Decisions, decisions (points east)

So I'm planning on heading to the East Coast for the 4th of July holiday to hang out with Gary (who recently moved from Tejas to Greater Bostonia). I figure I'm up for a road trip, and I've always wanted to see Boston, and New York City, and D.C., so a trip to the East Coast would be good. For sure, I'm drivin' it. Nothing quite like a road trip in summer (though of course, this won't be the Cheech-and-Chong-party-all-the-way-there-in-the-back-of-the-Volkswagen-bus version). On a practical level, if I want to be flexible with my time, driving is the way to go. No schedules, no fuss, no muss.

The problem is that I also want to go to Minneapolis-St.Paul to take Mona and Fred up on their invitation to come and help work on their house. So now I'm in this "decisions, decisions" quandry. Should I drive back from New England, then drive to Minnie? train? How do I work it in with going West? Take the train west from Minnie or head back to MI first and then road-trip it so I can do some packing or camping? With all these possibilities, what's a boy to do?