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Cross-country drives can be an absolute blast: an opportunity to see parts of the country you'd never visit otherwise, like the Museum of Colorado Prisons (No joke I was driving through Canon City and just couldn't pass it up. Did you know Canon City has 13 operating prisons? I didn't. Never mind; I digress). On the other hand, my parents recently decided that their 40-year marriage probably couldn't survive a month in an RV driving around all the national parks they've always wanted to visit. My point is that it will take a little advance planning to ensure that your cross-country trip is a little slice of heaven and not a circle of Dante's Inferno. Here are my top ten tips for keeping your sanity during a drive across America.

1. Choose your travel companions carefully. Ideally, they should be people who enjoy a fair bit of silence. I don't care how social you are, after four days of incessant chatter you'll be ready to leave your own mother by the side of the road. Oh, and don't invite anyone you suspect may want to take advantage of the alone time to have that serious "talk" you've been putting off (you know, like the girlfriend you still haven't proposed to after seven years). You can't walk away when you're driving 60 mph.

2. Drive your own vehicle. There's a reason 90% of comedic road trip movies take place in rented RVs and borrowed station wagons. Add the giddy high of a multi-day excursion to the problems inherent in an unfamiliar dashboard and therein lies comedic gold. Personally, I think all these movies were born out of Kerouac's '47 Cadillac limousine in On the Road, but that's a whole other article. Save yourself a world of headaches and take your own car.

3. And speaking of your vehicle, make sure it's been serviced and had any major parts that are nearing the end of their lives replaced before you hit the road. There is quite possibly nothing more terror-inducing than a teeth-jarring rattle or a loud "thunk" from the undercarriage in the middle of a lonely Midwestern highway except maybe if it's also raining. Now is not the time to find out just how far your car can go between oil changes.

4. Keep your planned daily driving time to less than six hours. The laws of the universe dictate that some part of your trip will lead you into crippling traffic jams or detours through neighboring states. When I drove Route 50 last year, I found myself stopped at a single-lane road narrowing, complete with a guide vehicle to lead groups of cars through, at

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