Thanks for all of the thoughtful responses everyone! We decided to skip the RV and are instead going to rent a big SUV and are going to make the trip over 7 days and stay at AirBnBs where our pup can hang out while we explore. We are early risers, so we'll likely be on the road every day at 6:30/7A so we can get where we are going with some daylight left to explore.

Here's the plan we came up with:

Day 1: 9 hours (a long day) to Indianapolis. This is really purely a travel day, but we will try and find some places to check out in Indy.

Day 2: 4 hours to St Louis, MO. Easy driving day and plenty of time to go see the Arch and maybe check out the zoo.

Day 3: 6 hours to Salina, KS. Mid-range day, but we can make it by mid afternoon. We'll eat way too much BBQ and find something fun to check out.

Day 4: 6 hours to Denver, CO. Mostly site seeing planned and enjoy the views.

Day 5: 7 hours to Richfield, UT. Again mostly a site seeing day, but we'll get some hikes in that are right near the cabin we are renting.

Day 6: 8.5 hours (the last long day) to Reno, NV. People watching and exploring a cool city.

Day 7: 4 hours to San Francisco. We have arrived!

Going to try and find some cool places to stop mid-way each day which will add an hour or so to the travel times, I figure.

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Quote Originally Posted by BillyGr View Post
One thing that you didn't mention - are the kids at a point (age etc. wise) that they would be OK without being with Mom for a few days?

And, if so, would you be OK having the kids and the dog to deal with solo?

If both of those are feasible, you might be able to stretch things out a bit by starting out (with the car or RV, whatever is easier) on Sunday (since that would fit the dance schedule on Saturday), drive (with all of you) at a somewhat slower pace for several days (say until Thursday or even Friday), and set the route such that you end up at a city with a halfway decent airport.

Drop Mom off there, she flies from that point to the destination (that allows her to be there in time for Monday), while the rest of you continue the drive. That way, if you need extra day(s), it's not an issue (or at least based on what you said so far - I can assume that the kid(s), if in school, will be done by the time you leave, and you didn't mention a due date for you), but they are also not being separated for a whole week+, only for a few days.

And, depending on the method of transport, even the single (shorter) flight may still not make it more (or not much) than the cost of the pet transport would have been.
That's a clever idea! If we were going somewhere we had more of a support system to land in, I think this would work. The kids and I would totally be fine without mom, but she wouldn't be comfortable getting there solo.