Is There Really A Best Route Home?

Newbienac wrote:
...which - where are the river roads??

US-61 is often referred to as the Great River Road. It runs parallel to the Mississippi River from Louisiana to Minnesota. We have done portions of it and have enjoyed stops in Saint Louis and Hannibal, MO; Memphis, TN; and Tunica, Clarkdale, and Vicksburg, MS. Frommer's website has an interactive map.

I discovered almost by accident a good four lane route from SE South Dakota all the way to Dallas, Texas.

Well, almost all four lane. US 81 is two lane around my hometown of Yankton SD. But go forty miles south to Norfolk, Nebraska and it turns into four lane highway.

Continuing south on US 81, one runs into I-135 in Kansas which turns into I-35 at Wichita, Kansas. And on from there to Oklahoma City, Dallas, where ever one wishes to leave the route to head SE towards Florida.

So if you are already in South Dakota, its a worthy route to check out.

re river roads... Those I can't name, but if you look at a map, you'll see state roads that sort of follow the MS River, off and on.
There's some pretty cool indian mounds on the Illinois side of the river at St. Louis. The Cahokia mounds...nice little visitor center and museum, easy to get to.

http://cahokiamounds.org/

Padredw, these and the suggestions noted by the person before you are great. Tomorrow I'll spend the day taking a look at all of these. I'm Kindof afraid though that if I get into Texas that could be good for WEEKS lolol... And while I'm all for taking my time, I'll be taking a close look.

Thanks so much for this great help.

Beth

I notice that Texas is not in our list of states you have gone through "on the way up." You could drop down through Colorado to Santa Fe, NM then on down to I-40 to Amarillo. Here, instead of going east into Oklahoma, you could take US 287 down to US 82 and then head east.

I can tell you many nice places to stay along that route: Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado Springs, (over to Buena Vista if you have time), Cedar Rail atop Raton Pass if you stay on I-25 to Santa Fe;
Santa Fe Skies in Santa Fe; several good choices in Amarillo; Ole Town Cotton Gin in Goodlett, TX (near Quannah); It would be great to drop on down to Tyler State Park in East Texas.

You mentioned Louisiana but not Mississippi. Of course you could take I-49 from Shreveport, but an alternate would be I-20 into Jackson then US 49 down to Hattisburg and US 98 to Mobile. The Ameristar casino in Vicksburg had a free breakfast. There is also Askew's Landing RV in Edwards, not far east of Vicksburg.

Ok, that's enough. Just possibilities, not even recommendations, but you asked for ideas about alternate routes.

My route would be I-90,I-29,I-80,I-74,I-65,I-10 or sub I-57,I-55 for I-65. To add on edit, the I-90 thru I-65 is our normal route from southern Ind. to/from the black Hills since '78. In fact we are headed out that way(westward) starting Sat(tomorrow). Have a safe trip.

Texasshadow, which - where are the river roads??

"Is There Really A Best Route Home?"

Not if it leads back to work. :B

Sorry, could not resist.

off the top of my head, you could head west and south a bit through NE and Iowa, then take the river roads down the Mississippi to TN, cross the state and then south east to wherever home is.