Planning June 2019 Trip, seeking others for possible caravan.

[Tsys100718]

I have begun the early planning stages of a trip starting June 13, 2019 in Columbus, Ga. My plan covers 27 days and just over 6,100 miles.

As of this moment, I plan 1 night stops in Shreveport, LA and Tucumcari, NM. Followed by 2 nights on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Staying in NPS campground with electric only.

Then it is on to Moab, UT for 4 nights in southern Utah, for Arches NP and Canyonlands NP and a side trip through Monument Valley in case John Ford's or John Wayne's spirits might be lingering..

Then it is on to Yellowstone West for 3 nights.

The next stop is Mount Rushmore, SD for 2 nights.

From there the plan is to go to the Outer Banks of NC for a family reunion with 1 night stops in Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina before arriving at the Outer Banks for 7 nights.

I know that it's a fairly aggressive plan, but we have ALMOST a year to refine the details.

Any takers?

 

[Tsys100718]

Way way to aggressive a plan. You have picked destinations that need way more time than two or three nights to even come close to seeing it all. I would recommend you cut the southern two stops or the northern two stops out altogether, slow down and enjoy a few places instead of breezing through a bunch of them. Plus your plan gives zero time to even consider seeing anything in the middle of the country. We tried a trip like this once and regretted it, we missed out on so much including time to just relax. Safe travels.

Thanks for the unsolicited, unwanted, advise.

I have left plenty of time to see what the members of my party want to see. We have all seen the entire South Rim of the GC and have rafted through it. We all wanted to see things from the North Rim, you know the untouristy side.

We are taking 3 days in Arches and Canyonlands NP,s which is a day longer than necessary.

We are taking 2 days in Yellowstone and staying near Old Faithful and the falls. That leaves one day for relaxing.

1 day for Mount Rushmore should be plenty.

And we plan on finishing up with 7 nights on the OBX of NC, then home to Columbus.

Driving IS relaxing for an old trucker with 9 million ICC verifiable accident free miles on a 1986 Mack RS700 with a 400 Econodyne and a 32 Speed Thermadyne. Except now I only have a knob to turn instead of three sticks to shift gears. And with the 100 gallon auxiliary fuel tank I installed, I can probably get away with fueling once a day.

I have seen the overwhelming majority of the North and Central American continent, so the stuff in between doesn't mean that much to me. We are not much for tourist traps anyway. So we don't really care about carhenge or the big ball of twine or the corn palace. The cars have been destroyed by graffiti, The big ball of twine will still smell from the mold of spring. The corn will be all faded on the corn palace waiting for the harvest to recorn it anyway.

And if the truck breaks, I'll just buy a new one. It's a 2017 Ram, so I don't see that as an issue.

I feel truly sorry for anyone who doesn't find driving relaxing.​