As Anyone Drove From Oregon to DL?

RuthieT

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Mar 19, 2007
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We will be more then likely driving from Oregon to DL for our trip in October as I will be in the early stages of third trimester. Has anyone drove from Portland area to DL? If so, how long does it take? Where did you stop to stay? What route did you take?
 
Not from Portland (though I did grow up in the area, Vancouver ;)) we are about 5 hours north in Washington. We have driven it twice. We took I-5 the whole way. It took us 23-24 hours each way, but we didn't stop at nights, so that is basically straight thru except for food and potty breaks. :)
 
We are leaving this weekend and driving down from Corvallis. We are going down I-5, and staying in Firebaugh, CA. for the night- then we will continue on into DL. Firebaugh is about a 12 hour drive from Corvallis- so for you it would be about 14 depending on traffic... We are packing alot of snacks and stuff, as to cut down on the need for stops along the way. If I were you I would definitly stay somewhere along the way. Will let you know how it goes!
 
I drive from Portland to L.A every Summer for the past...13 years I think lol but it usually takes 16-18 hours straight through. It's not a bad drive but during the colder months you have to be careful driving through the grapevine.
 

Have you considered the train?

It'll take 100 million years (ha, OK, 24-36 hours if memory serves), but especially if you get a roommette it's nice.

I suggest it mainly b/c of all the pitstops you'll be taking (by the way, blow some of that baby dust over my way, OK???? thanks!), which are going to slow you down. And cars weren't comfy for me by that point.

I did take the train down to the bay area in mid-March when DS arrived in late May. I had a roomette, and having that makes you "first class" automatically, which means your FOOD is included. And you have a special lounge car to lounge in.

Now by that time, when I was in my roomette all made up for sleeping, I could stand with the backs of my knees touching the bunk and my belly would touch the door...made the late night bathroom trips interesting!

Then again, for you guys you'd need either two roomettes or one of the bigger rooms (only 2 people per 2 bunk roomette), so you might not have that problem.

Anyway, it wasn't peaches and cream...it's interesting walking down a moving aisle when your balance is off anyway, and I developed a protective way of walking so I would hit a shoulder instead of belly if the train lurched, BUT even with all the difficulties, I preferred that to the idea of driving all that way.

Good luck!
 
we live about 40 miles north of Portland and drive every trip..its about a 17 hour trip for us depending on traffic we are driving down in August for my birthday we usually stop in Santa Nella for the night then on to DLR the following day but this time we are driving straight through but we wont leave till around 7pm so most of our driving will be done at night there are a total of 4 drivers this trip and all of our previous trips it was mainly just me driving(hubby doesn't really like freeway driving & I do) so for us this should be a pretty easy drive this time the worst part of the trip is through central CA as it is so boring, but other than that and a few spots that always have some sort of stench that is so overwhelming mainly the dairy farms WOW LOL!!! it really is a fairly easy drive down I5...:cool2::)
 
What about taking Hwy 101 down some of the way... maybe like from Eugene over to Florence and then down...
 
I would highly suggest you stay on I-5 unless you want to spend tons of time on the road (more than you'd already be doing). Hwy 101 Florence & heading south is a lot of 2 lane roads, & curvy.....if you get behind RV's/motorhomes, etc (and you will, many times over) you are stuck for long periods of time. Pretty in areas making that drive, but annoying if you are trying to get somewhere.

We live in Medford (but used to live in the Coos Bay area on the coast) & it takes 14 hrs with pit stops for us from here on I-5. With you being that far along, you should stay on I-5 so you'll be traveling thru towns/cities with medical (God forbid you need that).

Hwy 101 is great if you're out for sightseeing trips but adds quite a bit of time to your travel.

Have fun!!
 
thanks.. It was just an idea, but you are right we shouldnt take any extra time that we dont need to in the car ride there.
 
We drive SE Wa and it takes us about 17-18 hours. We do not do I-5 all the way, which(I-5) is your best bet. If we stay overnight, we stay in Redding at the Hilltop Inn(super breakfast). Going over the grapevine and down into the basin seems to take forever with the traffic from Valencia on down. For the most part a very smooth drive(but I am not PG.)

Jack
 
I've made the San Diego/Oregon drive more times than I can count. I've done it with 2 kids, pregnant, 3 kids, pregnant, 4 kids... I've done it in the snow I've done it in the rain. I've driven it in spring summer winter fall... I've driven to Grants Pass and I've driven to Corvallis and back again...

Just take the 5. Try to make it over the Siskious during the day - if that means driving Portland to Medford one day and then starting early the next then do it. If you leave Portland at the buttcrack of dawn so you can make it to Redding in one day do it... I hate driving that big bridge over Lake Shasta at night.
 
Have done the drive only once and stopped often and saw the sights so I am not much help there. But, from a medical perspective. Just wanted to remind you to plan for time to walk every hour or two to avoid blood clots. Have fun, drink a lot of water and remember to rest.
 
We drive from the coast, hook over to I-5 at Corvallis, then it is straight shot down. We make potty stops every couple of hours and meal stops twice, lunch and dinner. Now, we detour to Fresno because we have family there, and that takes roughly 14 hours, but if we stayed on 1-5 and just did the straight shot thing I am sure we'd make it in 18 hours, no problem.....
 
Our son just drove from Seattle to DL. It took him 19 hours to get there. He said they could have made it in 17, but they stopped for a really long dinner.

We've driven from Seattle several times ourselves. It usually took us about 22 hours.
 
We live just south of Portland. We usually leave about 8am, and make it to the In N Out burger in Redding for lunch around 1pm. Then we go another 6 hours to Oakland, spend the night with a friend, then another 5 or 6 hours to DL.

The drive isn't really that bad overall. Never really curvy. There's plenty of places to stop for gas/food if necessary.

Traffic is usually only thick around big cities, and LONG stretches of I-5 are 75mph in California. (you can go about 80ish or 85 if you're brave--although there will still be people passing you).

That's about it...there are worse drives, and the goal is a worthy one ;)
 
We will be more then likely driving from Oregon to DL for our trip in October as I will be in the early stages of third trimester. Has anyone drove from Portland area to DL? If so, how long does it take? Where did you stop to stay? What route did you take?

Is your pregnancy the reason you're considering driving?

Personally, I found the drive to be long and tiring. If we have the choice, I'll fly hands down. If you do drive, I'd recommend stopping and walking every couple of hours. (What am I thinking, your bladder will probably dictate that anyway!) We choose to drive from our house to past Medford the first night, then straight through the next day. If I did it again, I'd leave early instead of late, drive 6 hours, stop for a decent walk, meal, and diversion, and the drive another 5-6 hours. Then stay in a hotel/motel and finish the drive the next day. I think it took us about 16-18 hours. We were blessed with decent weather and traffic.

Flying: Get to PDX one hour before flight time (there is a site online that will give you security wait times, but they are pretty fast at Portland) with boarding passes in hand. Stroll to plane, board, fly while listening to Disney music or dreaming of your first ride, deplane, and drive to Disneyland. About 4.5 hours total. SO much faster :banana:!
 
We usually drive to Disneyland at least every couple years, from Eugene. It usually takes us about 13 hours, maybe 14 hours if we hit any traffic, we try to time it so we don't. We do not stop over, all in 1 long trip. We have 2 kids, now 11 and 7, usually no problem for them. We went last year, always take I-5, no other way to it, DL is just off I-5.
 
We drove from Southern Washington last August (spur of the moment trip). It took about 17 hours. The first day we drove about 11 hours (to Stockton). The next day we drove about 7 hours and arrived at DL. We took I5 the whole way. We tried to stop every 2-3 hours to take a bathroom break, stretch the legs, etc. We ate at quicker places - drove through most times, sometimes went into restaurants. At the time, my son was obsessed by Panda Express. We also went to In N Out burger. I ended up driving the whole way (my husband doesn't really like traffic).

Keep in mind that this trip was 2 adults and a 14 year old boy. Obviously if you have little ones, you may need to stop more.


I would probably leave a little earlier in the morning next time (we didn't leave until around 9:00).
 
We're going to be driving from southern WA to Anaheim in September with a 7 months pregnant wife and a 2 year old who is in the middle of potty training. We're doing a combination of I-5 (in Oregon and central/southern CA) and 101 (in northern CA). We are planning several days for the trip down with lots of time for bathroom breaks and sight seeing, we want to spend some time seeing the redwoods. And no more than about 7 hours in the car on any given day. We've got tentative over night stops planned for Crescent City, somewhere around Miranda, and somewhere probably near the Los Banos area.

On the trip back we're probably only going to make two over night stops but we haven't really planned where they will be yet. We'll be taking I-5 and 97 for that one.
 


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