Driving and Caffeine

I found myself having to drive for a 3 rd day in a row. Yesterday was supposed to be a day off driving where I would walk around on Mt. Shasta and maybe visit and hike or ski with a friend. But that changed when I found out my friend's brother had passed away and I wound up driving from Ashland to Mt. Shasta, Mt. Shasta to Ashland, Ashland to Medford and finally Medford to Mt. Shasta because it was too late to cancel my reservation at a hotel there in Mt. Shasta. So, my vacation day and rest day turned out to be anything but that. So, today was my third day of driving 7 hours or more and after going up on Mt. Shasta part way to Sand Flats I found the dirt road had most of the snow melted off. But then as I drove down and hopped on Interstate 5 South I felt sleepy and knew I was going to have to buy one of those glass bottle Vanilla Coffees to keep awake. So, this got me as far as Sacramento but between Sacramento and Stockton I started dozing off again so I bought a Pepsi so I would have the caffeine without drinking more coffee and go with a sugar pop caffeine drink instead of any more coffee. By the way I don't usually drink coffee unless I'm trying to stay awake driving. This way I don't get immune to the caffeine and I have it to keep me alive when driving when I'm tired. When I was younger I have fallen asleep while driving and found myself bouncing along in the underbrush a couple of times off the paved road. However, I was in my 20s then. So now I always drink coffee at the first sign of dozing.

So, when I tried to go to sleep tonight I was sort of hallucinating from road noise and too much caffeine. My wife was telling me that she used to get like this when she was a child from playing too hard and got scared at the auditory hallucinations from playing too hard too long and getting scared from the experience. Obviously this doesn't scare me but it is annoying to hear road noise after the fact and to be jangled from Caffeine. But it is also nice to be alive not having dozed off while driving home today 5 to 7 hours or so.

So, remember to use coffee or caffeinated soda pop to stay awake driving so your family is happy and so are you that you are still alive and not gone in a ditch somewhere or over a cliff.