Postby ventura ace » Mon May 17, 2010 9:15 pm
6000 km in 45 days is a very relaxed pace (about 80 miles per day on average). I drive more than that on my daily commute back an forth to work each day! I'm assuming that you're planning to take in a lot of the sights and adventures along the way. For example, it looks like your route goes through Glacier/Waterton and Yellowstone National Parks. You could easily spend a week in each of those areas, and the same could be said about many of the other areas that you'll be passing through.
When we drove cross country in our '70 spider in July 2008, we covered almost 8000 miles (13,300 km) in 19 days, but a lot of the driving was rushed. The route eastward was the southern route (LA - Phoenix - Albuquerque - El Paso - Dallas - Atlanta), then northward through the Carolinas, and on to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. That was about 8 days, including a relaxing day (July 4) at my sister's place in southern AZ, dinner with With a Fiat buddy in El Paso, a relaxing 1/2 day with the Schefermans in Dallas, and evening with another sister in Birmingham (AL), a brunch with my brother in Atlanta, and a few days visiting my parents in SC and daughter in NC, before making a bee line to the Poconos for a weekend at FFO. The top was always down, unless it was raining, and it wasn't all that bad, even in July. In fact, it was quite pleasant. We did a lot of the driving in the very early part of the day just after sunrise. As such, there's about 6 hours of driving before it really gets toasty, and another 4 hours of daylight from about 4:30 to 8:30, for pleasant evening driving.
For a real treat, when it gets blazing hot, you pull off at one of those quick stop mini-marts in the South that has a walk-in refrigerator, where they keep all the drinks!! Great way to cool off!!
After the FFO in the Poconos, we left on Sunday at mid-day, and were in Oregon by 5 days later by Friday afternoon, caravanning and swithching off driving with Jim and Allen (from Ireland) in their brand new Fiat 500. Along the way, we had a pleasant evening in Dayton (OH), and evening of sailing on Lake Michigan with friends in Chicago, a pleasant evening with Maureen's brother in Omaha (NE), an overnight somewhere in Wyoming, and again somewhere in Nevada after driving out on the Bonnevile Salt Flats in Utah, then on to the beautiful forests of Oregon. Spent the weekend there camping with the wonderful Western annual Fiat Gathering, then took a leisurely 2 days to drive back south to LA, with an overnight at Mike Mudge in Sacramento area.
The trip could have been more enjoyable, of course, if we had been able to take at least twice or 3X the time, and taken in more visits and sights, but I have no regrets for the rushed trip and all the good times that we enjoyed, and all the great people that we shared it with along the way. It was quite a memorable trip. The only problem was my own fault -- an electric fuel pump that overheated because I had wrapped it in sound insulation to silence it before we left home. That happened less than 100 miles from the start, and I had a spare fuel pump in the trunk, so we only lost about an hour or so for the trouble. I did 2 oil changes along the way, and checked all the vitals regularly. Jeff Scheferman helped me with fine tuning the 40IDF carbs at his place in Dallas -- not that they were bad, but Jeff is good with optimizing the 40 IDF's, so I enjoyed the tutorial.
You should have a wonderful trip, and have plenty of time for lots of zig-zagging to take in the sights in your 45 days. If you should expand your trip to southern CA, we would love to see you!
Alvon