San Franciso to Vegas - what to do ?

[Mark Sedenquist]

-leaving San Francisco, should we start on 1 and drive the coast from their, or should we drive the 101 and get down to santa cruz before hitting the coast?

Given the time parameters I would avoid using any of US-101 south from San Francisco! I would suggest you use I-280 to SR-85 to SR-17 and follow that to Santa Cruz and then south on SR-1. [While it is true you could follow SR-1 all the way from San Francisco and it is a pretty road -- but you still have a time problem]

- have found AZbucks route accross from Cambria, but if we went further south to avila beach, my maps arn't detailed enough to follow marks rout up to bakersfield. do you start just north of Santa Maria off the 101 throuh to 5

Don' forget you can use anyone of the online mapping programs and get more detail than you will ever need. Google Maps or Yahoo's Earth are pretty fun. But, yes, SR-168 joins US-101 just to the north of Santa Maria and then it skirts the southern edge of the Carrizo Plain National Monument -- but I am suggesting that you bypass I-5 and go all the way over to SR-99 before heading north to Bakersfield.

- have plotted Marks suggestion up through death valley, if we stay in avila beach, does that leave a a big drive on the second day from there to las vegas, your should we stay in bakersfeild. getting the impression that avila beach would be more of an experience for us.

It can be done in a day -- a long day, but not a killer day.

Mark