4 Months to Go!

Ok, so we are excited and have been planning this trip for 3 months already.... and we've been having a ball doing it.

The first step was deciding where we wanted to go and the route we were going to follow.

When should and could we leave? We came up with June 9th not wanting to be on the road in real heat. Somewhere around this time in the process we decided to turn our starting direction around and head south first instead of north. We would hit the warmer areas first before they get HOT and let the cooler areas warm up for when we get to them.

Then we had to figure just how much time we actually could spend on the trip. That was hard! There are SO many things to see. We had to limit ourselves to 31 days. So, back to the drawing board, prioritize what we REALLY wanted to see.

Once we finalized what we wanted to see most we had to decide how long our daily road times would be, where we would stay each evening and all this had to fit in our 31 days!

And reservations were made as the day's sightseeing activities and road time were decided. Since we wanted to make sure we had reservations in the most popular places we started reserving in December. We will be in cabins, tenting, hotels. The weather will range from warm, maybe hot, to as cool as in the 40's. There will be places with possibilities of rain, wind, snow, tornados, spring floods so it should stay interesting!

As of now we have all reservations done with the exception of one (reservations start in March for that park).

And we are working on the menus. We have some experimental cooking to do so be sure to tune in for that!

We are now starting to assemble stuff to go. The blue tent has been checked and scotchgarded (the dear thing has celebrated its 40th anniversary). We are going to make a shelf in the Sienna so loading and unloading will be easier. We have two vans going the distance so Van #1 will carry all the tents, bedding and Van #2 will be the chuck wagon (carrying all the groceries).

I have to run down to Kragens to pick up some car paint (removeable) so we can paint a map on the car and the kids will mark our progress each day. We have lots of activities and sights for the children to see and do. Hopefully we will hit lots of sites with wifi to download our adventures often.

Hope you can join us and follow along on our blog!