2500 miles, three cats and a Champagne Crown Vic.
The road trip to San Francisco definitely had an arch, a Bell Curve of pain and renewal if you will. Driving west from Chicago there are three main routes. You can go north and see forest & cliff, the bad lands of the Dakotas, Mt. Rushmore and such. Or South and see the deserts of New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, the petrified forest and the Carlsbad caverns. Or straight through the open country on highway 80 in which case you see highway 80.

While the first two choices are beautiful and offer chances to see natural wonders and road side real-life mummified mermaids and gigantic balls of twine we took the middle road because it's two days faster than North or South and we were driving with cats.

Transportation
We had decided to drive out from Chicago to San Francisco rather than fly because our pet ratio was 3 to 2, cat to human, and we both felt better if we were able to take our primary computers with us since it was possible that we'd be without our things for two to three weeks when we arrived in San Francisco. Mr. P was to start his new job just as our moving truck was to arrive so it seemed prudent to take clothes and work related stuff just in case. Unable to find any car rental agency that would let us take a minivan one way we had the choice of an enormous car or a small moving truck. So we split our belongings and cats between Mr. P's 2-seat Honda Del Sol and my newly rented late model Champagne Crown Victoria. Driving the Crown Vic was like driving a living room full of Barco loungers on wheels of clouds. With the power of the V8 engine and luxury interior I could chew up road for days without ever feeling it. Mr. P was driving a cardboard go-chart powered by a lawn mover engine by comparison.

Mr. P having the smaller, less powerful engine took the lead and set the pace. He'd get to a good speed on open road only to slow down because the cars around him would slow just as he set the cruise control. This was aggravating to both of us until we figured it. The police were using unmarked Crown Vics on highway patrol. Drivers would see me in the rear view mirror and slow down to the speed limit until I passed them and instead of seeing a cop or 60-year-old guy they saw me and would speed up again.