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The Ultimate Road Trip/Vacation
For the past 6 months I've had this nagging feeling that I just wanted (and needed) a vacation after having gone through high school, and now 4 years of college(one year left, that's what happens when you change majors a bunch).....so next summer (2008) I planned on taking about a month off, packing my car and driving to all the places in America that I'd never been to, some that I had been to and all that I wanted to go to. I figured that if I didn't take this epic road trip now I would probably be a long time before I was afforded the time to take a month off.
After discussing this trip with a few friends they all decided that it was just about the greatest idea that they have ever heard of....and so it began. What started out as a 30 solo road trip morphed into an even greater once in a lifetime event. We discussed the idea of renting a van, or possibly buying something relatively cheap and using that...but that wasn't good enough. Then the light bulb went off over my head....what about a bus?! We'll have more room...a place to sleep and did I mention that we'll have more room? : )
The search began, I immediatly hit ebay.com...low and behold I came across a former school bus that had been converted into a camper. Fast forward two weeks and me and a buddy are on a plane flying to Kansas, City MO...we then drove to Tulsa, OK and bought the 48statebus. We drove it, the better part of 2 days back to Pensacola, FL and here it rests waiting for our adventure at the beginning of next May.
By the way, we're not hippies I swear I know that if you think of a a converted bus you get this visual image of a rainbow colored rolling mural full of pot smoking hairy people but that's not us AT ALL...we're just a bunch of college kids that want to enjoy life while we can...after all eventually we'll all be dead!
If you go to the bus' website, you'll be able to check out a bunch of pictures of the bus and a few of the lucky people able to go on this trip.
Since we bought the bus we've knocked down 1of the walls to the "bathroom" and threw the porter-potty out. We installed a second futon and switched to a smaller (less stinky) fridge that was more suitable to what we needed. We've now got the 8 people that we were hoping for but the biggest news is the map that we've layed out for the trip. If that map link doesn't work the myspace page has a hyperlink in bright red letters that say "the map"...it'll definitely work that way. That link will show you everywhere we're planning on driving and stopping, but here's the 48 day break down.
Day 1: Lunch in New Orleans. Drive to Memphis, Tn. It's gonna be a long day
Day 2: Another long day of driving stopping in Tulsa, OK
Day 3: Drive almost to Albaquerque, NM on route 66 some parts of the day
Day 4: Drive to "the 4 corners" that night arrive at Glen Canyon National Recreational Area)this is where it gets good...
Day 5, 6, 7: Rent a houseboat on Lake Powell...the thing is BAD!
Day 8: Drive to the Grand Canyon, and then on to Lake Mead which is right next to Vegas
Day 9 and 10: Vegas
Day 11: sleep in b/c we'll be out late in Vegas and then drive to San Diego
Day 12: San Diego Zoo
Day 13: Drive to LA
Day 14: LA
Day 15: Drive to Yosemite National Park
Day 16: Yosemite
Day 17 and 18: San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Tour, Ride the Cable Car
Day 19: Drive to Winnemucca, NV my friend wants to go Opel farming...whatever
Day 20: opel farm
Day 21: Drive to Crater Lake
Day 22: Crater Lake
Day 23: Drive to Mt. Rainier
Day 24: Mt. Rainier/Seattle, Space Needle, Ferry Boat, the Underground Tour
Day 25: Long day of Driving to Yellowstone
Day 26 and 27: Yellowstone
Day 28: Long Days drive to Mt. Rushmore
Day 29: Mt. Rushmore
Day 30: Longest Drive of the trip...hopefully reach Chicago or just outside of Chicago
Day 31: Chicago Sears Tower, Wrigley Field
Day 32: Detroit, GM center
Day 33: Cleveland, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Day 34: Drive to Buffalo, NY
Day 35: Niagara Falls, Maid of the Mist, Canada
Day 36: Drive to Adirondack State Park
Day 37: Drive to Maine, eat lobster....yum
Day 38: Drive to New York City
Day 39-41: NY, all the touristy stuff: Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, Metropolitian Muesum of Art, Empire State Building and maybe even a tour.
Day 42 and 43: Drive to spend a day in Hershey Park riding roller coasters
Day 44: Philly
Day 45: Drive to Washington D.C.
Day 46: Washington D.C.
Day 47: Drive to my grandparents house in Latta, SC for some home cooked meals and a free place to sleep
Day 48: Drive back to Pensacola
We'll be doing more in a month and a half than most people do in their lives! I'm especially excited about the houseboat and the helicopter tour...that should really be amazing.
So what do you guys think, anything we've left out or that you would change? Is Cleveland not worth an entire day, only 2 of us really want to go to the rock and roll hall of fame, is it worth it?
Let me know what ya think....
I don't really know why this was moved from the summer roadtrip section...we are going in the summer and are in the planning stages...so it seemed to fit. Oh well, didn't mean to mess up the order of things, sorry 'bout that...
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