DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Drive from Cbus to Seattle

I have 2 sons in the Navy. The one that has a car got his orders is going to Japan and has a nice low mileage car. My other son is stationed in Seattle and needs a car. He is going to buy it from him. and my wife, daughter and I are going to drive it out to him. We were planning a visit anyways. google maps says anywhere from 35-39 hours depending on time of day i look. I want to take I-74/380/90. not I-65/90/94 through Chicago and Minneapolis
Want to make quick pit stops at Mt.Rushmore devils tower and badlands if time permits.

Question is what is a realistic time frame to get there if anyone has done that drive.

we have 3 drivers. never gone this far before but have went to Naples Fl several times 2 day trips with small kids and Savannah Ga straight through quite often.

I am thinking 3.5 days easily. First day would like to get to Sioux city roughly 12.5 hr drive. from there to Seattle is 24 hr drive. i think it is very doable.
I do understand that time doesn't include stopping for fuel, food bathroom breaks.
We plan to rotate drivers/seats about every 3-4 hrs.

We drove to Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse (must see - https://www.blackhillsbadlands.com/parks-monuments) a few years back. I think we did 9 hours one day and 8 the next. We stopped off at Sioux Falls, I think. The hotel was great, I wonder if I could find where that was.

We had a 9-year old and a cat in the car. It worked out well.

IMO, ~9 hours is the the maximum I can sit in a car per day (I can do more on a motorcycle but then again, it's more fun). After 9 hours, I start to go nuts.

Good luck and be safe.

Very cool driving trip.

May I suggest two hours (and a free ice water) at Wall Drug?



It’s a mammoth, sprawling, I guess you’d call it a mall. Close to Badlands Nat'l Park.



A great place to go for an hour walk and lunch indoors during a hot summer drive.

(The place is huge and very kitschy. I’d say fun.)

Here’s directions:



(Wall Drug is also famous for having mile marker signs in all 50 states and almost every country in the world.)(including antarctica)

You can borrow my M6, and you will get there in 4 hours.

I’ve done CBus to Portland a few times. It’s 40 hours of drive time.
Denver is about halfway. Typically I drive through to Denver then stop for a night of rest. Then break the last half into two 10 hour days. Seattle is another 3 hours north, but that angle can be cut by heading north in Eastern Oregon and shooting across Washington. Instead of coming all the way to Portland. Though in doing that you’ll miss one of the most scenic drives in the country, the Columbia River Gorge.

Another tip. If you can drive all night I’d do it. If you leave CBus just after rush hour you can miss traffic in all the major cities you have to navigate between there and Denver. Plus the plains states can get boring from the highway. Not much to see.
After Denver it gets pretty. You’ll want to drive during the day and enjoy the views. (Though Wyoming is fairly boring from the highway. From Cheyenne to Idaho Falls is ... bleh. Day driving past Denver is also easier as there’s not as many cities to deal with traffic. Salt Lake City, Ogden, Cheyenne... all small cities. Light traffic.

I now see you’re taking the northern route.
I haven’t done that one.
You’re on your own.

ok so, it depends on the make and model of the car, as well as the rotation you plan on using.

the trip is a total drive of about 2423 miles, which will take 36 hours non stop. so if you rotated 4 times, thats about 605 miles per person. so if you started off driving, you'll be the last person to rotate out.

but that will slow you down, especially since i doubt your car gets 605 on one tank of gas. so lets say you can average about.....420 on a tank of gas. that means you will rotate out about 6 times, or 5.75 to be exact.

if you average about 80 miles per hour, it will take you 30 hours. to make sure you make the 36 hour mark, or no more than 40 hours, you must use fueling stops to cover food and bathroom breaks, brushing you teeth, changing underwear and all that.

you have a 3 man rotation. if that trip takes you damn near 4 days, than i can reasonably assume you sucked at the game Oregon Trail.

i did cleveland to to Phoenix in 2 days solo dolo. and thats because i got pulled over twice and decided to go to some of those weird ass tourist spots along the route.

Are you sure?

Let me check your calculations.

2423 total miles/420 per tank * average 80 mph, multiply the derivative square root, iterate the exponential binary component, calculate the quadratic polynomial, cube the hyperbolic cosine, carry the two…

Two. I get two.

you forgot to calculate the power of the flux capacitor.

I made it from YTown to Columbus in about 1 hour and 45 minutes.... way back when I was a kid moving out on my own for the 1st time. I had a buddy who had moved down to Columbus, who was looking for a roommate. I had a job in hand, and off I went. 175 miles later, I was in CBus. I'm lucky I'm not still in jail.

With that you can travel today from CBus to Seattle three days ago. Or in 1945 when there less traffic. Though if you wait until the mid to late 50’s you get the highway system. Or do it 2246 and maybe you can just teleport.
Dealers choice really.

Man, if I could teleport, I could go to some Browns games. That would be great ..... just teleport right into my seat ..... and enjoy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I now know the answer to all those "Where the Hell is Wall Drug" bumper stickers/signs I've seen over the last 6.25 decades.

Life is good again.

https://shop.walldrug.com/collections/souvenir-wall-drug-signs

Forgot about crazy horse. added to list.
I think we will be ok for at least 10-12 hrs a day easily
thank you punch



Its not off the path hardly at all to stop there. looks like some good restaurants there too.
thanks Rocky



no offense Swish but I wouldn't be caught dead in a bmw. I work on cars for a living and would never own an over engineered oil leaking german car. but thanks for the offer.



If we were not on a tighter time restraint I would look more into going that way.
Not sure If i could bring myself to drive through denver though. yuk.
Don't really want to travel at night we will be leaving on a friday morning and should get by all the rush hour traffic in the bigger city's before it happens. not sure how bad it will be in cedar rapids or Iowa city.

Thanks for all the info Portland

Swish, car will get about 32-34 MPG on highway with the tank size about 520-550 miles on the tank. son got that going through the mountains too. not driving straight through im sure out that way we will be avg 75-80 MPH. but its not a cannon ball run and I don't need any tickets. if i was younger i could drive further not doubt but get a little uneasy with my back. that's why we are going to rotate a bit more often.

and never played organ trails

thanks for all the replies. it's going to be a "fun" drive.

Might see if the boy can fly into rapid city on sat to make the 2nd half of the trip with us then we can take a bit more time to see everything. he likes that type of stuff.

Any route that avoids coming up from the south via Tacoma! Portland is only 170 miles from Seattle and one expects traffic in the Seattle area due to the population and the water that surrounds it, but the traffic is actually far worse in Tacoma. That 3 hours can easily stretch to 4-5hrs. It almost extends down as far as Olympia these days, but most definitely from the army base all the way north to Fife/Federal Way and even to SeaTac is almost always dreadful. And, it seems to not correlate to any time. I have sat in it at 2:30pm and at 11pm. Neither traditional rush hour times, but it can be a parking lot that goes on for miles. A lot of it is because the I5 is constantly under construction. We have lived here for 12 years and it's always had construction in that time. It's kinda like the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona...a continual work in progress. One silver lining, however, it seems to be worse going south.

We are actually going to Bremerton so we will have to go through Tacoma via 90/18/5/16 Not sure if it will be on Sunday or Monday yet.
We will be going into Vancouver overnight, will the 5 that way be a parking lot too?

Thank you for the info PDX

Vancouver, Washington or Vancouver, BC?

Vancouver BC

Depending on time of day getting over the border can be slow 10-15 minutes... to really slow... really really slow. There’s two crossing points. Sometimes the truck crossing is the faster route. Expect to be greeted kindly and with a smile by the Canadian border agents as you enter their country. Prepare to be interrogated by a border agents with resting B face, as they treat you like you’re trying to ‘pull one over’ on your way back into the States.
Happens every time.

I was literally just up in Bellingham, Washington and Vancouver, BC. Driving north of Seattle is better. Traffic getting through Seattle, yes, but nothing like going through Tacoma. IT just seems to always be busy in the South of Tacoma all the way up to Fife/Federal Way and SeaTac.

Once you get past Seattle there is always a bit of traffic in the Everett area too. But, once you get past Everett it is clean sailing to Bellingham (great town!) & Vancouver.

The border (Peace Arch), however, is different. It took us 20 minutes to get across to Canada. It took us nearly 3 hours to get back into the US (we hit the border at 1:30PM). There are big boards as you approach saying how long the border wait is....it may be worth it to push east and cross elsewhere as each time I have driven to Vancouver Peace Arch is often very busy (especially returning).

Actually, this time for us (just Tuesday) Canadian border police were much more difficult than American border police. I will tell you our story when I see you this weekend, Portland. It was crazy, actually.

Thank you PDX and Portland. great info

looking into different border crossings now. the one down further past the truck (rt 539) might be an option too only 12 miles.
there to sight see why not drive a bit more. lol.

M6? What year.

Sweet ride.

Just drove up to Vancouver recently.

My impression of the border patrol going into Canada...professional, orderly, efficient.

My impression of the border patrol coming back into the US (as a US citizen with a US license plate)...jerkoffs (I wanted to jump out of the car and strangle the guy), slow, inefficient...a complete cluster.

Most frustrating part of a long trip.

We were pulling a small, single axle trailer. In Oregon it doesn’t require separate registration or licensing. When we got to the border coming back in the US the border agent asked to see our trailer’s registration papers. We explained there are none. As they’re not required in Oregon for trailers under a certain capacity. He was suspicious and asked if we get pulled over in Washington for not having it registered. We explained that state laws applied in that situation and that we were legal in the state we live in. Therefore legal period. This obviously confused him. He became increasingly bully-like in his attitude towards us. Eventually he let us go after talking to a colleague. The guy was a moron.

Meanwhile going into Canada we had a bunch of tax form papers and such we had to print and sign as we were bringing thousands of dollars of our art over the border. They required registering it essentially so that if we were to sell it we’d be made to pay taxes on it. So anyway we got to the border and went into the building required for commerce. When we got to the counter we were told we had the wrong forms. We chatted with the guy about what our business was and that were were instructed by the festival runners on which forms to print.... We were their first international artists so they were not well schooled on it I guess.... yada yada. He told us which forms would have been the right ones and told us to pass that onto the festival people. Then he told us to not sell anything without reporting it. To behave. To have a good time. Then let us on our way. Nice guy. Could have been a stickler for the rules but he saw that we were harmless, truthful, and chose to send us on our way.

We crossed into Canada within 20 minutes, however, I was taking an African sculpture, which I have owned for 15+ years and decided to donate it to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of BC. We were told to pull over so they could look into the sculpture's origins (basically wanted to make sure it wasn't culturally sensitive artifact that was stolen from its country, which is kinda hilarious considering that 90% of Canada's Native objects and artifacts were stolen from First Nations!). Anyway, long story short...2 hours later after being interrogated as if I was bringing serious contraband into the country they spoke with the curator at the museum and they let us on our way. I could write a book about the conversations that we had as well as some of the things they said to me, but...whatever. Eventually all was good, they were just doing their jobs and I had to look at it that they are probably used to the typical stuff coming across the border...an African sculpture? "Woah, this is cool...let's dig into this to make our day a bit more interesting than the usual bs".

Oh, and I don't know if my sculpture will be on display when you are there, but they said it would be up ASAP. The museum itself is AWESOME and highly recommended. It's on the campus of UBC southwest of downtown.

PS: I also hope you like Asian food...if you do you can find some of the best Asian food in North America in Vancouver. Chinese, Korean, Thai, Nepalese, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese....you name it. AND, often the more unassuming the restaurant...the better it is. Never judge on appearances. We went into several VERY humble places and were blown away by the food.

13

Poutine!! Don’t forget to eat some poutine. So damn good.

Ahhh, the old Hot Crotched Express days.....lol.

I still do it heading back from Browns games. That is a 10 hour drive unless the wife is with me. Then, 6-7 hours is about the max most times. We have stayed in some really cool places by stopping around 2-3PM rather than pushing through to where we thought we needed to be, no matter where we go. Places we would have otherwise never stopped.

Travel is as much about the experience as it is about the destination. At least for us.

Only had it once in Montreal, but it was pretty tasty!

Thank you everyone for all the info.
for the drive out there right now i have on list to visit:
-Corn Palace ( works out great for this year as its salute to military)
-Wall drug
-Dignity memorial ( good spot at rest stop)
-badlands (drive through very few stops)
-mt rushmore
-crazy horse
-devils tower

not sure if anything else to see have time for. any other recommendations.
might try for the minuteman missile site. but on the last of the list.

Have to push the wife to see that stuff to begin with she wants to try and get there by sat> (not happening)


We are planning another trip out to S.D. area in next couple years with just us two so we can do more actual tours then.

Rabid, will your route take you through MT?

If so, I recommend stopping in Whitefish, MT...cute little artsy craftsy town somewhat similar to Santa Fe or maybe even Taos. It's also in the ski area of MT, so there is Seattle, Portland, Idaho and probably Canadian $$$ that flows through there. If you go you should also spin through Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which is in the top panhandle not far from Whitefish and Spokane. It's a touristy spot, but also beautiful area of ID.

It does take me through some of MT. on I90.
Funny you bring that up PDX
If the boy was with us we would be going to whitefish for sure as we have family that lives there. it just too out of the way ( 3.5 hrs roughly plus visit time) Daughter loves Whitefish. spent 2 weeks there a couple of years ago.

Just got back from our trip. What a drive. Didn't feel as bad as I thought it would.

day 1 left at 2pm drove to Cedar Rapids after dropping other car off at father in laws in Indy ( flew back into Indy a lot cheaper air fair). made great time.

Day2 drove to Murdo SD stayed at a nice little place called Land Mark Country Inn. Cheap clean and very nice people there. on the way we stopped at Corn Palace and Dignity statue. Both were pretty awesome especially Dignity.

Day3 visited Badlands, walldrug, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Devils Tower. Wall drug was so so. overpriced tourist trap but glad we visited. Badlands was just beautiful in every way. fed the prairie dogs right out of our hands. lots of pictures. Mt Rushmore was under construction so couldn't get very close. closed off right before flags. still amazing. amazed how commercialized it is right before you get to the entrance. the crazy horse will be fantastic once its finished. hopefully in my lifetime. devils tower was pretty dang cool. wish had more time to clime rocks to the base though. ran out of time and had to stay in billings Montana

Day 4 ho hum almost 13 hour drive to Seattle. we did great on time. got into Seattle before night fall with time to spare. man that hill on I90 dropping into Seattle was a long downhill grade drive. seemed like 100 miles and would never end.

Visited Mt. Rainier Awesome by the way. went into Vancouver BC. blah it was ok. wanted to do more there but the wife well ya know. shopping. shopping. went to chinatown. was not impressed at all. didn't get to any good parks or anything unfortunately.
tons of walking around everywhere as we stayed in the Seattle.
Was great to spend time with the boy.

weather was great the whole time. only got rain for about an hour on the drive in between crazy horse and devils tower. thats for the whole trip.

Now the bad, in a way. I do not recommend driving out west at night at 80 mph.
wife was driving after devils tower to get to billings. as soon as we crossed the Wyoming border to Montana was hit a freaking deer. we got very lucky though as it just dented and crease the hood and right fender and busted out the right headlight lens glass. light scratch on bumper. we have full coverage insurance but felt horrible where i had to tell the son we hit a deer with his new car.

Thank you everyone for all the information. we had a trip we will never forget.