Northwest Roadtrip

[MiAnYa]

Hi everyone! This is the first time I've planned a really long distance road trip. I will try to be as specific as I can. We will be leaving Paducah Kentucky and traveling to Snoqualamie, WA for the Twin Peaks Festival.

Since I've never been west of Missouri before I thought it would be great to see as many things as we can on this long trek. We will be leaving either very late July 19th or early on the 20th. The Festival starts July 24th and we have to be there by about 10 to register. I think we would spend more time on the part of the trip when we are leaving Snoqualamie, WA. I really want to keep the driving to a minimum of 10 hours a day if we can as well. That's more of a concern for the first part of our trip though.

We will also be looking around the Puget Sound Area because we may eventually relocate to that area. I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of it, and want to see the reality of it.

The route I plan to take is basically this.
Boulder, Co
Sea Lion Caves, Florence, OR
Snoqualamie, WA
San Juan Islands, WA
North Cascades National Park, WA
Glacier National Park, MT
Yellowstone National Park, WY
Crazy Horse Memorial. SD
Mount Rushmore, SD
Chicago, IL
Paducah, KY

I'm really not interested much in Missouri or Kansas for this trip, so I will be pushing to drive through that part as quickly as we can. I understand there are great things to see there, but just not this trip.

So... I guess, I'm wondering where the best places to camp might be, or cheap clean hotels. It will be my husband, myself and our daughter who will be almost 2 at that point (and possibly my 8 year old son). I will need to schedule in stops for her as well as breaks from driving for us. We love nature, museums, libraries, and I wouldn't be opposed to going to theme park type places for the kids. I'm doing this on a budget which is why we'll be alternating between camping and hotel rooms.

I don't have to see Boulder necessarily, but I would love to see the mountains of Colorado on this trip. If there is a better area that is more direct that would be great.

I know that I also went off the course a bit because I want to see the Sea Lion caves in Oregon, but I just can't imagine being that close and not seeing them. I know this got a bit wandery but if you can help me or give me advice I'd really appreciate it.