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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