[fundriver]

Thank you all for your messages. Your trips, done or imagined, gives ideas and makes dream!

@ BruceH: this is not a trip, but a real adventure!!! Amazing! I love to read such adventure-trip reports. One of the condition to do that is, I guess, to have excellent knowledges in mechanics. I spent a lot of time myself to imagine, and only to imagine, a road trip from the Alps to Le Cap in South Africa; but, for security and political reason, this is more and more difficult to find a way.

@ dbear61: Yes, your own post about your trip from Milwaukee to seattle gave me the idea of this post! I am a native european, and was 4 times in the USA (a fantastic trip with family from SF to LA through CA, NV, UT and AZ, in beautiful landscapes, visiting some NP and other points of interest, in 1989 [I was a teenager and naturally didn't drive]; a other trip like that on the East Coast, from NY to Boston to Quebec, to Montréal, to Toronto, to Pennsylvania, to Washington DC, to NY, in 1991; a trip to Portland and Oregon in 2005; a trip to NY in 2009. All are great souvenirs. I like geography and history, and can spend a lot of time dreaming on a map, or on GoogleEarth. I know that the roads in the USA are differents than the ones we have in Europe, that the country is huge. It is an other size, an other scale. I guess that to cross the Midwest, were there is no relief and only fields during hundreds of miles can appear to be boring, or be boring. But I think it is a good way to "feel" the country, its dimensions, perhaps its spirit, etc. To cross the USA from one coast to the other by the road is an old fantasy (someone said: "Go West, young man, go West!"). Naturally such a trip in 3 weeks (or less) is perhaps a little bit frustrating, because you don't have the time to visit. But it is an other concept. A driving concept. Anyway, next time I will have the possibility to visit the USA, I will ask you for some tips; that is always a precious help to have the tip of local people when you visit a place you don't know. I add, that for tourism, or for a tourist like me, I think that the part of the country which would be the most interesting because of the fantastic scenery, the wild landscapes and nature, the big NP's, the dimensions, is from the East side of the rockies to the Pacific coast; but obviously, there is beautiful places and landscapes in the other parts of the country; for example, I remember that the Northeast was effectively beautiful and that I loved this area, but it is less different than the landscapes I am used to, compared to the wild West.

I look forward to read more of your trips, done or imagined, from one coast to the other (this is the subject of the post), and also others special trips you did.