Cross Country Trip

[mmasmommy]

I am contemplating doing this with the kids next school year. My thought is to get camping equipment, pile into the car, and take us out on the road to see this great country of ours.

 

Part of me thinks I'm nuts as DH wouldn't be able to go and it would be me and three kids alone on the roads but part of me thinks this would be an amazing adventure that we would always remember.

 

If we do this we would be starting from PA. Where would you go and what would you be sure to see along the way?

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Oooooooo! I've dreamed about doing that very thing forever! When I was in my 20s, I had a map in my room, and I actually drew out a path to follow, and contacted area travel bureaux to get information. I never saved up enough to do it, though.

 

I so want to do it when the boys are older, like middle school age. Unless ds1 miraculously gets over his bug fears, camping is out for us, though. I think I would like to set up "camp" in a rental house or motel for a month in different areas and make day trips out from there.

 

It would be very hard for me to narrow down places to go, but here's what I had planned to do all those years ago: (I live in Ohio, so similar starting point. I had been east many times, so I focused on going westward)

 

Drive south into Kentucky and see Mammoth Cave, Tennesee- visit Nashville, Alabama- Visit Huntsville (Space & Rocket Center), visit civil rights/ civil war sights, Drive down into Florida's panhandle and visit areas on the coast before driving into New Orleans. I can't remember what my exact plans for Texas were, but I was going to drive across the state and visit serveral cities liks Austin and San Antonio. I was drive up into New Mexico and visit Roswell, drive through to Tucson, and visit Phoenix on the way into California. I planned to spend a long time driving up the coast of California with the gazillion things to see and do there. I was going to go up to Portland Oregon, and then start driving back east, but if you haven't been to Seattle, I would go there, too. I don't remember the exact route back east, but I had definitely planned to see the Badlands in South Dakota.

[creekland]

The first time we did this (2004) we let everyone in the family pick something they wanted to see, then connected the dots. Then we filled in with other things along the way.

 

The choices were:

 

Four Corners

Grand Canyon

The Tetons

The Giant Sequoias

Mt Rushmore

 

We ended up seeing:

 

The rest of the Great Lakes (had done Ontario and Erie - added the other three - waded in each of them)

Badlands NP

Mt Rushmore

Crazy Horse

Grand Teton NP

Yellowstone NP

The Pacific Ocean inc whale watching on it

Sea Lion Cave

Redwood NP

Golden Gate Bridge - drove over it of course

Sequoia NP

Death Valley

Las Vegas

Grand Canyon (western end via flight and southern rim)

Hoover Dam

Zion NP

Bryce NP

Capital Reef NP

Arches NP

Gooseneck SP

Four Corners

Mesa Verde

Chaco Culture NHP

Gateway Arch/St Louis

 

I had everyone vote individually after the trip as to what order they liked things. Four of the five of us voted Bryce NP #1. It was #17 with my 8 year old. He voted Grand Teton NP as #1 (and he hadn't picked it as his choice).

 

Four of the five of us put Mesa Verde at #2. It was #12 for my hubby. He had Zion NP at #2. Three of the five of us had Badlands NP as #3. Hubby put it at #7 and my 12 year old put it at #11. Grand Teton and Yellowstone got the other 3rd place votes.

 

Fourth place diverges with Yellowstone, the Great Lakes, Grand Teton, Zion, and Sea Lion Cave getting the votes.

 

Fifth place diverges with Yellowstone, Sequoia, Zion, Arches, and Chaco Culture getting the votes.

 

It was a wonderful trip - so wonderful that we went again in the fall of 2006, but this time stopping at some different places (and some we loved).

 

If we had the $$, we'd do it again in a heartbeat, but we love traveling and the outdoors. ;)

[Momling]

We've gone from CA to CT and CT to FL and CA to WA and most recently CT to OR. I think CT to OR was our favorite. I think it was something like this: CT to Hershey's PA to some small Amish village in OH to Chicago to St Paul (Mall of America) to the Laura Ingalls homestead in SD to Mt Rushmore to Badlands to Cody WY to Yellowstone to Boise to our new home in OR!

[bettyandbob]

will you be able to plan it so your dh could fly to meet you for a weekend after a month or so. My friend did something similar but only two months and her dh flew to meet the family for a weekend in the middle.

[Boxing Hare]

Go for it!

 

We did a 5 week road trip and had a blast. My kids were 4, 8 and 10 at the time. My dh couldn't go with us, but he did fly out for 3 weekends. Sometimes he would fly into one city on Friday, and then leave out of another city on Sunday.

 

It was so much fun to see/do all the things we had been learning about. We didn't do amusement parks/museums, but focused on landmarks that couldn't be seen anywhere else.

 

One unusual stop was at a coal mine in WV. We got to go in the mines and also see what a company town in the 1950's looked like. Williamsburg was fun, and we loved Niagara falls. Now I'm itching to go again...

[Thea]

I say you should go for it. Just be prepared.

 

We just got back from an 8 week cross country RV trip the beginning of June. We did not have nearly enough time to see everything we wanted to, had some really horrid days but, at the end of it all, it was worth doing.

 

The link to my blog is in my siggie. :)