Location: West Suffield, CT
While there are too many locations to simply plop down into a big list, I figure I might as well outline a rough estimate of where we will be on this trip. There are some places on our schedule that require us to be there at a specific time, so that will help put together exactly how long it will take us to get from place to place. However, we don’t want to rush ourselves, so we don’t have any stringent itinerary guidelines. As of now, here is a rough course outline.
- Leave West Suffield, CT on July 16th.
- Backpacking in the Adirondack Mountains near Lake Placid.
- Niagra Falls.
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Chicago, IL for Lollapalooza August 3rd – 5th.
- West through Iowa City, South Dakota and Wyoming.
- Seattle and Portland.
- Down the Oregon and California coastlines to San Francisco
- Las Vegas, NV the second week in November.
- We fly from Vegas to the Florida Keys for a family reunion on November 17th and return November 22nd.
- Grand Canyon, followed by a whole lot of national parks in Utah and Colorado.
- Through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.
- Washington D.C.
- Philadelphia.
- New York City.
If anyone is in or around these areas, please feel free to let us know. We’d love to visit and, more importantly, we’d love a roof over our heads. We’ll update with more specific information about our trip as things get closer. In the meantime, we’ve got a lot of inventory to go over.
Location: West Suffield, CT
I think I’ve got the blog fairly close to how I want it to be for the trip, so I guess that means it’s time for the first “real” entry. Since the trip is roughly a month away, there obviously won’t be a whole lot of activity right now (aside from updating the characteristics of the blog itself), but I’ll post some background information here for now. There is a bit of information in the “Who Are We?” page on the right, so this post will consist of more specific details about our preparation for the trip.
First of all, I want to mention the mapping feature I’ve incorporated into this thing. If you click on the “Where Are We?” link to the right, it brings up a Google Maps view, with each marker representing a location from which Julia or I have posted. If you click on any marker, you can view the post(s) from that location. Once we get moving, there will also be a line connecting each location to the next, so you can visually track our progress around the country. Additionally, any post that has a location attached to it can be displayed by clicking the “Where Are We?” link at the bottom of the individual post. I’ll take this opportunity to thank Dylan from cyberhobo for his great plugin and going out of his way to help me implement it properly when it wasn’t working as I had expected. Speaking of help, I also need to thank Rob for figuring out all sorts of code work for me to help me set this thing up.
Moving on…
Julia and I are looking into GPS devices at the moment. There is an important advantage to the Magellan Maestro series – a partnership with AAA. As a member, I fully intend on utilizing their campgrounds and discount hotel deals on this trip whenever we aren’t staying with friends or family. Therefore, being able to see nearby campgrounds, hotels, mechanics and so on at the touch of a button could prove very nice. However, these units are expensive and reviews are mixed. My cell phone can be used as a modem for my laptop, so it’s reasonable to assume that I can use my phone in conjunction with Google Earth (which is what I am using to plan out this whole trip in the first place) to find nearby locations and plot driving routes on-the-fly. I could also pick up a GPS that directly links with my computer and simply use that to plot our routes. As of right now, this is the biggest debate regarding the trip, at least in my mind.
We are also trying to put together a comprehensive packing list for the trip, for obvious reasons. I’ve placed the list behind the link below. Feel free to look through and make suggestions. Continue reading ‘Day -33: Getting Started’