Wow, thanks for all the tips!

Please do remember that a trip to the West Coast is not something you can do every day hence we want to see as much as we can

The August timing is simply coinciding with our Wedding Anniversary and we try to do some nice trip every year.

As to the heat in Death Valley I did Syria/Jordan trip in September few years back (before the awful war) and I know a thing or two about the heat - and I agree it is bad, but as I said earlier I don't know if and when I will be back on West Coast. Your itinerary looks absolutely great and will look into it deeper!

@IceTrojan - I will look for the beef jerky signs !

I bought the tickets last night (flying out 20th of August and back on 3rd September, with SF-LA flight scheduled for 30th of August) so the most important bit is done and now I can calmly focus on planning the details!

As for the Mustang Convertible, I was looking on Pick-up trucks as well In the UK we have the second number of convertible cars per head in the world, but not really an option to drive one here hence sun of CA and NV sounds appealing Also nobody knows us there!