Our 8k mile trip, in 9 days.

[Lycwolf]

Well, I'm kinda new to the whole roadtrip thing, even though i have been around a few times when i was younger. A couple of my friends want to take a roadtrip during Honda shutdown (July 2nd - July 10th) so we are planning a trip around the U.S.

Jacksonville, FL
Eglin AFB, FL
Gulf Breeze, FL
New Orleans, LA
Austin, TX
Dallas, TX
Alburquerque, NM
Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
Redmond, WA
Yellowstone National Park, WM
Keystone, SD
St. Loius, MS

Those are the planned stops, we have somewhat of a route planned (Streets & Trips 2005 is great) and I am now wondering if I am insane, or if this is doable... On of the suggestions I had gotten was to limit ourselves to a particualr area of the U.S. but i dont know...


As for traveling, we are taking my 1999 Accord (Custom tuned) with 98k miles on it... It's in excellent condition (I'm gonna give it a quick tune up before i leave) and gets great gas millage.

BTW, i am leaving from Marysville, OH (my home). are there any pointer or anything i could get? i want to be as prepared as possible considering this is my first time on a trip this long...

Thnx

Ethan

[Mark Sedenquist]

Well, I'm kinda new to the whole roadtrip thing, even though i have been around a few times when i was younger. A couple of my friends want to take a roadtrip during Honda shutdown (July 2nd - July 10th) so we are planning a (8000 mile) trip around the U.S.

Some of the legs are, well, somewhat overly optimistic. I would love to know what speed you are anticipating being able to achieve on the route between Grand Canyon NP and San Francisco. Even traveling at the maximum speed limit, this is a minium of 15 hours in the saddle. I hope you are really, really good friends now. Some of the other legs of this trip are equally suspect. Unless you plan to sleep less than four hours each night.

Those are the planned stops, we have somewhat of a route planned (Streets & Trips 2005 is great) and I am now wondering if I am insane, or if this is doable...

It is doable, but it will really be alot of time spent driving and are you really ready for that level of extreme sitting?

On of the suggestions I had gotten was to limit ourselves to a particualr area of the U.S. but i dont know...

That would be my suggestion as well. Even if you limited the trip to 5000 miles, you will still need to drive at least 500 miles every day -- which is nearly nine hours of driving (stopping for fuel, food and stretches).

No matter what -- it WILL be an adventure!

Mark

[zxa]

No way would I consider that distance in 9 days ... you'd be averaging nearly 900 miles a day and your average speed will be under 60mph taking into account rest stops/traffic/food, so you can say 15 hours a day in the car. You would have no time to see anything apart from travel/sleep. Also you'll inevitably get lost and this can waste a lot of time - that city centre that was so easy to find can be a nightmare to get out of on the right road. - and coming off the freeway and making a few turns for gas/food and you're lost again as every road looks the same and everyone you ask gives you different directions.

In my experience of road trips, no more than 400 miles in a day is recommended - and ideally only 200-250. The maximum I've done was 4000 miles in a week and that was too much really.

[Lycwolf]

Well, I talked a bit of sense into my friends....


Our new route is only 6.5k and will be stretched over 11 days, with 3 drivers, and basically no stopping till we reach a destination and rest-stops.

The attached JPG is a map from Streets and Trips 2005, we will have that on a laptop with us, and a GPS unit.

I will be making a video of this, and taking lots of pictures, so expect some when i get back! :)

O yeah, great stop, Rachel, NV. Home of the little Alieinn and Area 51!

As for other stuff, I am taking my blender for a stop at four corners for some margaritas, and star gazing. O yeah, and of course a ride on the cog railway to the top of Pikes Peek in CO.

As for the car, are their any recomendations on what I should prepare for? Especially for desert driving?

I know it may seem like a long trip in a short time, but we are trying to see what is out there, and give us reasons to come back... and a great experience to hopefully last a long time... And of coursee lots of great photos and videos.

Stops in order of apearance...

St. Louis
Kansas City
Denver
Colorado Springs
Four Corners
Grand Canyon
Rachel
San Francisco
St. Helens
Seattle
Redmond
Yellowstone
Keystone
Cedar Rapids


These are just places we want to stop, but if we feel we are in over our heads, we can skip any one of them, if it means avoiding problems with long travel distances...

thnx


Click HERE for a map of the route.

[Utahtea]

to actually SEE this great country of ours then I'd drive less. At the Grand Canyon drive north to Lake Powell, Zion National Park, Bryce National Park, take scenic Hwy 12 to Torrey, see Capitol Reef National Park and head north to Yellowstone and skip California, Washington and Oregon.

Good Luck! I'd love to hear how your adventure turns out. Will you report back?

Utahtea

[Mark Sedenquist]

Well, I talked a bit of sense into my friends....
Our new route is only 6.5k and will be stretched over 11 days, with 3 drivers, and basically no stopping till we reach a destination and rest-stops.

Well, the route makes a little more sense -- I can't really imagine why you are bypassing the heart of the Colorado Rockies and Utah -- some of the most amazing scenery on earth can be found there.

As for other stuff, I am taking my blender for a stop at four corners for some margaritas, and star gazing.

Are you aware that the actual 4 Corners location is on private property and you will have to pay a fee to the local Indian Nation to go stand in the four corners? I seriously doubt you will be able to drink margaritas and star gaze there.

As for the car, are their any recomendations on what I should prepare for? Especially for desert driving?

There is some great information about desert driving on this thread.

These are just places we want to stop, but if we feel we are in over our heads, we can skip any one of them, if it means avoiding problems with long travel distances...

Good plan, because some of the distances between stops (although much saner than the first draft) are still a looooooong distance!

Should be an amazing adventure, in any case!

Mark

[PNW Judy]

Your new route still has you driving about 10 hours per day. I've done 1-2 days at a shot like this to do a blitz drive to get somewhere and then home again, but I would NEVER do this for a whole trip. As much as I love to drive, that's just too much, imho.

And I agree with UtahTea. If you missing those great parks in Utah, you're missing some of the most fantastic visuals in the world.

Washington is beautiful. It's a wonderful state. However, your quick trip through Washington would have you missing most of the beauty Washington has to offer, i.e. the coast, the Olympia Peninsula, the San Juans, the and the mountain areas. The pass you are targeting going over, Snoqualmie on I-90, is the least attractive of the passes.

If I were you, I'd either blitz drive straight to the coast and do CA-WA-OR and then blitz drive home, OR I'd take in just the Southwest (with more time in Utah), OR I'd take in just the SD-WY-MO areas.

I think if you try to do too much, you're going to be missing way too many things. And you'll have no time for serendipity!

[LA Native]

That's a pretty big roadtrip. But I agree with everyone else, unless your goal is to sit in a car all the time, I'd probably cut it down a lot more. Also, you have to remember schedules, just because you allow 8 hours of sightseeing in one place, if you arrive at night and leave in the morning, you might as well have skipped it. I'd would probably say 500 miles a day max, maybe more if you're driving through large expanses, and definitely a lot less around major cities or national parks.

Area 51 is definitely an interesting place to visit, but you probalby already know, it's not very close to anything. So make sure you've got plenty of gas or you'll be sitting around waiting for the 1 gas station in town to open, so they can charge you $3.69/gal when gas was $1.20/gal. It was one of those old style pumps, the kind with the wheels that spin 'round and 'round. I swear the wheels right next to the $ sign were spinning so fast I thought I was at a slot machine in vegas . I half expected a jackpot to come out when it finally stopped somewhere in the $40 range. Of course the meter that was actually measuring the amount of fuel moved so slow, it appeared to be straight out of the matrix.

The local one armed waiter was really interesting to talk to, like someone straight out of the X-files. And don't forget to visit the white mailbox (or black if it was repainted recently). And do not try and cross the boundry into Area 51 late at night. You ARE being watched as soon as you start driving the 14 mile dirt road torwards the base, security is still very active. I know that for a fact.

[cool]

I just returned from a 9 day road trip thru UT and CO. Our intention was to see a lot of places, hike a lil, but even then we ended up driving a lot. Specially, after being to all the places, driving all the way to late evening to reach our night stay, it was hectic. You might see a lot more places if you restrict your driving. Again, depends on what you want to see. If you just wanna drive through all the places, u could go ahead.

I would sure suggest zion, bryce, capitol reef, arches for sure. Hwy 12 is extremely scenic.
Weather permitting RMNP is awesome. Trail ridge road was closed last weekend; But they were sure that it would open soon. Nothing like it.

And yea... four corners charge $3 per person. They close by 9 pm. You can hardly see stars at that time.

If you are going all the way to Yellowstone, stopping by the tetons is a good option.

Plan ahead. Good luck.

[Lycwolf]

Thanks for all the replys, good information

BTW, i hopefully will hit up a few Free WIFI points on the way, so i will check in and have lots o pics.