A bit of inspiration....

Would you (or anyone else on here) have any suggestions for, umm... say, the best four National Parks to vist in a four week tour, starting in San Francisco and spending a few (three/four?) days there to get over the jet-lag. Yosemite is a must, as well as the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone and a slot canyon somewhere, Zion, Monument ...

Hmmm, if you wish to include Yellowstone even though it's the farthest away to the north.... what about from Frisco go to Yosemite, up to Carson City and catch US Rt 50 across Nevada maybe to Ely or into Utah and turn north to Yellowstone? Then south to Moab Utah (Arches NP) and south to Monument Valley and over to the north entrance of the Grand Canyon, across Death Valley BP back to AF?
Were it me I'd bypass Monument Valley unless you have plenty of time to back track. Instead south of Moab just past Blanding Utah take 95 through White Canyon to Hanksville, 24 west to Torrey (nice little place to stay) and 12 south (very scenic road) to Bryce NP with the beautiful red rocks. Don't even have to go into the park itself because you can see a lot just from the road. Rt 12 ends at Rt 89 take it south to Zion and stay there a couple days for sure in the little town of Springdale. Then south on 89A to the Grand canyon's north entrance. Then drive west through Death Valley NP back to SF.

One thing to keep in mind in Utah and NW Arizona is how far you may need to travel around because of the large canyons. Looking at the map you'll see large sections without roads. Southern Utah is beautiful!
 
Nothing wrong with road tripping in a Mustang! Nice pics.
It's funny you should mention that just now about the Mustang- I agree with you completely of course- but I got talking with an American we bumped into this afternoon in, of all places, Bethlehem (that's right- Bethlehem in Palestine), a huuge Mustang burbled by and I told him about our intended tour of the US National Parks and my intention of renting one, he reckoned they weren't half as good as the latest Corvette because they'd been dramatically improved/upgraded as well this last year.... Make of that what you will.

PS In case anyone noticed or indeed cared, as mentioned in another thead we've had a change of plan and have put this year's intended US tour on hold and have come to Israel/Palestine/Jordan for the reason that I won't be allowed to rent a car (not even a Nissan bloody Micra) here next year as I'll be seventy years old whereas I can rent a Mustang (yes- or a Corvette) in the States.

Actually this trip is turning out to be a belter so far, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Petra, Arad, Tiberias and Tel Aviv, so much to see, we never thought it would be this brilliant. If I do get this posting pictures lark sorted I may well have some decent pictures to post. :)

PS welcome to the site! :beerjug:
 
Just had a Mustang for eight days in the US ...

After replying to another thread on hiring a car in the States (titled "Car hire in America) I rememberd this thread, so I thought it might be of interest to somebody if I added my thoughts on the Mustang to this thread. I haven't bothered to edit it specially for this thread, here it is in its entirety. I hope it isn't too boringly factual ...
:beerjug:

Just dropped a Mustang off after eight days' rental, picked it up at Washington DC with drop off at Newark Airport, New Jersey. The relocation (or 'One Way' fee) was $50 (£35-ish), seems reasonable. :)

We got it through Auto Europe (from Avis) as well and really liked it, but can't comment on the handling as I simply didn't have much opportunity to try it out, the roads are so regulated with speed limits, even the exit ramps to and from the motorways (or whatever they call them here) are limited to absurdly low speeds. 25mph was the usual IIRC. :confused: It felt fine before I did notice the limits, mind.

One annoying thing was that Avis had moved its Washington Downtown depot a couple of months before without any warning to us, and, worse, without a notice on the vacated premises, even a simple handwritten note in the widow or door would have helped, FFS. Another thing was that the GPS was faulty, it wasn't charging so we had to take the thing back to the depot. That became rather more of an issue when a few days later the GPS unit wouldn't get going when we got in the car in the morning and demanded the PIN code, of course the PIN code we had refered to the original GPS unit we were given, we phoned Auto Europe who told us to phone the Washington DC depot, who at the fourth attempt found us the correct PIN. For fuck's sake...

Anyway- back to the Mustang: once I got over the size we really did like it. Actually it did take me a little while to get used to not being able to see the far front corner, the driver's seat wouldn't adjust high enough to allow me to see over that vast bonnet (I'm six foot one, so it wasn't because I'm too short). It was a convertible so we had the roof down most days which was great unless we were on the freeways when the noise of the traffic was horrendous and completely drowned out the directions from the GPS which was turned up to full volume, a situation further exascerbated by the fact that it was difficult to see the screen because of the reflections on it due to the roof being down. The aircon worked fine both with the roof up and down, by which I mean it kept us cool when the sun was roasting and it also kept us warm when it got cooler in the evenings, and when it absolutely pissed down when we had the roof down in the Blue Ridge Mountains. With the roof down it was just like a hard top, quiet and deceptively fast, I found the speed creeping up to over eighty once, and that on a road with a sixty five limit. Fingers crossed that I don't get a wee message about that in the post... To be honest though, the traffic was generally at least ten mph over the posted limit. Luggage space: we had difficulty in getting our large suitcase in the boot, but it was manageable if we didn't have it bulging, which was just a matter of putting just a bit more of the luggage in our smaller airline carry-on luggage size suitcase which we could then get into the boot by its side. We avoided the temptation of just putting it on the back seat (the Mustang is a four-seater, but with very little legroom in the back) because it would have been so easy for an opportunistic thief to just run off with it given half a chance. Performance: it was an automatic and a bit ponderous when you put your foot down, but hardly sparkling acceleration when it did change down. It did have a nice exhaust note though. One surprising thing was its fuel consumption- a stubborn +/- 30 mpg ie 29 on the Blue Ridge Parkway with a speed limit of 45mph, the same on the Shenandoah Parkway with a limit of 35mph and a surprising 30 and-a-bit at a steady-ish 70mph on the freeways. Using cruise control seemed to reduce the mpg by a mile or so.

Sorry if the above gives an overall negative impression, but we (my wife and myself) both really liked it even though she recoiled in horror at its size when she first saw it, and were sorry to drop it off after about 1,300 miles in eight days, I think we'll be getting another one when we do the National Parks next year. :beerjug:
As it happens our daughter is working in Manhattan for a few months so we seized the chance to visit her as well as see New York City, Washington DC, and then do the American Colonial loop (and learn a bit about the Civil War), Fredericksburg, Jamestown, Williamsburg, Roanoke, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah, Strasbug, and a ride on their steam railway (as seen on Michael Portillo's American Railroad Journey programme on BBC2 earlier this year), Lancaster County, where the Amish live, then back for another few days in Hoboken where our daughter has her flat. A belting holiday. :)

As it happens she has been asked by her boss where she would like to go next: stay in New York, move to San Francisco, or to various other options not in the States. We, her parents are firmly of the view that San Francisco would be best for us- no, no, no- best for her :augie and would coincidentally fit in with her aged parents' plans to do the American National Parks in a Ford Mustang next year ... Anyway, have you seen the price of acommodation in San Francisco recently? Stunningly, eyewateringly expensive, it makes NYC prices seem cheap. So, no pressure there then, naturally ...
:beerjug:

EDIT: I do love the States. :bounce1
 


Back
Top Bottom