Great food and more stops?

[slalemand]

Wow, great advice and questions.

The reason, no first off, my wife is from Maine, I'm from Amsterdam, NY. I travel a lot (some 35,000+ miles a year), I own an ad specialties company and sell Promotion Products, Print Matter and Trade Show Displays to folks / companies all across America. I also own SchoolCalendarMagnets.com, and a few other smaller companies, all of which keeps me very busy. Oh, designsbyskip.com.

My travels have had me going from Maine to Florida and many stops in-between for some 25+ years now, so yes, we have seen much of Virginia, Shenandoah Valley and Skyline Drive.

As for the reason for this trip and why this route. We always take the first 2 weeks in October to do some traveling / sight seeing (Our Anniversary time). We've seen pretty much all of New England, and realize there really is so much to see here in America, and current choose to do that instead of traveling abroad.

This loop simply because we can do it in about 2 weeks, and get to see some stuff we've not seen before.

I and we have done the Skyline Drive several times going to visit our daughter and grandkids in New Bern, NC. I took the whole route once with the same daughter bring her out west to her new home at the time (Yuma AZ) her husband is a Marine.

I still take mostly the same route, now that they have moved to Beaufort, SC (He's a drill instructor at Parris Island).

As beautiful as Maine is, and it is beautiful, seeing the rest of the country is just a lot of fun and very interesting at times.

Lancaster PA because it's a pleasant area and will be more interesting to my wife as she does all that sewing, knitting, quilting and crafty stuff. And it's a good stop off point on the way home.

YES, I love tourist traps, great candy stores, bakeries and junk like that. You'd not know to look at me (5' 7", 160 lbs). I love stopping and getting stuff we don't have in maine, and bringing it home to our kids and grand child for them to look over, try out, drink and enjoy. A silly guilty pleasure of mine.

We were thinking of heading to Montana and other places out west, but there is still so much to see closer, that we decided to do this trip this time.

Oh, we're not old folks (I'm in my mid 50's and my wife just turned 50), we just want to spend some time on the rod seeing America.

We are wide open to any suggestions, and again, this route just seems to afford us a chance to see the most stuff (way to quickly), but still see some stuff.

Skip

[insightofitall]

Originally Posted by slalemand

Wow, great advice and questions.

The reason, no first off, my wife is from Maine, I'm from Amsterdam, NY. I travel a lot (some 35,000+ miles a year), I own an ad specialties company and sell Promotion Products, Print Matter and Trade Show Displays to folks / companies all across America. I also own SchoolCalendarMagnets.com, and a few other smaller companies, all of which keeps me very busy. Oh, designsbyskip.com.

My travels have had me going from Maine to Florida and many stops in-between for some 25+ years now, so yes, we have seen much of Virginia, Shenandoah Valley and Skyline Drive.

As for the reason for this trip and why this route. We always take the first 2 weeks in October to do some traveling / sight seeing (Our Anniversary time). We've seen pretty much all of New England, and realize there really is so much to see here in America, and current choose to do that instead of traveling abroad.

This loop simply because we can do it in about 2 weeks, and get to see some stuff we've not seen before.

I and we have done the Skyline Drive several times going to visit our daughter and grandkids in New Bern, NC. I took the whole route once with the same daughter bring her out west to her new home at the time (Yuma AZ) her husband is a Marine.

I still take mostly the same route, now that they have moved to Beaufort, SC (He's a drill instructor at Parris Island).

As beautiful as Maine is, and it is beautiful, seeing the rest of the country is just a lot of fun and very interesting at times.

Lancaster PA because it's a pleasant area and will be more interesting to my wife as she does all that sewing, knitting, quilting and crafty stuff. And it's a good stop off point on the way home.

YES, I love tourist traps, great candy stores, bakeries and junk like that. You'd not know to look at me (5' 7", 160 lbs). I love stopping and getting stuff we don't have in maine, and bringing it home to our kids and grand child for them to look over, try out, drink and enjoy. A silly guilty pleasure of mine.

We were thinking of heading to Montana and other places out west, but there is still so much to see closer, that we decided to do this trip this time.

Oh, we're not old folks (I'm in my mid 50's and my wife just turned 50), we just want to spend some time on the rod seeing America.

We are wide open to any suggestions, and again, this route just seems to afford us a chance to see the most stuff (way to quickly), but still see some stuff.

Skip

You seem like a really nice guy. I like your websites. Your wife and my mom would probably get along really well. She likes all that quilting and crafting stuff....likes to go to arts and crafts shows, and would like to set up her own website to sell the stuff she makes.

Since you do like tourist traps, then by all means DO have a look at Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Personally, I LOVE that kind of stuff, too.

For other ideas about what to see, maybe you could try stopping by Cumberland Falls in Southern Kentucky, just outside Corbin. It's worth a visit on the way to Knoxville and the Smokeys.

[kjbrill]

Insightofitall... Cumberland Falls is a good suggestion. I remember when I was a real young pup we went with the grandparents on a vacation to Cumberland Falls, stayed in a rather rustic cabin. The river above the falls back then was crystal clear and about waist deep. My father wanted to go fishing and bought a short-term visitor license. But we needed bait. I went along the river bank over-turning rocks and thought I had a mother-load of worms. They were baby rattlers and Dad wisked me away as he could hear the mother warning on the bank.

The OP has commented about hoiw many places there are to visit in this great country. That is absolutely correct. I remember one time when my parents were in their late 70s and they planned a two month trip down the southern route through Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona and to LA. They then went up the west coast all the way to Seattle before heading east across the great norrthwest to Chicago and back home. It was a trip I hope to make someday, though I better start planning it as I am already in my seventies.

[kjbrill]

There comes a time when you have to set aside a long time period to make a road trip across this great country, especially from Maine, and you have to say I have seen all of the local sights within a few days journey so I need to step out.

You say you travel some 35,000 miles a year, that is a whole lot. It is by car or air? During my working days that is about how much I traveled per year, the majority by air. I saw a whole lot of airports, motels, restaurants, and client facilities but little else.

You need to start planning for trips with the missus, say by air to New Orleans, then by car across the sourthern route through Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to California, up the west coast to Seattle and then across the northern route to Chicago, then by air back to Maine. You have likely seen most of the northeast and eastern coast down to Florida many times.

You do not have to do everything at one time. A nice diversion would be to take the Canadian route back from the northwest, though you do not want to wait for winter weather. You can then save a future trip out through the central country, St Louis to Denver, on to Salt Lake City, up to Montana and back through the Black Hills of South Datoka, through Minnesota and on to Chicago.

[slalemand]

Thank you. All of the 35,000+ miles a year I travel are by car. MANY trips from Maine to Florida and points in-between.

My wife purchased a New 2003 Toyota Camry in 2003, and I have since purchased 3 Buick Park Avenues, a New Toyota Camry, a New Toyota Avalon, and most recently another New Avalon. My last car I had about 16 months and it had just under 70,000 miles on it.

I have taken the route back to Maine through Canada several years back, after a trip to Dyersville Iowa. I went these way, because I didn't want to drive by any more corn fields then I had to. Damn did we drive by a lot of them on our way out

We've been to Montreal and will be going to Quebec in the spring.

We have planned a trip out west more, and driving around, then flying back. Maybe the Grand Canyon area, maybe Montana, who knows, still planning that one.

We got to San Diego a few years back, and enjoy the Zoo, but saw very little else, as the trip was planned to go see our New (When we did the trip) Granddaughter in Yuma Az. I was lucky enough to drive our daughter out there, and saw some of the south (NO where near enough), but some.

Ooops I've got a meeting to go to,

Later folks.

Skip

[insightofitall]

Corn fields can sure get old after awhile, but I'd much rather see them instead of a canyon of trees while driving along the interstates in some places. At least with open fields around, you can look off to the side of the road and see a farm house or barn, or maybe some hills in the distance. I'm getting ready to leave on a trip this weekend to drive down to San Antonio, and I've been pouring over one map after another trying to plan out a decently scenic route. I think I'm going to head over to Springfield, Missouri and cut down to Branson, then head over to Eureka Springs and Bentonville before picking up I-540 heading south through northwest Arkansas. The mountains may not be as dramatic as the Smokeys or Rockies, but at least it beats a monotonous drive on an interstate lined with miles and miles of trees.

Skip, I agree with kjbrill - try to arrange a good chunk of time to get out west if you can. There are SO many interesting things to see out there...and not just the major touristy places like Grand Canyon, although that alone would make a western trip worthwhile. But there are places like Red Rocks Park, just to the southwest of Denver....or Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. Even Royal Gorge outside of Canon City, Colorado is worth a trip.

Oh, something else...if you've never been to the northern LP of Michigan, you REALLY need to check it out - especially the Traverse City area and Leelanau Peninsula with Sleeping Bear Dunes. And then head up to St. Ignace and take a ferry over to Mackinac Island.

Good stuff!

[slalemand]

Thanks.

I agree, and figure next year we'll likely head more west.

I've done Yuma, AZ area, San Diego, Palm Springs, CA and Las Vegas and drove to most of these places leaving from Maine - which afforded my some (very little time) to see some of what looked like it would be worth going back to.

The first trip to Yuma from Maine was about 5 days long, and we did the Skyline Drive, and Blur Ridge as far south as we could, then headed across to Yuma. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns, several cool road side towns, did the UFO detour and a few other things. We got up close and personal with an oil rig / well, got to kick around some Sage Brush, pick some cotton and see some great parts of the country.

Left Yuma once and drove to Palm Springs, CA which was an interesting drive thru some pretty interesting and desalinate parts of CA. In that one trip I saw a TON of desert, a Palm Tree farm (out in the middle of nowhere,) a 40' motorboat, sitting on its side (in the middle of nowhere). ONE store for about a 90 mile area. Heck not much more then that store, and the Palm Tree Farm
for 100+ miles.

We had consider going to San Diego then driving up to Seattle Wa at first and just ended up changing our minds.

If we don't do anything special next year I WILL be driving to CA., via Donner Pass

Skip