Getting my kicks...

... on Route 66. Planning a trip along the western half(ish) of Route 66 for October. As I do, I've already booked the hotels (yeah, I know).

Anyway (and for what it is worth); the current state of the trip follows. Driver (me) looking for photo opportunities, navigator (Mrs. OldBlue) will be looking for yarn, fabric, artwork (Gallup is going to cost me dearly I fear)...:

Day 1: Bay Area to Santa Monica. Just positioning at the end (or beginning, as one chooses to look at things) of 66. Staying in a hotel within walking distance of the Santa Monica pier. Will choose between I5 (boring, tired of it) and 101 (slower but more interesting and allows for lunch with friends in San Luis Obispo) later. Staying two nights so we can visit a part of Greater LA we're not that familiar with. (360 miles, 6 hours driving, 1 hour lunch/gas stop: 101 timing).

Day 3: Santa Monica to Barstow. Long slow slog through LA, catching a few sights (Aztec Hotel, Cucamonga Richfield station, Wigwam Motel, Bono's Orange Juice stand, lunch at Mitla Cafe (inspiration for Taco Bell), Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch, etc. One night in Barstow; shooting neon that night. (150 miles, 5 hours drive time, 3 hours sightseeing/lunch).

Day 4: Barstow to Lake Havasu (not ON Route 66 per se, but hotel options looked interesting). Mojave Desert, multiple photo-ops in Daggett, Newberry Springs, Ludlow, Amboy, Goffs, and Needles. Lunch in Needles. One night in Lake Havasu. (225 miles, 3 1/2 hours driving, 4 1/2 hours sightseeing.) Side note: a portion of old 66 in San Berdoo County is closed due to multiple (old/wooden) bridges needing to be repaired/replaced; been this way a few years now. Depending on whether that work progresses I MAY be able to add other sights on this leg.

Day 5: Lake Havasu to Flagstaff. Entering the classic Route 66. Oatman, Cool Springs, Kingman, Hackberry, Seligman (lunch at Delgadillo's), Ash Fork, Williams. Three nights in Flagstaff (laundry stop). (250 miles, 5 hours drive time, 4 hours sightseeing/lunch).

Day 8: Flagstaff to Gallup. Adding more natural history to 66 history. Twin Arrows, Two Guns, Meteor Crater, Winslow, Jackrabbit Trading Post, another Wigwam Motel, Petrified Forest NP (picnic lunch), a handful of trading posts on the AZ/NM border. Two nights in Gallup (full day spent hitting the various trading posts/art outlets). Staying at El Rancho (historic hotel). (220 miles, 4 hours drive time, 3 hours sightseeing/lunch).

Day 10: Gallup to Tucumcari. A sprint across New Mexico. Have to hit Tucumcari well before sunset, as intend to shoot through sunset, blue hour, and into the night (may even get up early enough to repeat during morning blue hour, dawn). Lots and lots of vintage neon. Will hit sights as time permits on drive there. Staying at the Blue Swallow, an impeccably preserved 1940s motor court. (320 miles, 5 hour drive time, 2 hour lunch and sightseeing).

From here we backtrack to Albuquerque and head north on an older alignment of Route 66 to Santa Fe, and return home through Monument Valley, Death Valley, Paso Robles. More on those legs in a subsequent post.

Looks like a good pace. I traveled roughly that itinerary several times.

Day 11: Tucumcari to Santa Fe. Backtrack on 66 to Albuquerque, then north to Santa Fe on older alignment of Route 66. Hit spots before Albuquerque we passed the prior day, including Montoya, Newkirk, Cuervo, Moriarty. Shoot a few things on old 66 in Albuquerque on the way to Old Town; stop there for lunch, shooting, and shopping. North up the Rio Grande Valley; stop for shots at Algodones and Kewa (Santo Domingo) Pueblo and/or trading post. Three nights in Santa Fe (laundry stop). (250 miles, 4 1/2hours drive time, 4 hours sightseeing/lunch). Various sightseeing in Santa Fe and surrounds the next two days.

Day 14: Santa Fe to Monument Valley. Second longest driving day of the trip. Lunch at Twin Rocks Trading Post in Bluff Utah (where we have traded $$ for Navajo artwork in the past). Goosenecks of the San Juan. Arrive in Monument Valley (View Hotel; two nights) in time for shooting sunset shots from hotel balcony (just the lit buttes, not the actual sunset), moonrise from front plaza, Milky Way from side parking lot, then more star/butte shots from hotel balcony. Get up early the next morning to shoot sunrise over Merrick Butte from cabin area. Take all day guided tour. More shots that evening. (371 miles, 6+ hours drive time, 2 1/2 hours lunch/sightseeing.)

Day 16: Monument Valley to Death Valley. Longest driving day of the trip. Covering territory we've been through before, so pretty much drive drive drive. Stop in St. George for lunch and gas. Check in to Furnace Creek Inn for two nights. Shoot Milky Way from valley floor. Get up early next morning to shoot sunrise hitting Zabriskie point. Shoot sand dunes area that evening. Spend some time in the pool/pool bar. (525 miles, 8 1/2 hours driving, one hour lunch stop).

Day 18: Death Valley to Paso Robles. Breaking what could have been the final leg into two legs, after two semi-brutal driving days. Hit a winery or two upon arrival and/or before leaving the next day. (340 miles, 5 3/4 hours drive time, quick lunch on the way (Bakersfield?) or upon arrival.)

Day 19: Sprint for home. Pack up Loki and head north to Concord; unload, collapse. (210 miles, 3 1/2 hours drive time, no stops).

Day 20-200: post-process a few thousand shots to find maybe 100 decent ones.

Technical note: those of you into taking pictures, even if only on your cellphone, and want to know when and where the Sun and Moon will be and what they are doing on any given date/time of day/location so you can pre-plan a shot should look into an app such as Photopills (my current favorite) or The Photographer's Emphemeris (which I also like and have used in the past).

This sounds like a winning plan, and a photographer's delight. I'm looking forward to seeing your photos when you've chosen some!

If this were me, I'd be adding the Harvey House in Barstow to the list. I'd also make sure that I put the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe on a list of things to at least walk through. (To be sure, the last two times I've been through Santa Fe, I've wanted to do just that, but hubby always convinced me that I'd probably want more than just a walk through and that's all we had time for.)

In 2011, my husband and I drove through Old Town in Albuquerque. Really interesting! ABQ and Santa Fe have been an alternative to Hollywood for filming lately, probably because of costs. You can run into filming crews in either one these days. In ABQ back then, we ate at Seasons, but in the bar area -- we were joined by a friend in ABQ. (He has since passed away.) He was the one that told us of the filming mecca that the two cities have been, a fact which has been published more recently. Another good place he loved was Little Anita's, which we didn't get a chance to try while we were there. We stayed at the Sandia Peak Inn, because of its proximity to both our friend and Seasons. It's a "2 star" but the room we took was huge, clean and really modern. Hard to believe that was 10 years ago, though.


Donna

Thanks for the tips!

Yeah, Casa del Desierto (The 'Harvey House'* in Barstow) is on the list (plan to hit it in the morning on the way out), as is El Garces in Needles later that same day. MAY pop in for a glance around La Posada in Winslow when we pass through... time permitting. Union Station in LA and the San Bernardino depot not currently making the cut, due to time constraints.

Our hotel in Santa Fe IS La Fonda; we've been there before and you can't beat the location, history and atmosphere. First time there was more than 30 years ago, and it was just a stop for breakfast in the restaurant. I learned about breakfast burritos at that time, bought a New Mexican cooking book ('The Feast of Santa Fe') and have been making breakfast burritos (with homemade from-scratch sauce) for Christmas morning breakfast for the past 20 years or so. Last visit (stayed 4 nights) was in 2015 as part of a trip that started with the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, continued through Acoma, Canyon de Chelly, then Mesa Verde to Santa Fe for return flight out of Albuquerque.
Attachment 5026

* For those following along at home: Fred Harvey began his empire by opening lunch rooms along railroad lines, most prominently the AT&SF. He then expanded into hotels. There is a linkage of sorts between Route 66 and Fred Harvey, as 66 follows the route of the AT&SF through much of the southwest. So many of the sights on the route are Harvey-linked properties. Along with the ones noted above, some of the others still existing on or close to the route (many have been torn down) are the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, Furnace Creek in Death Valley (built by the Borax Company but now owned/operated by the successor company to Fred Harvey, Xanterra; and our stop in DV). For a fictional look at the early days of the company, see the Judy Garland musical, "The Harvey Girls".

So while there is a positive linkage between the Fred Harvey properties and Route 66, there is a negative one as well. The mobilization brought about by the automobile, and long-distance routes such as Route 66 and others, led to a decline in train travel, and therefore a decline in the linked services such as those provided by the Harvey empire. A trip down 66 is a passage between the era of rail, and the era of car.

If you are ever in Kansas City, they have restored the Fred Harvey restaurant in Union Station. It's just a showpiece, the kitchen has not been restored.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CalOldBlue

Day 4: Barstow to Lake Havasu (not ON Route 66 per se, but hotel options looked interesting). Mojave Desert, multiple photo-ops in Daggett, Newberry Springs, Ludlow, Amboy, Goffs, and Needles.

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Don, one of the must-stay places in this area is the 29 Palms Inn in Twentynine Palms, and although you have a busy schedule, I would certainly recommend it.

Here are some brand new RTA maps covering the sections of Route 66 that you will be driving -- these were built to support the brand new Route 66 book we are publishing in August. These were built east to west -- but you can resolve that. And you can download and use these maps.

Claremont to Santa Monica

Needles to Claremont


Ash Fork, Arizona to Needles

Gallup NM to Ash Fork, AZ

Mark

Thanks! Note: that last link appears to be a repeat of Ash Fork->Needles.

-->Thanks for the note, I have edited the link to be the correct one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CalOldBlue

Day 14: Santa Fe to Monument Valley. Second longest driving day of the trip. Lunch at Twin Rocks Trading Post in Bluff Utah (where we have traded $$ for Navajo artwork in the past). Goosenecks of the San Juan. Arrive in Monument Valley (View Hotel; two nights) in time for shooting sunset shots from hotel balcony (just the lit buttes, not the actual sunset), moonrise from front plaza, Milky Way from side parking lot, then more star/butte shots from hotel balcony. Get up early the next morning to shoot sunrise over Merrick Butte from cabin area. Take all day guided tour. More shots that evening. (371 miles, 6+ hours drive time, 2 1/2 hours lunch/sightseeing.)

Day 16: Monument Valley to Death Valley. Longest driving day of the trip. Covering territory we've been through before, so pretty much drive drive drive. Stop in St. George for lunch and gas. Check in to Furnace Creek Inn for two nights. Shoot Milky Way from valley floor. Get up early next morning to shoot sunrise hitting Zabriskie point. Shoot sand dunes area that evening. Spend some time in the pool/pool bar. (525 miles, 8 1/2 hours driving, one hour lunch stop).


Technical note: those of you into taking pictures, even if only on your cellphone, and want to know when and where the Sun and Moon will be and what they are doing on any given date/time of day/location so you can pre-plan a shot should look into an app such as Photopills (my current favorite) or The Photographer's Emphemeris (which I also like and have used in the past).

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Sounds like an awesome trip! I have a couple of concerns I just want to make you aware of since you mention October but aren't giving specific dates.

1. The Albuquerque Balloon Festival is from Oct. 2 to Oct. 10th this year and while we've never been we hear that people stay as far away as Santa Fe and there is a lot of traffic involved.

2. Since we are going to be in a Dark Sky place for our anniversary in early October, I know that the new moon for Oct. 2021 is on October 6th and we plan to see the Milky Way. You will be in good locations for seeing the Milky Way. That said I don't know the dates of your Milky Way photo opportunities, but a full moon or near full will probably not make them possible. https://www.moongiant.com/calendar/october/2021/

Utahtea

Thanks; great input! A couple thoughts/input for those looking at this thread...

We're not doing the balloon fiesta this trip, but you are right, traffic is a mess getting into the site in the morning (everybody wants to watch the 'Dawn Patrol' light up and launch, see picture above) and hotels book up early. When we did it six years ago we booked well in advance, and managed to snare some 'club' tickets (very very very hard to get) that let you enter a separate parking lot using a different route in, and private bathrooms (real, not portapotties: selling point for Mrs OldBlue). Well worth the price (of course, other's mileage may vary).

Yeah, I've been tracking the moon issue using Photopills; I'm hoping that shots in MV will work as the moon is close to full, but comes up an hour after sunset in the East, and the Galactic Center will be on the Western Horizon. We'll see how that works, but I'm hoping the moonlight will light up the cliffs a bit without washing out the stars too much... at least as long as I'm shooting away from it. (Disclaimer; while I've been doing photography for 5-6 decades, I've never lived somewhere where astro-photography was an option so this will be a first for me.)

Giving you a glimpse of my planning insanity, here is one page of the 31-tab Excel spreadsheet I'm using to plan various aspects of this trip. Every trip the spreadsheet gets more detailed. This is a screenshot of the SunAndMoon tab.

Attachment 5027

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CalOldBlue

Thanks; great input! A couple thoughts/input for those looking at this thread...

We're not doing the balloon fiesta this trip, but you are right, traffic is a mess getting into the site in the morning (everybody wants to watch the 'Dawn Patrol' light up and launch, see picture above) and hotels book up early. When we did it six years ago we booked well in advance, and managed to snare some 'club' tickets (very very very hard to get) that let you enter a separate parking lot using a different route in, and private bathrooms (real, not portapotties: selling point for Mrs OldBlue). Well worth the price (of course, other's mileage may vary).

Yeah, I've been tracking the moon issue using Photopills; I'm hoping that shots in MV will work as the moon is close to full, but comes up an hour after sunset in the East, and the Galactic Center will be on the Western Horizon. We'll see how that works, but I'm hoping the moonlight will light up the cliffs a bit without washing out the stars too much... at least as long as I'm shooting away from it. (Disclaimer; while I've been doing photography for 5-6 decades, I've never lived somewhere where astro-photography was an option so this will be a first for me.)

Giving you a glimpse of my planning insanity, here is one page of the 31-tab Excel spreadsheet I'm using to plan various aspects of this trip. Every trip the spreadsheet gets more detailed. This is a screenshot of the SunAndMoon tab.

Attachment 5027

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Sounds like you are well prepared and have a very impressive spreadsheet. While I do a spread sheet and I will mention a new moon meteor shower, free National Park entrance days, spring break, etc., they all get mention in my MISC column. My other columns are Date, Day of the week, Location, Campground, Reservation Made or Not (mostly because for National Parks and State Parks you have to wait until the window of reservations opens), Ideas of things to do, Miles, Total Miles and Misc. On our recent trip to visit Yosemite National Park, knew better than to go into Yosemite on Saturday, April 17th because it was a free day. We heard from another camper it was a ZOO!

Utahtea

Sounds like you are capturing the same stuff I am. Here's how I get to 31 tabs:

One tab for each 'transit day'; broken into legs (e.g. Lake Havasu to Oatman, Oatman to Hackberry, Hackberry to Seligman...) with miles and times and 'dwell time' (expected time spent at the stop at the end of the leg). I have 11 of these. Each leg is summed at the bottom for total miles/time/stops for that day. (See 'overview' tab below).

One tab for each multi-day stop; things to do/see, restaurant options, etc. (For one-night stops this info is typically squished into the transit tab for that stop). There are 6 of these (Flagstaff, Gallup, Tucumcari, Santa Fe, Monument Valley, Death Valley). Tucumcari due to the short stay and the plethora of shots I want to take. Don't have one for Santa Monica as we'll just wing it.

Calendar tab. Looks like a page from a monthly calendar... overview of where you are on any given day.

Reservation tab (hotel, car, airline, other things reserved ahead of time; includes budget info).

Overview tab (driven automatically from miles/time/dwell information in the individual transit day tabs; as I change these it auto-populates the Overview tab... which is where the information in my original posts was derived).

"Climate" tab (likely weather for each location for that time of year). Useful when it gets time to finalize the 'Packing list' tab.

Sun/Moon tab. Already discussed.

"Gottados" (things I need to do before we leave; e.g. pay bills).

Packing list.

House sitter instructions (to make sure our boys don't forget to water the plants).

Contact information.

Sometimes there'll be a tab for local loops at a multi-day stop or complex drives in a transit day; e.g. if we're going to make a loop out of Santa Fe there'll be a 'transit-day-like' tab. I have one of these to break down the timing through Petrified Forest... lots of places we COULD stop, need to budget our time. This tab drives the details for one row of the Flagstaff to Gallup tab, which then feeds the Overview tab. (Yeah, I used to be in IT and have a decent comfort level with Excel basics.)

Other one-off tabs for a particular road trip as needed. This one has a 'Gas' tab so I don't forget to gas up prior to a long drive through nowhere on the way to somewhere. Lots of emptiness between Santa Fe and Bluff, and Barstow and Needles.

CLEARLY over-planning, but I want to make sure we have a place to stay, are not rushed yet can see the critical things we want to see, and arrive before dark. I used to do things like pull into a foreign city and expect to score a room at the local tourist office, until my then-wife and I arrived in Koblenz after the tourist office closed and I had to wander the streets looking for a 'Zimmer Frei' sign. Never again (fortunately I had four years of high school German to fall back on).

My most insane tab ever was a 15-minute by 15-minute view of how we could be spending our 4 days in Dublin. Did we follow it to the letter? No way; but at least we could review how we were doing against our 'must sees' and adjust as needed.

I got to this level of planning due to over-packing things into one too many vacations and being spoken to harshly by Mrs. OldBlue. So rather than being a Sherman's-march-to-the-sea (how Mrs. OB to this day refers to our honeymoon in England 18 years ago), I have a better understanding of what is feasible, and what is abusive. We adjust on the fly... this plan is just 'indicative'.

I don't recommend this level of detail unless you really enjoy this level of planning (I do), and understand that it is a tradeoff of spontaneity for certainty: it probably works best the older and less flexible you are. Think of it as a packaged tour where you have designed the package, and then become the tour guide that executes it.

I'm the sort that never plots out the details, and I almost never make reservations. That way, every day is a surprise, and that's half the fun. To each his own, I say, and Happy Trails!

Rick

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CalOldBlue

Sounds like you are capturing the same stuff I am. Here's how I get to 31 tabs:

One tab for each 'transit day'; broken into legs (e.g. Lake Havasu to Oatman, Oatman to Hackberry, Hackberry to Seligman...) with miles and times and 'dwell time' (expected time spent at the stop at the end of the leg). I have 11 of these. Each leg is summed at the bottom for total miles/time/stops for that day. (See 'overview' tab below).

One tab for each multi-day stop; things to do/see, restaurant options, etc. (For one-night stops this info is typically squished into the transit tab for that stop). There are 6 of these (Flagstaff, Gallup, Tucumcari, Santa Fe, Monument Valley, Death Valley). Tucumcari due to the short stay and the plethora of shots I want to take. Don't have one for Santa Monica as we'll just wing it.

Calendar tab. Looks like a page from a monthly calendar... overview of where you are on any given day.

Reservation tab (hotel, car, airline, other things reserved ahead of time; includes budget info).

Overview tab (driven automatically from miles/time/dwell information in the individual transit day tabs; as I change these it auto-populates the Overview tab... which is where the information in my original posts was derived).

"Climate" tab (likely weather for each location for that time of year). Useful when it gets time to finalize the 'Packing list' tab.

Sun/Moon tab. Already discussed.

"Gottados" (things I need to do before we leave; e.g. pay bills).

Packing list.

House sitter instructions (to make sure our boys don't forget to water the plants).

Contact information.

Sometimes there'll be a tab for local loops at a multi-day stop or complex drives in a transit day; e.g. if we're going to make a loop out of Santa Fe there'll be a 'transit-day-like' tab. I have one of these to break down the timing through Petrified Forest... lots of places we COULD stop, need to budget our time. This tab drives the details for one row of the Flagstaff to Gallup tab, which then feeds the Overview tab. (Yeah, I used to be in IT and have a decent comfort level with Excel basics.)

Other one-off tabs for a particular road trip as needed. This one has a 'Gas' tab so I don't forget to gas up prior to a long drive through nowhere on the way to somewhere. Lots of emptiness between Santa Fe and Bluff, and Barstow and Needles.

CLEARLY over-planning, but I want to make sure we have a place to stay, are not rushed yet can see the critical things we want to see, and arrive before dark. I used to do things like pull into a foreign city and expect to score a room at the local tourist office, until my then-wife and I arrived in Koblenz after the tourist office closed and I had to wander the streets looking for a 'Zimmer Frei' sign. Never again (fortunately I had four years of high school German to fall back on).

My most insane tab ever was a 15-minute by 15-minute view of how we could be spending our 4 days in Dublin. Did we follow it to the letter? No way; but at least we could review how we were doing against our 'must sees' and adjust as needed.

I got to this level of planning due to over-packing things into one too many vacations and being spoken to harshly by Mrs. OldBlue. So rather than being a Sherman's-march-to-the-sea (how Mrs. OB to this day refers to our honeymoon in England 18 years ago), I have a better understanding of what is feasible, and what is abusive. We adjust on the fly... this plan is just 'indicative'.

I don't recommend this level of detail unless you really enjoy this level of planning (I do), and understand that it is a tradeoff of spontaneity for certainty: it probably works best the older and less flexible you are. Think of it as a packaged tour where you have designed the package, and then become the tour guide that executes it.

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Thirty-One Tabs! That is impressive! I might steal a tab or two! I do the Calendar for cruises and post it on the wall of our cabin. Makes it so easy to see what's coming. I always leave room for things we want to add. Otherwise I take my calendar in the RV. I'm a visual person! ;) I don't have a tab for reservations, but they are listed on the spread sheet and I do print them out and keep them in my binder.

I will now try to impress you with what use to be our Camping Checklist. In 1986 when my son was only 10 years old he wrote a check list program for our Commodore 128 computer. It had three lines in the header that I could customize, it sorted everything either by "Items" or "Location in the RV" and I would print it out both ways (no laptops or cell phones back then!) and that first year there were 228 items listed and the last time I used it there were just over 400 items! When we changed to a PC computer my son updated the program for me. I used this program for the 10 years we had our travel trailer and the 13 years we had our first motorhome. We pretty much keep the motorhome stocked now and we've been doing this for SO long and SO often, we remember what needs to be added besides the clothes and food.

Now that we are retired and have all the time we want, we're not as scheduled as we use to be in the days when we didn't have much in the way of vacation days. Now I even add a rainy day to pretty much each location we plan to stop and sometimes two if we're going to be someplace for longer than a week!

We use to not even make reservations but that's not an option if we want to stay in National Parks, State Parks, popular places or if we go with another couple. For our upcoming fall trip we have reservations for the first month because we're going with another couple and to popular destinations. We will be parting and for the travel days to our next destination, we won't be making reservations, but for the State Park and National Parks after that we do.

Utahtea

Well, maybe I made it sound a little worse than it was in some ways, and a little better than it was in others.

Here's a fuller view of (the first part of) the Dublin trip 15-minute timing... the timing includes more than just Dublin, and the 15 minutes is just the level of detail so I could get things lined up into a graphical day-by-day format.

The yellow boxes are time-definite reservations (tours, concerts, etc.) that we had to hit... so the rest of the what went on that particular day had to fit around them.

Re: unlocking/relocking doors... does that count the number of times we have to go back because we forgot something? :).

Good story about the Commodore: I was too busy keeping mainframes running to have gotten involved in that kind of fun... until the late 1980s when I changed jobs and found a Macintosh SE on my desk.


Attachment 5028

That's actually pretty cool. In truth, I admire anybody who's that well organized, and I love spreadsheets. At that, I must sincerely apologize if my original unedited post offended anyone; 'twas naught but a lame attempt at humor.

Rick

I have a post in my blog about a morning I spent in Grand Teton, a few years back. It demonstrates a complete lack of planning, and why that can be such great fun!

Here's a link: Buffalo Sunrise

Rick

I, too, have gone to using a spreadsheet for our longer trips. On it, I include: the date, starting point, ending point, # of expected miles, overnight lodging w/confirmation #, approx cost of lodging, whether or not it has a pool/hot tub, and "other information". I love the idea of including a column for time zone changes. I had always put that in "other information", but a separate column makes sense. Sometimes I will include a column for places we are going to take a break along the way, such as stopping at Lee's Ferry on the trip between Flagstaff and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, etc.

I love to plan, too. Even back "before computers", I would type them up (on a real typewriter) once we got the plans set.

Reservations... Early on, when tent camping, we only had reservations for national parks (and only a few offered reservations back then!). For commercial RV parks, it really depended - when we headed for AK (20 years ago), we'd know each day where we wanted to go, but would call the day before to make reservations. We'd been warned ahead of time not to use that plan for Anchorage, so those we had early on. When we sold the RV and went the motel-route, often times we would use a coupon from one of those booklets. Fortunately for us, we get in early enough in the day to use those, and it only backfired on us a couple of times. Once we discovered online reservations for motels, we went to those, finding that it wasn't all that much more expensive to do it that way.

The planning has gotten easier with the advent of the Internet, that's for sure. I can get mileages a lot easier, using waypoints if we are taking an unusual route to get someplace. When planning our recent speed-run, for instance, I was able to quickly figure out where we needed to stay each night by playing with Google Maps (ignoring their preposterous "drive times" of course). Then finding a hotel was easy, as was making a reservation and seeing what places might be around for dinner. (With COVID-19, though, it was difficult to ascertain which places were actually open for dining. In one place, both Google and TripAdvisor listed a place as "closed", but the hotel assured us that it was open -- and it was.)


Donna

Rick: No offense was taken, so no apology is needed... but thanks!

I do lament the constrained spontaneity of an uber-planning approach, and in spite of the level of detail I get to a lot changes 'on the ground'. In reviewing the Ireland trip plan, while the locations all stayed the same, what we did bore only a passing resemblance to the original plan (other than the pre-reserved events in Dublin).

Donna:

All great points.

The last time I seriously free-lanced a vacation was when I decided to take my (newly-orphaned) teenagers on a grand tour of Europe around the turn of the century.

We lived out of backpacks, travelled by train, and aside from a few specific reservations I would generally call ahead before moving on to the next location (never ever willing to risk another "Koblenz").

It worked well, up until late in the trip my daughter saw the room we got in Salzburg, then collapsed on the bed in tears. The room was actually OK, but just basic and I'd been running them ragged (as I tended to do).

I let her call her friend back in California to rant. That was an expensive phone call, but she recovered well and LOVED Salzburg.