Colorado, Utah, NV, CA (Advice)

[rbnair76]

I have been at my wits end to plan this road trip that my family and I decided to take. If only I had seen this forum sooner. Any advice on places to see and "not to miss routes/places" would be great.
We are starting our trip from Indy next week with the intention of visiting Colorado, Utah, NV and CA. After hearing so much about these places, its very confusing to choose which ones to visit and which ones I can afford to miss.
Time, we dont have: just 12 days.
What we are planning now is to go straight to Colorado springs.
Visit Garden of The Gods, Cave of the winds, Seven Falls.
drive through the Pikes Peak HWY, take the US 24 to Aspen touching the Independence Pass.
Visit Maroon Bells, the gondola, etc.
Drive through Utah to Vegas. Touch one of the national Parks (Arches, Bryce, Zion?)
Vegas to LA. LA to San Francisco touching Big Sur.
We have absolutely no idea what to do at LA and San Francisco except for going to Disneyland(for the kids) and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge.
We plan to come back through Nevada, Utah, Colorado/Nebraska(one of those) and back to Indy.
Any suggestions of what not to miss and any tips would be helpful and appreciated. Also is this trip possible given the time frame.

[Spiffy1978]

Lake Tahoe is by far my favorite place in the US. A must see for sure.

Indy, huh? I'm from IN myself--up by Gary though (yikes) but went to IU-btown. Always nice to meet a fellow Hoosier.

Have a great time!
Elaine

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I'm sorry to start this thread on such a down note, but your plans are simply not feasable in your time frame.

Putting it simply, you'd need more than 12 days just to see the things you've listed that you plan to see, so even if you didn't have to worry about the more than 4000 miles you'll need to drive, you still wouldn't have enough time.

As far as the driving goes, considering that you are traveling with kids, you would need at least 8 days alone just to cover the driving to see both LA and SF, not to mention the other detours along your way.

You need to do some MAJOR rethinking of this plan. I'd start by cutting anything in California out, and then come up with a rough day by day itinerary to get a feel for just how much you'll be doing and seeing on any given day.

Once you do that, then we can start giving you some more help on how to make this a truely memorable and enjoyable experience for your family.

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America forum.

I'm afraid that you cannot do justice to this trip with only 12 days. You can make the trip, but it will be mostly driving and very little fun. Indianapolis to Los Angeles via your stated route through Colorado Springs, Aspen, and Las Vegas is 2125 miles, or 4 days minimum. To come up from LA to SF by way of Big Sur will take a minimum of 1 day, but you should really give it 2 if you want to see anything. I assume you want to spend a day each in Los Angeles and San Francisco.The return from San Francisco to Indianapolis is 2275 miles by the shortest, fastest Interstate route. Again, 4 days minimum. I just don't see where you plan on finding the time to visit all the places you've listed, let alone any others. I guess my advice would be, if you don't know why you're going to San Francisco and you don't have anything that you really want to see on the way from there to back home, why not just limit this trip to Los Angeles, take an extra half day to day each way so you have some time to enjoy the trip, and spend two or 3 days in LA enjoying the 'rest').

AZBuck

[lhuff]

You seem to have lots of ideas for Colorado and you could add a few more sights such as Mesa Verde National Park. This way you wouldn't be so pressed for time and you would have a better opportunity to get a feel for your family's road trip dynamics. After a few days on the road you will all either be best buddies forever or you could be ready to kill each other.

I wouldn't make reservations but just decide on how everyone feels. If someone is tired just take an extra day in a city and relax or head out early if you're bored.

Do ya'll have any specific interests or hobbies that you'd like to delve into on the trip? This could really help with the planning. I, for example, generally plan my trips to have either racing and/or an excursion to a knitting shop involved.

BTW - went to your fair city about 1.5 months ago for the Formula 1 race and loved it.

[rbnair76]

Thank you for your recommendations. I appreciate the feedback and yes, it really looks crammed. we thought about it last night and are inclined towards taking Cali out of the trip.
Thoughts?

[AZBuck]

I think that you are probably right to take Michael and Linda's advice to drop California entirely from your trip, but you can also see a lot more than just Colorado, so let me offer this suggestion. And I hope that Michael and Linda chime in.

Take two days to get to Colorado Springs, with an overnight somewhere in the Kansas City/Topeka area. That's a little under 1100 miles - a push, but doable. You now have 7-8 days to do SOME of the following:

Colorado Springs
Aspen
Arches National Park
Salt Lake City/Great Salt Lake
Grand Teton National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Cody, WY
Devils Tower National Monument
Deadwood, SD
Badlands National Park

That would then leave you a relatively leisurely 2 or 3 days to return to Indianapolis by way of I-90, I-35, US-18/US-218, I-380, I-80, and I-74. This route has the advantage of avoiding Chicago, but other routes are possible.

This is still a bit of a push, you will still be driving some nearly every day, and you will have to pick and choose what to see along the way, but I think it makes much better use of your time and lets you see a lot more of various aspects of the Rockies. It is also possible (and I have done it) to spend a week just poking around central Colorado from a fixed 'home base', have a great time, and still not see everything it has to offer. Life should be full of such tough choices.

AZBuck

[rbnair76]

Hey AzBuck,
We had done something as crazy in June. We drove to the Grand Canyon and back. Like you suggested, what we did at that time was make a night stop at Hays, KS, get around 8 hours of sleep and drive to Flagstaff through durango. That trip was around 3,500 miles (roundtrip) which went very well.
But the worst thing, about that trip was that, Colorado took our breath away and we could not do anything about it. Beauutiful.
Yellowstone, Grand Teton can take up
Therefore this trip.
regards,
Rakesh
:)

[Mark Sedenquist]

Visit Garden of The Gods,

I figured this photo taken by Gerald Thurman might whet your appetite a little.

Mark