I re read you original post and see you have time to plan the trip and see you are also from Upstate New York. You have 16 days (3 weekends and 2 times 5 days in a business week). You will spend at least 3 and maybe 4 just getting back to New York or 25% of your available time just getting home at not a leisurely pace. I figure 2700 miles for 3 days is 900 miles a day, while doable not a vacation leisure pace.
My shipping costs from MA to SLC was right around 574.00 one way. Figure your round trip shipping will cost about 1100 to 1400 and the cost of a round trip plane ticket. With Federal / Allied there are cheaper times of the year to lock in your rate, which I believe is the winter months. Note locking in the rate is not a committment to spend money, so if you do this as a planning step in advance, it costs you nothing.
I planned our stops in places that had a good penetration of hotels and used priceline the night before to get our room. I figure our average cost was 75/night and I will say we ended up in motels generally better than I would have booked if I did not use priceline. YMMV. Gas at 300 miles per day will be around 30/day. You had an estimate of 250 to 300 per day for food, motel and other stuff. Seems on high side but I am not you. Hey you can use your overestimate for shipping the bike both ways.
I looked at the time to ride from MA to the West and back and just decided it was worth the 1K to spend some quality time out west. I looked at it as a once in a life time opportunity and was not sure when I would get back out there. I will say the trip was worth every penny.
We had 17 days of riding (the second time around) and I will say the only thing I would do differently is to have had planned a slack day or two. I planned none and we ran out of gas for the day we visited Crater Lake. We did get there but did not stay as long as we should have. Our miles were not alot for each day. Generally under 350 miles a day and alot under 300. We covered 8 states and just under 5000 miles and hit 22 National Parks, a bunch of Historic Landmarks (some were not more than a field), and some neat quirky stuff, like the Teapot Gas Station in Zillah WA.
So given this and some great suggestions from the folks here on must do roads I would blow off RT66 and get your kicks on the west coast before it completely falls into the Pacific Ocean. Get yourself a GPS and MapSource and plan your trip. It will make the winter go a whole lot faster. (you may already have this) OH you must have a camera so you can post up your RR. OH don't ship your EZ Pass on the bike when you ship it. Don't ask me how I know this.
Willie
