Virginia to Colorado and back

[NowthatIamretired]

We are getting closer and think we basically have our schedule down. First part hasn’t change and return is getting clearer. How does this sound?

Day 1: Central Virginia - Louisville
Day 2: Louisville - St. Louis (Arch, downtown area)
Day 3: St. Louis - Abilene, KS (Eisenhour Library)
Day 4: Abilene - Denver area
Day 5- 7: visiting family
Day 8: Denver - Devils Tower (staying in Sundance)
Day 9: Devils Tower - Rapid City (Mt. Rushmore/Crazy Horse)
Day 10: Rapid City - Bismarck, ND (Badlands on the way)
Day 11: Bismarck - Minneapolis (MOA, maybe downtown)
Day 12: Minneapolis - Chicago (visit friends)
Day 13-?: Chicago - Virginia (still unsure if need to stop in Indiana or not)

It’s not a lot of time in any one spot but hopefully also not overkill. Thoughts?

[NowthatIamretired]

We are getting closer and think we basically have our schedule down. First part hasn’t change and return is getting clearer. How does this sound?

Day 1: Central Virginia - Louisville
Day 2: Louisville - St. Louis (Arch, downtown area)
Day 3: St. Louis - Abilene, KS (Eisenhour Library)
Day 4: Abilene - Denver area
Day 5- 7: visiting family
Day 8: Denver - Devils Tower (staying in Sundance)
Day 9: Devils Tower - Rapid City (Mt. Rushmore/Crazy Horse)
Day 10: Rapid City - Bismarck, ND (Badlands on the way)
Day 11: Bismarck - Minneapolis (MOA, maybe downtown)
Day 12: Minneapolis - Chicago (visit friends)
Day 13-?: Chicago - Virginia (still unsure if need to stop in Indiana or not)

It’s not a lot of time in any one spot but hopefully also not overkill. Thoughts?

Well, we finished Day 1, very easy drive through West Virginia, love that road. Best part of the day? Discovering we are staying tonight at the hotel where an Honor Floght is leaving from tomorrow morning. Over 60 WW 2 vets, 20staying here tonight, are flying into DC to visit the WW II Memorial. This is such an incredible program. I use to live near enough DC that I’ve seen pictures of the groups visiting and have had friends volunteer to greet them at the airport. So grateful to them and their duty they served.

[Southwest Dave]

Wow, that's pretty neat, Thanks for the update. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

[DonnaR57]

Thanks for the notes about the road through WV and into Louisville. In a few weeks, we'll be on that road.

Have a good rest-of-your-trip, and keep us informed!


Donna

[NowthatIamretired]

Just got back here and saw my first day Post was finally up. To do a quick catch up, here is where we are as of now.

Day 2 was Louisville to St. Louis. Great trip, we got there about lunch time. I had already prepurchased tickets for the river boat ride and for going up the Arch so we easily did both of those. Very nice. Down side is I booked a economically cheaper hotel near the airport without realizing that was not the greatest of neighborhoods to be in. Still, it worked out fine as we were there just to sleep and go the next morning.

Day 3; ended up having lunch with a friend in Kansas City. She took us to the Steamboat Arabia exhibit downtown. Neat history as this steamboat had sink there back in the 19th century and was never recovered until late 20th century. They compared it to King Tuts tomb, most items had been preserved in excellent condition, even the linens and cloth on board. We didn’t have time to tour but was definitely something to do if in Kansas City longer. From there we drove to Abilene, Kansas and got in with enough time to visit the Einsenhour Homestead and library. Very interesting. We stayed there that night. Again, not a great hotel but the price was right for one night.

Day 4: Ended up stopping in Hays, KS to visit Fort Hays, one of the forts to protect the West. Not big but just the right size for a diversion from boring I-70 through Kansas. We got to our family late afternoon which worked out perfectly.

Days 5-7: was at our family’s home. We’ve done a lot of sight seeing around Denver in the past so this time went up to revisit Red Rocks Theatre. The day was so clear we could see east as far as the airport. It’s an incredible place. From there we had lunch in Golden then drove up to Lookout Mountain above Golden and saw Wild Bill Cody’s gravesite.

Day 8: left Denver area and drove to Sundance, WY and visited Devils Tower late afternoon. Amazing place. Stayed in Sundance that night.

Day 9: drove straight from there to Mount Rushmore arriving abt 10:00 and spent the morning. From there we drove in to Crazy Horse and had lunch in their restaurant which was very good and reasonably priced. After CrazyHorse we had some extra time so checked out a local winery then headed to the hotel in Keystone. In the evening we went back to Mount Rushmore for the evening show and illumination. Very worth doing.

Day 10: left Keystone and stopped at Wall Drig, just because you need to see the place. Then we drove through the Badlands. What an incredible drive and sights. We did very little hiking and didn’t stop at every turnoff but did stop at the visitors center for their short movie and displays. From there we stopped at the Minuteman Missile Visitors Center. Wow, I would recommend that to anyone. It’s not big but has such a history of the minuteman missiles, the Cold War and just how scarily close we came to nuclear devastation a coupe of times. They also have a missike site you can visit further west in I-70 as well as a tour going down into the control room at another site but tickets for that are hard to get and we didn’t have extra time for those. Instead we headed east and finally stopped for the night in Mitchell, SD and of course, had to see the Corn Palace! Maybe because I grew up on a farm but I thought it was great. Yes, it’s cheesy in some ways but still it’s Americano!

Day 11: we took a convoluted route to Minneapolis, by way of the corner of North Dakota so both of us could check off that state for visiting. For my DH it was his 50th and final state he’s been in so it was significant. We ended up at a hotel near the Mall of America for the night. MOA proved to be a good place to walk and get some exercise but for me it’s way over the top in both shopping and entertainment.

Tomorrow we head to friends in the Chicago area the. Need to figure out what we are doing on Saturday as I do need to do family business in Indiana on Monday. So, most of this trip is over and so far it’s been great.

The pace has been good for us. We like arriving somewhere late afternoon so we have the evening to rest, then we are early birds on the road the next day. The most we’ve driven in one day so far was the first day and that was just over 500 miles. Maybe it’s hopeful as my hubby and I are still speaking to each other and have even started talking about what and where we can do this again!

[NowthatIamretired]

Hello again. Finishing up our trip, not too much else to add. We spent Day 12 driving to friends home near Chicago then spent the next day exploring down town Chicago. That was fun but one of the hottest days of the year. After that we drove to my home town in Indiana and completed the business I needed to do.

We left that area, northeastern Indiana, about 12:30 and ended up driving straight through to our home in Central Virginia arriving a little after 10:00 pm, about ten hours driving, or around 600 miles. I don’t recommend it but after two weeks on the road both of us were ready for our own bed!

Thoughts and some numbers, thanks to having Hum on my car. We drove almost 4500 miles in 15 days. Our longest days were the first one, 530 miles and the last one, 600 miles. That was our absolute max. I really liked getting going early and arriving mid to late afternoon so we could check in and rest and/or see something yet at that time. This was the longest road trip we’ve done and while I didn’t mind the driving, the going everyday and every night a different hotel got old. On the positive side, hubby and I are still talking to each other despite all the “together time” and are speculating what else we still want to see here in the US and how we would structure another trip in the future.