Recent Grad taking trip Miami to California need advice

Hey FOlks...my postgraduate plans are to get outta miami for a couple of weeks and head out west and find a new place to live and work. Ive done the roadtrip up the north east enough. So Im writing here to ask for suggestions and advice from past experiences. Liberal artsy areas are where Im most drawn to i.e. santa fe.
I plan to travel up western florida ...hit the salvedor dali museum in petersburg....stroll through seaside,fl and take it from there. I want to go through alot of quiet,quaint cities that are the opposite of miami. Then get to San Diego...drive up the coast north and slowly make my way back east through the northern states. This trip in the middle of winter probably sounds brutal in a way...but I cant wait any longer.
Any kind of help and suggestions on great places of interest (take into account snow) would be awesome. In a way I just want to get lost, not have a clock around and just look through my hasseblad and shoot.
Im a dreamer...........

A Hasseblad? That is one expensive camera -- what kind of graduate school are you about to be liberated from? In any case, the meandering road trip style is the one I prefer whenever I can pull it off. For starters, I would suggest a read of the <a href = "http://www.roadtripamerica.com/mftdb/053198ca.htm">Art of the RoadTrip</a>.

Apalachicola, Florida is fun place to hang. Artsy, liberal sounds a good match with Eureka Springs, AR. Pretty amazing town. Sandpoint, ID and Sedona, NM are also good bets (although Idaho is a bit brisk right now).

Have fun!

Heading west from Florida...

New Orleans -French Quarter.. Tis Da season for Mardi Gras.
San Antonio - I loved the Alamo/Riverwalk. Nice town.
Carlsbad Caverns - Cool stuff
Grand Canyon - Must See
Las Vegas - Tropicana $49 a night
San Diego - I live here and never plan to move.
South Orange County - Some nice beachfront hotels on coast highway in Dana Point. San Clemente beaches are the best and Laguna Beach is very cool.
Hollywood - The best place on earth.
California coast - Amazing scenery.
San Francisco - A must visit for anyone
Bend, Oregon - Skiing, fishing, hiking & much more.
Yellowstone NP - #1 national park
Mt. Rushmore - never been there, on the way.
Chicago - One of my favorite cities

well now your back on the east coast so it's your deal. There ya go.

Artsy-liberal?

Besides Sedona (better have deep pockets, and I'm not sure the community is overwhelmingly liberal, but you can certainly find that element there), try Jerome or Bisbee, AZ. These are a bit more rustic than Sedona or Santa Fe; they were mining towns now inhabited by many art people!

Also, you'd feel right at home at Berkeley probably, if it hasn't changed much. It has always been a hotbed of liberal sentiment! You might also find Columbia, MO to be an interesting place. Or, ANYWHERE in the state of Oregon.

Bob,

I know Berkeley, CA has the reputation for being a liberal community and there is some evidence to support the notion with the transient political voter base (attending UCB) who regularily invoke their constitutional right to mess with local politics (I lived in Berkeley for a couple of years while attending UCB myself) -- but Berkeley's old guard is "old money" and actually very, very conservative.

Oregon, in the same vein wears its liberalism on their collective sleeves, but with exception of Portland and a couple of college-themed towns -- residents tend to be more conservative than corresponding sections of California and Arizona.

Mark

That's probably the same with most all of the places -- you'll find a little of everything in each community! That's why we call it America! I guess you just need to figure out how to find the crowd you want to hang with, wherever you're at! Me, I don't care liberal or conservative (as long as they're not TOO radical in either direction). I think the most important thing is to find the people with happy dogs. They're my kind of folks.

Thanks for the suggestions. Im definitely making a list and ploting them down. I know this is something I have to do because I feel as though Im begining to suffocate in Miami. I backpacked through Eastern Europe and it was unlike anything else Ive experienced before, so Im wanting to sort of "mimick" that journey. Zak