In my previous post, I mentioned the challenge of whittling down the list of destinations for this trip. Well, I did a good bit of editing, but this is still pretty ambitious. Here’s the overview of my plan:

Leave home (near Annapolis, Maryland) and head west through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and north toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After visiting several destinations in that area (Sleeping Bear Dunes, Pictured Rocks), I’ll continue west through a bit of Wisconsin and Minnesota and into North Dakota, where I’ll visit Roosevelt National Park, and then south into South Dakota, where I’ll get my long-awaited first glimpse of Badlands National Park and the surrounding areas. From there, I’ll continue into Wyoming, to see some of the area east of Yellowstone that I missed on last year’s trip, and then up into Montana. Way up, to Glacier National Park.

From Glacier, I’ll dip back down south through the Idaho panhandle into Washington, where I’m hoping to explore the Palouse region, and then head further south into Oregon. From all I’ve seen and read, I could pretty much make an entire trip out of the state of Oregon, but I’m figuring out how much I can actually see of the central part of the state before heading to the coast, where I’ll meet up with my husband for a few days. After all, this is a long time to be apart!

After visiting the Oregon coast, I’ll head east to Crater Lake National Park, and then southwest toward the California coast and Redwoods National Park. Then it will be time to head east again toward Yosemite and the northern Sierra Nevada mountain area. A visit to Lake Tahoe is on the agenda, and a drive across the “Loneliest Highway” through Nevada to Great Basin National Park. From there I’ll head toward the only national park in Utah I have not yet visited – Canyonlands.

While in the desert southwest, I’d love to revisit some of northern New Mexico,  and the Bisti Badlands have been on my destination list for a while. Then it will be time to head north into Colorado to capture some autumn color in the mountains. Of course, Rocky Mountain National Park is on the agenda. From there, I’ll head east through Kansas and follow a bit of old Route 66 through Oklahoma and Missouri. In Kentucky, I’ll head to Mammoth Cave National Park, and then it’s a quick trip through West Virginia back to Maryland.

Just a little road trip, right?

It looks so easy. At first.

I’m sitting at my dining table with the National Geographic Adventure Edition Road Atlas spread in front of me, opened to the spread of the entire USA. After all, it’s only 20″ wide. Veins of interstate highways snake their way across the country, making it incredibly easy to travel at high speed from one metropolitan area to another. For instance, I find it pretty impressive that you can drive from Baltimore to San Diego, changing roads only once. People have made that drive of 2724 miles in less than four days.

But that’s not my plan. Speed is not the goal. If I were in a hurry to get to the other side of the country, I’d hop on a plane.  My goal is to see parts of the country I have not yet visited. Over the years, I’ve collected lists of destinations that intrigue me. I’ve torn pages from magazines, bookmarked blogs and websites, and faved photos on Flickr, all in preparation for my travels. This trip is a great opportunity to cross a bunch of destinations off my list, so I found myself marking dozens of spots on the pages of my road atlas, only to realize that if I went to all the places I want to see in this one trip, I’d be gone for two years, not two months. And so comes the process of editing and prioritizing.