3 Week Cross Country Road Trip 2018

Gallowbraid

Adventurist
I'm looking to put together a lengthy road trip for early summer 2018. This is the rough plan I have now:

Friday May 25th - Clarkesville GA - Last day of school means my daughter and I head out shortly after lunch.

May 26th - June 1 or 2 - Head toward Spokane WA, no solid plans for this timeframe at the moment. (My daughter wants to see California so I'm debating heading straight west to LA and then north from there.)

June 1 or 2 - Spokane WA - My wife can only take 2 weeks off at a time so she'll fly into Spokane WA where we'll pick her up and drive to Kalispell, MT.

June 1/2 - 6 - Kalispell MT - Spend 5 or 6 days seeing Kalispell, Hungry Horse, Glacier NP, Polebridge and Kayaking Bowman lake.

June 7 - 8 - Missoula, Bozeman, Yellowstone - Spend a couple days making our way down to Yellowstone. My wife wants to see Missoula and Bozeman (the more of Montana I show her the better my chances of moving the family there!)

June 8 - 9 - See Yellowstone, not sure how busy it'll be this time of the year, but I imagine it's more people than I want to see while on vacation.

June 10 - 14 Salt Lake City, Capital Reef, Canyon Land (Possibly put my wife on a plane back to Atlanta, she's not a fan of driving/riding)

June 15 - 17 Drive back to Clarkesville, GA

Other than my solo trips around the south west and the occassional GA to VT trip, I've never done any lengthy road trip like this, especially with a daughter who isn't convinced this will be fun or a wife who doesn't like long trips in a vehicle. Any tips or adjustments to the route? Obviously plenty of stops are going to be in order to keep them happy. The vehicle of choice for this trip will be our Sequoia pulling the trailer with the RTT. We'll camp most nights but I'm sure we'll hit a hotel several times as well to keep the ladies happy.
 
That sounds like a great trip!

A word of caution - Montana is a HUGE state. I was just there for a week, and didn't see more than about 0.0001% of it. Running through like you are thinking will leave you wanting more.

Yellowstone will be packed - with non-friendly, non-courteous sightseers. We drove through Yellowstone on our way home - every side of the road parking area was full, most roads had traffic. It was pretty, just hard to get to.

Salt Lake City is nice. Just north is Golden Spike National Historic Site. Worth the drive if you like/study history. Oh, and SLC has In-N-Out. Capital Reef, Glen Canyon, and take the ferry across Lake Powell (Utah 80, I believe). If you want to go into Canyonlands, you might need reservations (depending where you go.) Very pretty area. And Moab - plenty to see without 4-wheeling.

I suggest planning on limiting driving to 700 - 800 miles in a day, stop for food (don't eat while driving), and stop for the proverbial "world's largest ball of string." Most women do not like to drive as long as most men (I have learned so much from Laura!) Stopping for oddball things should keep your daughter interested, as well.

Some roadside shopping is interesting, too. I have found some cool Indian made things in Oklahoma, as an example.

One thing we do is find local restaurants to eat at - BBQ, Mexican, or whatever sounds good. (Don't laugh - we found grits in Montana!)

Enough rambling. I hope this makes sense...
 
Thanks for the tips. I spent almost a month in Montana a year or so ago and it was no where near enough time. If I could convince the wife I'd move there in a heartbeat and spend the rest of my natural life wandering the state.

The more routes I look at the more I'm leaning toward focusing on Montana alone, specifically making Kalispell or Glacier National Park our home base and just radiating out from there. After seeing tips from the park service on avoiding traffic jams in Yellowstone by using mass transit I'm going to look at making off season trips to that area instead. Traffic jams are icky. :mad:
 
You're already gotten there so this is a bit redundant, you'd have to choose what areas to see in Yellowstone if you tried to do it in two days. Even at a slow time, it's not possible. Also, I've never been but late May/early June may be a bit early for Glacier. Parts may still be closed and I'd guess that'll be a popular time in the park but it's still not Yellowstone busy.
 
Of course, in Yellowstone you can get stuck in a traffic jam any time of the year. We were there in late August last year and still got stuck behind someone who refused to get out of the way and let faster traffic by.

 
Do not know your daughters age, but as the parent of two now grown children I would urge you to involve her as much as possible in the planning stage! Try to include at least one stop everyday for something she wants to see! Mostly have fun!
 
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