mvallejo

New to touring and want to start out with about a week long tour. I live in Northern Colorado and am thinking of going to Yosemite, or maybe east through Nebraska. I have checked numerous sources and looked for routes but only have found details for the main "Adventure Cycling" type routes (Trans Am, Great Divide, etc).

I'm wondering if anybody has some tips for planning routes yourself. I tried doing this with mapmyride.com, but I am not sure I what to make of this. Most biking options appear to take me on busy highways, which I dont mind, but would like to at least know if bike friendly paths were available, even if they took a bit longer. I can turn on "Avoid Highways", but then it seems to put me on what appear to be rough dirt roads. Basically just looking for any help or starter info to plan some routes. I dont foresee myself doing month or multiple month trips, at least for some time now, so I'd like to be able to prepare routes to places in the area I'd like to see. Using highways is fine, but would rather use a bike path or bike friendly route if available. Also, possibly any tools that also show this detail along with campsites in the area.

I went to REI and checked out some high-level maps of the area, but those did not appear to be extremely helpful, and I'd imagine certain online tools would be much more intuitive. This may be a shot in the dark, but figured I'd check. Any ideas?

Thanks.