Just thought I would share. My wife and are are going on a 7 day road trip starting 6/20/11 in the Pcar. The car's getting a fresh oil service Monday, just got the new custom interior installed, new regulator installed, and fresh detail today. We are going without any real plans, going to do alot of hiking, camping, driving without any firmly set destination. We are going West until we run out of time, then coming back.

Our direction will be across Texas, stopping at anything interesting, Tuscon, AZ, Tombstone, AZ, maybe California, Grand Canyon, and Route 66 all the way back to Amarillo (eat at the 72oz steak house), then back down Dallas, Tyler, then back towards the Louisiana border behind the Green Pine curtain in southeast Texas.

Anyone who would like to meet up or share something interesting/worth seeing are more than welcome.

5 states, approx 4K miles, with no time schedule should be fun!!

 

sounds like a great trip !
drive up mt lemon in tucson

 

I've made similar roadtrips between the Houston area and South/Central CA several times. My route planning objective for my most recent trip, which was in my P-car about 18 months ago, was to take as few interstates (ho hum, boring) as possible. Some of the roads I can recommend from personal experience include:

1. New Mexico state highway 385 west from Roswell (look out for UFOs ) to where it ends near Socorro NM/intersection with I-25. You'll pass by Smokey the Bear's birthplace and where Billy the Kid bit the dust. This road wasn't the smoothest but well worth the scenery.

2. New Mexico/Arizona highway 60 west from Socorro NM to Show Low AZ. This is a great road and will take you past the Very Large Array radiotelescope (first photo, it has free tours) and Pie Town (where they serve pies...go figure). This route should take you north of the burned-out areas from the bad forest fires in AZ/NM of a couple of months ago.

3. If it hasn't been burned out by the fires--AZ/NM 180 from Springerville, AZ through Silver City, NM connecting to NM 152 to Caballo NM (just south of Truth or Consequences). NM 152 is a properly narrow, winding mountain road; not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. The third photo was taken off of NM 180.

4. AZ Alt 89 south of Flagstaff through Sedona AZ.

5. Route 66 between Ash Fork AZ and Kingman AZ. This is the original road. So good I took it twice, both coming and going. Second photo was taken along Route 66.

6. If you do take in the Grand Canyon, make a loop starting/ending in Flagstaff, using routes 89, 64 (through the park) and 180. IIRC, there's a side route off of 89 which takes you through a state park with volcanos/lava...well worth the detour.

7. Consider AZ route 93 through Boulder City and over Hoover Dam. Traffic can be heavy/slow and there are special security checkpoints over the dam. The AZ highway patrol was also quite active on 93 east of the dam.

8. If you think your car can handle it...CA 190 though Death Valley. Traffic will be light but temperatures can be 120F plus mid-day. Absolutely gorgeous route, however.

9. NM 285 from Clines Corner, NM (about one hour's drive east of Albuquerque) south to Rosewell NM. Superb road surface IIRC and very little traffic, with nice vistas all around.

If you do take interstates at all, I-40 is a much nicer drive than I-10 which is suicidally boring. The only saving grace for I-10 is the speed limit...posted 80 (may be 85 now) between El Paso and San Antonio, TX.

Post intersting routes and photos upon your return.

Have a great trip!

 

Well, let's just trip started out interesting at best. I'm working on resizing my pics as I don't have my old program on the new computer.
Route:
-I-10 from Beaumont, TX to San Antonio
-Hwy 90 from San Antonio through Del Rio, then down 385 to Big Bend National Park (this is where the first fun part of the trip started ). Had two belts break on the rear tire in the middle of nowhere in West Texas. We called Porsche North America, (no dealers had the size in stock), called every major tire chain in 3 states and the only one that had one in stock was Phoenix Arizona. So we decided not to camp at Big Bend but to head towards Phoenix at night so the roads wouldn't be quite as hot, to melt down the spare faster than we could get there. Needless to say, 14-16 hours later at 50mph we arrived in Phoenix, AZ. Have to admit leave it to the germans to make a trunk that fits a spare, but not the actually rim & tire, lol (see the pics). So onwards we went:
-118 from Big Bend to back to I-10
-I-10 all the way to Phoenix AZ (Props to Discount Tire in Mesa, AZ for holding tires for me)
Side Note- I donated a Passenger Side Headlamp Washer Cover to the City of Tucson, AZ. Some hobo should have a nice chrome plastic piece, lol. I looked for it for about 45 minutes, and then gave up as I was getting drenched from a thunderstorm.
-I-10 from Phoenix to Hwy 80 into Tombstone, AZ. Tombstone was awesome, we actually stayed several nights as there was plenty to do (with the occasional blast to Sierra Vista through some decent curvy roads)
Next the plan was to explore AZ to the Grand Canyon, but with all of the issues so far, we decided to stay toward the south, and take the back roads back to Carlsbad.
- Hwy 191 (AZ) to Hwy 180 (NM) through Silver city
-Hwy 180 to Hwy 152 (Absolutely Awesome 180 hairpins with 100+ft drop offs, no rails, through Mimbres Mountains / Gila National Forest. Strongly recommend for anyone, by far the best road I have ever traveled.
-152 to I-25 to Las Cruces, through El Paso
- I-25 to Hwy 180/62 to Hueco Mountains (State Park w/ Ancient Indian Pictographs) We actually slept in the car since we arrived after hours, and used border patrol inspection station rest rooms for emergencies
- From Hueco Mountains went through Guadalupe Mountains National Park to Carlsbad, NM to eat, and then back to Carlsbad Caverns. The bat flight was neat, but the best part was the 70 degree cavern that I could definitely get used to.
- Hwy 285 from Carlsbad NM to Pecos (the only place to stay was Motel 6, camping was not allowed at Carlsbad due to the recent fires)
- Hwy 285 from Pecos, TX to Fort Stockton
- I-10 to San Antonio to Catch dinner on the River walk and Harry Potter in 3d on the IMAX, loll.
Then back home.
In summary, the trip was over 3,000+ miles, through 3 states with the following fun:
1.) Two separate broken belts on rear tire
2.) Passenger Side Headlamp Washer Cover that decided to reside in Tucson, AZ
3.) Near head on collision at high speed with F150 that came across the middle divider (I'm not sure how we missed) on Hwy 180 NM to Carlsbad.
4.) Exploding tire from oncoming 18 wheeler that left rubber on just about every front body panel (hood, bumper, fenders, and windshield), (luckily with much buffing, all is well).
Best Recommendations:
1.) Hwy 152 (Absolutely Awesome 180 hairpins with 100+ft drop offs, no rails, through Mimbres Mountains / Gila National Forest.
2.) The Best Ice Cream Ever! Old Benson Ice Cream in Benson, AZ (I spent over $30 bucks total, by the time I was through as I even bought T-Shirts, )
3.) Tombstone, AZ definitely a neat place, to experience a trace of the old west. (Much to do here for all age groups)
4.) Carlsbad Caverns
5.) River walk, San Antonio, TX

 

Pics Coming Soon I need to resize them so I don't take up too much bandwidth.

 

I just posted pics on renntech I will try to get pics here in a few days.