Hi
Myself and my wife are planning a road trip from Seattle to Little Rock. From the research I have done there are two routes, both of which intersect at Cheyenne WY after which the route is common.

1) Seattle -(i-90)- Billings, MT -( i-25 south) which eventuall goes to cheyenne .....;then I go on through Denver etc.

2) Seattle - (i-90) - (i-82e) - (i-84e)- (i-80e). These are via Boise,IH and SLC,UT. I finally reach the common point Cheyenne and then go on through Denver etc.

I am not able to decide which route to take. The 1st one is 60 miles longer than the 2nd one. Questions are -

1. which route has steeper gradients and lot of curvy mountain driving? Slows driving increasing driving time?

2. which route has traffic? I definitely want to avoid high traffic zones on the leg till Cheyenne at least. By high traffic zone I mean something like i-5 which always has a lot of traffic. I suppose I would get stuck in traffic in Boise and SLC.

3) Are there any other shorter and quick routes? I would like to stick to interstates since we have 5-6 days max.

Please advise. I am planning on doing this in 5-6 days max with 2 of us driving. The maximum long distance driving I have done is Seattle - Yellowstone and that was at night. I know there was quite some moutain driving that we did on that trip and there was no traffic on the onward journey as well as the return.

thanks
Srinivas