It's 1-2mo in the future but I'm heavily sweating the looming need to drive from San Jose to Portland soon because my three options are "The Interstate over the mountain that randomly completely closes and strands people", "A side US highway that's flatter but known for black ice and no plowing", and "A 60% longer drive up the coast hundreds of miles out of the way and known for tourist congestion"

Having never been north of the Carolinas, option 3 is the safest but also I don't want to be on the road for 3 days >_>
If this were any other time I'd fly but hahahahahahaaaaa.

You're not getting vee on a plane any time before 2024.
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@trysdyn A train would probably be a relatively safe option but: this is the US, known for the near-complete lack of passenger trains
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@Felthry Hm the Coast Starlight is an option. It's a 19 hour runtime versus the 18 hour runtime of driving up the coast BUT I wouldn't be actively behind the wheel that entire time.

That's tempting actually :P

@trysdyn If you do go that route, I'd check if they're doing empty seats between passengers or not, and if they're not, maybe buy two seats and leave one empty. Train tickets are, in our experience, far cheaper than airplane tickets so this might be a more reasonable impact on your finances.

Depending on your car's efficiency, it may even end up costing about the same, or not that much more than, the cost of gas to drive it anyway
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@trysdyn Even spending $100 or $200 would probably be worth it to us at least, anyway, because driving that distance sounds like a nightmare for us. You may be more comfortable driving long distances but that doesn't sound like that's the case going by what you said earlier.
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@Felthry Yeah. It'd be about the same in wallclock time getting up there as longhauling it via one of the "riskier" routes too. Since the most direct driving route is 12 hours of wheels spinning but I'd surely hit slowdowns and need rest breaks and stuff.

The downside is I'd be reliant on others for driving once there. The upside is since the Starlight runs daily I can just decide ad-hoc when to return trip (a big plus for the purpose of my visit).

@trysdyn Unless you wanted to spend the money to get a rental car, anyway, which I suspect you probably don't.
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