YYC > SF: Stuff to do/eat/see along the way.

[woob]

My opinion? Drive as fast as you can to Oregon coast and spend your whole allotment of time driving through Oregon on your way to SF. Then, do the same thing on the way back. So many things to do/see/go wow at in Oregon. It's one of my favourite places for travelling.

[Table 5]

Thanks again guys, lots of awesome stuff in here.

From the sounds of it, driving down the coast is a much better use of time. We'll still drive back via Yellowstone, but it will have to be a much quicker section.

Now the question is, do we take my wife's car and burn 5000km in depreciation, or rent a minivan and perhaps sleep at a campground a couple of nights to save on hotel bills. Seems like that would be around $800-1000. I like our car, but there's something nice about driving a car you don't give a crap about.

I wonder if there's a yycdeals.com for car rentals....

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

If you're willing to rough it a little, I know good camping spots on BLM land in Tahoe/Yosemite. Both are like my back yard.

Expanding on ortho's point... acquiriam us cool, but nothing is special about Monterey. Carmel is more scenic, Santa Cruz has an amusement park on the beach.

Would love to find out more about this campground.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Would love to find out more about this campground.

sent via PM

[tvp2003]

Oooh -- very jealous. Related thread (maybe time to bump?): http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=105946

I've heard great things about the Oregon Coast; this thread confirms it. If it was me, I would spend as much time on the road and away from SF as possible -- do Highway 1/Big Sur, do the Oregon coast, and visit as many places as you can along the way (especially in WA/OR/CA). Flights are easy to get to SF so if you want to go back you can. Similarly, it's not that far (relatively speaking) to drive down to Wyoming/Yellowstone, so if you want to skip that and do it another time, it's possible. However, driving all the way out to the coast isn't something you can do very often/easily (unless you have a lot of vacation time on your hands), so I would take advantage of that opportunity and maximize whatever time you have out there.

As for shopping -- OR and MT have no sales tax; AB residents are exempt from WA sales tax if you show your driver's license as proof you're from Alberta

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by fotze

Put Holiday Road on repeat and tell us when the wife snaps.

The song from lampoons vacation.

I planned to listen to that song exclusively on my trip to Eastern Saskatchewan. After 3 hours I pulled over and stabbed a hobo. Could only bear to listen to it for another hour afterwards.