7/12/2023 0 Comments Fastest route home![]() But it would’ve cost more in fuel, tolls, and wear on the truck. ![]() In all, taking I-80 might have saved us an hour, maybe 90 minutes, in Tim’s estimation. When you’re driving your own truck, you want the cheapest way. It could cost you an extra hundred bucks for the same load. Every booth you pass in a semi costs I think $21, and that adds up. ![]() Then, if you take I-80, it drops you onto I-70, which is a toll road. Fuel is expensive in a semi, and every incline burns it faster. ![]() On I-80, you’d have to go through the Sierras in California and Nevada, and then on the other end in West Virginia and Kentucky. Taking I-80 would’ve been shorter, but the way we went on I-40 was faster. Shipping is about many variables, not just distance. If shipping’s about saving time, why take a longer route? So we asked Tim Rife, the gregarious trucker with Inman Trucking who drove the truck (alternating at the wheel with his wife, Karen) that we followed. “Why did the truck travel 3,200 miles via I-40 when it could have made the trip in only 2,895 miles via I-80?” We received several questions about the trip, like why we chose to follow strawberries (they’re a classic American food, agriculturally isolated, and extremely fragile) and whether the truck drivers knew we were behind them (yes, and they even slowed down for us).īut one question was more complex. The story appeared online, and in the November edition of National Geographic Magazine. in three days, from California to Washington, D.C., to understand what it takes to deliver food grown thousands of miles away. An NG photographer and I followed a truck of strawberries across the U.S. Last spring, we took an unconventional road trip.
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