We are embarking on our first road trip with three older children who are very used to 5 hour+ trips each direction to our cabin and we're sure we could add a couple of hours per day to that if needed. We are leaving from Mpls heading to the west coast with 12 days. I'm thinking we could do 3-4 days each direction and have 4-5 days to split between the Seattle and Portland (1 day at the coast) areas before heading back to Mpls. I realize it is a very tight timeline but the goal is to get to the PNW area, the bonus would be to see a few highlights on the way there and back to give us an idea of future trips we'd like to plan. We will do Yellowstone as a separate trip next year or in the fall. I'm especially overwhelmed with how to plan for hotel stops ahead of time. I'd love suggestions for the one thing to see in each state on our drive through NDakota, Montana, Idaho on the way. I'm not sure what our return route should/could be so I'd love help with highlights we could see there. We are going into this with eyes wide open that we will be scratching the tip of the iceberg of travel but hope it opens the door to many more trips. We love hikes/parks/nature as opposed to tourist attractions.