Two questions

1. I have traveled road trips galore in the past, and I have visited many popular places in the United States. I want your suggestions on road trips that I can do, from Houston, that cover other scenic spots and gorgeous landscapes and all round awesome tourist destinations.

I have already seen the following, so if you could please give me some creative road trips from Houston that do NOT include any of these;
California (San Fransisco and Los Angeles), Texas (Austin, San Antonio and Houston my hometown) , New Orleans, Florida ( Orlando, Daytona Beach. Have not seen Florida keys, Miami, Tampa) .
Savannah, Georgia.
North Carolina (Chapel Hill, Cary, Raleigh, Durham )
Great Smoky mountains and surrounding areas in Tennessee. Las Vegas, NV, Grand Canyon in Arizona.
New York city and surrounding areas, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago.

What awesome sights on convenient road trips from Houston am I missing?? I could go to Colorado (Denver) at this point in October, I have reason to believe that it is not too cold there. I believe that Yosemite and Yellowstone are awesome. Miami, and the Florida keys are also great in October.

Thank you for your suggestions!

2. Second question.

I have a 45000 mile, two owner, 5 speed manual, 2 door Coupe, Chevrolet Cobalt LS 2007. All maintenance has been done at Allen Samuels Chevrolet in Houston with receipts to prove it. Kbb value is 7300$

What are good places to put up advertisements offering it for sale? (apart from Craigslist, and the local university listings and near my house advertisements in cafes, which I am already doing.)

Thanks all! This is a great forum, as always.

Are you going to be using the Cobalt for your trip, or have you found something else?

As far as places to go; I’d say Mount Rushmore seems like an ideal trip. My mom went to Veil, Colorado several years ago on a bus tour and she enjoyed it. She just got back from Gettysburg and Hershey, PA a couple weekends ago. The Arch in St. Louis.

Denver may not be cold, but then again, it might be. The temperature swings in Denver can be dramatic, and October is a good time for it to happen. I’ve been in Boulder, CO in mid-May and Mid-September and it snowed a few inches. If you go into the Colorado Rockies, be prepared for snow in October. The average snowfall at Yosemite in October is nothing. There is a little snow in November. But the farther north you go in the Sierra Nevadas, the more snow you will encounter. Squaw Valley has snow already. But if you stay to the south, you can avoid snow for now. Southern Utah could be a great place to sight see.

Consider Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos. Each has their own charm and this is a good time to visit. You could also do this trip on the way to Denver.

The Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi is scenic and (best of all) CLOSE to you:
http://www.nps.gov/natr/index.htm

Arches nat park is cool, I did not see the grand canyon on your list, lake Tahoe is another idea. petrified forest in AZ was cool, my favorite fern canyon in redwoods nat park, and should not forget trinidad beach,CA. FL Bahia Honda State Park. and sanibelle island.

I second Jayhawkroy. Now’s a very good time to go to Santa Fe. The aspens should be turning shortly. Lots of stuff to see and do in the area. If you go, eat at La Hacienda in Old Town Albuquerque. Get the carne adovada.

The Missouri Ozarks are fantastic for driving.

CT to Vermont and up in the fall, following the foliage map (I assume this is not “surrounding NYC”-if already done then don’t!).

We liked the Keys. Much of the speed limit on the causeway is 35 mph so you need to adjust to the slower pace and that can be a good thing to do. If you stay in Key West, the hotels are expensive but a couple of nights are worth the time that you can spend there. Park the car and walk if you will. Just bum around, eat well, relax and take in the ambience; it’s great fun. We stayed in the Red Rooster Inn.

It’s a long drive to get there but the Napa and Sonoma valleys in CA are a nice place to be and for driving. Taste some wine and eat well too. You might like the big flea market in San Jose.

You might want to try Florida another time unless your travel time is flexible. The hurricane season runs to the end of November, and you could get caught in one, or at least a tropical storm. Odds are you won’t meet one on your trip, but there is more than a remote chance that you will.

There is a lot to do in Denver and Boulder, so it’s worth doing sometime. The two cities are about 45 minutes apart, so if you go you might as well take in some of both. There are a lot of really nice parks out there, and you can, of course, walk trails up the Rockies if you want. I’ve done that and had a really good time. You get a heck of a view of the nearby cities from up there (Boulder, in my case, although I can’t remember the name of the park I went to).

We have gone to Colorado Springs several times, there is a lot to see from there. However, there might be snow on some of the places by now. I know that Denver got a big snow this last weekend.

I go to the Colorado region quite often (a few dozen times) and always enjoy it. My oldest son lived in Greeley for a couple of years and to be honest I never found CO to be really that cold.

I don’t know if it’s the CO dry air, altitude, or what but I’ve gone out in the evenings when it was 10 below zero with snow piled up 10 feet deep on the side of the roadway and wore only a long sleeve shirt with no jacket.
It seemed kind of pleasant to me.