Vacations Blog

Road Trip - photo by wili_hybrid

(Continued from Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.)

Back when my husband was about ten years old, his family took a road trip from Arizona to Wyoming to visit some family. Picture, if you will, the family packed in the old woody station wagon – Mom, Dad, my husband, and his two younger sisters. Picture, if you will, all of the luggage and gear that said family would require, also packed into the aforementioned station wagon. And, picture (again, if you will) two 150+ pound German Shepherds gleefully sprawled among the children in the back seat, tongues lolling, drool a-spraying. All crammed into this one station wagon. For fifteen hours straight (his dad didn’t believe in pit stops), and nearly a thousand miles. One way.

It’s a wonder my husband didn’t need therapy for this childhood experience. But, not only did he come out the other side of it (basically) normal, he’s willing to repeat the experience. Sans the station wagon. And the other family members. And the dogs.

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Grand Teton Nat'l Park, Photo by Circumerro

“Babe?” I said to my husband one weekend morning. Laptop at hand, I had the road atlas by my side, a Word document going that I was using to record our plans, and MapQuest queued up in my web browser.

“Yep?” He replied, absently reading the paper.

“We’re stuck in Cody, WY.”

“Hmm…” he mumbled.

“No, really, hon. We’re stuck in Cody and I don’t know where to go from there.” I rustled the edge of his paper to get his attention. Clearly, he wasn’t understanding my sense of urgency.

“Sorry, what?” He looked up from his paper and blinked at me. Because, obviously, we were sitting quite happily in our living room, and not stranded at the side of the road in some random corner of the mid-west.

“Okay,” I explained patiently, “Here’s the plan so far. Phoenix to Salt Lake City, spend the night there, then three nights in Jackson Hole. I’m going to try to get us lodging in Yellowstone itself for two nights, and from there we’re going to Cody to spend one night. After Cody… well, I don’t know which way to go to get us home.”

After I finished this little speech, my husband replied with, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” and went back to peacefully reading his paper. Which you might think is inconsiderate, but my husband knows I LOVE this stuff. So really I wasn’t expressing an issue so much as looking for validation of all of my hard work.

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Yellowstone Hot Springs - photo by Tim

(Continued from Part One.)

Once my husband and I finally decided on Yellowstone National Park as our destination, we began to try to figure out how long of a road trip – in distance and in days – we wanted to commit ourselves to. One week seemed too short, and two weeks was too long due to limited vacation time. Finally we decided on ten days total for our entire vacation, encompassing two full weekends so that we only had to use seven total days of available vacation time. That would be enough time to get there, see the area fully, and mosey on back home via a different route than we took to get there.

That last part – the whole different route thing – spurred ANOTHER round of debate. Do we go clockwise – Arizona/Utah/Wyoming/Colorado/New Mexico/Arizona? Or do we go counter-clockwise – Arizona/Utah/Wyoming/Idaho/Nevada/Arizona? Since we’re going to be so far north into Wyoming, do we want to check out any of Southern Montana? Since we’re going to be so far west into Wyoming, do we want to check out any of Eastern Idaho?

The whole vacation planning thing, fun as it all is to me, was by this point starting to drive me a little crazy.

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The Rand McNally Road Atlas

My husband and I started discussing in February what we wanted to do for our summer vacation this year. With limited vacation time, funds not to exceed $3500, and varying tastes in what each of us considered to be vacation-worthy destinations and activities, we HAD to start the negotiations early in order to settle on something in time to, you know, actually PLAN the vacation.

Both of us are big fans of road trips – short jaunts to Flagstaff and Sedona earlier this year just whet our appetites for some serious road time. That narrowed down our options and expectations – no airfare, and no destination that was TOO far away. Then, because we live in Arizona, we figured we’ve done the six-hour drive to the San Diego area, like, a hundred times – so we decided not to go in that direction again. Next, we determined that neither of us were interested in going to Mexico, swine flu notwithstanding. So, we didn’t need to get passports either (something that’s been on my to-do list for, oh, about ten years). That took care of South, and West. I started casting my attention toward North, and East.

It was during a Sunday afternoon watching The Discovery Channel that we got the notion to visit Yellowstone National Park. Really, it was a, “Well, duh!” realization of the destination we were looking for. My husband has visited the park once, way back in his youth. I’ve never been there, myself, and I’ve always wanted to go. In the end, it was an easy decision to make, with immediate agreement on both sides. Enthusiasm started to build now that we finally had a direction in mind.

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Growing up, maps could always be found, slightly torn and badly folded on the floors of most cars. I always liked looking at these maps on long car trips. I loved finding the exact spot we were going and tracing the route with my finger.

The Rand McNally road atlas, shoved under the seat, was a thing of magic. I couldn’t believe they could fit an entire country into a small bound book.

I now know that the torn map and the dog eared atlas are destined to become oddities of a bygone era. How do I know this? Because in the past week my 80 year old mother called me to say she got a “roadmap” installed in her car and my nine year old told me to get a GPS as I desperately searched for the latest birthday party located in a suburban maze.

I have also been thinking about maps or the lack of one lately because my mapless nephew is coming to visit. He is driving from Detroit, Michigan. The first time he came to my house without a parent in tow, my home was just a landing place for a cross country odyssey. The next time it was a launching point for a bachelor’s night out on the town. For both trips, including the drive across the U.S., he didn’t use a map. He was happy to wander about with a vague sense of his ultimate destination. This was beyond my understanding, but I liked his spirit of adventure. Now, like me, he doesn’t get lost. Electronic maps are on his phone, in his car and he is focused on getting to my house in the shortest time possible. I admire that old desire of his to discover by happenstance. I also admire his newfound focus. I do hope though he takes a sidetrip and I know just what site he should use: Wayfaring.

I am fond of the imaginative people who create maps on wayfaring. This site features creative maps with directions to North Dakota Coffee Houses, Clubbin in SF and a Painting Tour of the North End of New Bedford, MA. I didn’t even know New Bedford had 22 galleries. I want to go to Ma’s Donuts first-donuts and art, beats that old standby crackers and cheese anytime. Google and Yahoo may give great directions, but Wayfaring captures the spirit of traveling, just like my old atlas did on long car trips. Sometimes, I wish I could bind a few Wayfaring maps up in a book and just pick a page or two to follow.

Despite the prevalence of electronic maps, there is still a need for a map in my car. It is just of San Francisco, my adopted home town. It is laminated and with a quick glance I can be on my way. Another nephew is on a trip around the world. I wonder if he even thought to bring a map for the countries he is planning on traveling through? I doubt it. Why when the world is now on your phone?