The St. Louis Arch is one of the most recommended places to visit here. Both by the moderators here and visitors to the forum. But we're all different and have different interests and expectations. Your might share your friend's opinions on the Arch but you might be pleasantly surprised by it, too. I encourage you to keep an open mind about it and try it this trip or another time. Enjoy your trip!
I've been to AAA's office and got all relevant maps and tourbooks. They even printed a color pamphlet for me using their "TripTik."
The basic route is as follows.
Boston --I90--> Buffalo (2 nights: Finger Lakes, Niagara Falls)
Buffalo --I90--> Chicago (2 or 3 nights)
Chicago --I94--> Minneapolis (1 night)
Minneapolis --F169-S60-I90--> Mount Rushmore National Memorial, SD (2 nights)
Rushmore --I90--> Yellowstone National Park, WY (3 nights)
Yellow Stone --F20-I15--> Salt Lake City (1 night)
Salt Lake City --I15--> Zion Nation Park, UT (1 night)
Zion --S9-F89-S64--> Grand Canyon Village (2 nights)
Grand Canyon --F64-I40--> Flagstaff/Phoenix (1 night)
Flagstaff/Phoenix --I40/I8--> San Diego (1 or 2 nights)
There are 16 to 18 nights totally.
If we feel tired and want to get to our new home as quickly as possible, we may cancel the trip to the Grand Canyon after Zion and move on to San Diego with a possible stay at Las Vegas for one night.
Any comments are appreciated.
And I can see that going to St. Louis is very out of your way. The only leg that is really pushing it is Minneapolis to Mt. Rushmore at over 650 miles. It's do-able and you do have plenty of days built into your trip where you're not driving so you should be rested for the long drive. But you will want to leave Minneapolis quite early that day so you don't get into the Rushmore area much later than you'd like.
Grand Canyon is a 3-4 day weekend trip from San Diego. It makes sense to save this for another time.
And it's only about 500 miles from Zion to San Diego. You could stay another night in Zion and go all the way to San Diego the night day, or go to Vegas for one night. Whatever you prefer.
It sounds like you have a great trip planned. Enjoy!
I don't know whether it's proper for me to ask a question about moving at this forum but I did find friends here are very very helpful for me to make our plan to drive to San Diego.
In addtion to driving by ourselves, we would also like to have our other stuff moved by a moving company. I appreciate it very much if any friend here can give us any tips or suggestions on how to find a reliable moving company that can do the moving from Boston to San Diego.
[Editor's Note: That subject is beyond the focus of this Forum]
Last edited by Mark Sedenquist; 06-09-2007 at 07:42 AM. Reason: policy
You can cruise the Mother Road from Chicago all the way to LA which would also include the Arch in St. Louis. You'll get to see a fine slice of Americana and their are plenty of guidebooks to help you along.
Keep on Down that two Lane Highway. --RoadDog
Thank you RoadDog. I decided to save St. Louis for another trip in the future and go to Rushmore and Yellowstone instead after leaving Chicago.
I, however, saw the aerial map of Rushmore on mapquest.com and found that the road is only thin thread winding through huge mountains. Now I really doubt whether we can make it. Or, should we simply take the easiest way to San Diego and arrive there safely?
Aren't you still driving your Camry? I can assure you that all sorts of vehicles drive to Mt. Rushmore on a regular basis. It's not even really a mountain in the typical sense. It's only 5725 feet high. In my part of the country, this is just a big hill. I can't imagine any scenario where the elevation or the roads will cause you any problem.