No books were harmed in the taking of this photo..

This evening Mags and I met up and spent 4 hours in the Starbucks in Borders planning our 'Great American Adventure'! (working title!)
We took full advantage of the travel section and borrowed a whole heap of guidebooks for our personal perusal :o) Tsk tsk, I hear you say, but we were very careful to put them all back where they belonged (as ex-booksellers we know our stuff!) and to take some back when getting more! Also my friend K works in there and he doesn't mind.
It may look as if we were rather cavalier with the books after we'd looked at them, but I can assure you that no books were harmed in our care and each was returned in its original condition. (the rather battered looking Rough Guide on the floor is my own ;o)
Plus if Starbucks had free WiFi it wouldn't have been necessary so its their fault anyway!

SO HERE IS WHERE I COULD DO WITH SOME OF YOUR HELP AND EXPERT ADVICE!!

Our plan is to go to the States for around 2 months next year (illness permitting). M is coming back from Oz so we are going to schedule our flights to meet in LA on the same day.

Our (rough) itinerary is to spend a couple of days in LA then head up to San Francisco for a week.
Have a trip out to Napa Valley.
See a bit of Yosemite Nat Park on the way back down the coast and head towards the Grand Canyon.
We want to go to New Orleans after this (possibly fly from Pheonix unless there is a good reason to go elsewhere first?) for a week.
Then travel through the South (Louisiana, Georgia, The Carolinas) and head up to Washington for a couple of days.
Heres where we really aren't sure what to do next because we know that we want to spend 2 weeks in New York and we will fly home from there, but we aren't yet sure whats happening between Washington and New York. We definitely want to go to Niagara Falls but not sure what else or which route we should take.

Bearing in mind that we have a very tight budget - so we are likely to be busing it to most places - what suggestions do people have? Serious request! Please do share your knowledge!
Where the places we absolutely MUST go?!

Also if you know of cheap but great places to stay/eat/go we'd love to hear about them :O)

Thankyou! xxxxx