The Great American Road Trip: Planning Realizations

The great American roadtrip is less than 2 weeks ago. We're finalizing our plans and in doing so have some eye-opening realizations:

1. Longest day ever: Because our flight leaves very early in the morning, we'll need to be on the road to the Philly airport by 4:00 AM. So that means we're up by 3:15 AM or so. We'll gain 3 hours due to time zone changes so we'll still be in Portland, OR by just after noon local time. We have a few spots to see in Oregon before dinner, then a 2 hour drive to our hotel for the night. We should be checking in around 10 PM - making for a 18-19 hour first day. Hopefully, the views along the Columbia Gorge (see picture) will remind us we're making this trip in the first place.
   
   
2. River crossings: With all the flooding throughout the country, we need to check ahead near those cities where we'll be crossing major rivers like the Missouri and Mississippi. So far, those roads are passable.
   
   
3. States beginning with "I": It seems that states beginning with "I" have vast stretches of nothing to see. We anticipate a lot of music listening during passage through Idaho and Iowa.

Planning continues as does the anticipation!