Next stop on our trip is Salt Lake City. We have received two reviews of the city. One suggest we leave there as soon as humanly possible. The other suggests we spend some time there, visiting the Great Tabernacle and sniffing the atmosphere.

Roadtrip

Either way, SLC is only a starting point for our edition of the big american road trip, making it a smaller and quicker (but hopefully not that more comfortable) one. The route as chosen partly on a whim, partly after quite a bit of research.

1. Our first idea was going from Texas to Colorado and over the mountains to San Francisco. _[2207 miles, 36h]_ But meeting two Texans telling us that – while Austin was a truly great city – the rest of Texas was best avoided. While locals might often have more negative ideas of their home than tourists like us, the distance also tipped over NNNN miles, and the math told us this would not be a good idea.



2. The next tip suggested going from New York down the Appalanches towards Florida. [937 miles, 16h] But while the scenery supposedly is fantastic, we had not enough interest for the region and it felt like going from something very exciting to something – well – relaxing and boring.



3. The third idea was going from relatives of Kari in North Dakota again to San Francisco. _[1621 miles 27h]_ This is supposedly still a good idea, but was rejected mainly because of lack of research material. A tipster having traveled through all of the US for years told us the areas was very much empty of people, and the plan was rejected.



4. In the research of idea #3, interest for the West coast arose. Going from Seattle to San Francisco [809mi 13,37h] seemed like a great idea. Also because it would make it possible to include Twin Peaks in the itinerary, a series we both still are great fans of. This idea was rejected because it felt like we’d see too much of one idea, one part of the country be it the left wing, heavily populated.
   Going to the US we wanted to see the country from its different sides and shades, not just the sides we as Europeans would easiest understand and merge with.



5. Next up was again Colorado – San Francisco _[1338 miles, 21,2h]_ Knut had visited in Colorado once before and loved the scenery, especially entering Wyoming. This would also let us visit Colorado Springs, which we have heard great things about. The trip would include the great prairies / the great american desert, ascending the Rocky Mountains, and a lot of great nature and both democratic and republic states. This seemed like a great plan, and was so right up until the day before we were to leave (the day before yesterday) NYC by plane. Luckily (?) we were without a plane ticket, and the the plan was rejected after breakfast because of its distance; still ticking in over 2200 miles, meaning 20 hours in a car. Split over the scheduled week, would require three whole hours of driving per day just to get to San Francisco.



6. Finally, Salt Lake City was chosen as destination for the trip to San Francisco. _[736 mi, 11h39m]_ Being 400 miles shorter than the trip from Denver, the distance suddenly seemed manageable. Although losing the plains and the climb to the Rocky Mountains, this opened for other possibilities, combining going through different terrain in Utah and Idaho, and doing the shoreline in California the travel along the coast, Napa Valley and San Francisco.

While this might be boring to read, this is how it happened. The days ahead of us will tell us if we did the right choice. As of now we have no real idea of where we are going, but going upstate seems right. Never cared too much about the desert.

Tours and detours

While the starting and ending points might have been chosen, how to get from A to B was not. This is the (almost) final map, all the markers being places we spent the night. I think we might be missing a Old Faithful somewhere, but in short, this is it. The bill from AVIS told us we traveled 2040 miles (3283 km) for 1.217 USD (7.204 NOK).