As for the trip back, I am trying to decide between a route that takes me through San Francisco, Reno, Utah, and Colorado, or a route that goes through San Francisco, Oregon, Washington, Montana and North Dakota. I guess it kinda depends on how much money I can set aside for gas.

If you can spare the time, on the way back, don't take interstate 5. Boring drive, hot, icky, etc. Instead, Highway 1 up the coast to San Francisco is absolutely wonderful and not to be missed.

I'd take a slight detour and hit Magic Mountain for a day (it's in Valencia just north of LA). Best roller coasters anywhere.

On the way to San Fran, you can stop at the Monterey Bay aquarium which is pretty cool. And there's San Simeon and Hearst Castle which is cool if you haven't already seen it. And on the steepest cliffs of Highway 1 just north of San Simeon, I've seen, from my car, whales cresting off the shore, which is pretty darn cool.

When you are in San Fran, plan to stay the night near the waterfront and make a point of hitting Cobb's that night. Preferably a Saturday night. There's one particularly good story about Cobb's at the bottom of my main news page.

From there, my choice would be to skip Oregon and Washington and instead take 80 to Tahoe and then Reno. By the way, when you do Tahoe, you need to do the drive around the lake to South Lake Tahoe, don't just hit the north side of the lake and say you've seen it. You can drive around either the Nevada side of the lake or the California side of the lake. The Nevada side of the lake is a nice and easy drive year-round and mostly quite scenic. But the California side of the lake has a short but spectacular drive around Emerald bay which you should definitely see if you can. The problem is that highway is so narrow and steep that it is closed for most of the winter. So if you're traveling in the winter, the Emerald Bay drive might not be an option. If I were detouring off of 80 just to see Tahoe, I'd drive down to south lake on the California side, then drive back up to 80 on the Nevada side (skipping the cutoff to Carson City and instead continuing up to Crystal Bay and Truckee/80).

Then again, the mountains of Oregon and Washington and even some of the mountains along the border between Oregon and California are quite beautiful. And Nevada/Utah are nothing to write home about. So Oregon/Washington might be worth the trip, but it would mean you'd miss Tahoe which really shouldn't be missed. Hmm, tough choice.