It Starts With A Map

     Like all of my favorite adventures, our cross-country National Parks Tour started with a map. A big one.

    Actually, scratch that. It started with the following lists:

1. Far-flung people we'd like to visit

2. National Parks we'd like to camp at

3. National Parks off the beaten path but still amazing that we should try and see

    But, no, now that I think of it, planning actually really started (I swear this time) by giving the two youngest members of our expedition team a few books about National Parks and having them choose which ones looked the most interesting to them. After eliminating Hawaii, Dry Tortugas, Alaska, and the hottest parts of the southwest (since we would be traveling in July and August), they wrote all of their ideas on little cut-up post-it notes and stuck them on the map. Anne and I added the hometowns of the people we wanted to visit and the parks we were most excited about.

We hadn't yet broken it to Frodo that he wasn't coming along.

    It was a lot of post-it notes, even for a nine-week trip. So we tried to get to the essence of why we wanted to visit each place, and began to eliminate some extras and doubles. We also knew that camping in 100 degrees wold be miserable, so we stuck to the northern part of the US for much of the trip west. 

    As post-its were removed, compromises were made, and driving distances were roughly estimated, a vague route began to take shape. For the first time, this amorphous idea that had been kicking around in our heads became tangible. We hung the map on the wall to reminded us every day that, yes, we were actually doing this, and, yes, we had best keep at it.