So, yeah, it was pretty over-ambitious. Eleven national parks / monuments, eleven states, about 6000 miles... we hit a sort of wall about the end of the second week and cut a few things out of the plan, but on the whole it turned out pretty good.
The basic plan was this: from home, drive west to central Utah. Spend about a week there, fanning out and visiting as many national parks as possible. Then, drive southwest, through Las Vegas to the southern Sierra Nevada (details of plan got fuzzy here) and thence working our way north through the mountains, popping back out into the northernmost Central Valley, and onwards up the Willamette Valley. Finally, after a couple of days rest, turning eastwards again and following the Snake River to its very headwaters, travelling through Grand Teton and Yellowstone, following many winding, high-altitude, picturesque roads to eventually wind up on the northern Plains, pausing at Little Bighorn, again in the Black Hills, Badlands National Park, and finally staggering back home.
As with any such plan, things happened, details had to be changed, and we decided we'd done enough damn driving after a while, so a lot of specific embellishments we'd tossed into the plan (e.g., "let's drive over Tioga Pass to Mono Lake, then north and around Lake Tahoe, then past Lassen and on to Redding over tiny mountain roads!") had to give way to harsh pedestrian reality.
However, now that I have something to natter on about, and images to post, I intend to milk it for all it's worth, and describe the trip in a series of excruciatingly detailed blog posts!
You lucky people! (All three of you!)
Pictures may possibly appear in this space. Back at the end of August. Stay cool, y'all.
