Oregon: Crater Lake
Washington: Palouse Falls in full flood
Alaska: probably Denali National Park, and take the bus ride in.
Ran out of time.
Montana: Glacier NP and Pompei’s Pillar
Wyoming: Either Yellowstone or Devil’s Tower
Utah: Bryce Canyon
Arizona: Canyon de Chelly or Grand Canyon
Colorado: Mesa Verde
Idaho: Craters of The Moon or Snake River Canyon
South Dakota: The Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore, or Badlands
North Dakota: I honestly can’t think of anything, but I’m sure somebody will.
Minnesota: Boundary Waters (canoeing)
If you want to do something most people overlook in Alaska, go to Katmai to see the grizzlies and the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. You have to fly in to the place, but they have a lodge. The bears wander through the camp, but since salmon are so plentiful at that time of year, they pretty much ignore you.
Thanks, guys! Keep 'em coming!
Grand Canyon hands down. Canyon de Chelly is beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But when one thinks of my home state, it’s the Grand Canyon all the way!
Louisiana has a lot to offer for tourists but the easy one is to go to the French Quarter in New Orleans. It is a world class vacation destination so don’t just drive through to say you did it. Take her on a real vacation there when she is older.
For neighboring Mississippi, I recommend Natchez. It is gorgeous and very old school South. Natchez is about a 3 hour drive from New Orleans.
Michigan: Zug Island
:evil grin:
Yeah, the GC is iconic, alright. When you say Canyon de Chelly, most people give you a blank look. It would be a cool trip for a teen, as they take you in in a Jeep, driving up rivers, etc.
New Mexico: My first suggestion would be the Jemez area and Bandelier. Weird looking rocks, hot springs, an 18th century ruined mission, a soda dam of calcium carbonate or whatever and they let you walk on it, and finally the remains of an ancient Indian village surrounded by more bizarre rock formations. Plus you get to take a drive by glance at Los Alamos National Labs, the birthplace of the bomb. History and nature in one fell swoop.
https://picasaweb.google.com/marysharpe4/NewMexico?authkey=Gv1sRgCP3J7sLQp8TBEg#5461255289154151938
https://picasaweb.google.com/marysharpe4/NewMexico?authkey=Gv1sRgCP3J7sLQp8TBEg#5461253702392150578
Kentucky, where I used to live…maybe Pine Mountain. Beautiful scenic overlook, “Appalachian craft” gift shops, the spot where a band of Rebels took the mountain during the Civil War but were starved out when the Yankees surrounded them and cut their supply lines. (OK, I’ll admit I’m partial to that place because my great grandfather was captured by the Yankees there.)
I can also recommend Key West - when we were there in March the water was swimming pool warm, there was amazing sunlight. The food was excellent. Not for kids, but there is a bar that I know a bartender at that specializes in rums and he is very educated on the subject. The Southwind is a family motel - we rented a lovely unit that had 2 rooms, each had 2 beds and it had a full sized refrigerator, microwave and coffee maker. Quiet, tucked away only a block off Duval and a block from an absolutely killer sushi place. The fun thing about Key West is you can rent scooters and golf carts to bop around on. There is a lot of walking going on as well. They have some nice museums, and you can also rent boats, get fishing licenses and rent fishing gear or go out on a head boat and fish for sport fish if you like that sort of thing.
Texas: San Antonio has The Alamo and other (and better) missions, plus the River Walk.
CA: Definitely the redwoods and the coastal areas.
WDC (not a state, but you should go there): The Wall and the National Gallery of Art. If the kid is younger, then the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History for the dinosaurs or the Air and Space Museum.
Juneau is a small city, very busy in the downtown, and a short drive brings you to a crystal blue glacier. You might enjoy the hiking trails into old mining areas, wetlands, rainforest, and then back in town for a stroll by the harbor, or a trip to the beach across the bridge on Douglas Island.
The smaller islands are more like fishing villages, old fish packing towns, and places that have lost their logging based economy and want to attract tourists. They are friendly to visitors, and the slower pace small towns like Petersburg and Wrangell have beautiful sights to see.
If you can get a jeep out on the old logging roads of Wrangell island you get high point views of the inside passage and it’s tiny forested islands. You may see bear or deer, eagles and other wildlife, also there is some great hiking trails by waterfalls, creeks, and lakes. The air smells so fresh, and in the summer you can pick all kinds of blue berries, huckleberries, and salmon berries.
Oklahoma:
An absolutely beautiful state to drive through. Not that there aren’t things to do, but there’s something stunning about the landscape that makes me grin every time I take a long drive. There’s a long stretch of Route 66 that goes through OK, so there are plenty of stops to make along there.
You should also definitely see the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. Too many people forgot this tragedy in the wake of 9/11, but it’s definitely worth a visit.
I’ll sign in for Kansas.
There are so many worthwhile places, stops, and towns, but I don’t doubt every state has those.
Instead, I’m going to give you a route. If you’re passing through Kansas with some time to spare, start westbound on I-70 at KC. Notice the eastern woodland topography on your way to Topeka. Follow I-470 southwest, continuing when it turns into I-335. Drive 335 until you hit US 56, head west to Council Grove, and then north on K-177 to the Konza reserve. At this point you’ll be passing through the heart of the Flint Hills, home to 97% of the remaining Tallgrass Prairie in North America. After some time at the overlook, get on I-70 for the few miles into Ft. Riley/Junction City (don’t miss the artillery on the ridge to the south). Exit 70 just west of Junction onto K-77. Head north a few miles to K-18, and head west (18 parallels I-70 at this point, and is so much prettier [though the speed limit is only 60 or so]). Head west on K-18 to Plainville, then turn south and go to Hays. At Hays, get back on I-70 and head towards Colorado.
It leaves out more than enough. SE Kansas starts to get into the foothills of the Ozarks. SW starts to get into the arid Southwest. NW is High plains through and through, while NE is very much Eastern Woodland. The route I’ve given will give you a couple of zigs, but will have you driving through both prairie (Council Grove to 70) and open range (Plainville to Hays). You’ll drive from a few hundred feet above sea level to a few thousand (though most will look flat to you, especially west of Hays). Heading west in Kansas may be the epitome of going from east to west in the US.
If you want waypoints or stops let me know. If not, I think Kansas has more than enough to offer an inquisitive mind on a drive though.
A minor hijack if I may but might I suggest you avoid this “monument” at all costs?
I remember making the drive through the U.S. southwest and seeing road signs indicating your distance from the Four Corner monument. Whilst on our road trip to the Grand Canyon, it was determined that making a stop at 4-corners wasn’t that much out of the way and gosh, who wouldn’t want to see the meeting point of four US states?
Granted our visit was some 20 years ago so times may have changed and maybe they’ve added laser shows and uptempo pop music but when we went through, the spectacle was a major disappointing.
The ride into the ‘monument’ area was lined with trailers where Native Americans were advertising, god I think it was something like fried bread, then you could see vendors showing off their wares which appeared to be an assortment of worthless trinkets and doodads. Quite depressing.
Then as for the monument, it’s not much more than a concrete slab of a place marker indicating what meets where and that’s about it. You can see all manner of doofuses (doofi-??) down on all fours straddling the point of convergence gleefully cheesing away for the obligatory photo op.
While the 4-corners monument may not be the Absolute Lamest and Most Pointless of Tourist Traps, it’s got to be in the top one.
Piggy-backing your hijack, I just want others to know there’s a similar point where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia come to a point, and while not as heavily publicized and hyped, it is a place to take pictures of your feet and other body parts straddling three states at once.
See Cumberland Gap National Historical Park - Wikipedia for more details.
(I love your description of Four Corners!)
The Lincoln Memorial is still the most awe-inspiring of DC’s many monuments. Start there.
If you go down the Lincoln Memorial steps towards the Reflecting Pool, if you aim left, you’ll find the Wall (the Vietnam Memorial, that is).
But if you head right, you’ll run into the Korean War Memorial. IMHO, it’s easily the most moving and powerful of DC’s war memorials. A troop of GIs on a perpetual slog, looking ahead with thousand-yard stares.
Holy Cow! George Jefferson was one of the community’s founders!
Absolutely. A lot of those monuments and memorials are on the Mall, and all are worth seeing. I picked one, but most people naturally drift from one to the other once there.
Get back to me after you and your daughter have been to a few other states and you discover what she enjoys. Then, I’ll point out the part of Texas you should visit to max her enjoyment. Whatever it is she enjoys, we’ve got it here somewhere.
On the serious side, for Michigan I would suggest 2: Sleeping Bear Dunes and Pictured Rocks.