It's not a bad idea. I'm not sure what Brit will say, tho. We could do it on the way back...but going on the way out we know the route, know the rest stops and the towns. Until we know what our child is like in the car, I'm reluctant to get too ambitious.

Is SD like NE and IA? In those states, we found the rest stops to be every half hour (35-40 miles) or so (which IIRC is required in order for it to be designated an interstate), and lots of small towns which had fast food or other diners, drive-ins or dives where one could eat. Traveling with a 10-week old will necessitate being able to stop somewhere comfortable relatively frequently to feed and change him. What was your impression of I-90, keeping this in mind?

To my knowledge, I90 in south dakota is actually more visitor-friendly than I80, which is not often regarded as a touristy route. The only truly desolate interstates I know of are in the southwest, where you see the "200 miles to the next rest stop" signs. The great planes are actually fairly populated, comparatively, with the agriculture and all.

I have not driven past central Iowa on I80 though so I don't have a good comparison. Nebraska is still one of the few states I have yet to visit.

Yeah, I'd heard the same thing about I-80 vs others. I-80 is more of a "get there" route, where as 90 is more of a "yaytraveling!" route ( ... )

Yeah, US-14 is the one I took. It's v. srs mountain driving, but Bighorn National Forest and Bighorn canyon are beautiful places that are probably overshadowed by Yellowstone being the next park over. I probably wouldn't recommend US-14 for kids. Not many stops in Bighorn forest, and it's a long drive. The signs around there recommend US-16 for getting to Yellowstone if you have camper type vehicles. It has a lower grade and might be more user-friendly ( ... )

Thanks for the info on US-14. There is an alternate diversion from Livingston down US-89 or you can go down from Bozeman on US-191, but I imagine it's all about the same as US-14. Regardless, andy I-90 route adds about 3 hours to the 36 hour drive that is I-80.

If Ethan is anything like his parents, he will love US-14 when he gets a bit older (I love love love driving those mountain roads!) ;)

And as for the awesome rest stop in MKE, who knows what's gonna happen. If the drive down is too arduous and we decide to stop a couple of times on the way home, the detour from I-80 to MKE is only 2-3 hours, for a free night's stay + socialfuntime, so might be a good detour. If i had $350 I'd take the ferry to Muskegon so we could skip Chicago traffic...

So many variables...makes my head spin lol.

There is another ferry further north from Manitowoc to Luddington that's only ~$200, but it'd add 2 hours and some fuel.

I always make excel spreadsheets to plan trips and estimate costs. :D

I have various notes and documents in my google docs of places to stop that were good last time, etc. I spent more time figuring it out last time tho. This time, since I know what the lay of the land is, I won't spend so much time on it.

I went so far as to figure out how many miles at what speed each state was lol! Then I knew how long we'd spend at what speed, used that to figure out exhaustion (faster speeds are more tiring).

I also planned each leg of the trip so as to make it fair...where we were to change drivers, restaurants to grab food at, etc.

Wow, that's pretty hardcore. I check for my favorite gas stations, and food-wise I try to bring sandwiches for the first two days. Sometimes I'll research good native restaurants in advance.

I used google earth and maps too...helpful in figuring out what restaurants are at a given exit and useful for verifying other info as well. Brit wanted to hit an American Taco Bell asap so we were able to figure our first fuel stop to coincide with Taco Bell. And likely we'll end up hitting the same place this time too lol.

The planning is part of the entertainment too. Being able to predict what stuff is where before you get there is like some kind of lame ESP lol.

Wandering off the planned route is fun too though...like pulling over in Green River, WY and finding Pepsi Throwback. We hadn't found any before then. That was a random win :)

Is there Canadian Taco Bell? o.O