I Drove Across the Country by Mistake

One of my greatest fears and worst nightmares as a professional came true last month.

I woke up at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday for an early flight to San Diego, Calif. and realized my passport was missing. I didn’t know it at the time, but lost travel documents would soon be the least of my problems.

I always pack the night before traveling and nothing was unusual about this morning in that regard, but something compelled me to check the front pocket of my suitcase. Minutes melted as I tore through my tidy bedroom, leaving piles of strewn clothes, paper and bed covers on the parquet floor in my wake.

Feeling defeated, my air travel triage instincts kicked in and I decided to make a beeline for the airport sans passport. It seemed like a long shot, but I hoped they might let me travel without it.

The ticketing agent I spoke with smiled, chuckled a little and said he didn’t have a problem giving me a boarding pass, but that I would never clear customs. He probably never should have given me that piece of paper, but I explained myself to the border guard and by some sick miracle, he gave me a stamp of approval.

2015 Volkswagen Golf R Review

After that, I was off to San Diego to drive the 2015 Volkswagen Golf R under the naïve assumption that the same “smile, wink and say please” routine would work twice. Only 36 hours later, I stood in the San Diego Airport staring at an unsympathetic United Airlines supervisor who clearly didn’t think my story was funny and sure as hell wasn’t about to print me a boarding pass for an international flight. It didn’t matter that my Canadian Permanent Resident Card (similar to a green card) is enough to cross back into Canada. I was finally in a situation I couldn’t chat my way out of.

On the other hand, he said someone at LAX might be more willing to let me through if I could find a way to Los Angeles before my next flight left. One of VW’s shuttle drivers agreed to take me there.

As a last resort, I asked VW PR guru Mark Gillies if he would be willing to lend me a car that I could drive to Detroit. From there, I figured crossing the border to take a flight home would be a cinch. I didn’t give it much thought because I never really believed it would happen.

I would have already missed my flight by the time we arrived were it not for the fact that it was significantly delayed; the crew didn’t show up. Unfortunately I faced the same response from the Air Canada ticketing agent, but the person I dealt with told me I should walk to the United desk across the airport because there was a chance they would see things differently.

I reached the United desk and tried one more time to explain the situation, but it was all for nothing. By then it was well past midnight and I finally gave up in favor of sleeping at a Best Western in Inglewood. The next morning I got a call from Volkswagen. They couldn’t lend me a press car from the L.A. fleet, but they had booked a car through Avis and would reimburse me for a rental car if I were willing to front the cost. At this point I was well beyond my comfort zone in accepting automaker hospitality, but the reality is that I’m also poor.

I took off from the hotel in a taxi, signed some paperwork and found myself standing in front of a 2015 Volkswagen Jetta a few minutes later.

It didn’t have leather seats. It didn’t have a touchscreen. It had few – if any – of the extra-cost bells and whistles most of the vehicles allocated for press evaluation usually do. It didn’t matter.

Armed with a Garmin navigation unit on top of the dashboard and an active satellite radio subscription, I settled in naively for a marathon.

Leg one of three took me along Route 40 out of California, through Arizona and into New Mexico where I would pick up I-25 and head north to my home town: Colorado Springs.

I rationalized the choice by reminding myself that it meant seeing my mom and skipping one night of hotel costs. There still wasn’t any getting around the fact that my route called for roughly 17 hours of time on the road alone.

The drive along Route 40 is an easy one. With cruise control set around 80 MPH, I only saw a couple of police officers and managed to avoid being pulled over. Then again I was only five miles per hour above the limit.

Things didn’t get dicey until after I merged onto I-25 and passed through Santa Fe. By then, light snow was starting to cover the road and I foolishly glanced at the gas meter, which indicated a third of a tank remaining.

This was my drive route. Summary: 2,817 miles in three days through the worst blizzard Detroit has seen in 40 years. pic.twitter.com/1S02h27ttk

— Luke Vandezande (@lukevandezande) February 3, 2015

Gas stations seemed to be everywhere at that point and I decided to press on. That was stupid.

It was about an hour before I looked at the meter again. That was doubly stupid. To make things even worse, I was driving through snow flurries at this point with poor visibility and virtually no blacktop showing.

My gut wrenched and I stabbed at the Garmin with my finger, but there wasn’t good news in store. I didn’t have enough fuel to turn around and reach Santa Fe, but there wasn’t anything closer on the GPS.

So I found a place to turn around, drove gently and hoped that it would still be open. You see, I only carry Canadian credit cards and if the pump asks for a zip code, my plastic is useless without a clerk so there was a good chance I would spend my last squirt of fuel only to be stranded in a snowstorm. Not good.

If you have ever been to Pecos, you’d know that it isn’t a big city. It has a population of roughly 1,300 people and sits a few miles off of I-25. Gas stations don’t stay open all night in Pecos.

Biting my lip, I pushed the card in and held my breath. It worked. I pumped until the car was full and then I pumped a little more. Only a smidgen. Just in case.

And to be fair, the trip computer reported an average 32 MPG at an average speed of 75 MPH. That’s below the officially advertised fuel economy, but the same calculator showed better mileage more in line with the EPA-estimated 37 MPG highway rating at points when I wasn’t driving so quickly.

With new-found courage and energy, I returned to the journey and by 4:45 a.m. I pulled into my mother’s driveway.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that I really am impressed with the Jetta. The new 1.8-liter turbo four-cylinder feels downright powerful with plenty of passing ability and even in rental trim, the interior is well made. But the most impressive part to me is that my back never hurt. Even at the end of my trip when many other parts of my body were in pain, I never got tired of the seat design or position.

I thought the rest of the trip would be easy, but I was wrong.

After a few hours, I surfaced and had brunch with my mother before spending the day driving from Colorado Springs to Saint Louis on I-70. That might be one of the most boring stretches of road America has to offer.

Shortly after I crossed into Kansas, someone in a Prius blew past me at what must have been at least 100 MPH. Bless the stars, I got the rare satisfaction of seeing the same car pulled over by the highway patrol less than a mile after that.

But apart from a little bit of instant karma, there is nothing – I repeat, nothing – to look at on that stretch of intensely boring asphalt. I stayed at a Days Inn for the night and prepared myself for another thrilling day driving through the mid-west.

If only it was that simple. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to spend roughly 12 hours driving directly underneath the sort of blizzard that most people pass by sitting at home beneath a big blanket. It wasn’t until later that I learned this was the worst snow Detroit had seen in decades.

But I pushed through and the Jetta performed admirably, especially considering its wheels were shod in all-season tires. Half expecting to be turned away, I drove through the Windsor tunnel into Canada and explained myself to the border guard, who let me into the country without hesitating.

Normally the drive from Detroit to Toronto takes about four hours, or quicker than that if you’re a scofflaw. This time it took more than six and I rarely crested 60 MPH. Most of the time I just hunkered down at 40 behind a tractor trailer and hoped for the best. Without a light to follow, it was almost impossible to see more than a few feet past the car let alone where the road was going.

I stopped counting how many abandoned cars there were in the median ditch after number five, but there were many more. At that point I felt exhausted, impatient and afraid.

Determined not to become one of them, I soldiered on at painfully slow speeds and noticed a groaning noise above about 2,300 RPM. But I pressed on and finally pulled into the Toronto airport to drop the car off at 4 a.m. By that point, the groaning noise was impossible to ignore and the check engine light was on, but I didn’t care.

My wrists were on fire from keeping a white-knuckle grip on the wheel for hours and I desperately wanted sleep. I gathered my things from the car, walked to the airport cab line and willingly let someone else take over for the last few miles and caught my breath.