A road trip... need advice, gang.

All,

A friend and I are considering spending the last month of the summer road-tripping across the country. We're thinking of renting an RV or something, and doing it that way. We'll be leaving (we hope) from the DC area, and at the moment we don't have any idea where we should go or what we should do.

So, let's start making a list.

 

Tahoe

 

Good call, what with it only being 15 minutes from DC and all.

C'mon, I know the rest of you have ideas for how we should pull this off.

 

Whddya like? You could do a circle around Washington and see a lot of interesting stuff.

You could head due west to Graceland and beyond. You could time it with ballgames or concerts.

 

God damn, but this country is so fucking big. Concentrate on one region (and then we can help better).

As far as general must-sees:

New Orleans
Vegas (depending on how far west you want to go)
Chicago (depending on how far inland you want to go)
Grand Canyon (ditto)

I'll start the bidding there.

 

I'm definitely lacking in the whole "great landmarks" thing. I've never seen the Grand Canyon, or Niagra. I've never been farther west than New Mexico. I'd also like to go to Canada.

This is why we need some direction.

If I don't spend my summer working on my thesis, then I'll have been in DC for two months, as the aforementioned friend is doing an internship there. Which of course means I'll need to find some way to occupy my time for two months in DC.

 

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/map.html

 

Drive from DC to North Carolina.

North Carolina to Chattanooga. Take in a Lookouts game. Raft the Ocoee River.

Chattanooga to Memphis. Graceland. Beale Street. The best BBQ in the nation.

Memphis to St. Louis to KC. Across Kansas to Colorado and dozens of places to see/things to do.

Colorado to SLC. See the Mormon temple. Meet an Osmond or 20.

SLC to Tahoe (it's only 15 minutes away).

Tahoe to Oregon. Oregon down the coast to California. Try to squeeze in Yosemite.

 

That is wicked cool.

 

So maybe you should swing up to Niagara falls and into Canada and then down into Michigan to Chicago and then up to the Dakotas. After Mount Rushmore, maybe you could find a big ball of twine or something on the way to the Grand Canyon.

 

RVs are REAL expensive to rent . . . high weekly fees, plus mileage charges, plus lots' of gas. Driving a regular car and staying in Days Inn-type motels is probably cheaper, or tent camping is cheaper yet.

 

We'll have two dogs with us, thus the original RV plan.