Looking a bit ominous as we enter Chicago...

Cleveland Dancing at Becky's

We ended up staying in Cleveland last night as all places along the lake shore were sold out for the weekend. There was just one place in all of Erie, PA that had some rooms left a day those were $189 for the night. No idea what was going on there.

Cleveland is probably my least favourite big city in the US. Really ugly here, haha. The closest place to get some drinks was Becky's  Bistro that had a band playing rock and roll songs and couples dancing. It was SURREAL as seriously everything there looked 1970s and I  was the second youngest person in that place with all the Golden Girls having a blast, dancing.

We almost went in here

There are two people sitting at the entrance of this place, one is on oxygen. Unfortunately the tour of old furniture was 45 minutes and we don't have time for that.

Karen's Lake at Sunrise

Filling up the water bottle

Our journey begins

It's Karaoke night!

At the Airport

My luggage for 3 weeks

Sooo... All set, checked in and waiting for the last chance to enter the restricted area, haha. Dreading the long flight but it will be worth it!


Final Route

East Coast to Minneapolis (July 30 - August 5)

Minneapolis to Yellowstone (August 5 - August 10)
So the route for the first two parts of our road trip is pretty much set in stone now. Looks great, not too much driving and lots of great places along the way.

For the final part of our trip I've made two alternatives: the first one is more straightforward as it is 549 miles shorter. But I think at some point we might become a bit exhausted of mountains and hikes and maybe after Badlands, Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Devil's Tower, Yellowstone, Utah and so on, we might want to skip Idaho and do something entirely different for that final week.

The alternative route would give us the chance to see the Grand Canyon, Zion, and spend some time in Vegas and/or Reno. The only downside is the final stage from Reno to Portland, which would be almost entirely driving for a day, watching Dancing Groot doing his thing on the dashboard. But we could also avoid this by adding another stop inbetween and arriving in Portland on Saturday noon/early afternoon instead of Friday night, staying the night somewhere on the Pacific coast. Then it should be more fun.

Yellowstone to Portland (August 10 - August 14)

ALTERNATIVE ROUTE (August 10 - August 14/15)


Share Your Ideas With Us

Looking for great places to see / cool things to do in Minneapolis, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and especially Utah!

I'd love to hear your ideas for places not to be missed on our extensive road trip. Can be anything from natural monuments, arts & culture, music, pubs, crazy stuff, weird things, we're open to most things that are not too time consuming. We deleted the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley from our route because it's not really worth driving there for half a day and then having just about 2-3 hours to stay.

Let us know if you have been to some cool places in these states and think we will like it there.

Cheers