Chicago to Seattle via Denver??

[Jobee]

Hey All..

New to the board and I thought I would ask a question to the great minds of RTA.

I have to go from Chicago to Seattle, its me and one other driver.
We leave on a Thursday evening and need to arrive on Saturday night or at least Sunday morning.
So thats roughly 3 days. The direct route seems rather boring.. 2055 miles through WI, MN, ND, MT and WA.

What I would like to do is go from Chicago to Denver (1010 miles) non stop, rest there and then go Denver to Seattle (1331 miles) with one more stop along the way. (IL to WA via CO is 2341 miles total)

Am I crazy for rerouting to Denver?
Is it reasonable to think 2 of us can do Chicago to Denver non stop?
What is a good place to stop between Denver and Seattle? ( drive time of just that leg is 20 hours).
Should I just do the first mentioned route?

Any suggestions, tips or just calling me crazy would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I'm sorry, but I don't think you'll find anyone here who thinks your plan would work in any sort of real world situation.

1000 mile driving days just aren't feasable, even with 2 drivers. You're talking about 18 hours to cover the distance. In a pure sprint, where you just had the one leg, you might be able to achieve the trip, but it would be a grueling job. There would be no other way to describe it. Trying to do something like that, and then have another 1300+ miles in front of you would go beyond pushing the limits of safety and your sanity.

And just because a computer map says you can cover 1300+ miles in 20 hours, doesn't mean that you can do it in the real world, where cars need gas, and people have biological needs that require getting out of a car. 24 hours for that distance would still be pretty optimistic.

The direct route between Chicago and Seattle is already over 2000 miles, and it will already push your limits to cover that distance in 3 days. Adding another 300+ miles just doesn't make any sense.

You're really not going to have time to do anything but drive as it is, but instead of assuming a route is boring because, well, I'm not sure why you are making that assumption, but remember one of the best rules of thumb for any roadtrip: There are no boring places, there are just people who choose not to see what is really out there.