Monster roadtrip coming up

Rizzo and I are going on another monster roadtrip on July 4th weekend. It is a highpointing roadtrip, and this one will be a doozy. Taking off from New York on Friday, we're going due west. The highpoints I want to visit are Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. If we are doing great on time, I also want to catch Wisconsin. We'll have about 80 hours to do it in, from friday night to monday night. It's going to be a test in endurance, but If I can drive to Texas without sleep I can do this. If all goes as planned, my map will go from this:



to this:



The way my highpointing is going, there are three states that might take a major time/expense to get to: Mighigan, who's highpoint is on the UP, Minnesota, who's highpoint is on the portion north of Lake Superior, and Alabama, who's highpoint is about 2 hours from Atlanta. I don't know when I'll get to Atlanta next, and a roadtrip just to do Alabama's highpoint seems pretty ludicrous. The Northeastern states are obviously the easiest to get to, followed by Virginia. I want to enjoy these hikes, and that means improved fitness, and that's the only reason I haven't done them already. ND, SD, NE, KS, and OK are all relatively easy hikes, but their highpoints are also on the west side of each of the states. That's going to take a seperate roadtrip to accomplish, perhaps from Denver.

Speaking of Denver, I am looking at taking a trip there sometime in the next few weeks. I have never been to Colorado and I want to see what it's like: the quality of life there, and I want to see the Colorado mountains with my own eyes. I'd also like to drive up Pike's Peak, on the second-highest highway in the world. This will not be a highpointing trip, even though CO's highpoint, Mt. Elbert, is just a dayhike. It's probably too much of a dayhike for my unacclimized fat ass. (:

Look for photos on both of these trips.