April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Cross-country trip. Early April. Through the Rocky Mountains. Two words: Donner Party.

On the other hand, April is one of the best times to see New Orleans: the Mardi morons have stumbled home, the weather is pre-hurricane and probably nice, the frat house basement smell hasn't peaked yet (August, ewww), and it's a culinary Mecca with no "long pig" in sight.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

my grandson is a student in new orleans so we visit frequently.
last spring when we were there we had dinner at brennans. we were very disappointed. the service was awful the food ok & the bill very high.
the clientel seemed to made up of expense account business men.
would not recommend this place to anyone.

I would seriously push for the southern route that time of year, but even the south has had its share of severe weather lately.
Although, hiking in Boulder and Salt Lake City sounds so lovely.
I just recently saw a special (from around 2002 or 2003) on, I think, the Travel channel about the American Orient Express with a trip through all the national parks and ending in Albuquerque.
Ok, so that's just free association and has nothing to do with actually moving Gailor back home, but the meals on the train looked really good.

Gailor Gailor Gailor. Your mother, a foodaratti, hasn't been to New Orleans since she was ten? She's driving across country with you and you would deny her that? I travelled by car across the country a number of times and my mother gave me this choice: Be quiet or we're leaving you with those bikers outside the Stuckey's. I made the right choice. Today I am still in touch with my adopted family: Road Dog, Scizz, Easy Martha, and Gummy Mike. Yeah, good times!

Does anybody else see a winged archangel in the flames in the photo? Dios mio!

OMG, when the topic is New Orleans, I expect you to sign off as Owl Meat Gumbo!

I love New Orleans, but I'd feel better about visiting if they repaired the levees.

Its a food blog: how can you not go through the Donner Pass?

I-10... pretty straight shot from LA to NO. then on to florida and up i-95.

I was thinking he should be Owl Meat Grit (with debris). A good New Orleanian should know what debris is.

That being said...my vote is for N.O.
April is a fantastic time to go. The air is warm and silky but not too hot or humid. The food is spectacular (Dookie's Chase, anyone?) and the people are amazingly friendly. Plus, they could still use your tourist dollars.

Come to New Orleans, you shouldn't worry about the levees unless there is a hurricane bearing down on the city.

They are not going to just randomly break, and they are better now than they were before the storm, because we have put gates up on the outflow canals where the levee breaches were.

La Nouvelle Orleans! Go go go! I lived there for 5 years and got married there 3 years ago. Gailor and Elizabeth: top three favorite restaurants of mine in the Crescent City are...
1. Gautreau's (in an old pharmacy on Soniat street. classy and elegant).
2. Dick and Jenny's (mmmmmm. On Tchoupitoulas. go for drinks on the porch swing before dinner)
3. Port O'Call (best burger in town on Esplanade. expect a wait.)

Oh, Brennans, Court of Two Sisters, Pascal Manale, Muriels, Mothers...I could go on and on. What a great city for food.

Elizabeth, to think you haven't been to New Orleans since you were ten. You really should have talked Gailor into living in New Orleans instead of LA. To think you could have had BBQ shrimp, bananas foster, po boys and eggs sardou instead of the goat cheese, flat breads, and water bars that you get out on the left coast.

Colorado and Utah - that's "northern"? Geographically, y'all are a mess! (Thanks, OMG, for pointing out the angel; it's my new screen saver.) My suggestion is that you head for my hometown, Milwaukee, WI. From the looks of it, there will still be snowstorms there in early April, not unlike the 21" monster that hobbled the southeastern part of the state on my 17th bday. Gosh, I love April. (And when you get to Milwaukee, dine at Sanford.)

Look at it this way. The northern route from LA also includes Las Vegas.

Oh My Gnocchi!!! You are planning this trip all wrong. Here's the fearless and loathsome Owl triptych:
1) Pick up your Samoan lawyer and a big bag of peyote
2) Hit Vegas. Lose the nest egg. Ask casino owner for do-over. Drop my name.
3) Memphis. Graceland. Skip New Orleans, it should be its own trip.
4) I'm not good at trip planning. I would be calling someone for bail at this point.

You're welcome Anonymous. How about a better anoymous name than Anonymous?

Robert's comment on Donner Pass actually has merit beyond the joke. There is a restaurant in Truckee, CA called Moody's that is one of the best restaurants I've ever eaten in. Stopped there on a cross country trip and deliberately spent the night in Truckee so we could eat at Moody's. There's no pretension to the place, but the food is unbelievably good. I read a few months later that Paul McCartney was eating there and got up onstage with a group that was playing.

So, I vote for the Northern route--you can fly to NO anytime, and you can fly cheaply. How often are you going to go through the Donner Pass? Besides, you can see the monument to the Donner party and just how high the snow was--or you can just look at the highway markers for the snowplows up there; some are about 18 ft. tall.

EL: LA, LV - no matter since they're still west, not north - certainly not as north as WI. But I digress. Chez has it right; long live 18-foot snow piles!

I concur with Fairfax --- I-10 eastbound from LA leaves you in a major city every night, the better to sample regional and interesting cuisine. Just plan things so you don't end up in Birmingham, Ala. on a Sunday ... but that's a good point to turn north and hit Nashville. Or you could risk northern Fla.

Oh please, Chez G, please, please don't say I have merit. Facile is my motto and goal in life (for Mr.Gnocchi, see facile definition 1c from NSOED.)

Singularity Rob, why you picking on me? I've got a quadruple turkey amputee haunting my daydreams.

(Still in Des Moines -- plan on skipping the Iowa Beef Steak House, even if their offer to let you grill your own steak on their rods seems like it could be fun.)

Oh, Brennans! Was last there when I was 16, on one of the last legs of a family trip from Philadelphia to San Diego and back (the long way, 2 parents, 5 kids, one station wagon -- we are no longer close!).

But was in Las Vegas for meetings in December after the hurricanes, and the buzz around their sister restaurant,Commander's Palace on the strip, was that the Brennans back of the house had decamped to sin city. All I know is that four of us ate there together and rated the meal as one of the top two or three ever.

I was in New Orleans last year for Easter - we had brunch at Brennan's. I've gotta say, I wasn't that impressed. This was my fourth trip to New Orleans, and in that time, my favorite meal had to have been at the Court of Two Sisters. (Although Emeril's in the warehouse district is a close second).