single digits are here 1 sleeps to go!

[WAMUMOF4]

DH is now coming to LA and is not having my 14 day at DL so i need to change our itinerary I am happy he is going to be there just about DL

We have decided to hire a car in LA and drive to New York so we will be going to Yellowstone on the way.
We have 14 days from when DH arrives to be in Bloomington IN, I am planning at least 3 of these for LA
Is it worth the extra time to drive via San Francisco?
Are 3 days enough for Yellowstone?
1 for Mount Rushmore.
What else is a must see on the way

Here is what i have at them moment
16 July arrive LA staying at Hilton airport that night
17 July head to DL
19 July DH and DS16 arrive
22 July head to Vegas or San Francisco as our stop over if San Fran how many days do we need?
Yellowstone
Mount Rushmore
????
August 2nd Bloomington IN Speedway
August 4/5th St Louis Mo Speedway
August 6-13 Knoxville IA Speedway
August 13-23rd no concrete plans but heading to NY want to go to Washington and maybe Philadelphia (these dates were originally allocated to the Yellowstone road trip)
August 23rd NY
August 25 8 night cruise
Sept 2nd Cruise ends DH and DS fly home
Sept 2-5th NY, fly to DFW
Sept 6th Fly home
Sept 8th arrive home
Any advice will be appreciated i seem to have lost my enthusiasm or maybe I am sulking call it what you will
Thanks in advance

 

[battymum]

Yep, I'd skip all that speedway and head straight to NY !

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Yep, I'd skip all that speedway and head straight to NY !

Thanks battymum but the speedway part is not negotiable and believe it or not i actually like going we have made some great friends and i cant wait to catch up with them again. I would be happy to go straight to NY and spend the whole trip there if only they had Disney

 

[ColinA]

DH is now coming to LA and is not having my 14 day at DL so i need to change our itinerary I am happy he is going to be there just about DL

August 6-13 Knoxville IA Speedway

To the Knoxville Nationals, you would enjoy it!

 

[WAMUMOF4]

To the Knoxville Nationals, you would enjoy it!

We will we it this will be our 3rd year in a row we have the same seats and sit and stay with some awesome people.

 

[battymum]

Is it the same as the sprintcar speedway they have here? We went to a speedway night last year as DH's brother was running in a demolition derby. I had been many years ago, but had forgotten how noisy, muddy and smelly it was.

Sorry to say, it wasnt my thing - I gave up and went to sit in the car, which was pretty scary out in the lonely car park, even worse when DH came to check on me and thought it would be hilarious to bounce on the towbar of the car - scared me stupid, I thought someone was stealing the wheels off the car while I was in it. Needless to say he wasnt in my good books after that.

So that was my experience at Parramatta Speedway !

 

[ColinA]

Is it the same as the sprintcar speedway they have here? We went to a speedway night last year as DH's brother was running in a demolition derby. I had been many years ago, but had forgotten how noisy, muddy and smelly it was.

Sorry to say, it wasnt my thing - I gave up and went to sit in the car, which was pretty scary out in the lonely car park, even worse when DH came to check on me and thought it would be hilarious to bounce on the towbar of the car - scared me stupid, I thought someone was stealing the wheels off the car while I was in it. Needless to say he wasnt in my good books after that.

So that was my experience at Parramatta Speedway !

Yes, same sprintcar class. Sorry I thought that was funny about DH bouncing the car, suppose I will be in the bad books as well.

 

[ColinA]

We will we it this will be our 3rd year in a row we have the same seats and sit and stay with some awesome people.

For us it is a choice of Knoxville or WDW for 5 weeks at Christmas, WDW wins every time!

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Is it the same as the sprintcar speedway they have here? We went to a speedway night last year as DH's brother was running in a demolition derby. I had been many years ago, but had forgotten how noisy, muddy and smelly it was.

Sorry to say, it wasnt my thing - I gave up and went to sit in the car, which was pretty scary out in the lonely car park, even worse when DH came to check on me and thought it would be hilarious to bounce on the towbar of the car - scared me stupid, I thought someone was stealing the wheels off the car while I was in it. Needless to say he wasnt in my good books after that.

So that was my experience at Parramatta Speedway !

I haven't been to Paramamta and yep the dirt is annoying Demo derby's are actually my favourite and I'm really sorry to say but reading about DH on the towbar is just but i wouldnt have thought it was funny if it was happening to me sitting in the car park on your own is
For me it is not so much about the racing although i do enjoy it once im there but more about the friends we have made along the way. It's DH's passion and i just keep reminding myself that the family that play's together stays together

For us it is a choice of Knoxville or WDW for 5 weeks at Christmas, WDW wins every time!

I can understand your choice 5 weeks at WDW you are lucky do you spend the whole 5 weeks there?
This will be our last Nationals for awhile but we will keep buying our seats and so far i havent had to make a choice between Disney and Knoxville neither DH or I think a trip to the USA would be complete without Disney and speedway so I think i'm safe for awhile yet. This trip we are certainly getting a good Disney fix we are going to DL and our cruise is Disney which includes a day at WDW so I am just about the reduced time at DL.

 

[battymum]

Yeah, it would probably be fun with some friends - at least you get to do Disney.

Funny thing, BIL had entered in the demolition derby, my kids were excited as they had helped paint his car up - a yellow commodore wagon, to look like sponge bob, so they were excited to go. Anyway as you know demo is last event, so I said I am going to have a nap in the car, come get me when the demo is close.

So the demo cars all came out and lined up in the infield - the event starts, and poor sponge bob, was still sitting there in the middle.

Sitting, sitting, sitting - he never got it started.

I didnt go next time.

 

[ColinA]

I haven't been to Paramamta and yep the dirt is annoying Demo derby's are actually my favourite and I'm really sorry to say but reading about DH on the towbar is just but i wouldnt have thought it was funny if it was happening to me sitting in the car park on your own is
For me it is not so much about the racing although i do enjoy it once im there but more about the friends we have made along the way. It's DH's passion and i just keep reminding myself that the family that play's together stays together




I can understand your choice 5 weeks at WDW you are lucky do you spend the whole 5 weeks there?
This will be our last Nationals for awhile but we will keep buying our seats and so far i havent had to make a choice between Disney and Knoxville neither DH or I think a trip to the USA would be complete without Disney and speedway so I think i'm safe for awhile yet. This trip we are certainly getting a good Disney fix we are going to DL and our cruise is Disney which includes a day at WDW so I am just about the reduced time at DL.

Yes, the whole five weeks in a one bedroom with a Boardwalk view. It was either kids or DVC. No bets for guessing which we chose.

Now back to the thread!

 

[Andona]

WAMum,
Do you have a route planned to get from California to Yellowstone?

If you went via Vegas you could head up to Salt Lake City (maybe take a quick sidetrip into Zion National park on the way- it's stunning!) From Salt Lake City I'd go up via Logan and the Bear Lake road through the Jackson and the Grand Teton National Park to Yellowstone .

Otherwise if you go via San Francisco you could head west to Yosemite National park ( also stunning!) and then across the Sierra Nevada's to Lake Tahoe and via Reno to Salt Lake City. I think that option would take a lot longer - because you'd want to do justice to San Francisco and it's just more of a detour than the Vegas route.

We had three nights in Yellowstone and saw most of the "biggies" We drove in from the North though and snow stopped us from getting down to the Tetons

From Yellowstone, we had to drive north to Interstate 90 for our drive across to Mt Rushmore - snow had closed the east exits from the park. However, if I were doing it in July I'd head east from the park via Route 20 through Cody and the Bighorn National Forest. Cody is "Wild Bill Hickok" country and supposed to be a lot of fun and the road across to Sheridan is supposed to be very scenic.

Just before you get to South Dakota you could detour a little to Devils Tower National Monument, it's a spectacular site and they have a "town" of prairie dogs at the base of the mountain - they are very cute If you recall the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" you'll recognise the monument straight away

We drove via the Spearfish Canyon ( just over the border in South Dakota and very pretty) to Deadwood for a quick look ( we went up to the cemetery to see the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane - my DH loved cowboy movies when he was a kid! ) Then we headed across the Black Hills to Keystone and Mt Rushmore. We had two nights there as we wanted to visit the Crazy Horse monument they are carving in the hills.However, if you only wanted to see Mt Rushmore you could easily see it and the museums etc in the morning, so 1 night would be OK ( mornings are the best time to visit and photograph the monument).

We flew out of Rapid City but if we'd had more time I'd love to have visited Badlands National Park just east of Rapid.

From there to Bloomington is unfamiliar territory for us , I'll be very interested to hear what you end up seeing en-route. Are you going to take in Chicago on the way?

Andona

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Andona thanks for your reply its very helpful I imagine when i show this to DH he will be frothing at the bits to go the extra distance to the Graves he also loves cowboy movies

At this stage i am exploring our options and don't have a route planned other than the options google maps have given us DH would like to go to San Francisco as well so he doesn't have to go back to LA again I have only just processed those words as i wrote them that's not going to happen that will mean no DL so we might just scrap the idea and go with the via Vegas which means we will spend 1 night in Vegas as a stopover.

I did toy around with the idea of going to Chicago but i really dont think we will have enough time so maybe we will save that for another trip. We also want to include a stop at Wall.

So at the moment i am looking at
1 night Vegas
1 night Saltlake city
3 nights Yellowstone
1-2 nights Mount Rushmore/Wall
leaving 3 nights spare to drive to Bloomington.

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Well never say never
We are looking at changing our cruise to same date but out of Florida because for some reason the prices have dropped on the Fantasy and if we take 2 cabins at OGT we will save $3600 but its 7 night instead of 8 on the Magic but i can live with that for the massive saving!
Anyway i have said to DH that since we are going to be there maybe we should go to WDW his initial reaction was NO but with the possibility of free Dining on sale tomorrow for our dates i have persuaded him.

I am looking at 5 nights we will only get the 2 day park tickets and will go to the water park one day weather depending and hopefully Universal for Harry Potter.
The million $ question is where to stay.
We loved Pop the kids thought the theme was great DH says if we have to go back we are staying somewhere different.

I am looking at 2 rooms at POR i the look of the new Royal rooms

A cabin at FWL, DH is hugely unimpressed with that

Or the new Art of Animation which is still a value so i would need to upgrade dining which actually makes it more expensive than POR

My budget has to remain within the money we are saving from the cruise.

Will we miss the Disney theme from POP?
Is the water slide/pool at POR a nice area?
We sat and watched Disney Destinations today to try and see POR and its not on any of the episodes we have taped.
Any other ideas?
Thanks

 

[becpee]

Your trip looks awesome, I love a driving trip!

Im now toying with the idea of a change from The Wonder to The Fantasy mostly because of the flight prices i'm seeing to LA for October, I figure I could bring it forward a month, pay the same in flights (or pretty close) and get in WDW and the brand new ship for a small increase.

What to do, what to do?

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Your trip looks awesome, I love a driving trip!

Im now toying with the idea of a change from The Wonder to The Fantasy mostly because of the flight prices i'm seeing to LA for October, I figure I could bring it forward a month, pay the same in flights (or pretty close) and get in WDW and the brand new ship for a small increase.

What to do, what to do?

Thanks i probably should change our itinerary so much has happened i feel like this trip is changing so often i am having trouble keeping up

The temptation to sale on the Fantasy is way to much for me and the money saving is incredible i am just praying my education tax refunds hurry up since the discount fares have to be paid in full.

 

[becpee]

Thanks i probably should change our itinerary so much has happened i feel like this trip is changing so often i am having trouble keeping up

The temptation to sale on the Fantasy is way to much for me and the money saving is incredible i am just praying my education tax refunds hurry up since the discount fares have to be paid in full.

I know what you mean about The Fantasy, I thought it would be more also, and seeing the pics, well, i'm in love

Waiting for the agent to email me back to see if we can swing it, it would be great to do a different trip to what we've done before.

 

[WAMUMOF4]

I have booked 2 Royal rooms POR with FD the system wont let me book ADR past my first day. For someone who didnt like WDW i must say i am quite excited

 

[becpee]

I have booked 2 Royal rooms POR with FD the system wont let me book ADR past my first day. For someone who didnt like WDW i must say i am quite excited

You got me sucked in too, and i'm feeling a little like a Disneyland traitor.

I'm booked, just waiting to see if they can change our cruise, oh how a day can change things...

 

[WAMUMOF4]

You got me sucked in too, and i'm feeling a little like a Disneyland traitor.

I'm booked, just waiting to see if they can change our cruise, oh how a day can change things...

I am going to Disneyland as well i think that is why i am excited about WDW getting the best of both worlds i am still in a bit of shock DH agreed although he was going there anyway as part of the cruise from NY.