2021 Road Trip Plans

[Bruce]

I guess I should log my previous trips and near-term plans here:

June - Washington Coast and Olympic Peninsula

Started in the Seattle area and went for a slow drive around US 101 to Port Angeles, with stops in Shelton, McCleary, Satsop's abandoned nuclear power station, Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Seabrook, Taholah, Ruby Beach, and Rialto.

Second day was all about the east side of the peninsula, with stops in Sequim, Port Townsend, Port Gamble, and Olympia.

Third day gave me enough time to head southwest to clinch WA 4 and its child routes, with stops in Centralia, Chehalis, Winlock, Longview, Kelso, Cathlamet, Cape Disappointment, Long Beach, and Astoria, OR (first time leaving the state since COVID). Returned home that night with a long drive out. This also included my first visit to Wahkiakum County, netting the last county west of the Cascades I needed for WA.

July - Vancouver, Salem, and Eugene

More clinching over a four-day week that I just wrapped up.

Day 1 was mostly sticking to I-5 until I reached the Vancouver area, then spending an entire afternoon clinching various highways and walking small-town downtowns in Camas and Ridgefield.

Slept overnight in Portland and clinched a few urban freeways the following morning before moving on to Salem to tour the state capitol and fuel up for a journey down the OR 99W corridor to Eugene, with stops in Albany and Corvallis.

Third day included wandering around Eugene/Springfield, backtracking to Salem for cheap gas, and then continuing west over the mountains via US 20 to drive up a good chunk of the Oregon Coast. From there, it was an overnight drive back to Olympia.

Final day was to clean up some of the missed sections from the earlier Vancouver day, including a hike past Cougar on the south side of Mount St. Helens, and driving the slow way around JBLM on WA 508 and WA 7 before returning home.

Future plans

I was originally planning to head east for one of my trips, but the wildfire situation has put those plans on hold. If the smoke clears up a bit, I have two big trips planned for this summer or early fall to finish clinching WA's counties, with 7 to go, mostly in the corners.

SE Trip - Starting from Vancouver and driving the entire length of WA 14 through the Columbia Gorge (with stops to cross the river into Oregon for more counties). After reaching the Tri-Cities, I'd go around Walla Walla and continue on to Lewiston and turn northwest to explore some of the Palouse (which I have neglected for a long time).

NE Trip - After the North Cascades Highway reopens, a full-length drive of WA 20 is due for me. With fewer side trips needed (as the only intersecting highways are long north-south routes), this one should be more straightforward. Would be more interesting if the Canadian border is reopened and allows me to visit a few of the Interior BC cities I've never seen before.

[JayhawkCO]

New Brunswick will be ending all of its restrictions on July 30.  Not sure about the other Atlantic provinces.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/new-brunswick-to-move-to-green-phase-on-july-30-lifting-all-public-health-restrictions-1.5520913

If that's the case, then unless the others enact new rules, all of them are de facto null and void since you're allowed to travel from one Atlantic province to another without restriction.

Chris

[vdeane]

New Brunswick will be ending all of its restrictions on July 30.  Not sure about the other Atlantic provinces.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/new-brunswick-to-move-to-green-phase-on-july-30-lifting-all-public-health-restrictions-1.5520913

If that's the case, then unless the others enact new rules, all of them are de facto null and void since you're allowed to travel from one Atlantic province to another without restriction.

Chris

If that's set up similar to how they did it last year, that's not actually the case.  They still had checkpoints internal to the "Atlantic Bubble" and only residents of those provinces were allowed to pass through freely.

[TJS23]

Not sure if this is the right place for advice, but I drove over 7k miles from SF to the Hudson Valley in NY with my family (I could detail later if asked) I have to bring the car back on my own, I think I know what I'll do past St.Louis (take 70 to 50) but I'm wondering if I should take I-80 or cut down to I-68 to start the drive, which do you y'all prefer. I suppose I could also do the finger lakes region but I'd rather do the formerly mentioned routes this time, I pretty much have to drive this in a week.

[JayhawkCO]

New Brunswick will be ending all of its restrictions on July 30.  Not sure about the other Atlantic provinces.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/new-brunswick-to-move-to-green-phase-on-july-30-lifting-all-public-health-restrictions-1.5520913

If that's the case, then unless the others enact new rules, all of them are de facto null and void since you're allowed to travel from one Atlantic province to another without restriction.

Chris

If that's set up similar to how they did it last year, that's not actually the case.  They still had checkpoints internal to the "Atlantic Bubble" and only residents of those provinces were allowed to pass through freely.

Gotcha, I misread the pages.  Either way, I'll be pre-registering if it's still around when it's time to do so.

Chris

[kphoger]

I'm trying to decide between this fall and next fall for a family vacation in Chicago.  For me, this would be the first time I've been in Illinois since 2016.  But that was just a passing-through between here and Tennessee to buy a car.  More importantly, it would be the first time I've set foot in Chicago since 2007.

As for the driving route, it would be the first time I've taken US-36 (CKC) across Missouri.  It's quite possible, in fact, that I've never been on US-36 since the CKC moniker was instituted–not even stopped at Cameron for gas on the way up to Iowa/Minnesota.  So, between Cameron (MO) and the Pittsfield (IL) exit, it would be all new terrain for me.  Also, now that cash on the Chicago-area tollways doesn't seem to be a thing anymore, planning how to get to the hotel would be more difficult.  Only rarely have I ever shunpiked in Chicagoland, and it always used to be because of weekend traffic rather than the tolls themselves.

I do have a question for those of you who live in the Chicago area:  With the recent increase in COVID infections among the unvaccinated, how likely do you think it is that Chicago museums will still be open, say, three months from now?

Well, I've decided to go ahead with plans for a Chicago trip this fall.  Here's my thinking:

1.  Just one year after all the shutdowns, local governments seem pretty hesitant to force another shutdown on people.  There may soon come a point at which they make the decision again, but hopefully that point will come later rather than sooner.  The city of Chicago recently stated publicly that they have no plans at the moment to shut things down again, that they intend to simply proceed cautiously, greatly preferring another mask mandate over another shutdown.  While the very fact that they issued such a statement means people have already been asking, it does illustrate the hesitancy I mentioned.

2.  The delta variant going around right now appears to be handled pretty well by our current vaccines.  Who knows if the same can be said of whatever variant is going around a year from now?  That is to say, we might be in any better of a position in a year's time than we are right now.

3.  Hotel reservations are refundable.  The worst that can happen is that we have to cancel our hotel reservation and get our money back.

4.  'Plan B' is a camping trip to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  I realize, of course, that it's in the complete opposite direction of Chicago.  But it's one of only two camping/hiking locations I've had on my list that has decent fall weather, and I've already taken my boys camping at the other one.  I haven't been to that part of the country since high school–maybe junior high, even.

[Rylansam]

I'm planning a road trip from Anchorage to Valdez along with my wife and my baby. Has anyone gone through this route? Is it good to travel on this route, as we have a 4 months old baby as well. We can keep some toys and a baby swing to keep him entertained, but how about the route? I've never travelled on this route before.

[Rothman]

I'm planning a road trip from Anchorage to Valdez along with my wife and my baby. Has anyone gone through this route? Is it good to travel on this route, as we have a 4 months old baby as well. We can keep some toys and a baby swing to keep him entertained, but how about the route? I've never travelled on this route before.

I haven't done it, but my sister has. Although it's a "shorter trip" of 5-6 hours, my sister was shocked by how rural Alaska is.  Be prepared for limited services by planning well beforehand.

Sounds like the baby's your first kid.  Have you traveled with him already on a multi-hour trip?  I remember traveling up I-81 through most of VA with my inconsolable baby daughter (after she was fine on the way down) and it can be miserable and stressful if one's patience wears thin.

[Rothman]

I took a trip down to Georgia and back, back at the end of June.  3 days, about 2,500 miles or so.  Visited Guilford Courthouse NMP and Ocmulgee Mounds NHP.  Clinched 37 new counties, bringing me up to 1,776.

Have a 3-day trip to WV at the beginning of next week to do some hiking in the Dolly Sods/Seneca Rocks area.

Then, at the end of August, I have a 3-day trip meandering through PA, OH, MI and hopefully driving across Ontario on my way back if I can figure out timing the testing correctly.

Finally, I am hoping to get to Chicago at some point in the fall and maybe a little trip to Knoebels in PA with my son before the end of the summer.

Had to delay the PA/OH/MI trip to next month (September), but made it to Knoebels, unfortunately without my son since he had to work and get other stuff done related to getting his instrument rating for flying.  Chicago's still on for early October.

[Rylansam]

I'm planning a road trip from Anchorage to Valdez along with my wife and my baby. Has anyone gone through this route? Is it good to travel on this route, as we have a 4 months old baby as well. We can keep some toys and a baby swing to keep him entertained, but how about the route? I've never travelled on this route before.

I haven't done it, but my sister has. Although it's a "shorter trip" of 5-6 hours, my sister was shocked by how rural Alaska is.  Be prepared for limited services by planning well beforehand.

Sounds like the baby's your first kid.  Have you traveled with him already on a multi-hour trip?  I remember traveling up I-81 through most of VA with my inconsolable baby daughter (after she was fine on the way down) and it can be miserable and stressful if one's patience wears thin.

Nope, it's my first multi hours trip with him. And yes, it's my first kid.

[oscar]

I'm planning a road trip from Anchorage to Valdez along with my wife and my baby. Has anyone gone through this route? Is it good to travel on this route, as we have a 4 months old baby as well. We can keep some toys and a baby swing to keep him entertained, but how about the route? I've never travelled on this route before.

I've done that once or twice. Check out Bridal Veil Falls and the Worthington Glacier north of Valdez (in 1994, it was a nice drive-up glacier, and I could walk up to the edge to see all the crud on the bottom of the glacier, but that could've changed in the last quarter-century), and on Alaska route 1 good distant views of the Matanuska Glacier. None of this is for your baby, but you and your wife might enjoy.

One option you might look into is taking the Alaska Marine Highway auto ferry between Whittier (closest port to Anchorage) and Valdez one-way, and the highway the other. I've never taken that ferry route on Prince William Sound, but have heard the views are spectacular, and as a bonus you get the famous one-lane auto/rail tunnel to Whittier. OTOH, there aren't that many sailings, and you might not be able to find one that fits your schedule. Also, you'll have to take the baby with you to the passenger deck, since passengers aren't allowed on the vehicle deck between ports. I have traveled a lot of ferries in other parts of Alaska, and don't recall seeing any babies on board, so I have no sense of how baby-friendly is the passenger deck.

[Revive 755]

Well, I've decided to go ahead with plans for a Chicago trip this fall.  Here's my thinking:

1.  Just one year after all the shutdowns, local governments seem pretty hesitant to force another shutdown on people.  There may soon come a point at which they make the decision again, but hopefully that point will come later rather than sooner.  The city of Chicago recently stated publicly that they have no plans at the moment to shut things down again, that they intend to simply proceed cautiously, greatly preferring another mask mandate over another shutdown.  While the very fact that they issued such a statement means people have already been asking, it does illustrate the hesitancy I mentioned.

Given recent developments, I would be more concerned about restrictions coming from the governor of Illinois than Chicago.

[kphoger]

Well, I've decided to go ahead with plans for a Chicago trip this fall.  Here's my thinking:

1.  Just one year after all the shutdowns, local governments seem pretty hesitant to force another shutdown on people.  There may soon come a point at which they make the decision again, but hopefully that point will come later rather than sooner.  The city of Chicago recently stated publicly that they have no plans at the moment to shut things down again, that they intend to simply proceed cautiously, greatly preferring another mask mandate over another shutdown.  While the very fact that they issued such a statement means people have already been asking, it does illustrate the hesitancy I mentioned.

Given recent developments, I would be more concerned about restrictions coming from the governor of Illinois than Chicago.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

But also, because our car threw a rod a few weeks ago and we had to suddenly buy a new one, I'm not so sure we can even afford the vacation anyway.

[MikeTheActuary]

In the past couple of weeks, I booked plans for a semi-road trip at the end of December.

For the past several years, my wife and I have spent Christmas apart.  She generally spends a month spanning Christmas with her family in Alabama, due to her family's traditions, and to give me a break from caretaking duty (she's disabled with a TBI).  I spent Christmas in Memphis with my father, since he was very active in the choir at church, and I didn't like the idea of him keeping up with all the choir commitments over the holiday season...not to mention not liking the idea of his being alone over the holiday.

My father passed away recently, so I'm going to spend this Christmas with my wife's family.   However, rather than do the expected thing, and just fly or drive directly to Dothan, I've instead booked flights in/out of Orlando, and I'll take one day before and after the family visit to collect several counties in Florida and Georgia.

[D-Dey65]

I mentioned my proposed near end of the year NYC Metro Area excursion on another thread, and for a recent moment, I considered taking a detour into Folkston, Georgia on this trip. But the truth is, I really don't want to make so many detours, especially in Florida and Georgia. I was hoping to at least wait until I get to the Carolinas, and those would be few and far between.

[JayhawkCO]

New Brunswick will be ending all of its restrictions on July 30.  Not sure about the other Atlantic provinces.
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/new-brunswick-to-move-to-green-phase-on-july-30-lifting-all-public-health-restrictions-1.5520913

If that's the case, then unless the others enact new rules, all of them are de facto null and void since you're allowed to travel from one Atlantic province to another without restriction.

Chris

If that's set up similar to how they did it last year, that's not actually the case.  They still had checkpoints internal to the "Atlantic Bubble" and only residents of those provinces were allowed to pass through freely.

Gotcha, I misread the pages.  Either way, I'll be pre-registering if it's still around when it's time to do so.

Chris

Just going to bump this here as opposed to making another thread, but it looks like the only province I'm visiting that has special entry requirements at this point is PEI from everything I'm seeing.  Can anyone confirm or deny that?  (Again, I'll be entering Quebec, New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia). 

I tried to do my ArriveCan registration today just to get a head start, but you can't even fill it out until 72 hours before arrival, which I find a little strange.  I know the Covid test has to be done within 72 hours, but you'd think they'd let you enter your plans ahead of time.  Additionally, I'm trying to do my PEI Pass, and the website is down, so I don't know when I have to sign up for that, but hopefully I can keep trying throughout the day.

EDIT - Finally got PEI Pass to load and I submitted.  No approval yet, however.

Chris

[D-Dey65]

Tomorrow morning I'm taking another Port Richey to Polk County excursion, but the Great New York Tri-State crusade of 2021 is still on for late-November. I've even considered an exact date now, but I'm not telling anybody just yet.

[abefroman329]

We bought a new Tucson in April, but we also have a preschooler who can't last more than a few hours in the car without a break.  We did drive to the Madison, WI area and Wisconsin Dells over Father's Day weekend, and Plan A was to drive up to the Mackinac Bridge walk and then drive home via the UP and Wisconsin (all of this would have taken place over the course of about a week), but we rented a cottage in Grand Haven instead.

I realize these probably don't meet the definition of "road trips" for many of you.

I still have plans to drive to Asheville in November, but I'm driving by myself, which will make driving straight through much easier.

As for kphoger's plans to drive here, unfortunately I don't have a crystal ball, but I wouldn't expect any additional COVID-related precautions beyond masking up indoors, and I believe the only venues that are requiring timed entry are the ones that were doing so prior to COVID.  A number of venues are planning to require proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test for entry, though, so make sure you bring your proof of vaccination or a photo of it.

[US 89]

In a few weeks, I will be driving from Atlanta up to Durham for a mini-family reunion of sorts. I'll have pretty much a whole day to get up there, so my plan is to take the longer, more scenic route for the day out. I'm thinking US 19 from Atlanta up to Asheville and then basically I-40 across the state, with likely a few minor detours to grab 3dis or little segments of US routes I've never been on at all.

I will be a little more pressed for time on the return trip, so I'm just going to take 85 the whole way back down. Which is fine as I'm missing some 85 segments in SC and I still haven't been to a lot of the counties along that stretch. I should be able to take a short detour into downtown Charlotte though and probably clinch I-277.

[D-Dey65]

The 2021 NYC Road Trip is two days from now, and I'm uploading the first four albums from Rush onto my PC for my external hard drive.

I could upload other CDs there. but I'll have to check for others that I don't have.

[1995hoo]

I'm planning a road trip from Anchorage to Valdez along with my wife and my baby. Has anyone gone through this route? Is it good to travel on this route, as we have a 4 months old baby as well. We can keep some toys and a baby swing to keep him entertained, but how about the route? I've never travelled on this route before.

I've done that once or twice. Check out Bridal Veil Falls and the Worthington Glacier north of Valdez (in 1994, it was a nice drive-up glacier, and I could walk up to the edge to see all the crud on the bottom of the glacier, but that could've changed in the last quarter-century), and on Alaska route 1 good distant views of the Matanuska Glacier. None of this is for your baby, but you and your wife might enjoy.

One option you might look into is taking the Alaska Marine Highway auto ferry between Whittier (closest port to Anchorage) and Valdez one-way, and the highway the other. I've never taken that ferry route on Prince William Sound, but have heard the views are spectacular, and as a bonus you get the famous one-lane auto/rail tunnel to Whittier. OTOH, there aren't that many sailings, and you might not be able to find one that fits your schedule. Also, you'll have to take the baby with you to the passenger deck, since passengers aren't allowed on the vehicle deck between ports. I have traveled a lot of ferries in other parts of Alaska, and don't recall seeing any babies on board, so I have no sense of how baby-friendly is the passenger deck.

I've been through Prince William Sound on a cruise ship and I will confirm the scenery was magnificent.

[hbelkins]

I'm hoping to go see the new US 35 in West Virginia and want to incorporate that into a bit of a longer trip (three nights). I want to wait until the road is fully open in both directions before I do it, though, which hopefully will happen before Thanksgiving.

I'm not sure what I want to do to lengthen the trip. I'm figuring on taking WV 2 out of Huntington to Pt. Pleasant, then driving the road in both directions and also checking out the tie-ins to the old route. After that, I've given some thought to heading over to Parkersburg and then trying to follow the old routing of US 50 over to Clarksburg, then heading south. I'd like to end up in southern WV, southwestern VA, east Tennessee, or northwestern North Carolina, but I don't have a lot of unexplored US routes in the area (and I have all of West Virginia's state route system and all but a handful of Virginia routes in that area of the state).

In North Carolina I have all of US 421, US 321 all the way south to I-85, US 221 to the Grandfather Mountain area, and all of the 19s, 23, 25. I'm not sure if there's an interesting state route that runs from the Mt. Airy area west toward the Mountain City area or not.

Potential overnight stops include Parkersburg, Beckley, Princeton, Abingdon/Bristol/Johnson City/Kingsport.

[D-Dey65]

It's 3:45 AM, and I'm leaving for NYC soon. But I may have to cut my trip shorter because of other commitments in Florida. Either way, I'm going to turn my PC off after this, which I've been afraid to do, due to Microsoft's risky updates. If I can't get back into the site after this, you can blame them.

[Mapmikey]

In North Carolina I have all of US 421, US 321 all the way south to I-85, US 221 to the Grandfather Mountain area, and all of the 19s, 23, 25. I'm not sure if there's an interesting state route that runs from the Mt. Airy area west toward the Mountain City area or not.

If you're coming down VA 8:

You can use either VA 103 or VA 103-SR 773-NC 103 to Mt. Airy, then NC 89-NC 18-NC 88 to US 421 just inside Tennessee

or

VA/NC 8 to NC 89 to NC 268 to either US 421 in Wilkesboro or US 321 before the mountain ascent.  If you go to US 321 you could do the unpaved NC 90 and secondary routes to get to either Blowing Rock or Linville

[hbelkins]

I came across some routes in northern NC, the numbers of which I can't remember now, to reach NC 8 on a past trip. I drove NC/VA 8 all the way to Christiansburg.

I'll give the maps a closer look, but I was mainly looking for recommendations or suggestions.

Is the waste-of-money grade-separated interchange at US 221 and US 421 done yet?