Winter Road-Trip Advice between Berkeley and Mobile???

Mobile also has a battleship, the uss Alabama.  The uss Drum, a WWII era submarine is in the same park

Ave. temp for Jan. in Mobile should be around 45 low and 65 high but could easily be warmer or colder, very changeable around here.

Explorium is a science museum but likely more enjoyable for elementary age.

Good seafood of course, pretty good downtown section, LoDa Beir Garden has over 100 lines of craft. Sanger Theatre may have something while you are here  

Grab a Lagniappe, weekly paper available all over, music and food listings. 

You already mentioned battleship park for WWII.

You will be here too soon for Mardi Gras or minor league baseball. Local university has decent hoops team if you like that.

Maybe you can catch the Blue Angels in Pensacola. Check out their schedule for practice runs. They are based  there and the base has a fantastic museum.

Oh yeah, Ft. Morgan is a MUST!!!!!!!

i remember your posts and images of the old forts.

Edit to add , hike around the dunes in the state park by Gulf Shores.

Let me know if you pass my way, Johnny. Northwest Louisiana. all kinds of very cool heavy metal bombers and fighters in an airplane museum just few minutes from here.

I've spent some time between Tucson and the Texas border in southern NM and there's not much close by (within 1/2 hour) that I-10 corridor through NM that I remember being too interesting. You could hit up the Gila Cliff Dwellings and you should check out Carlsbad Caverns if you have the time. Both are probably 1-2 hours north of I-10. No real hiking involved with either. White Sands would be fun on a full moon and probably a similar distance fro the interstate. Farther to the north (probably 3-4 hrs but don't hold me to it) is the Trinity Site where the first nuclear bomb was detonated, pretty big development in the military world. I don't remember there being much to see there, but only quickly stopped.

If you are going south in CA to I-10, your son may be interested in a quick stop at the Patton Museum at Chiriaco Summit exit between Indio and Blythe. That's the huge swath of desert Patton used for tank and troop training in advance of the North African Campaign of 1942-43. Plenty of old tanks outside and some nice army training artifacts inside the museum.1-2 hrs is plenty of time to enjoy what is offered. 

The Guadalupe Mountains are pretty nice, especially if you were going to make the side trip to the Caverns. Chiricahua National Monument east of Tucson is pretty killer in the winter as well but is more hiking based fun.  Columbus NM (about an hr south of I-10) is the site of the only US raid carried out by Pancho Villa, resulting in the Punitive Mexican Expedition to try and apprehend him south of the border. I remember it as just a border town, but mildly interesting from a military aspect. 

I lived for a short while in Pensacola when I was a kid and the Alabama battleship in nearby Mobile was always a treat.  If you are going to be in the area, there is the Naval Aviation Museum at NAS Pensacola:

http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/

There are also Civil War forts in both Pensacola and Mobile, including Ft. Barrancas right near the Naval Air Station and Ft. Pickens on a barrier island.

Also, speaking of historic sites, you might get a kick out of Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, NM also referenced above, near the border with Chihuahua.  It contains a great museum full of exhibits and military hardware documenting Pancho Villa's 1916 raid on Columbus and Pershing's punitive expedition which followed.   Here is a statute of the revolutionary bandit in the town of Puerto Palomas right across the border:

White Sands is not too far away either.  Worth a side trip.

Keep it between the ditches

Houston is my home town.  If you are there for a few days get the CityPass.  

https://www.citypass.com/houston

CityPASS Admission Includes

1Space Center Houston

2Downtown Aquarium

3Houston Museum of Natural Science

4Houston Zoo   OR   Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

5Kemah Boardwalk   OR   Children's Museum of Houston

There tons of good restaurants, good museums, live music, and beer.
 

Took the Interstate 10/40 trip 7 years ago camping with my family for 3 weeks in the winter. Couple of cold nights here and there but other than that I thought it was great temps to camp in south Texas. My sons were 14 and 17. Sam my seventeen year old bitched and moaned that he hated the trip and wanted to go home. Seven years later he reminisces about that trip and has some great stories that he brings up often. I guess it wasn't child abuse we were putting him through then.

We went to the Guataloupe mountains and hiked for a day and it was a cool spot. Saw a lot of wildlife up there. Carlsbad was a good cave system. We have been to Mammoth and a few others over the years, I think I am about caved out now.

In New Mexico We stopped in Cloudcroft in the am and the kids bought these round disk sleds and went down the hills in the snow and 4 hours later we were at White Sands going down the sand hills the kids liked that a lot. Just north of White Sands is a camping area with 6 electric sites and clean heated bathrooms called Three Rivers. Ancient Indian drawings and hieroglyphics on a short hike up the ridge. We were the only ones there on a cold snowy night. 1 inch of snow is a lot for this Florida boy. Pulling out there was a cool State park north made of lava on our way to Roswell.

The kids liked Roswell, we stopped for lunch and a gas up there. The street lamps all have alien heads. Ted was convinced he saw an UFO on the way out of town.

The highlight of this trip was Big Bend National Park. It was awesome. The least visited National Park in the country. It is a haul to get down there but in the winter it is full of migrating birds of every color you could think of, the cacti are in full bloom, the road runners and jack rabbits are like LSD cartoon characters.

The Javelina's are everywhere too and friendly. Whole family of them rooted for food and scratched their asses on some big rocks in our campsite when were were eating dinner. Teenaged boys do like when animals scratch their asses.

https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Javelina.php

There is also hot springs to visit and take a dip in with little to no crowds. You can walk along the Rio Grande with sheer 2000 foot cliffs.

When we left we went through this tiny lil poor border town call Redford, it was Christmas morning and there were 2 dogs on the side of the road locked up. Had to explain why they were locked up. Many many questions that I could answer arose that morning. The one question that stuck with me was from Ted asking if Mommy and I ever locked up and had to separated with cold water.

If you do go down there on the way is a small town called Marfa. About 20 miles outside of Marfa in the middle of NOWHERE there is a Prada store. When we stopped it was clean and painted. This was all the rage with kids on the rest of the trip. A LOT of questions that I could not answer from this place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prada_Marfa

When in Texas do not be afraid to stop by a grocery store and get some thick juicy and cheap T-bone steaks!!

Seminole Canyon State Park in South Texas was also another great state park with good hiking and at a small store/campground a few miles east sells mesquite fire wood. Made a great smelling hot campfire for those steaks too. At night we had a very small moon and the stars were incredible there.

In California my wife and I stopped at Death Valley and the Sequoya national parks. Both were grand, DV is so massive and I loved it and the Sequoya my wife loved the smells.

Enjoy your trip, enjoy the weather, and take plenty of pictures and acid. Make some camping memories.

^ Teenaged boys do like when animals scratch their asses.   So you're missing DNB NYE for this?  Ha!  Have fun with the small fry.

Great posts Tim and all, makes my feet want to get wondering.

>>>> We stopped in Cloudcroft in the am and the kids bought these round disk sleds and went down the hills in the snow and 4 hours later we were at White Sands going down the sand hills

Yep. What a difference 4,000 feet will make.  Cloudcroft will be snowy this time of year and the road up from the valley floor from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft is pretty steep.   Here are some pics of White Sands: 

A few days before we were there, a French couple wandered off the path, got lost in the dunes, and died of heat exhaustion.  You wont have to worry about heat stroke this time of year because southern New Mexico, albeit in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert is still around 4,000+ feet above sea level and can get chilly at night.   If you are at or near a full moon when you pass near White Sands (I-10 goes through nearby Cruces), the white sands reflecting the moon light is worth seeing.

>>>Roswell

That is in the middle of BFE eastern NM and will take you about a day off of I-10 to get to and back.  Worth the stop if you are a UFO buff, but otherwise a sleepy cow town in the middle of BFE.   If you do make the pilgrimage, Lincoln NM is on the way and worth a stop.  Its the site of the Lincoln County War and the old downtown is preserved with more Billy the Kid shit you can shake a stick out.  You will recognize many of the buildings from the "Young Guns" movies.

I appreciate your interest in the great battleships

HMS Rodney

Marfa is the home of other artists and designers, too. Some creative and unusual stuff.

Here was another place we stopped and stayed at when traveling. Quiet and littered with deer, skunks (no problems) and beaver (dam building kind).

Mississippi

https://www.forestcamping.com/dow/southern/homocmp.htm

Just don't get stuck inside of Mobile...

Fort Morgan is a good place, right close to the shore.

Have a safe trip Johnny, I can't wait for the review.

I have done the Mosaic Canyon hike a few times, nice almost easy hike to get some outdoor exercise or lunch, should not be to hot

https://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/mosaic-canyon.htm