VROOM VROOM
Vroom vroom went the car.
Badoom badoom went the radio.
Grumble grumble went the stomach.
Recognize these sounds? These are the sounds of an EPIC road trip.
Today I’m going to be writing a bit differently then usual. I am going to write a story, the story of my metaphorical road trip to Mexico. But this story is kinda very mathematical. After all, this story is my way of explaining my most recent math project.
“The Illest Road Trip of All Time”
STORY (PT. 1) AND SOME COSTS–
The year is… one where I’m of age to drive.
It was summer and I’d been living in New York.
New York is great. Life in the city is crazy and exciting and fun. However, in January, I was asked if I would like to participate in an MTV road trip. The maximum length of the trip was 31 days, and I had to spend AT LEAST $9,500. I had a maximum of $10,000.
This $10,000 was for-
-Food
-Accommodation
-Gas
-Baggage Prices
It was all very… dramatic and awesome. I accepted of course, and I soon found out that two of my friends were invited to participate on the same MTV event.
The event was to start and end in New York (Lucky for me). My friends and I decided that we would meet up in Houston Texas and head down to Mexico for a bit.
I planned out my rout on Bing Maps
I decided to stay in each city for one day. Except for staying in New Orleans for two days on the way there. I would also be staying in my final destination (La Trinitaria) for 3 days. Walk around and check out good ol’ Mexico.
I was looking at the time it would take to do my trip and the times ended up being
I also looked at the miles
MTV told me that they had places I could stay they could organize, restaurants they could let me know about. My prices were-
Food-
$200 per day
Accommodation-
$100 per day
I also chose an amount of baggage I could be bringing with me. My cost for that was-
$75 per day.
There are a few days I noticed that there weren’t really any hotels around.
When we got the description about the trip, it said that MTV would only allow us to drive for 10 hours a day. With no hotels here and there, I would be sleeping in my car on the side of the highway… yay???
PRE-PLANNING AND “Y=MX+B”–
During our trip MTV asked us to make a lot of linear equations using the formatting of
The first time we had to do that was when writing out our Food/Accommodation and Baggage costs. My equation looked like
My food and accommodation per day was $300 dollars, and my baggage was $75.
We were asked,
“If MTV only allows people to drive at maximium 10 Hours each day. What is the smallest number of days you could spend driving?”
Did the math, my answer was 20. 10 there, 10 back.
My trip is 27 days, so that would cut out an entire week. Too bad I didn’t feel like driving for 10 hours a day non stop for 20 days.
We were asked to create an equation using y=mx+b to see how much gas would cost for any amount of days. I’ll spare the “show your work” stuff and just say that my end result was in fact-
We had to graph out how much costs would be if our trip was to last 7, 14, 21,& 28 days. Here it is… all written and happy, like it didn’t take forever to write out.
GRAPHS AND STUFF–
Graphing out stuff… yay. I promise there will be a story later. I just have to prove that I math.
It was requested of us to graph out the Vehicle Cost and the Food and Accommodation. So thats what I did. I was going on this road trip. I was going to do drive for hours a day and leave my New York life behind for a bit.
The two points on the graph that are pink are two points form the Vehicle Costs-
~156.64
~138.64
The two points on the graph that are blue are two points from the Food and Accommodation Costs-
~4275
~6376
SPONSORSHIP AND MORE GRAPHING–
We were offered sponsorship from three companies by MTV-
~Coca Cola
~Pepsi
~Snapple
We were requested to find a y=mx+b equation for each of the three companies by using the information from the tables above. So thats what I did. Like I said, I was going to do this road trip, even if it meant this ridiculous amount of planning and application work.
We were also asked to check our answers, like the good little humans that we are. So that is what I did
Then I planned out 7, 14, 21, & 21 days using those equations-
We then had to figure out on what day two of the companies would pay the same amount. The answers were-
Coke & Pepsi-
~11
Coke & Snapple-
~20
Pepsi & Snapple-
~13
Next I had to graph the differences between each company and decide which one would be best fit for my trip. For me, that was Snapple.
Green=My trip
Red=Snapple
Black=Coke
Blue= Pepsi
STORY TIME (PT.2)–
Early summer, I hopped in my rental car, and headed off.
My first stop was State Collage in Pensilvania.
Why?
It was only 5 hours away, and not a terrible place to go. Grab some coffee and just chill after a full 5 hours of sitting on my butt driving along.
Next up I headed to the lovely Amsterdam… Ohio.
It was chill. Thats all I can really, it was cool and old.
I headed a few hours out the next day to Cincinnati. Just a stopover for a bit. Watch some TV in the hotel and eat food and sleep. Thats about it you know. I was tired.
After a heathy sleep and a lovely breakfast, I hoped back on the road and headed to the land of country music *link to country playlist on Spotify*
NASHVILLE.
Next morning I got in my car once again and drove all the way to the reasonably scenic land of, Birmingham, Alabama.
The next day I was heading to the birth place of a character in a book series I really like, the land of Jazz and a place I hear is one party city.
New Orleans!!!!!
I planned two days in New Orleans, because I wanted to have a good look around and soak it in for myself. Not a bad idea, at all.
After my fabulous two days touring New Orleans I headed to the famous Houston, Texas.
There I met with my crazy ol friends Melanie and Kailey, who I would be traveling alongside for the rest of my trip.
From Houston we worked our way south.
We went to
-General Escobedo
-Galeana
-Cotaxtla
And finally we arrived at my last stop-
La Trinitaria
And then, I turned around and did it all again.
It was 27 days of pure adventure, travel and snacks.
Thanks for reading about my crazy road trip planning and destinations!
BYEEEE