Everyone has an opinion on this I guess. I can only speak from experience of a western trip a few years ago with the plan of renting a car if we needed/wanted to see the area. Big mistake. We traveled from Atlanta to I-10 and across the southern route Arizona and Nevada. Rented in Las Vegas. As we crossed Texas and New Mexico there were numerous places we would liked to have stopped and explored. In Arizona the Apache stronghold of Cochise really had me wishing we could see the area, but did not happen.
Grand Canyon area was the same story.
Now I am old and health is going south and we are considering this trip again - longer time limit and certainly more sightseeing than looking out the window of a MH as we pass it by.
Do what you feel you have to do but in hindsight you will regret things you failed to see much more than you will regret any time you may have 'wasted' in stopping and taking a look around