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After stopping in Pittsburgh, our Army family of 6 (Soldier Dad, Mom and 4 kids ages 3 to 10) is moving to our new assignment in Colorado Springs. We are planning on 5 days to travel. Route 70 appears to be logical, but I'm open to suggestions.
I'd benefit from ideas on route selection, fun places to visit, eat or stay. Thanks!
Welcome to RTA, and thank you to your family for your invaluable service to our country.
Pittsburgh to Colorado Springs is about 1450 miles via I-70. That translates to 3-1/2 days on the road, doing 400 miles a day. So you have extra time to see something along the way. Here are some ideas:
Dayton OH -- Wright Bros history and/or the National Museum of the AF. The museum is free, though some of the Wright Bros stuff has a small charge.
St Louis MO -- The Arch, of course, and the Museum of Western Expansion at its base. St Louis also has a free zoo.
I'm sure others will chime in with ideas.
Donna
If you take I-70, then the Air force Museum (might as well get the kids used to being in an Air Force town. right?) and St. Louis are logical major stops. Others would include the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site in Lerna IL, Harry Truman's Home in Independence MO, Fort Hays KS, and the Kit Carson County Carousel in Burlington CO. There are also many smaller venues near every Interstate Highway where you can just relax while the kids blow off steam. The primary advantage to taking the most direct route is that it leaves you the most time for sight-seeing as opposed to driving more miles.
However, on trips of this length it is usually the case that there are other routes that aren't significantly longer that offer the opportunity to see other places, In your particular case, you have enough time that you could spend some significant time on some non-Interstate Highways and see the country at a bit more up-close-and-personal level. One such route would be to follow the Ohio River as closely as possible on routes such as OH-7/US-52/US-60 and connecting roads to the St. Louis area, and then head southwest on I-44 to around Lebanon MO and through the Ozarks and southern Kansas on US-54 visiting places like Wichita, Greensburg, and Dodge City on you way to Colorado. Or, from Indianapolis you could take I-74 to the Quad Cities and pick up I-80 through Nebraska which follows the old Oregon Trail route westward along the Platte River.
This is a case where at least your older children may have an opinion, or things they've learned about in school and wouldn't mind seeing first hand, so getting their input would be in order, I think. In any event, once you have a basic idea of what you want to see, or how you'd like to get to Colorado Springs, or what kind of mix of diving styles/sight-seeing you'd like for your adventure we can be of help in working out the specifics.
AZBuck