Road-trip guided by coin-tosses and D4 rolls

By Cory Doctorow at 5:22 pm Monday, Aug 10

A reader writes, "This weekend, my wife and I traveled on a Random Road trip. It turned out great. We used a four-sided die (d4) when there were more than 2 routes to decide upon and a coin for the others. We didn't have any hard and fast rules when we started, but developed some as we drove deeper into the trip. I recommend it to anyone even if you don't have a d4 handy."

Near our starting point is the intersection of 2 highways 23 and 94 with convenient N (1), S (2), E (3), and W (4) options. I proposed that we eliminate the "east" option on our first roll, because I wanted to avoid the morass of highways around Detroit. Mrs. BBspot vetoed this idea and she promptly rolled a 3 (east) for our first direction. At this point we had to turn around and go back home to get our passports, because starting in Michigan there's always the danger that we'd end up in Canada. (see map at end of post for a look at our final route)

I was a bit miffed at the first roll, but headed east anyway. Approaching 23 Mrs. BBspot rolled a 1, which turned us north. Phew, I preferred moving away from Detroit. At our next intersection she rolled another 1 and kept us going North on 23.

Unfortunately, randomness pointed us back toward Detroit when she rolled another 3 and we headed east on 96. Mrs. BBspot started getting a little perturbed at my disappointment in her rolls.

Random Road Trip Recap