Betsy s & Bob s Great American Road Adventure August 2 nd Through Early November, 2013 Westbound Journey 1. Week 1, Aug 2 nd 8 th : Starting from the Upper Westside of Manhattan the morning of Friday, August 2 nd, the first stop on our westward journey is Frank Lloyd Wright s marvelous Fallingwater house, SE of Pittsburgh 2. Pittsburgh for a day and a half, staying with a friend of Betsy s 3. OH back country roads through Steubenville and along the OH River 4. Amish country, OH 5. Northern IN, with stops at an old car museum and an Amish farm 6. Chicago for a day and a half, visiting with a cousin & former law school colleagues of Betsy s, along with a little sightseeing 1
7. Week 2, Aug 8 th 15 th : Racine, WI, for an afternoon tour of Frank Lloyd Wright s SC Johnson headquarters and then on to Milwaukee, for a day and a half 8. Spring Green, to tour Wright s WI home and studio, Taliesin East 9. WI River to its juncture with the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien, WI, where we hope to take a Mississippi River cruise 10. East bank of the Mississippi for 215 miles through La Crosse and Prescott, WI 11. Minnetonka, MN for a short visit with Betsy s brother, Mark, and his family, while enjoying a Twins baseball game 12. Week 3, Aug 16 th 22 nd : After barreling westward to SW South Dakota, spend four days exploring the Badlands National Park, Buffalo Gap National Grassland, and the SD Black Hills Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, and Wind Cave National Park 13. Devil s Tower rock monolith and Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument in MT 14. Cody, WY, home of the Buffalo Bill Museum, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, and Plains Indian Museum 15. Week 4, Aug 23 rd 29 th : Grand Teton National Park for three and a half days 16. Yellowstone National Park for three days 17. Week 5, Aug 30 th Sept 5 th : Livingston & Bozeman, MT 18. Join briefly the route of the Lewis & Clark expedition, with a boat ride on the Missouri River through the Gates of the Mountains, just north of Helena, followed by a visit to the Great Falls of the Missouri 19. Begin our visit to Glacier National Park with an overnight stop on the east side of the park 20. Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada, which adjoins Glacier, for a three-day stay 21. Drive the Going-to-the-Sun highway through the heart of Glacier to Whitefish, MT 2
22. Week 6, Sept 6 th 12 th : south from Kalispell to Missoula, MT, through Flathead Indian country 23. To catch a brief visit with some friends in Seattle before they leave town, we ll make a mad dash across ID and WA State to Seattle, where we plan to spend three days and four nights, including some time with Bob s college roommate and his wife 24. After Seattle, we head by ferry to Port Townsend on WA s Olympic Peninsula, to begin a two-day exploration of Olympic National Park, from mountains, to rain forest, to rocky seashore Having crossed the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific and covered around 4,400 miles in six weeks, we ll begin our West Coast journey as outlined on the Goggle map to the left. 1. Week 7, Sept 13 th 19 th : picking up the trail of Lewis & Clark again, explore Long Beach & Cape Disappointment (Lewis & Clark Center), staying overnight in Astoria, OR, at the mouth of the Columbia River, where the Corps of Discovery spent the winter of 1805-06 2. Along the north (WA) shore of the Columbia River to Longview and then NE to Mt. Rainier National Park for a two-day stay 3. Yakima Valley wine country for a day 4. Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area 5. Portland, OR for two days (three nights), visiting with friends of Betsy s 6. Week 8, Sept 20 th 26 th : Crater Lake National Park 7. Redwood National Park, along CA s northern coast, for a day and a half 8. Lake Tahoe for an overnight visit to an area where Betsy s family spent many ski vacations 3
9. Yosemite National Park for a two-day visit 10. Week 9, Sept 27 th Oct 3 rd : join Bob s nephew and his wife from San Diego for a day and a half in the wine country SE of Monterey 11. Visit King s Canyon & Sequoia National Parks for three days 12. Death Valley National Park for two days After four weeks and roughly 2,500 miles spent along the West Coast, we ll head east in early October, generally following the route outlined in the map below. 1. Week 10, Oct 4 th 10 th : Las Vegas for a day (two nights) to visit with friends 2. South Rim of the Grand Canyon for day and a half 3. Mesa Verde National Park & Durango, CO, where we hope to meet up with Bob s brother, Will, and his wife 4. Week 11, Oct 11 th 17 th : 2 nd day in Durango; then on to Great Sand Dunes National Park 5. Heartland of KS 4
6. Cottonwood Falls, KS, to visit a couple wildlife refuges & the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve 7. Kansas City, MO 8. Scenic drive between Jefferson City (MO state capital) & Hermann 9. Week 12, Oct 18 th 24 th : St. Louis, MO, to visit the Arch, Mississippi riverfront, & Cahokia Indian Mounds Historic Site for two days 10. Drive N along the Mississippi to Hannibal 11. Springfield, IL, to visit the Lincoln home & museum 12. Columbus, IN home of a surprising collection of modernist architecture designed by Richard Meier, I.M. Pei, Cesar Pelli, Kevin Roche, Eero Saarinen, and Robert Venturi, among others, largely sponsored by Irwin Miller, the head of Cummings Engine Company for 30 years 13. Madison (19 th Century homes) to Clarksville, IN, along the OH River 14. Mammoth Cave National Historic Park, KY, with an overnight stay (we hope) in a former Shaker village 15. Week 13, Oct 25 th 31 st : Through Lexington, KY, to Lewisburg, WV 16. Highland Scenic Highway to Cass, WV, for a ride on the Cass Scenic RR up Bald Knob (possibly joined by friends from the D.C. area) 17. Staunton, VA, home of the American Shakespeare Center, with performances in a reconstructed version of Shakespeare s Blackfriers Playhouse 18. Grantsville, MD, Amish-Mennonite town 19. Antietam National Battlefield 20. Gettysburg National Battlefield 21. Home the weekend of November 2 nd, after three months and approximately 10,000 miles! 5