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Hello all, I'm back again and down to pre-planning a few days in advance for our trip up to Seattle from Austin.
At this time, I'm giving us a 5 day window somewhere between Friday, March 1st and Wednesday March 6th for a reasonable and sane amount of daily driving time since I do have a 3 year old and a cat along. I've mapped out about 500-550 miles a day with alternate routes and plenty of sight-seeing stops along the way.
I have also been watching the weather very closely and now that I can get a fairly accurate (hopefully) weather outlook for the next 7-10 days, its looking pretty calm so far for those dates along the west coast as well as the mountain states. We just had a big whopper move through (we had a damaging windstorm here in Austin) on Monday so I'm hoping that's the last of it for a bit though everything is indicating something about 'atmospheric blocking' will continue to keep March under wintery conditions.
With that in mind, and how many storms everyone's been experiencing this year - do you all still recommend I go ahead and take the straight northwesterly route up through Albuquerque NM, then Salt Lake City UT, Boise ID and finally through Oregon to western Washington?
I've mapped out the southwestern route via NM - AZ - CA as well and am still uncertain which I should take. The first route is 2200 miles and the second route is 2500 miles. Again, I'm allotting 5 days either way, so time is not really the concern.
The weather going plan A direct route does not look that bad being mostly mid 40s-50s during the day if I stick to a 9-6 driving time frame to avoid early morning or late night freezing temps. Unpredictable snowstorms are well, unpredictable.
I appreciate all the advice I've gotten here - just trying to make a last minute decision!
Thanks!
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According to the Experts
At this point the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting normal to warmer-than-normal temperatures and no significant precipitation for the general route of your trip in their 6-10 day forecast, which would roughly coincide with the period of your trip. Since they're the people who actually do the long range forecasts (Everybody else just pretty's up NOAA's work.) I see no reason not to take the straight, scenic route up through Salt Lake City and Boise.
AZBuck
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Thanks AZBuck - I'm happy to be seeing the same positive predictions for that time frame as well so at this point it looks like that will be our plan A route. It's been a lot of work trying to figure out daily stops for two different directions but I think we're going to have a lot of beautiful things to see along the way.
Cheers!
