MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
That it's too bloody big. Trying to decide if we want to do a road-trip this summer to the South West, but since we have a 1 year old it's going to be quite tricky I think. Might have to head instead for somewhere (in America) where stuff is closer together and requires less driving..
American tourists seem to come over and do the whole of Europe in two weeks 😀
personal opinion ( as an american .. and having traveled a lil bit in the s.w. )
s.w. + summer + 1 year old = bad news.
it's beautiful out there , but there are big long stretches of open road with nothing to see ... when you do get where there is something to see it will be hot, and very little shade.
With a kiddie, and that time of year, I'd fly to San Fran, then do the coast up to Portland/Seattle/Vancouver
WTF would you want to do a 'road-trip' anywhere, with a one year old!
Rent a cottage at whatever is the nearest beach to you, and take someone who can act as a baby-sitter - job done.
I did 3 weeks and only stayed in california. Brilliant riding, weather, beaches, and wine. santa cruz would have been the highlight, except for teh forest fires that put paid to the main riding up in them there hills. San Francisco was the best city by a long way. But it was the littel towns on route from south to north that really did it for me, beautiful. The people were ok, well the ones who had travelled were. the rest you best avoid.
while sometimes Brit and those nasty Europeans are sometime suprised at how big the U.S. is Americans can also be surprised at how big Europe is.
One of my sis' in law's who is I'm afraid to say the stereotypical loud American once asked in all seriousness if mrs G and I could see the Eiffel Tower from our house. 😯 ( we live in Switzerland )
Or LA and drive up to SF, plenty of places to stop off on the way up and some cracking scenery 🙂
How about NYC (Everything) - Philly (Liberty Bell) - PA (Historic) via Piitsburgh - up to Indiana Shore (beach) - along to Chicago (Everything) - back across Michigan - via Detroit (Ford Museum/Motown - into Canada - Toronto - Niagra Falls and back to NYC.
Doable in 2 weeks
just cus I'm really bored I routed out on google maps the trip above...
pretty close to 2000 miles round trip ... it's do-able certainly but again with a 1 year old in the back seat?
the new york ... niagra... Toronto trip sounds nice to me .. maybe come back by way of 1000 Island area upstate N.Y.
Road trip + 1 year old = FAIL
or... Boston, tour around the area, out to concord/lexington , up the coast to Maine ( camden, bar harbor ) across to New Hampshire White Mtns.... across to Vermont Green Mountains.. if you want to add some miles zip up north to Montreal
it's beautiful out there , but there are big long stretches of open road with nothing to see ... when you do get where there is something to see it will be hot, and very little shade
Yes that's the concern. We'd need a centre to stay at with fun stuff to do, where the Mrs say could look after Meg for a few hours whilst I ride (ahem) and/or some easy riding if we can manage to get her bike AND the trailer over.
To the others - lovely suggestions for holidays but I am not short of a list of lovely things to do in the State; problem is the kiddo! We cannot really spend our time driving up the coast of course...
Road trip + 1 year old = FAIL
Exactly.. so what location for base-camping? We could probably strike out West from Wisconsin where we have to start overnight whilst the kid sleeps...
Note that we are going to America for a family wedding, so that's why we are going there. We'd not be flying 7 hours if we weren't obliged to.
ok... starting from WI you are still a 1000+ miles from anything that I personally would call the American s.w.
If I were you I'd start looking at the Dakota's... American Indian territory , badlands national park, bonnie and clydes hang out.
I don't know the area at all to be honest but I understand there is some great riding in the badlands
http://www.nps.gov/badl/index.htm
http://www.dakotacyclery.com/index.php?dcpage=gallery
Been through the Dakotas like 5 times which to be honest is 4 too many.. You know when you've done it too many times when the words 'Wall Drug' make you want to scream.
Camped out on the prarie one night tho, that was cool.
I think we're gonna have to find some base with a beach/lake, riding, easy walks and stuff, that's not massively expensive.
*L*... ok , thats 5 times more than I have then... thats it.. I'm out.. I've got bupkiss else for ya.
last shot.. northern Wisconsin.. great lakes... canoeing, black flies, men in plaid shirts and waders drinking "old milwaukee" outta cans.
naw.. as I said... I'm out.
🙂
It sucks that the Mrs is from Wisconsin, to be honest 🙂 I mean it's ok, but it's not Colorado.
Looks like the Molgrips family manifest destiny will have to wait till the kid(s) are older.
Have you been to the boundary waters in minnesota? Awesome place, and not far from wisconsin. Hundreds of linked up lakes, huge forests. Great place to get lost in nature. Although canoeing+baby might be even worse than long stretches in the car....
molgrips, for what it's worth.. from the time I was 5 years old I was doing 600 miles (each way) in the back of the family sedan start of every summer so you've not got long ( I don't know that sounds so helpful right now tho. )
Minnesota is an option aye.. could be good.
I was just thinking actually, somewhere on the east coast might be ok since we could hit the museums and zoos and crap if the weather's bad and stuff, and it wouldn't be too far between points of interest. Of course, wouldn't necessarily satisfy my wilderness yearning tho...
My bike & I spent spent two months meandering down from San Francisco to Santa Fe in the "Fall" of 1999. Fantastic riding, widescreen scenery and more microbrews than I could ever count. Only downer was a night spent in a Greyhound station in downtown LA - it was even worse than the old Bristol bus depot. 😯
If you're starting off in Wisconsin what about going to the Upper Peninsular in Michigan, not too much driving, plenty to see, waterfalls, boat trips, bears etc. Return by the west coast of Michigan, sand dunes and stuff on that coast. There's a town called Gaylord somewhere round there too 🙂
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/27/49477723_451b43c2dd.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/26/50625971_7e478084e7.jp g" target="_blank">
Fly to Denver, hire a car, stay in Vail, great weather but not to hot, easy drive to Fruita, Moab and some less know areas, Plus loads to do in Vail aswell, not just for you but the missis and littlen.
Pacific coast highway is a nice drive - take as long as you like over it. And take some Jack Kerouac to read on the way.
North America is indeed a very very very big place.
Mrs_drummer & I went to Canada last summer, also for a family wedding (my sister lives in darkest Alberta).
We spent 5 nights in Canmore, did the Banff/Lake Louise/Icefields Parkway thing. Then 2 nights in Calgary, which is only an hour or so from Canmore - hell, I commute for an hour or so each way every day just to get to work & back.
Then we did the road trip to Vancouver. If you look on the map, Calgary & Vancouver appear to be fairly close together, on a North American scale. However, what the map doesn't tell you, is that from Lake Louise to Kamloops, there's no such thing as a straight road... it took us about 7-8 hours, with rest stops. And the heat in Kamloops in early August was surprising, considering it's almost in the Rockies and a couple of thousand km further north than, say, SF/LA. 39degC!
Then the drive from Kamloops to Vancouver can take anything from 4-7 more hours depending whether you take the highway or the scenic route.
Now look at the map again and think, do you really want to do that in the midwest with a 1 year old in tow?
[b]I really don't think the 'one year old in tow' thing is the main problem.[/b]
I have a few kids myself (between the ages of 1 and 12), and while of course it can be tiring to drive long distances, every one of my kids has grown up seeing the road as an adventure. They have had no choice. We have dragged them across Canada, through some of the States, and from Dover to Spain and Dover to Poland in the heat of summer.
The trick will be choosing an appropriate route, and I have to say that I think the SW of the US may be much only insofar as the heat can kill you. Whoever it was above that suggested San Fran to Seattle had a good idea; at the same time, I would up the ante by saying Toronto to Halifax in Eastern Canada.
But please, don't shy away because of the little one. They're more open to these things then they get credit for, and they end up teaching us a hell of a lot about patience! 
Canada is a country with too much geography and not enough history.
Can't remember who said that.
San Francisco up to Seattle takes you through some nice terrain, Portland is nice, SFO is nice . . . lots of riding, beaches, deserts, volcanos but the coastal fog from San Francisco all the way to probably Oregon can be a pain in the summer . . . I wouldn't really choose to go south from San Francisco . . . East can be cool, Yosemite, over to Mono, Lake Tahoe is cool too, although a little more sparsely populated east of the Sierras . . . Death Valley is very cool too and easy to reach, but I would only go in the winter . . . just back from a week in that area . . . stunning . . .
Vancouver towards Calgary is, well, BC . . . lots of riding near Vancouver, Squamish for more trails than you can imagine, Whistler if you need uplift . . . Banff is also a good base, Vancouver Island for the stunning west coast . . . the BC terrain is, for me, a notch above California and Oregon . . . remember there are bears and cougars in the wild, I've come across both on the bike . . . not uncommon in BC at all . . .
Be very realistic about the distance you can cover . . . speed limits on many freeways are only 60, in canada many roads are 50, you just don't cover the distance you may expect . . . it's a huge country as you say . . .
Fire up google maps and look at the distances, then factor in an average speed of about 40mph . . .
Also . . . be prepared for all weathers, we've been washed out of a campsite in canada with the snowline dropping below our camp overnight when the pervious day was easily 25C . . . the next week was wet everywhere . . .
Last time we were over we hired a van and kipped in the back (it's kinda converted), cheaper than renting a car, but probably no use with a sprog . . .
[center][img] 
[/img][/center]
Fd
Like I say thanks for the trip advice, but I don't see how it's practical with a 1 year old. I've already done loads of driving in the US, and I do quite enjoy it, but I doubt Meg will.
Saxonrider:
Thing is she can only be in a car for about 2.5 hours at a stretch before she starts being really unhappy. If you persist and keep driving then she does try to be good but she's really not enjoying herself. She might also sleep, but that means she's then not tired at night so we have a bad night. I could just ignore her screams of course (as I'm sure some will encourage me to do on here) but I don't want to have a good time at her expense.
As for riding - hehe.. I might be able to get my bike over but getting it to Vail or wherever will be another issue; never mind actually doing the riding. "Hey Mrs Grips, watch Meg for four hours whilst I sod off biking" won't go down very well more than a couple of times...
I think you're better just to not do too much, and enjoy the bits you do do. How about 4/5 days in some nice National Park (camping is dirt cheap or there are hotels) doing the outdoorsy thing, maybe in northern Wisconsin or the Michigan UP (see here for example - although NB scary reference to "industrial strength" repellent: http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/eastern/hiacmp.htm#bay%20furnace ), 3/4 nights in Chicago (very nice big city, lots of culture) and then 3/4 nights somewhere else? Your flights to WI will probably be through another city anyway right (or it might just make better sense to drive up from Chicago, depending on what part of the state you're going into), so maybe wherever that city is would be a natural choice.
How about NYC (Everything) - Philly (Liberty Bell) - PA (Historic) via Piitsburgh - up to Indiana Shore (beach) - along to Chicago (Everything) - back across Michigan - via Detroit (Ford Museum/Motown - into Canada - Toronto - Niagra Falls and back to NYC.Doable in 2 weeks
Yuv gotta be firkin kidding! Pittsburgh is OK (esp if you catch a baseball game at the riverside stadium) but you wouldn't recommend a special trip there, and I'm a huge fan of Detroit for personal reasons but it's a long and unsatisfying drive if all you're going to see is Greektown and a car museum. And of all the beaches in the US you chose the Indiana Shore? 😯 😯 😯 And 10 destinations in 14 days?
We usually fly into Chicago, it's cheaper and as quick as anything else.
I was thinking of up North as they say, that could be nice but also mosquitoey. Also considered a cabin, but that just adds cost.
National park is nice but they are often so busy... and the easy places to stay can be populated with 'lodges' and crap like that.
With the exception of the Grand Canyon (and even then right by the visitor centre) and Bryce Whatsitcalled, I was never in a park that was remotely busy (although I should have said state and national park, i spose, not just national). it must vary from place to place.
on reflection, the mozzie thing would be more of a worry.
Obscure darkside reference: you should make a pilgrimage to Bloomington, Indiana: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Away (you shouldn't)
Zion Canyon for example was jam packed in the bottom of the Canyon, with a very expensive and booked up lodge and campsite and facilites galore. On the top of the cliffs though it was wilderness with free camping. Not really a place for a toddler mind.
Don't forget it's the accessible and facility-laden places I'll need, and those could be the busy parts...
I enjoyed my visit to Wisconsin.
It's very flat, but it's good for huntin' and fishin'.
I wouldn't drive to the coast from there though -in any direction.