rwpshaw

I am going from Florida to Denver in a few weeks. The plan is/was to take the ACA Southern Tier to Mobile, go north on the Underground Railroad route, and then west along the Trans American route. Is there a better/different route that turns North or Northwest farther west on the Southern Tier than Mobile?

cyccommute 

There are lots of routes that you can take further west make your connection but they aren't necessarily ACA routes. You could connect to the Mississippi River Trail and follow it north the Cape Girardeau then west to pick up the TransAm. I wouldn't necessarily take the ACA's Great River route since it backtracks a couple of hundred miles back to Nashville on the Natchez Trace.

Alternatively, you could cross the Mississippi at Natchez or Baton Rouge and head northwest to Shreveport then to Texarkana then north to Fort Smith and Fayetteville. You would intersect the TransAm north of Joplin. None of this is on any ACA map but it wouldn't be too hard to route out. Louisiana 1 out of Shreveport via Caddo Lake/Vivian/Atlanta TX to Texarkana is a good road with nice wide shoulders. I've toured in southwestern Arkansas (Texarkana/Ashville/Vivian/DeQueen/Mena) and was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was to tour there. It is hilly but not as bad as Appalachia. I've driven from Mena to Fort Smith on US71 and it wasn't a bad touring road either.