Travel

Going along with my last post about The Search, is this post, about travel.

I get these crazy ideas. I begin to believe that whatever I set my mind to will absolutely happen (often not realizing that it may put other people out, or demand a lot of support from others). This can be great... but also way too consuming. With travel it takes planning, money and time. It is usually something that takes place in the future... leaving me with a lot of time to day dream about this travel dream of mine. (And allowing things to get a bit out of hand.)

I'm not sure it is even practical and I'm really not sure it's going to happen, but I like believing that it may... and I like having HOPE that maybe it will actually all come together.

Matt graduates with a masters' degree in early May of 2013. Our summer work commitments don't start until June. This chunk of time in May has been screaming at me, "do something great!".  This would potentially allow for 21 days of travel.

A few things Matt and I agree on for sure is that no matter where we go.... we will be camping and we will be driving.

I have this dream of doing a really big special trip. We love the beach, but we have both been to the beach more than any other vacation location. I want a trip that stands out. A "road trip" that feels accomplishing, feels challenging, brings sights we have never seen. I would love this to be our adventure of our "younger years"-- pre-kids, pre-home ownership, pre-major commitments...

Clearly I have put a lot of pressure on this trip.

So I have started my search for the perfect location. When I first started mapping out where I would love to go (keeping my Bucket List in mind) I was super ambitious, I think I had about 12 National Parks picked out with 5 full days of driving. This left us with only one and two night stays in each park.

Yes, this was unrealistic. I just don't want anyone telling me it's unrealistic. I knew I would eventually realize this, but my attitude was "well if we are already this far out west... why not also go here?" Matt must have been thinking I was crazy, considering he would be doing most of the driving and the setting up of our camp sites. I was just getting far too excited and ambitious.

So... this is a little over a year away (I know that is quite a while), but we are planners and we do need to have some sort of idea of how much money we need to set aside for an adventure that we hope lives up to the "grand road trip of our younger years" that I have set it out to be.

We have shrunk the destination list. We are now more leaning towards exploring just Colorado. Or maybe... just Texas. Very different locations but both holding our interests.

What I do realize is that no matter where we end up or what happens, it will indeed be our grand "road trip"-- we will be together. We will be making our own memories of just the two of us hopping in a car... and just driving. I'm sure we will laugh at ridiculousness that is bound to happen, and we will each be caught telling stories about this trip years from now.

So here's to hoping.