In preparation for our visa application, we prepared a preliminary itinerary. Initially I had thought of just touring one area of America, but a web site offering rentals highlighted a coast-to-coast tour which I thought was a fantastic idea. Our idea of a comfortable distance in the saddle is 500km per day, with occasional rest days, so it was necessary to work out what distances we were likely to cover and if the entire trip was feasible. I'll note here that the entire duration of the trip was extended due to the decision to do the coast-to-coast, adding on at least a week to what we had originally intended.

With MapSource open, this is what we came up with:

 First draft of our itinerary

Dates
Destination
Distance
Nights
Places of Interest
02 Sep –
04 Sep

Los Angeles
California
0 km
3
Hollywood
Universal Studios
Venice Beach
05 Sep –
07 Sep

Las Vegas
Nevada
460 km
3
Las Vegas Strip
Lake Mead

08 Sep


Grand Canyon
Arizona
444 km
1
Grand Canyon
Indian Reservations
09 Sep


Hanksville
Utah
528 km
1
Indian Reservations
Lake Powell
10 Sep –
11 Sep

Salt Lake City
Utah
373 km
2
Great Salt lake
Olympic park
12 Sep


Casper
Wyoming
661 km
1
Flaming Gorge
Cowboys, railways and oil.
13 Sep –
14 Sep

Rapid City
South Dakota
408 km
2
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
Mount Rushmore
15 Sep


Sioux Falls
South Dakota
558 km
1
Missouri River (lakes)
Indian Reservations
Falls Park
16 Sep -
17 Sep

Duluth
Minnesota
629 km
2
Minneapolis/St Paul
Lake Superior
18 Sep


Green Bay
Wisconsin
534 km
1
Lake Michigan
Ice Age geology
French/British history
19 Sep -
20 Sep

Chicago
Illinois
335 km
2
Magnificent Mile
Sears Tower
Chicago Harbour
21 Sep


Toledo
Ohio
394 km
1
Lake Erie
Settler History
Bridges, cathedrals, zoo.
22 Sep


Buffalo
New York
490 km
1
Lake Erie
Niagara Falls
Nightlife
23 Sep


Albany
New York
467 km
1
State Parks (Adirondack, Catskill)
Settler History
Pine Bush
24 Sep -
25 Sep

Boston
Massachusetts
273 km
2
Taconic Mountains to coastal plain.
Settler History
Salem
Cape Cod Bay
26 Sep


New Haven
Connecticut
221 km
1
Yale University
Long Island Sound
27 Sep -
29 Sep

New York
New York
130 km
3
The Big Apple

And to work out what type of gear we would need, an sample of likely weather we would experience:


Temperature
Ave High/Low (C)
Rainfall (mm/days)
Los Angeles
25/18
6.6/1.2
Las Vegas
34/20
7.9/1.9
Salt Lake City
25/11
33.8/6
Casper
23/5
24.9/6.8
Rapid City
28/8
27.9/6.5
Sioux Falls
23/9
65.5/8
Duluth
18/7
104.9/12.8
Green Bay
21/9
55.1/9.7
Chicago
24/14
87.6/8.9
Toledo
23/11
72.1
Buffalo
21/12
97.5/11.6
Albany
22/10
84.1/10.7
Boston
23/14
88.1/9
New Haven
23/11
118.1
New York
24/16
107.4/9.1


Off topic: Who would have thought that it would be so difficult to add an HTML table into the Blogger editor from MS Word; much saving in different formats and copying in different browsers and now still have to clean a lot of mso: styles out of the text.

Posted by Spoed at 10:13 PM
 

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