Southern MN through Southern SD

[lovely_bunny]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

My wife and I are doing some of our own routing for our East-West cross-country trip this summer.  We're pretty set to get from NYC to La Crosse, Wisconsin.  Now we're working on getting from La Crosse through Southern Minnesota and South Dakota.  When we get to the Badlands or so we will be heading South to Pueblo, CO, to catch the Western Express to San Francisco.

Anyone have any experience with touring this or a similar route??  Any and all advice is welcome.  Thanks! 

[litespeed]

Here's the way I did it: US14 from La Crosse to Yellowstone, US20,26 across Idaho, US26 and 126 across Oregon to Florence and down the coast on US1 (bicycling paradise) to San Francisco. This is a lot more scenic and has more services than your route through Colorado and Nevada. Of course, if you have a reason (visiting someone?) to go through Pueblo CO by all means go that way.

[lovely_bunny]

Hmm, this sounds interesting, litespeed...we were going to make a stop to see some folks in Denver, but it's not all that important.  It seems like the route you're suggesting might be a little less hilly (or mountain-y).  What do you think?

[litespeed]

The Western Express across Nevada which I understand is US50, "The loneliest road", takes serious planning. There are huge stretches of nothing. Lots of people love it and you get serious bragging rights if you do it.

My route would take you through such fine national parks as The Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, maybe a side trip to Devil's Tower and beautiful MacKenzie Pass. As for climbing, you'd have a hard pull over the Bighorns. You'd cross the Divide in Yellowstone which is moderately arduous. In western Oregon you climb (and descend) a number of passes much as you'd do on 50 in Nevada.

[jimbo]

Hi L-Bunny,  I did southern SD and southern MN in 08. I grew up in Jackson MN and our route was south of I90 the entire way. The Root River Trail in the SE corner of MN was great; Spam Museum in Austin a must stop; and small rural towns with County roads with little traffic. Our route is blogged at: http://www.fllt.org/blog/
Read days 35-46. Most may consider the route less than spectacular because it is a " rural plains culture trip". We were traveling west to east and those 2 states ( and 2 days in Iowa) were our last vestiges of the "west" (live in NY now)
If you want more details than the blog has let me know.
Jim K

[lovely_bunny]

Awesome, thanks Jim. Great blog--this really helps quite a bit!  My wife is doing a lot of the legwork on the routing since I'm still working full time...we'll let you know if we have any questions as we look into it further.  I mentioned the Spam museum to her (excitedly) and she gave me a funny look.   

And litespeed, we're going to take your suggestion and forego the trip down to Pueblo.  We've got a lot of friends along Northern 101 that we're now planning on seeing.  So thanks for that!