7 Weeks across America - Realistic or Delusional?

[Lifemagician]

i planned 12 days because of all the road has to offer. i now have the ez66 guide and other route66 books. they show pretty nice attractions to visit...

the only cuts i can make are from the 2 routes. i don't really want to cut time from the cities.

How does 8 days per route sound?

That gives me 12 Days for the Parks..

This is the important part about a roadtrip. It has to go where you want to go.

I think your plan will work, especially if you visit some of the NPs when driving your chosen routes. I would still leave some flexibily for last minute change of mind.

I will be having the Rand McNally Large Scale Atlas for Navigation but i still would like to have google maps as a backup. that is why i am still working on the kml file. And i promise it is just a backup.

The large scale is a bit bulky and heavy, but it is much easier to read. What I do with my Rand McNally to make it a souvenir of my trip, each night I sit down and hilight each and every road on which I travelled. It is great when you later look back over your trip, or when sharing with others. When I look through mine it is almost as if I am driving those roads again.

Have a great trip.

Lifey

[GST]

This is the important part about a roadtrip. It has to go where you want to go.

I think your plan will work, especially if you visit some of the NPs when driving your chosen routes.

I won't be driving the entire Routes. It is just not possible to do if i want to see the NPs

The Plan is:

driving Route 66 from Chicago to Flagstaff. Ditching the Rest of Route66 for the sake of the NPs.

driving the Route 50 from Sacramento to St.Louis. From St.Louis to Chicago via smaller parts of Great River Road and Oregon Trail.

I have a booklet called 24 Places you must see on Route66 from the National Historic Route 66 Federation.

I guess will just focus on the first 17 of these most important attractions being:

1. Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant, Chicago
2. Pontiac, Illinois Murals
3. Cozy Dog Drive In, Springfield, IL
4. Ariston Cafe, Litchfield, IL
5. Henry’s Rabbit Ranch, Staunton, IL
6. Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge
7. Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, St. Louis, MO
8. Munger Moss Motel
9. Afton Station
10. POPS, Arcadia, OK
11. Oklahoma Route 66 Museum
12. U-Drop Inn, Shamrock, TX
13. Big Texan Steak Ranch, Amarillo, TX
14. Blue Swallow Motel, Tucumcari, NM
15. Santa Fe 66
16. El Rancho Hotel, Gallup, NM
17. La Posada Hotel, Winslow, AZ

and then continue with the NPs.

I guess these 17 attractions are doable in 8 days.

what do you guys think?

[Southwest Dave]

You can still follow parts of route 66 after Flagstaff, there is Williams, Seligman and King man that can all be seen after the Grand canyon.

So if I am correct you have 31 days for the road trip out and back from Chicago including the National parks ? [not including 5 days in SF] Here is a rough sketch of what your trip could then look like.

Out.

Day 1. Chicago to Springfield IL.
Day 2 Springfield to St Louis.
Day 3. St Louis to Arcadia. [[Tulsa ?]

Day 4. to Oklahoma.
Day 5. Oklahoma to Amarillo.
Day 6 Amarillo to Albuquerque.
Day 7 Albu to Winslow.
Day 8. Winslow to Monument Valley.
Day 9 and 10. Grand canyon. [to Flagstaff]
Day11 Flagstaff to Williams/Seligman and Kingman.
Day 12 Kingman to Las Vegas via Hoover Dam.
Day 13 Las Vegas.
Day 14 Las Vegas to Bishop via Death valley.
Day 15 and 16 Yosemite.
Day 17 San Fran [5 days]

Back.

Day 18 SF to Lake Tahoe
Day 19 Lake Tahoe to Ely or Baker. [Great basin NP]
Day 20 Great Basin to Zion NP.
Day 21 Zion.
Day 22 Zion to Bryce canyon
Day 23 Bryce canyon to Capital Reef NP. [UT scenic 12]
Day 24 CR [Torrey] to Moab UT
Day 25 Arches and Canyonlands. [Moab UT]
Day 26 Moab to Durango CO [Mesa Verde NP?]
Day 27 Durango to Montrose. Million dollar Highway. [Silverton and Ouray on way]
Day 28 Montrose to Canon City. [Black canyon, Currecanti Nat res, Monarch pass, Royal Gorge bridge]
Day 29 Canon City to Dodge City.
Day 30 Dodge City to Kansas City.
Day 31 back to Chicago

This gives you all your time in the City's and some breath taking National parks and scenic drives. Of course this is just a quick and rough guide to what is possible and will hopefully give you something to work with and then adjust as needed to suit your own personal goals.

[GST]

wow Dave!

Your Suggestion looks totally amazing.

But there is one thing i REALLY want to do on the Route 50 and that is the Pony Express Survival Challenge. After Completion you get this Certificate. I MUST have this.

Your suggestion is still mind-blowing and i will definitely give it a closer look.

Damn! This Forum is AMAZING! i am so glad i found you guys.

[Midwest Michael]

I can't quite figure out what you have to do to complete that challenge (which does look pretty neat) but how long do you think you'll need for that section of the trip?

The idea Dave laid out would give you a full day to make the trip across Nevada. If Lake Tahoe isn't a priority, you could get started on US-50 the day you leave SF, and look to spend the night in Fallon. Dave's plan also gives a full day to get from Great Basin to Zion, so could likely use half of that day to continue your exploration around eastern Nevada.

[GST]

I can't quite figure out what you have to do to complete that challenge (which does look pretty neat) but how long do you think you'll need for that section of the trip?

This is the Survival Guide. You have to get stamps on the back of this Guide. As soon as you have completed all the stamps which need to be collected in the 5 largest towns on the Pony Express Trail (Fernley, Fallon, Austin, Eureka and Ely) you can validate it and then you get the Certificate signed by the Governer.

I just HAVE to do this!

I am currently doing research on how long people needed to complete the challenge. I will let you guys know as i soon as i know more. But as a guess i would say a whole day as it is a 287-mile stretch from Fernley, Nevada to Baker, Nevada.

Dave's Plan is now the base of my planning. I will try to fit pony express and seqouia into his plan. I already had Lake Tahoe planned as a part of my Route 50 driving. So yes, it always was a priority.

[Southwest Dave]

You could leave Lake Tahoe and get to Fallon via Reno and Fernley and then continue to Ely the following day. That would add a day so you would need to alter something down the track, or leave SF after lunch half a day early and wake at Lake Tahoe. You could find that night by driving from Bryce canyon to Moab in one day and just stop to break the journey and have lunch at Capitol Reef NP.

In a similar fashion you could speed up a little on the way out to fit Sequoia NP into the equation, but you could also see the Giant Sequoia trees in Mariposa Grove, Yosemite.

[GST]

Hi Dave,

Thanks again for your input. Sounds a bit complicated. Time to open up some maps and have a closer look.

General Sherman is somehow high priority to me. It is the worlds largest tree and that is the reason why i want to see it.

Tioga Pass and Mono Lake would be nice too.

There is way tooo much to see and really difficult to decide what to ditch and what not.

Mesa Verde NP for example doesn't really seem to be so interesting. I could ditch that for something more exciting.

[glc]

How about this?

Leave LV via NV-160 to Pahrump, take the "locals route" to DV, leave via CA-190 to US-395, spending the night in Bishop. Take that to Lee Vining, checking out Mono Lake, and enter Yosemite via Tioga Pass (CA-120). Leave Yosemite via CA-41 to Fresno and enter Sequoia on CA-180. Leave Sequoia to the south on CA-198 through Visalia to I-5 and deadhead it to SF. You could spend the night in Visalia, from there to SF is less than 4 hours.

Then leaving SF, take I-80 to Sacramento and US-50 to Tahoe. That's less than a 4 hour drive and will leave you the rest of the day to do the drive all the way around the lake - spend the night in South Lake Tahoe. Then you can take US-50 from Tahoe to Ely. It's about 6 hours from Tahoe to Ely, an easy day's drive and Ely has a good selection of lodging. Have dinner in Ely at the Cellblock - it's a steakhouse in the back of the Jailhouse Casino and you actually eat in an old jail cell. The Main Motel is a decent little restored 50's style roadside motel that used to be a Best Western.

[GST]

Hi glc,

Thanks for your input!

I checked your suggestion in google maps and i liked it a lot.

spend the night in South Lake Tahoe. Then you can take US-50 from Tahoe to Ely. It's about 6 hours from Tahoe to Ely, an easy day's drive and Ely has a good selection of lodging

I guess this is where i could do the Pony Express challenge and then stick to Dave's Plan.

I know Google Maps is not the way to go but it is extremely helpful while planning. I will ofcourse focus on Paper Maps as soon as most of the Planning is done which is soo not the case yet.