The Dark Wob

Due to covid my trips to MotoGPs in Austin and to Sepang in 2020 were cancelled. We got our airfares refunded for the Indonesia trip, but British Airways gave us vouchers.

So, these have to be used by the end of April. My mate suggested we use the vouchers to get flights to the US, rent a V8 pickup, and do a bit of a road trip. Looking at three weeks in March/April 2022.

Any suggestions of where to go? Florida/Miami is out, as is Vegas. Would like to see a bit of rural America, and could take internal flights if nothing direct from UK.

Any suggestions? I realise the US is huge, and varied, but anything to give us ideas to build on would be gratefully received.

Pity you can't include Vegas in your road trip.

In 1980 me and my mate drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles along the coast road.
Then across the desert to Vegas, then Bishop, then Sacramento and finally back to San Francisco.

Took a month in total, best holiday ever.

For our honeymoon we did the usual west coast. From vague memory...

Flew into Vegas (Cheapest way in) and stopped 3 nights (2 days to explore). Drove to death valley and stopped a night (interesting place but only needed a night). Drove to Yosemite through Tioga Road and stopped 2 nights at Yosemite (day to explore). Drove to San Fran and stopped 2 nights (day to explore, could have done another day but hotel+parking damn expensive).

Then did the Route 1 South Bound as better in that direction. Stopped at Monterey for 2 nights (day to explore). Stopped at two other places iirc on the way down. Stopped at LA Anaheim for two nights (Disney).

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Route 66 is good but takes a while.

Would suggest, as others have, hitting up the PCH along the west coast.

Going other places and doing rural will involve a lot of trees, a lot of prairie or a lot of corn, all on the interstate.

Phil

I've only been to the NW of Oregon / SW of Washington area.

It's rather nice. Like Scotland turned up to 11, if you're into that sort of thing. Lots of mountains and LOTS of trees. Vast wide-open beaches too. You can even drive on Long Beach. No, the one in Washington!

Get the flights over, see a bit then fly to Vancouver and see more. Get a ride from a youth hostel to Banff. Do lake Louise and especially Jasper at night. Etc etc

Don’t do Minneapolis. Not that it’s not nice, we just don’t need your sort around here*.

Actually it’s a bit of a shithole too between December and April, so we will be doing each other a favor…

* Other people (males) with English accents not welcome. At the moment, I’m still a bit of a novel-tee with the ladies and don’t need any competition

Edit: took me a while to find, but this is pretty epic!
https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/21 ... To=2691056

The classic westcoast route 1 really can’t be beaten. I’ve done it twice and would do it again tomorrow given the chance. Link in San Francisco and the wine valley, Carmel on sea and pebble beach.

Some of the national parks are pretty amazing too. This past summer we drove to Yellowstone, spent two weeks in and around on dirt roads, looking at fossils, horse riding trails etc and then some of the parks in Colorado. Pikes Peak then headed back for home. Problem with that stretch at that time of year is the snow can still be flying.
I have been up in the higher areas of Colorado in June and been snowed on.

Scruffy Bodger wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 8:18 pm Get the flights over, see a bit then fly to Vancouver and see more. Get a ride from a youth hostel to Banff. Do lake Louise and especially Jasper at night. Etc etc

Yes.

I spent a week in 2017 driving around the Rockies.
Started in Calgary, went across to Banff, up to Jasper, across to Edmonton, then back to Calgary.
Stopped in loads of places in between too. At one point we spent most of a day on gravel tracks in the middle of absolute nowhere. That poor rented Kia Soul didn't know what was going on...

Another vote for Highway 1 - you can also add a trip to Lake Tahoe and the old gold prospecting country if you fancy it.

The other trip I did and really liked was from Boston up through New England (although it is mostly trees), and upstate New York.