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I know, I know, it’s been forever since I last wrote a post. But now, a new Roadtrip is coming up—fast!
Here’s a look at the stops (as the route currently stands…you’ll see why I say “currently”):
Here’s how it went, starting c. March:
-Sequoia says she wants to take a roadtrip to Albuquerque. Paul, who has added “Not the desert” to the list of places he wants to go next, has zero interest and is busy–but he encourages a mother-daughter trip. Hells yeah!
-Plans commence for about a 2-ish-week trip out and back, just a couple pit stops with our time mainly spent in Albuquerque. We decide to go in mid-June, with plenty of time to get back before flying out to CA for a family trip to visit Paul’s parents in July.
-Get on the Marriott app, make some reservations. Done! (JUST KIDDING.)
-I realize I can return to Mesa Verde, which, when I visited in 1999, was closed for winter and I’ve been dying to go back for years. It just hasn’t fit into any of our past routes. I gleefully reserve the lodge in the park.
-Sequoia and I talk about doing National Park programs so she’ll earn more time toward her Girl Scout-NPS Ranger badge. I map us through Rocky Mountain National Park to get more park time and visit one I’ve never visited before.
-I realize I can return to Santa Claus, Indiana to visit the museum shop I couldn’t visit during our first trip. Added!
-I’m excited to see we’ll cross the Texas stretch of Route 66 that I’ve been keen on driving for years but had given up on because I don’t want to spend my dollars in an abortion-banning, LGBTQ+ rights-stomping state. Buying spraypaint in another state and driving across a short stretch to graffiti a rainbow on a row of desert Cadillacs, however…
-Excitement builds for Tucumcari, a New Mexico City I’ve wanted to visit for decades.
-I REALIZE I CAN GO TO THE URANUS FUDGE FACTORY IN URANUS, MISSOURI. Weeks of giggles and anus jokes ensue.
-I start to wonder if we should just keep going to Salt Lake to visit my stepdaughter. We tack that on. The trip has become over 3 weeks and is now encroaching on the July trip to CA.
-I get an estimate to fix the faulty A/C on my car before hitting the desert but start questioning whether it’d be better to just get a new car and give newly-permitted Sequoia mine. Aaaaannnnd… the search for a new car commences. I decide that I want a luxury sedan, for comfort and gas mileage, and I eventually select a Lexus hybrid and put down a down payment while waiting for it to be built. Now I’m excited about getting a new car right out on the road like I did when we bought my beloved Volvo! (It won’t be disappearing from the driveway, though, as Sequoia now has her permit!)
-We buy Paul tickets to SLC to make it a family visit. He is glad to be included without having to drive (or, worse, visit the desert).
-I start to wonder if I should fly Sequoia home from SLC with Paul so she doesn’t have to do the more boring and direct drive back. She says she’d rather go a little longer than SLC and wanted to see the Rockies, so I look at flying her home from Denver.
-But then…I start eyeing California, contemplating whether it maybe made sense to just drive on to Paul’s parents instead of rushing home to get on a plane. But I knew I’d have a long way back from CA, and that the increased length would have us encroaching on Sequoia’s theatre camp start date (it’s always something). And yet, if I flew her home from CA, it’d be a grueling week of driving alone, after having driven all the way out.
-Then, I begin to wonder…What if my mother—who wants to see the country, but not alone—flew out to CA and did the drive back with me. After all, she’s never, in over two decades, met my in-laws, because they’re on separate coasts and Paul and I didn’t have a traditional family wedding (we had a wedding with strangers on a cruise ship off of Alaska). Anyway, she could meet the in-laws, take a coast-to-coast roadtrip, keep me company, and help with driving. So I suggest it.
-My mother is in! Plans for a sightseeing return trip from CA begin. Mom tells me what she’d like to visit and I start plotting the route. Trip has now grown to over five weeks. My only deadline now is getting home by the time Sequoia’s theatre camp starts.
-Sequoia is happy to be heading to Tahoe because she likes lakes and can visit a friend, and Monterey, where she was born but left when she was turning one, so she has no recollection of it.
-My mother hasn’t seen many National Parks and wants to visit Yosemite and Death Valley. We’ll no longer be hitting Rocky Mountain NP, but that’s okay. My mother also wants to visit Great Sand Dunes NP in Colorado, which now becomes the only National Park on the trip that I’ve never personally visited before.
I tack on Sequoia National Park because my mother has never seen her granddaughter’s namesake trees!
-Oh, look, straight through Page…I’ll be able to finally see Horseshoe Bend! It’s always been jusssst out of the way of our routes when we’ve visited Lake Powell. Same with Monument Valley!! Reserve a couple days at Lake Powell, start looking to rent jet skis, and order sunglass straps so I don’t lose a pair like I lost my favorite pair of Tiffany frames during a jetski incident last year.
-I see that we can tack on the bottom road through Zion NP and add that to the route.
-My usual leather travel journal is not going to be big enough, now I need a binder.
-I start researching regional Girl Scout badges and patches Sequoia can do along the way, including a patch about Oklahoma, badges for trail hiking and paddling, etc. And…that’s when I come across a Ballooning in New Mexico patch program out of a New Mexico Council! Sequoia and I about lose our minds. Reservation for hot air ballooning made soon after.
-While reserving the balloon, I receive an email about their travel partners, including some hotels. One looks awesome. Cancel Marriott, Hello Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town.
-I begin to consider adding the remote Great Sands NP into the mix to give me a new park, but am weighing it against a pitstop in the more convenient Winemucca, which happens to be the first city in the I’ve Been Everywhere lyrics. The drive to Great Basin is almost three hours longer and the hotel pitstop wouldn’t be as convenient.
-I realize that, given the amount of snowfall in California this season, Sequoia might be able to do the Snow Adventure badge in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Winnemucca pitstop it is!
-Wait–Oregon isn’t that far…”Sequoia, do you want to go through Oregon?”
-We have now turned what was a 30-hour round trip into just one way being 60 hours.
-Realizing I’ll need to kill a day coming out of a Monterey weekend before picking Paul up in Sacramento to head to his parents, I tack on Pinnacles NP, which I last visited when it was still a State Park–and which Sequoia has never visited.
-I come across a Girl Scout Route 66 patch program from the New Mexico Girl Scout Council and I about lose my mind!! And Sequoia wants to do it! I start looking even more closely at Route 66. Sequoia and I will do Missouri all the way to Albuquerque and Gallup (on and off, with highway driving), and at this point, Mom and I will get to do Santa Fe’s original section, to Oklahoma City, heading east.
-I realize that I can’t take my mother to Sequoia National Park due to road closures, so I decide to take her to Grant Grove in King’s Canyon.
-My mother, who by now has her atlas out, sees Nashville on the route and about loses her mind.
-Trying to get home by the time Sequoia starts theatre camp, I drop Great Sand Dunes for a clean, straight shot back so we can visit Nashville for more than one night. I route us through Santa Fe so I can catch the former Santa Fe section of the original Route 66.
-I tell Sequoia how I’m taking soooooooo many pictures in Uranus. Sequoia: “So you’re going to be embarrassing. That’s what I’m hearing.”
-I decide to create playlists for specific days of the trip and OCD on that for two days.
-Sequoia and I realize that she is allowed to drive in a bunch of states with her Maryland learner’s permit. Routes begin to shift.
I’ve ordered rings for Sequoia to add to her keychain, one by one, as she drives on open road in each state allowed.
-I create for Sequoia a “mental preparation spreadsheet” so she can mentally prepare for which days have early rises, which days have long driving times, which days have a lot of pitstops (hello, Route 66), which rooms we might share a king bed in, etc. She comments on how much she appreciates that it’s color coded.
-My mother sees a Facebook post about Dorothy’s House and the Land of Oz and asks if Kansas is on the way. Well, it can be… We just need to shift back up to the route that can include Great Sand Dunes National Park–which is fine by me.
-I abandon all hopes of getting back for the first day (or second?) of theatre camp and Paul tells me not to worry, he’ll figure out how to get her there.
-I learn about the Mariposa grove of Sequoia trees and add that to the map. I extend how far we’ll drive that day since we won’t be going through Sequoia NP.
-My mother mentions that she’d like to visit as many states as possible. Texas added to the latest route and a chunk of Route 66 eastbound is back on!
-I notice a trail where you see dinosaur tracks in southern Utah. Added.
-I show my husband Sequoia’s color-coded “Mental Preparation Spreadsheet” and he asks what the difference between “no rush” and “sleeping in” are. I explain, “Sleeping in” is for multi-day-stay mornings where nothing is scheduled for the morning; “no rush” is for travel days where there are stops but we don’t have to leave early to make them all. Paul says, “So there are days where it’s like ‘No rush’ but then you’re driving 8 hours?” Could be, Paul. Could be.
-I remember that I’m a AAA member and I go grab allllllllll the route maps.
-I gleefully pick up a Lexus and start planning where each bag and supply will go.
-I realize that a 30-hour trip has become a 144-hour trip.
So…Where are we at the moment? Making jokes about Uranus and preparing for specific on-the-road writing projects as I wait impatiently for June 10th to come.
ABRIDGED TRANSITION:
