42-hour drive is the "net" or clean time of my trip from NYC to SF.

Gross time - (altogether with the 3 nights in the hotels) - 3.7 days.

1. I started from my place in Columbia, MD at 4:52 am on Saturday (I took a taxi) and got to BWI Amtrak station in 30 minutes.

2. Boarded Amtrak train at 5:52 am (local - Eastern time) at BWI station and arrived at Penn station in NYC (Manhattan) at 9:02 am (the train was 17 min late)

3. Met with the young (Ph.D. from MIT) dude at 9:10 am.
We immediately started to drive to Lincoln tunnel (plus a cat and a dog in his Volkswagen car). The poor cat was initially meowing then he liberated from his cell and immediately found better position at the bottom of the front passenger sit and stayed there quite all the "drive time".

MIT dude was a "designated" driver for the first 3 hours.

Then we drove 3-3.5 hours each, with short "driver change" stops near some gas station or Starbucks shops near route I-80.

STOPS:

We stayed in the pet-friendly chain of hotels (La Quinta)

4. First day stop was La Quinta Inn & Suites Chicago, Tinley Park, IL
(NEAR CHICAGO)
along route I-80 East

789 mi, 13 hours 40 min (as indicated by Google)

In fact, it took us more than 13 hours - from 8 am eastern time) to 10:30 pm (Midwest or Central time) with three short (15 min) stops.

We were delayed (for about 1-hour) when stayed in a traffic jam passing near State College, PA. -The traffic was due to local people utter desire to watch local college football game.
Obviously Penn State College Football is the only entertainment there.

READ about Penn State football team:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_State_child_sex_abuse_scandal

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Interesting fact about Indiana: The portions of Indiana located in the Eastern Time Zone did not observe Daylight Saving Time. It is also the only state with non-indian (non-aboriginal) name bordering lake Michigan.
 
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5. Second day stop was La Quinta Inn & Suites North Platte, NE.
The only pet-friendly hotel in the whole western Nebraska is again - La Quinta Western Nebraska total 'in the middle of nowhere land".

from Tinley Park, IL to North Platte, NE
735 mi, 12 hours (as indicated by Google)
We drove in 10 hours (with two 15 min stops)

6. Third day stop was La Quinta Inn & Suites Salt Lake City Airport, Salt Lake City, UT

665 mi, 10 hours (as Google says)

We drove from North Platte NE to Salt Lake city UT in ~9 hours
(with three 10 min stops)

7. Last day (day 4) we started at 7:10 am (Mountain time) from Salt Lake City, UT
and arrived at 6:15 pm (Pacific time) at Berry street, San Francisco, CA

728 mi, 11.5 hours (as indicated by Google)

It took for us about 12 hours, we had fewer stops, the last 50 miles
was driving down the hill with speed limit of 50 mph.

A stretch of I-80 freeway that goes to the north of Lake Tahoe is nicest place to drive considering the whole trip.

Total mileage was about 3,000 miles (including detours to gas stations and Starbucks).

Summary of seeings:

Cheapest gas was in the eastern Indiana : $3.13 per gallon, regular.

Nicest people - in Indiana.

Got duped by a smiling young boy at one gas station who sold me chewing gum (I gave him 10 bucks he gave me change from 5 bucks) in Utah.
Was he a mormon on his straight path to prosperity painstakingly raising the start-up capital?
Or just he hated my accent?
Nobody knows.

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Then - it started a chain of the most interesting events:

Parking the car in a basement of a posh apartment complex in down town SF took only 2 minutes

8. At 6:30 pm local time, the dominant female ( wife of the dude whose animals and whose organism I was carefully driving from NYC to San Fran in ~3.7 days) told her hubby (i.e., the dude) that this schmack has no right to stay in their posh apartment (they pay 4.5 k$ per month).

9. At 6:35 pm scandal between hubby and his wife ended with husband's total defeat.

10. At 6:36 pm I called Alex who lives in Santa Clara and he told me that there is Caltrain train from down town SanFran (Townsend street) to his place near Santa Clara railway station (45 miles to the south from SanFran)

11. I walked to Caltrain station about 1 mile (it took me 25 minutes to walk from Berry street to SanFran Caltrain station
- First, I did not walk in the right direction, because there was no 3G connection to my phone - totally insane situation for downtown SanFran.
Strangely: phone voice connection was OK (all the bars) but 3G connection totally sucked.

I asked 3 people in a row how to get to Caltrain station - only one gave me the right direction and only after he looked for the directions in his iPhone

iPhone RULES!!!

12. Boarded train at 7:30 pm.
Arrived at the Santa Clara railway station at 8:52 pm

Again, the distance from Berry street, SanFran, to Santa Clara 45 miles by train

13. Meeting at Santa Clara r.w. station with Alex - 8:53 pm he drove me 1.5 miles to his home.

14. at 9:01 pm, meeting at Alex's house one physicist-theoretician (Aleksy) and quickly finding that we both know some other physicist-theoretician, bearing the name Tupitsyn (direct translation is Retard, yet, you know, some people use Savage as the last name),
and three ultra-gorgeous females: Larissa (two s), Larisa (one s) and Irina.

They were celebrating Alex's and his daughter's B-days (their B-days are close, obviously).

15. Going to bed at 1:30 am.

16. Getting up at 6:30 am with enormous hangover.

17. Looking at the internet for the "red eye" flight to DC area for the same day - no good flights was found.

18. at 7:30 am Alex got up, and at 7:40 am he started to make eggs "sunny side up".

19. Eating breakfast with Alex till 8:10 am.

20. Alex gave me a ride to SanFran airport (SFO).

21. Arrived at the airport 9:45 am.

22. At 10:05 am, the airport clerk found a non-stop airplane ticket to Wash DC
(a purest luck - no extra charge for change of flights).

United Airlines (UA) rules!!!

23. Boarded the plane at 10:45 am local (Pacific) time.

24. Arrived at DC (Dulles) 7:15 pm local (Eastern) time.

Calling old chap Mike and telling him that my poor ass needs to be picked up from Dulles.
Busy bee - Mike asked me to get to Silver Spring subway station and call him when I am close to that station,
BECAUSE HIS IS STILL WORKING.

25. at 7:45 pm - taking the "shuttle bus" to West Church street (closest Metro station) I arrived there at 8:20 pm.

26. Riding DC's metro from West Fall Church station to Sliver Spring station for about an hour.

27. Arriving at Silver Spring station at 9:30 pm
(one change of the lines at Union Station, waited for 14 min for the next train).

28. at 9:45 pm, I was picked up from Silver Spring station by Mike.

29. We got my office at work at 10:30 pm, where I sent a couple of emails.

30. Mike drove me home at 11:02 pm.

31. I opened the door of my home at 11:15 pm.

That is it.