Driving from Santa Barbara to Boulder
 

We're thinking of driving to a wedding this July in Boulder and then continuing onto to Park City and Ketchum (see friends) and then back to Cali via SF. Any suggestions on a good place to stop half way to Boulder? St George is not quite half way, but have heard that it's a nice town.

My preferred way to do this trip to save a large amount of driving would be to take the Coast Starlight north to Emeryville and spend the night then get on the California Zephyr to either SLC or Grand Junction and rent a car from there.
Take the train back to Emeryville to get on the bus into San Francisco.

We're thinking of taking our dog, so train doesn't work. Also, I assume there is a train that goes to Denver from LA which is much closer to us.

We drive back and forth between L.A. and Vail every year and have stayed in several towns along 15 and 70. I'd pick Cedar City over St. George, but St. George does have a couple of very nice hotels if that's a preference. St. George can be an oven in July. Cedar City is at a higher elevation and stays a little cooler.

Cedar City's Utah Shakespeare Festival will be on which I suppose could be either a good or bad thing. I wouldn't arrive without reservations.

What are you planning on doing when you stop?

I think half way is near the intersection of 15 and 70. I would want to go at least that far and I'm guessing there will be plenty of motels/hotels there so you could find one that allows dogs.

I've found that 70 through Colorado can be slower that you might like due to construction, road improvements, accidents etc. I'd want to get farther along the first day if I could.

Thanks, I'll check out cedar city. We will probably just be looking for a decent dinner and stiff drink that night (after dog walk). She's really good in hotel rooms so we can leave her without a problem. I do want to divide up trip as equally as possible, so our second day isn't too terrible and we can get into Boulder before dinner time.

What are you dates when you have to be in Boulder? Generally the I-70 corridor from roughly Vail to Denver can be very busy on Sat and Sun. To the best of my knowledge not much construction is scheduled for central part of I-70 this summer. You may be lucky. Rock slide damage so far this winter has been light.

We will be driving on Wednesday and Thursday right after July 4th.

A stiff drink? In Utah?! Good luck at that. :)

The quickest train route from Denver is the California Zephyr west to Sacramento and then south through Stockton to the San Joaquin to Bakersfield with a bus from Bakersfield to LA or Santa Barbara.
Small dogs are now allowed on Amtrak. Handicap assistance dogs have always been allowed.

Even though it takes probably a little longer, consider the other route, via Albuquerque on 40 then north on 25. Smoother driving for the most part.

If you can make it to Gallup (about 13 hours) on day 1, you'll only have about 9 hours on day 2. It may not work out much longer than through Utah and the Rockies, because the 70 from Grand Junction to Boulder can be awfully messed up.