We spent five days in Michigan (family memorial/reunion), so the trip took ten elapsed days, when direct travel would have been six days:
1st day: Phoenix to Albuquerque, NM
2nd day: Albuquerque to Oklahoma City
3rd day: OK City to St. Louis, MO
4th day: St. Louis to Ann Arbor, MI (5 day stop, various places)
5th day: Michigan to Syracuse, NY
6th day: Syracuse to Maine
This will not be our route going forward. On our way home in the fall, we will travel down the eastern seaboard, stopping in SC and FL to see family, then over to Georgia to visit our son, then Austin to visit DH’s brother/SIL, and finally back home to AZ. We only took the northern route this time to attend the memorial.
The driving was suprisingly easy. We drove roughly 8 hours/day, each of us taking the wheel in two-hour alternating shifts, so four hours in the AM, stopping for a sit down lunch, and four hours in the afternoon, arriving at our hotel by dinner time. No night driving. Because we had to be in Michigan by a certain date, we did not sightsee along the way. We will be very flexible on sightseeing on the way home.
AAA TripTik mapped the best (shortest) route through Canada, but we didn’t want to go through that (COVID) hassle this time.
BTW, the TripTik app is phenomenal. We simply gave it our two destinations and put in our driving parameters (no more than 8 hours/day, hotel preference, etc.) and it mapped out where our stops should be which made it easy to make hotel reservations. It was so spot on. The ride was smooth and uneventful.
Thank you! In another life I like to think I could’ve been a photographer (maybe with some training), but for now I’m happy to use our house as my little gallery.
