On the Road Again...includes full itinerary of the Great US Roadtrip

During our “Break” in San Miguel, we waited impatiently for our permanent residency visas. We also worked to tie up loose ends for Jóvenes Adelante, and, more importantly, we spent our time planning our trip and booking accommodations through our stay on Long Island over Labor Day weekend.

Friday May 15: finally Bill’s visa is ready. But NOT Pat’s.  Still we start packing and preparing for a quick getaway. Monday afternoon (36 days into the break): Pat’s is finally ready and both are delivered to us. We immediately make reservations (flight & shuttle) for the next morning. Tuesday: Finally we are on the road (in the air) arriving at 8:30pm in San Jose. Thanks to Patty for meeting us at the airport (in our car) to pick us up.  

We had hoped for more time in California but we (apparently optimistically) booked things with our first real stop on stage 2 of the trip being in Ashland OR on Friday night. 

We spent the next two days organizing our stuff and picking up a few things for the road while hanging around Patty & Matt’s in Los Altos.

Below is our trip overview. Everything is plotted out on Google Maps, with stops highlighted by stars. For details re the route and timing, see below.

• Depart SMA Tuesday May 19!!!
• May 22 - Jun 11: Ashland, Oregon Coast, Portland & Seattle. We have a “hosted” Home Exchange in down town Seattle. This means that later we will be hosting our new friends in San Miguel.
• Jun 11 - Jun 25: Brief stop in Boise Idaho, on to Salt Lake City, Page Arizona and then meeting friends (Steve & Sarah, Grant & Su, Peter & Peggi) for a couple days in Moab.  Then we’ll spend a few days in Denver with Peter & Peggi. I think Steve & Sarah will be there then as well.
• Jun 30 - July 19: Back north to see Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands. Then on to Minneapolis MN, Madison WI and Chicago. We’ll stay in downtown Chicago for 10 days through another Home Exchange.
• Jul 19 - July 30: Then through Detroit (gotta see the Diego Rivera Murals & the Henry Ford Museum) to Niagara Falls, Kingston ONT (the visit friends and the local wine country) and Montreal.
• July 30 - Aug 8: Arriving in Maine likely on July 30 (Our 50th High School Reunion is August 1.) Stay in Dexter/Garland/Mooshead Lake area visiting family & friends.
• Aug 8 - Aug 25: Spend a week in Bar Harbor, then Boothbay and Freeport, then on through Portsmouth to Boston.
• Next Newport RI and Long Island.
• We’ll be in NYC from Sep 10-20.
• Move on to Wilmington, Washington DC, and Charleston SC 
• Arrive in Savannah around the 11th of Oct.
• From there we go to Florida and pick up Bill’s mom who will join us for awhile, probably through New Orleans where plan another home exchange there but haven’t booked it yet.
• From there we hope to visit friends in OK and then onto San Antonio.
• In Texas we plan to sell our car and then likely we’ll head back to SMA. But if we still have the travel bug, who knows?