Vegas to San Francisco HELP!!

Hi all,

My wife and i are embarking on our first US roadtrip in early April but are a bit stuck with the final leg. Heres our itinary so far and would appreciate any help and advice you can provide.

April 1st - flying into San Fran and spending until the 4th in town when we pick up our hire car.
4th - 5th we're driving down and staying the night in Monterey
5th - 6th down to Santa Barbara
6th - 8th down to LA and staying two nights there
8th - 10th across to Las Vegas where again we're staying a couple of nights.

Now this is where we're a bit stuck. We're flying out of San Francisco on 14th so we have 3 to four days to get there. We had hoped to drive across Death Valley, up the 395 and across Tioga Road to take in the scenary of Yosemite. Now i realise that this might be a bit impossible due to closure.

We really want a scenic journey back to SF. Any ideas of route and accomodation?

Budget wise we'll have about 500 - 600 dollars for accomodation and fuel left for this portion. Is this even feasible?

Thanks, J

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

One of the bright spots(?) of having fewer choices is that you have fewer decisions to make. With the Tioga Pass all but guaranteed to still be closed at the time of your trip, I would just give up any thoughts of using it. You can still see Death Valley (Spring is an excellent time for that.) and then exit to the west via CA-190 to US-395 south. CA-178 through Lake Isabella to Bakersfield offers a chance to make up for the loss of driving over the Sierra Nevada on CA-120, and as you work your way north on CA-99 up the western side of the Sierra, you can take the opportunity to visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks which are not accessible from the east. And of course, you can still get into Yosemite from the west as well. Three to four days for this portion of the trip is more than enough to see some of the best of the Sierra parks. You shouldn't even notice that you're 'missing' something.

AZBuck

Sequoia National Park; April 2007
http://www.donandlindacasey.com/imag...sInSequoia.jpg
Photo: Don Casey

General Sherman (the tree, not the woman, that's my wife)
http://www.donandlindacasey.com/imag...ralSherman.jpg
Photo: Don Casey

Man, I really gotta get some of my newer photos processed and uploaded.