Difficult Travel Planning - On the Road Again

Weak people exaggerate the importance of not changing their minds.

Sometimes trying to figure out a travel plan is really easy.  You have a short distance to go and  there’s only one or two ways to get there.  When the trip is a little longer there are usually more options. Many times the weather makes the decision for you.  If not, it’s back and forth and back and forth trying to make a decision.

 

Terry flew to Phoenix on Tuesday.  My plan was tofly down on Thursday.  However, Wednesday morning I decided to take the 7:00 flight that night.  I figured I might as well and as busy as our Thursday was, I’m glad I did.

Airports aren’t all about flying.  They want you to shop, dine and then fly!

By the time either of us had arrived in Phoenix, we still had no idea which way we would head north.   We knew come Friday morning we’d have to decide one way or another.  Since we wouldn’t be going in an RV we also knew we’d be staying in local hotels or motels along the way.  It was still the off season …. right?

Our first task was to pick up the car we had left in storage.  The car was absolutely filthy.  Of course, it was.  It had rained and the wind had blown the Arizona dust around.  We had remnants of both on it.  We also discovered the battery was dead.  It was so dead the remote wouldn’t even work.  We had actually talked about disconnecting the battery cable to prevent this …. but, we had only talked about it.  With the help of another RVer parked close we jumped the car and got it going.  Then, it was off to run it through the car wash.  One car wash wasn’t enough.  We had to run it through another car wash. 

Other than getting the car ready to go, we also wanted to make a trip to Bass Pro Shop.  Terry wanted another pair of Justin boots he had bought there last year plus we wanted to dream about kayaks and canoes. 

The rest of Thursday was spent visiting with Terry’s mom, getting ready for the trip back and dinner with cousin, Shelley.  The Texas Roadhouse in Gilbert is one of our favorite places.  Actually, we have a lot of favorite places in that area but that is where we ended up for dinner.  It was definitely a very, very busy Thursday.

As of Thursday evening we still weren’t quite sure what route we would be taking north.  The only thing we had decided is that we would head north.  We hadn’t been to Monument Valley or Moab in many, many years.  It had been quite a while since we had visited the Grand Canyon, Lake Tahoe or even the Redwoods. Even the Four Corners area and Mesa Verde were being considered.  There were lots of options but after consulting our favorite little weatherman who hides in my phone, we were only able to eliminate Lake Tahoe.  Snow and cold aren’t our favorite things.

It was just before 6:00 AM Friday morning when we joined the rest of the Phoenix traffic..  Traffic was a mess even that early.    We could have turned and headed towards Vegas or taken the I-10 towards California.  We didn’t.  We headed north on the I-17 figuring we’d probably have to make another decision by the time we reached I-40 just south of Flagstaff.   However, we were on our way and we had about 1500 miles ahead of us ---- give or take another hundred or two depending upon our route.

The terrain changed as we climbed and climbed towards Flagstaff.  The need for the decision was getting closer and we still hadn’t decided our route.  Which way should we go?  Well, we really didn’t finalize the decision for 150 miles beyond the point where we had figured we needed to have made that decision.  That’s another story which would make this blog way too long and I’d have to post way too many more pictures  .... plus I’m way too tired.  It's not that it was a PDD day as we only traveled 471 miles but we started early and made a lot of stops.

‘Tis life on the road.