Planning a RT from MN to CA

[raeve]

Hey everyone, I'm new here and I'm still in the "dreaming" phase of my Road Trip idea. I probably won't be able to do it until 2008, but nevertheless it would be great if you guys could give me advice - when to go, where to stay, how to save money, how to buy and sell an old car, how long it should take.... I'd preferably do it with 4 people, or if I can't find 4, then at least 3 or 2 people.

I have a route planned out, which you can see here.
It starts in Minneapolis, over Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, NY, DC, Tennessee, Florida, New Orleans, Texas, Arizona and then San Diego, LA, San Francisco. Of course google only gives you interstate, which we probably won't take all the time. And who knows where the roads will lead us once we're on them...

Edit: When to do it? Since MN is cold, I thought the best might be to start in Summer, but I guess the south is very hot in summer? May/June/July or August/September/October or something like that?

According to google it's 5 days and 16 hours - I made 6 days of that and converted it to an average of 9 hours of driving per day, which is 16 days. I added 2-3 days of stay in every bigger city, which is around 80 days, or 3 months. I also tried to calculate food and motels and gas and all such things, and ended up with something like 6550$ per person..... What do you think about that? How can 2-4 people save money on the road?

Thanks in advance :)