Advertisement
Published: March 7th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Finally got round to creating a blog in preparation for our Route 66 trip starting on 3rd April. There's going to be the usual three of us, me (Katie), Kerry and Steph. We started planning our trip in June last year and with just under 4 weeks to go everything is planned and booked apart from one last hotel stay for Oklahoma which will be booked in the next few days.
We've tried to maintain the balance between doing plenty of research to ensure we make the most of the trip but not planning too much apart from the route and some key sights we want to see to ensure we can go with the flow and enjoy the experience.
Our confirmed itinerary is to fly in Chicago from Birmingham (via Copenhagen) on Thursday 3rd April. We are staying a couple of nights in Chicago before heading off on the "mother road" on Saturday 5th April. We pick the car up about 9.30am and will be heading off as soon as we've picked it up. We've rented an SUV which should be big enough for all our luggage (we hardly ever travel light and one of us NEVER travels light - yes I'm looking at you Steph!) as well as provide some comfort for three of us on the 2500 mile trip. The Saturday is going to be one of the biggest drives, as we are travelling the whole distance from Chicago to St Louis in one day, going against the advice on all the Route 66 forums. We've all agreed that at the moment the second half of the route seems to appeal to us all most and with us driving the whole distance from Chicago to the west coast in 16 nights, we decided to crack on, for the first day and cover a big distance (approx 300 miles) whilst we are full of enthusiasm which will leave us some extra time later on in the trip.
So the confirmed stops we have are:
Sat 5th April - St Louis, Missouri - Wildwood Hotel
Sun 6th April - Carthage, Missouri - Boots Motel
Mon 7th April - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - TBA
Tues 8th April - Amarillo, Texas - Big Texan
Weds 9th April - Tuncumcai, New Mexico - Blue Swallow Motel
Thurs 10th April - Santa Fe, New Mexico - El Rey Hotel
Fri 11th April - Holbrook, Arizona - Wigwam Hotel
Sat 12th April - Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona - Grand Canyon Village Stay
Sun 13th April - Vegas Baby!, Nevada - Bellagio
Mon 14th April - Vegas Baby! (Again!), Nevada - Bellagio
Tues 15th April - Lone Pine, California - Dow Villa
Weds 16th April - Lake Tahoe, California - Beach Retreat & Lodge
Thurs 17th April - San Francisco, California - Inn On Broadway
Friday 18th April - San Francisco, California - Inn On Broadway
Sat 19th April - Fly Home San Francisco to Birmingham (Via Copenhagen)
We've decided to stick to good ol' route 66 until we get down towards Las Vegas and then to peel off up through Yosemite, Tahoe then to San Francisco rather than completing the whole route to Los Angeles. We went to Los Angeles in 2012 and overall weren't too impressed so decided to take the change to go see San Francisco instead.
We've got tickets to watch a basketball game in Chicago on the Friday night and tickets for Alcatraz and apart from that we've got a map, a list of must see's, a sense of adventure and the open road!
It seems surreal that the days are flying by and we'll be there in a months time. Also a bit worrying that the US is having some of the strangest weather for years. We've all added most of the main stops to weather apps on our phone and regular texts head back and forth between us notifying of the weather currently! Its ranging from -4 in Chicago to mid 20's in Vegas. We'll be heading through Death Valley as well where the temps are supposed to be in the mid 30's, coupled with the fact we'll be travelling in/close to tornado alley in tornado season and it should make for a very interesting trip!
Things Left To Do:
• Book Oklahoma Hotel
• Decide whether to splash out on Kipling luggage!
• Clothes shopping
• Buy Video Camera
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0203s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb