5 minutes and repeated the 200 steps as I had done before. By this time we were into the trip for over 11 hours and by then I would be feeling tired and sore. However something strange was happening, I was feeling really good. My bones weren't hurting, my back felt great and my knees were yelling at me. My neck felt great and I wasn't even a little tired.

Well we still had a few hours left so I got into the car and hammered thru the rest of the ride. When I got home to my shock I was not tired at all and my body felt really good. I now believe that there is something to that whole notion that even a little exercise makes the body feel good. Next time you go on long trips think about incorporating exercise into the trip. You will feel so much better for it.