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dolariI wanted to title this "You have died of Dysentery" but decided not to jinx anything.
After debating the issue and a bit of soul searching, I've decided on cutting down a 16 hour leg of each drive to Seattle, and shortening it to 11 at the least, 13 at the most. I can handle a 16 hour drive (I once did a BRUISING 21 hour drive that ended up with me pulling off to the side of the road every 15 minutes to walk around the truck, and taking a 20 minute nap 2 miles from home because I didn't think I would make it otherwise), but that's going to be a bit much for two drivers, even cut into two 8 hour swaths who have no AC at the beginning of August.
It'll be boring as hell, too, as my laptop only has about 4 hours of power on one battery and my cigarette lighter hasn't worked in ages (I should look into getting that fixed, or a stronger battery, whichever comes first). Looking back at all my other cross country trips, 16 hours is about my limit.
12 should make for a fun trip, especially with two drivers. Oddly enough, this makes for more stops, but some really interesting ones, and gives us a few hours to explore our destinations (although one of them is iffy at best). Food is being handled in a very...creative way, so we may eat on the road (more about THAT later).
Route Rambling - folks in Santa Fe NM, Las Vegas, NV, Mojave CA, San Francisco CA, and Newport OR take note.
DAY 1 - San Antonio to Santa Fe, NM (In order of preference) - This segment has four routes I'm planning, mainly because I'm most familiar with Texas roads, and know what I'm getting when I drive it (Once exploring New Mexico, I had this elaborate route made out using nothing but State Routes, and ended up finding myself on the edge of a cliff with no barrier, and a car coming up at me. Sure, it was a nice view, I was just praying I wouldn't see it as I was going down into the valley).
The Great Circle Route was just me fiddling with Google Earth, making a straight line from San Antonio to Santa Fe, and seeing what I got. What I ended up with was a lot of areas of Texas I'd never seen before, low mileage (if not low time), and, well, "When am I going to back back around these parts?" Pros: low mileage, areas of Texas I've never seen before, fairly populated. Going through Roswell, maybe have a little side trip to the alien crash site. :) Cons: once you hit New Mexico, you got NUTHIN'. A whole lotta nuthin'. I made this trip before...it was a long long long trip.
Google's most direct route is what the website popped back after I asked it to give me it's best looking route. Not as straight a route, slightly longer, but more of it on a freeway. Once we get past Junction, that's as far as I've gone on I-10 (well, consciously (thankfully I wasn't driving)), so that's all new for me till we hit Carlsbad. Pros: areas of Texas I've never seen before, mostly freeways with services every exit. Again, there's Roswell. :) Old Alley Oop theme park. Cons: Mostly freeway through Texas, which is boring. It's also sparsely populated - exits can be ten miles apart in some places (heck, one part of the freeway has an at-grade stop for cross traffic!) INS checkpoints on I-10 may get dicey with a Canadian in the car. Between Pecos and and Carlsbad is a big nothing. Same with Roswell to Santa Fe.
Freeway Only Route. This one I picked to stick to the freeways and nothing else. It's longer mileagewise and timewise, but it's freeway all the way through, which means services every exit and highway patrol when there isn't. Pros: Freeway all the way, lots of services, pretty populated between San Antonio and Junction and El Paso to Santa Fe. Old Alley Oops theme park. Cons: All freeway - boring. Much longer, with backtracking. Goes through some hot desert areas. Will probably stop in Albuquerque instead of Santa Fe. INS checkpoints on I-10 may get dicey with a Canadian in the car.
Jenn's "Courting Disaster" route. No I wont' be doing this, but I wanted to see how it would work out. This is the route we did in 1990-something on our way to Yellowstone. In one of my dad's rare "I won't plan out (down to the minute) our vacation" moment, he allowed me to pick a route. His only caveat was "Get us to Carlsbad." So I picked this long route via US 90, which I'd never seen before. IT was GORGEOUS. Everyone had a great time, and thought it was a blast. Then our car broke down - but thankfully, it broke down in Santa Fe. PROS: Gorgeous. I know a spot near Langtry where you can park your car and look across the Rio Grande at Mexico. Cons: Long long swaths of NOTHING while driving in the desert, including a 54 mile stretch of NOTHING, ZERO, EMPTY. No crossroads, no cities, no houses, no gas, no anything. NADA, ZIP, ZILCH, ZERO. also, very long and in the desert.
More than likely, I'll be picking the "Great Circle" route. It'll be a but longer, but more scenic, and enjoyable all around. Plus I'll get to see some of Texas.
DAY 2 - Santa Fe, NM to Las Vegas, NV -OR- Santa Fe, NM to Mojave, CA. This segment has two routes and two destinations depending on how we decide to drive it. Each goes through northern Arizona, mainly because it's higher on a plateau in the Rockies, and quite a bit cooler (On Saturday, Phoenix is expected to hit 108, Flagstaff will be 83). I'll still have to cross some horrible desert, but at the same time, It'll be a quick clip (a half day hopefully), instead of broiling for two days via a southern route). The difference comes from wanting to sightsee.
Mojave route: This is just what it says is it - goes straight through to Mojave, no looking back. Mojave was chosen simply because that's where the 12 hour mark is, and going into San Francisco would have put us somewhere at 16 or 17 hour mark. Pro: Fastest way through the desert. Cons: nothing to see here, move along.
Las Vegas Route: IT'S A BUFFET OF SIGHTSEEING. The Arizona Crater, the Grand Ganyon, Boulder Dam, Lake Mead, LAs Vegas, THE SEARING HELL THAT IS THE NEVADA DESERT. They don't call it Death Valley for nothing. It would be a tight schedule for sure. I have it as 12 hours of driving, but I've kind of been giving me 16 hour days to do stuff. The problem is, on this stretch, there's a LOT to see. Even figuring in 4 hours to catch one or two things, we're still missing out. An hour at Meteor Crater? An hour at Grand Canyon? An hour at Boulder Dam? That's not a lot of time. And we'd be missing out on Las Vegas at night, too since we'd just have to pull in and sleep. We may end up having to break this into two days, with a full day just exploring Las Vegas (or maybe Las Vegas AND Lake Mead). Pros: SO MUCH TO SEE AND DO! Cons: SO MUCH TO SEE AND DO...but we gotta keep moving along. We'll also be deep in the heart of the American Southwest Desert in Vegas. In summer. In a car with no AC. And a Canadian.
DAY 3 - Mojave, CA/Las Vegas, NV to San Francisco, CA.. This route's been combined into one route, since to get to San Francisco from LAs Vegas, you go through Mojave anyway. The mileage is for San Francisco, but considering my friends and family live either in Antioch, Danville or Oakland, it really should be more eastward.
The only con to this route is coming from Las Vegas. Again - we're going through desert - Death Valley is just up the street from the route Google chose.
DAY 4 - San Francisco, CA to Seattle, WA
Day four, just means the fourth day of travel - I do plan to be in the area for a while to visit with friends and family (maybe a fan or two), dpending on how much money and time I have. This route, though, will be a long haul, prolly the longest of the bunch. But from this point up, it's going to be pretty smooth sailing. Cooler temps more population. We may need to put the pedal down, but I think we make it in one go....
So - any advice, tips, tricks, places of interest, cheap lodging, or Americana I should know about? We're still out by a month and a half...nows the time to tell me what a fool I am. :D
After debating the issue and a bit of soul searching, I've decided on cutting down a 16 hour leg of each drive to Seattle, and shortening it to 11 at the least, 13 at the most. I can handle a 16 hour drive (I once did a BRUISING 21 hour drive that ended up with me pulling off to the side of the road every 15 minutes to walk around the truck, and taking a 20 minute nap 2 miles from home because I didn't think I would make it otherwise), but that's going to be a bit much for two drivers, even cut into two 8 hour swaths who have no AC at the beginning of August.
It'll be boring as hell, too, as my laptop only has about 4 hours of power on one battery and my cigarette lighter hasn't worked in ages (I should look into getting that fixed, or a stronger battery, whichever comes first). Looking back at all my other cross country trips, 16 hours is about my limit.
12 should make for a fun trip, especially with two drivers. Oddly enough, this makes for more stops, but some really interesting ones, and gives us a few hours to explore our destinations (although one of them is iffy at best). Food is being handled in a very...creative way, so we may eat on the road (more about THAT later).
Route Rambling - folks in Santa Fe NM, Las Vegas, NV, Mojave CA, San Francisco CA, and Newport OR take note.
DAY 1 - San Antonio to Santa Fe, NM (In order of preference) - This segment has four routes I'm planning, mainly because I'm most familiar with Texas roads, and know what I'm getting when I drive it (Once exploring New Mexico, I had this elaborate route made out using nothing but State Routes, and ended up finding myself on the edge of a cliff with no barrier, and a car coming up at me. Sure, it was a nice view, I was just praying I wouldn't see it as I was going down into the valley).
Great circle route - San Antonio, Kerville, San Angelo, Big Spring, Lamesa, Brownfield, into New Mexico through Roswell into Santa Fe - 706 Miles, 12h 23m
Google's most direct route - San Antonio, Kerville, Pecos, into New Mexico through Carlsbad, Artesia, Roswell, Santa Fe - 721 miles 11h 32m
Freeway only route - San Antonio, Kerrville, San Elizario, El Paso, Anthony, into New Mexico through Las Cruces, Socorro, Belen, Los Lunas, Albuquerque/Santa Fe - 880 miles, 11h 58m
Jenn's "Courting Disaster" route - San Antonio, Uvalde, Del Rio, Langtry, Alpine, Marfa, Van Horn into New Mexico through Carldbad, Artesia, Roswell, Encino, Villanueva, Santa Fe - 861 miles, 17h 21m
The Great Circle Route was just me fiddling with Google Earth, making a straight line from San Antonio to Santa Fe, and seeing what I got. What I ended up with was a lot of areas of Texas I'd never seen before, low mileage (if not low time), and, well, "When am I going to back back around these parts?" Pros: low mileage, areas of Texas I've never seen before, fairly populated. Going through Roswell, maybe have a little side trip to the alien crash site. :) Cons: once you hit New Mexico, you got NUTHIN'. A whole lotta nuthin'. I made this trip before...it was a long long long trip.
Google's most direct route is what the website popped back after I asked it to give me it's best looking route. Not as straight a route, slightly longer, but more of it on a freeway. Once we get past Junction, that's as far as I've gone on I-10 (well, consciously (thankfully I wasn't driving)), so that's all new for me till we hit Carlsbad. Pros: areas of Texas I've never seen before, mostly freeways with services every exit. Again, there's Roswell. :) Old Alley Oop theme park. Cons: Mostly freeway through Texas, which is boring. It's also sparsely populated - exits can be ten miles apart in some places (heck, one part of the freeway has an at-grade stop for cross traffic!) INS checkpoints on I-10 may get dicey with a Canadian in the car. Between Pecos and and Carlsbad is a big nothing. Same with Roswell to Santa Fe.
Freeway Only Route. This one I picked to stick to the freeways and nothing else. It's longer mileagewise and timewise, but it's freeway all the way through, which means services every exit and highway patrol when there isn't. Pros: Freeway all the way, lots of services, pretty populated between San Antonio and Junction and El Paso to Santa Fe. Old Alley Oops theme park. Cons: All freeway - boring. Much longer, with backtracking. Goes through some hot desert areas. Will probably stop in Albuquerque instead of Santa Fe. INS checkpoints on I-10 may get dicey with a Canadian in the car.
Jenn's "Courting Disaster" route. No I wont' be doing this, but I wanted to see how it would work out. This is the route we did in 1990-something on our way to Yellowstone. In one of my dad's rare "I won't plan out (down to the minute) our vacation" moment, he allowed me to pick a route. His only caveat was "Get us to Carlsbad." So I picked this long route via US 90, which I'd never seen before. IT was GORGEOUS. Everyone had a great time, and thought it was a blast. Then our car broke down - but thankfully, it broke down in Santa Fe. PROS: Gorgeous. I know a spot near Langtry where you can park your car and look across the Rio Grande at Mexico. Cons: Long long swaths of NOTHING while driving in the desert, including a 54 mile stretch of NOTHING, ZERO, EMPTY. No crossroads, no cities, no houses, no gas, no anything. NADA, ZIP, ZILCH, ZERO. also, very long and in the desert.
More than likely, I'll be picking the "Great Circle" route. It'll be a but longer, but more scenic, and enjoyable all around. Plus I'll get to see some of Texas.
DAY 2 - Santa Fe, NM to Las Vegas, NV -OR- Santa Fe, NM to Mojave, CA. This segment has two routes and two destinations depending on how we decide to drive it. Each goes through northern Arizona, mainly because it's higher on a plateau in the Rockies, and quite a bit cooler (On Saturday, Phoenix is expected to hit 108, Flagstaff will be 83). I'll still have to cross some horrible desert, but at the same time, It'll be a quick clip (a half day hopefully), instead of broiling for two days via a southern route). The difference comes from wanting to sightsee.
Santa Fe to Mojave route: Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Grants, Gallup into Arizona through Winslow, Flagstaff, into California to Mojave. - 804 miles, 11h 23m
Santa Fe to Las Vegas route:Santa Fe, Grants, Thoreuau, Gallup, into Arizona through Holbrook, Winslow, Meteor Crater, Flagstaff, Cameron, Grand Canyon, Williams, Kingman, into Nevada at Boulder Dam, Boulder City, Henderson and Las Vegas - 773 Miles, 12h 14m
Mojave route: This is just what it says is it - goes straight through to Mojave, no looking back. Mojave was chosen simply because that's where the 12 hour mark is, and going into San Francisco would have put us somewhere at 16 or 17 hour mark. Pro: Fastest way through the desert. Cons: nothing to see here, move along.
Las Vegas Route: IT'S A BUFFET OF SIGHTSEEING. The Arizona Crater, the Grand Ganyon, Boulder Dam, Lake Mead, LAs Vegas, THE SEARING HELL THAT IS THE NEVADA DESERT. They don't call it Death Valley for nothing. It would be a tight schedule for sure. I have it as 12 hours of driving, but I've kind of been giving me 16 hour days to do stuff. The problem is, on this stretch, there's a LOT to see. Even figuring in 4 hours to catch one or two things, we're still missing out. An hour at Meteor Crater? An hour at Grand Canyon? An hour at Boulder Dam? That's not a lot of time. And we'd be missing out on Las Vegas at night, too since we'd just have to pull in and sleep. We may end up having to break this into two days, with a full day just exploring Las Vegas (or maybe Las Vegas AND Lake Mead). Pros: SO MUCH TO SEE AND DO! Cons: SO MUCH TO SEE AND DO...but we gotta keep moving along. We'll also be deep in the heart of the American Southwest Desert in Vegas. In summer. In a car with no AC. And a Canadian.
DAY 3 - Mojave, CA/Las Vegas, NV to San Francisco, CA.. This route's been combined into one route, since to get to San Francisco from LAs Vegas, you go through Mojave anyway. The mileage is for San Francisco, but considering my friends and family live either in Antioch, Danville or Oakland, it really should be more eastward.
Las Vegas, into California, through Mojave, Bakersfield, Wasco, Oakland, San Francisco - 571 miles, 8h 42m (or 346 miles, 5h 22m from Mojave)
The only con to this route is coming from Las Vegas. Again - we're going through desert - Death Valley is just up the street from the route Google chose.
DAY 4 - San Francisco, CA to Seattle, WA
San Francisco, Redding, into Oregon through Medford, Grants Pass, Rosenburg, Eugene, Salem, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle - 808 miles, 12h 41m
Day four, just means the fourth day of travel - I do plan to be in the area for a while to visit with friends and family (maybe a fan or two), dpending on how much money and time I have. This route, though, will be a long haul, prolly the longest of the bunch. But from this point up, it's going to be pretty smooth sailing. Cooler temps more population. We may need to put the pedal down, but I think we make it in one go....
So - any advice, tips, tricks, places of interest, cheap lodging, or Americana I should know about? We're still out by a month and a half...nows the time to tell me what a fool I am. :D
