I was thinking about some of the things I'd done schedule wise when I was a college-aged kid. Ahh, memories.
I managed to develop a knack for marathons. Not the running kind, I'm way too lazy for that, but the driving kind and somehow things almost always worked out. It was pretty common for me to leave after class on a Friday, drive 1,500-2,500 miles, get back to my apartment on Sunday evening, and show up for class on Monday. I transported cars around the country to earn money, had a girlfriend who went to school 750 miles away (home was also 750 miles away), and bought cars in questionable condition from far away as well. A couple of times it bit me, arriving somewhere between 5-6 AM for class and then missing one (or missing the morning) when one of the cars I bought in questionable condition gave me issues on the drive back. But that happened surprisingly infrequently. Mostly I got to where I was going between midnight and 2 AM, which left me tired for class but still got there on time.
One time comes to mind where I really pushed things too hard. It was the week that I was graduating college, and a lot of bad things just came together at once, combined with poor planning and scheduling. I was in Terre Haute, IN with a friend's car (a LaForza - Google that one) that I had fixed. Had to take it to him in Madison, pick up my Lincoln Town Car, drive it back to Indiana. Then finish packing all my stuff from my apartment into the same friend's trailer which I was borrowing, and take it back home to NYC. On the way, drop off a Jaguar that I'd sold in Indianapolis, then continue on to New York via Princeton, NJ (where my girlfriend at the time was). Drop off stuff, then turn around and drive back to Madison, WI, because part of the deal with the trailer was I let the same friend borrow my truck and trailer so that he could move to Vegas (that story gets even more complicated), so that I could catch my flight back to New York so that I could get the Town Car, load up my mom and girlfriend, drive out to Terre Haute for my college graduation, then drive to southwestern VA for a cousin's wedding, and back to New York.
I had picked up a "friend" (after that trip he was no longer a friend) in Urbana IL on the way up to Madison the first time around with the hope that he would do some of the driving, but he was "too scared" to drive my 3/4 ton truck towing this 28' tri-axle enclosed trailer behind it. In the end the one useful thing he did on the entire trip was drive my Lincoln Town Car from Terre Haute to Indianapolis where I swapped out the Jaguar in the back for the Town Car. So instead of being able to trade off and take naps, the end result was about 42 hours of driving in a 48 hour period to catch my flight on time with not much more than a 30 minute cat nap at one point and around 5 hours of sleep at another. Driving through Illinois back to Madison I ended up surrounded by tornadoes and learned that a Cummins powered Ram 2500 will get 5 MPG towing a 28' enclosed trailer at 98 MPH. And somewhere along the line I had to stop to buy flowers, because my friend had just had a baby, and so the group of us (we were all Jaguar nuts) had nominated me to deliver the baby gifts. I also had to give my friend who was borrowing my truck a crash course in towing a 28' enclosed trailer with a crew cab long bed truck, neither of which he'd ever tried to do before and he mostly drove small import things. He made the move to Vegas without incident, although way overloaded the trailer and blew out 3 tires.
Upon getting to the Madison, WI airport I went to the bar across from my gate, got a glass of wine, and the bartender was friendly and could tell it'd been a rough few days so he gave me a free "top-off" after I got about 3/4 of the way through, which was much appreciated.
My flight home included a short hop in some regional thing (I wasn't into planes at the time, but I think it was a Dash 8) and then a flight from Chicago back home. As soon as I got into my seat on the plane I fell asleep, and upon landing in Chicago I woke up somewhere around the plane being half emptied, and then couldn't physically make my body move for 5 minutes, my veins feeling like acid was running through them. I was the last one off the plane, and very slow doing it, but I had enough time to make my connection that day so it wasn't an issue.
Just thinking about it makes me exhausted over 12 years later. But I did learn some things about pushing myself. 1) That I was able to do that level of insanity and 2) That I never, ever, wanted to do insanity to that level again.
Whenever people tell me I do long trips, I think back to that and think "No, THAT was a long trip..." I don't push nearly so hard anymore, even though I've had my share of long trips since. When I see people my age and older who do, they're always set up to fail, and they usually do.
My mom fostered an environment of secrecy and she knew very little about what I did in those days - so ultimately she never gave me any lectures on pushing things too far, but she also is the laziest person I've ever known, so she didn't have much to say that was meaningful or relevant. However as my grandfather would've said, I've earned a PhD (or two) from the School of Hard Knocks. His PhD I believe was from UIUC, or Columbia, maybe both... I forget. He valued the PhDs from the School of Hard Knocks I think just as much, though, maybe more.
So, point being, Tim, your daughter will hopefully learn something like I did and at least earn her masters from my Alma Mater. At least she had her boyfriend to (hopefully be useful) on the drive.
