Road Trip USA 2009

On Friday the 31st July my wife and I take off on a 17 day ambitious road trip from Virginia to Utah and back. We have some family in Utah that we have been meaning to visit for a long time as seeing as we both have 17 days off we figured we should make a trip out of it. Personally I am taking this a business trip to take some photographs to hopefully sell in the fall and continue my collection of American National Park photographs. I am a huge fan of the US park system and fully support it every year.

The map above is the ideal 17 state trip for us. Like I said, it’s ambitious, but we are no strangers to mega driving hikes. In 2006 we drove from Utah to Virginia in 2 days. It was approximately 2100 miles. Our ideal destinations are:

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park
• Canyon de Chelly National Monument
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Monument Valley
• Canyonlands National Park
• Arches National Park
• Zion National Park
• Rocky Mountain National Park

Obviously we wont be visiting all of these, as we have seem many before, and I would like some decent time at each to get some photographs. So during the week we will be finalizing the destinations and really nail down the final itinerary. We have a busy week ahead preparing our car for the trip (she has had an oil change and new brake pads installed, however the gas gauge just stopped working…) and working on some personal projects, but all going well, we’ll be on our way to Tennessee on Friday evening.

Stay tuned for more information and of course with my iPhone, I will be updating throughout the road trip!

If any of you readers out there have some suggestions of things to see on the way please leave a comment. Thanks!