I hope you have some maps, already.
San Francisco is worth seeing. Sundown drinks/dinner at Cliff House is worth the trip, even if you ignored the rest of the city. Sausalito, across the Golden Gate is worth a couple of hours of walk-around.
The drive from San Francisco through Yosemite is spectacular. Rest up in late afternoon and cross Death Valley at ngiht, though. That is serious HOT. East from Las Vegas over Boulder Dam and on toward Flagstaff, turn off to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Work east past Flagstaff and then southeast to Alpine, Arizona. Go on south to Silver City, New Mexico. The Gila Cliff Dwellings are an interesting side trip.
It's miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles from Deming, New Mexico on through El Paso and eastward to a little "don't blink" called Kent, Texas, east of Van Horn. Turn south on State Highway 118. That takes you into some fairly high mountains and past the McDonald Observatory, with one of the world's largest telescopes.
Going south from the old western town of Fort Davis and the restored cavalry post there takes you to US 90 at Alpine, Texas. That takes you to San Antonio, and is the more scenic way across southern Texas than the Intersate.
In San Antonio, the most interesting part, IMO, is the center of town. The shops and cafes along what's called "The River Walk", and the Alamo. Otherwise, it's just another large city.
Lotsa options from San Antonio. The Texas hill country north of there has some scenic drives, with early German-settlement towns like Fredericksburg, yuppified though it has become.
Austin has all manner of entertainment, all over town. You couldn't take it all in in a month, really.
From the Austin area, you can run southeast if you want to see the Gulf coastal area, or northeast through rural country to Interstate 20 and on eastward or northeastward...
Houston is nothing but a pain in the butt to get through. Good Cajun cooking and music in Louisiana, particularly at Mulate's Restaurant at about the 108 mile marker on I-10.
If you get to Nashville, Tennessee, the Opryland Hotel is an intriguing monument to bad taste. If you like country music, I highly recommend the Ernest Tubb record shop, across the street from the Opryland on the north side. They have lots of the old stuff as well as the modern.
My home is about 100 miles south of Fort Davis, Texas, on the west edge of Big Bend National Park. Terlingua. An old mercury mining town, now a tourist area. It's hot, though, and dust is a notable part of life, here. Except when we get summer rains and then it's mud for a day or so.
But if you like to shoot, that's easy to do. I have a benchrest on my front porch and a pistol range behind the house. If I'm here, when you're in the area, I'm pretty easy to find.
, Art
