The Great American Roadtrip

The main thing that inspired me to put a website together again is the travel I'll be doing in the next month. Two high school friends (Kyle & Tim), a girlfriend (Clare, Kyle's) and I are going on a nineteen day trip around the country in a 2010 Subaru Forrester. Along the way, we'll see & camp in national parks, and see cities like Jackson Hole, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, Denver, and St. Louis. You can see the route on the main picture above in yellow string. That map actually hangs over my bed. I'm a geek.

We leave this Saturday (6/16) and plan to return on Thursday, July 5th... just in time for me to go to night class at 6:30. Then I'll have Friday to recover, do laundry, clean up, etc... because then I leave Saturday morning, July 7th, on the week-long Anchor House Ride for Runaways.

I plan to update here as much as possible with pictures and stories from the road. I'm sure I'll be tweeting, too. We leave this Saturday evening. 1,600 miles to Badlands, via Chicago.

For those interesting in these kindof things, here's a Google Map overview of the trip.

The bike ride is obviously the more reasonable trip on the right.

Some frequently asked questions:

Lodging? We're all bringing sleeping bags, and we've got two tents. Our plan is to camp as much as possible in the national parks. Campground fees run about $10-15 per night, so I think we're going to set up a $300 camping fees fund.

Showering? Some of the campgrounds have coin-operated showers and laundry facilities, so that'll be what we utilize. Yeah, it won't be an every-day thing. We do plan on staying in a few hotels, mostly in main cities. If you have friends out on the route who don't mind letting a few crazy kids crash at their place for a night, let 'em know.

Gas? I've been seeing gas prices as low as $3.30, and as high as $3.70, just in West Windsor. I expected it to be much higher as we go further west, but this map is telling me otherwise. We'll see. Tim, Kyle, and I are each putting up $350 to cover gas, and I think that'll be enough. Clare's not paying for gas since we're taking her car.

I'm also bringing my sister's nice camera, so I'll hopefully get some good shots up here. But, enough. I've got to stop writing and start preparing. 30 hours to departure!