Trip-Starting Plans

I have one more day of work (Monday) and an Anatomy Lab exam on Thursday (much harder than the Lecture exams). In between learning central nervous system parts, I unrolled my USA map and charted a course for the start of our trip, based on a couple conversations with my mom and my sister.

We'll be starting in central Texas, where my mom and sister live. The yellow route (crudely drawn using the touchpad on my laptop) is our shake-out trip over to Carlsbad Caverns and then over a mountain pass, towing my Toyota behind the RV. Then we'll come back home and have the RV checked out by the mechanic. My sister may or may not come with us on the yellow trip.

She'll join us, though, for the blue trip to the Four Corners region. We'll probably see Mesa Verde (my sister has been there already, but I haven't), Arches, Canyonlands, Glen Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, and whatever else looks interesting--along with trying to be in four states at once. Then we'll bring her back home (with a stop at White Sands on the way) before my mom and I head out for the West Coast.

Those colored dots on the map are from several years ago. The pink ones are where I've been (that I remember), the blue ones are for my daughter, and the green ones are for my son. They've both been to Rhode Island, back when I worked for an airline and my sister lived there, but they were ages 1 and 3, so they refused to let me put a dot for them on that state.

My mom says she's been in every state, except Hawaii, but we won't be driving to Hawaii this time around. We'll stick with the mainland.

I've thought about "collections" we could do on our journeys this year. The most obvious is National Parks and Monuments. But we could also do lighthouses, presidential libraries, state capitals, volcanoes, and I'm not sure what else. So many decisions to make! But one thing is sure: We're going to be finding a church to attend every Sunday.

I haven't really got down into the details just yet, since I've been working. On Tuesday, though, when I'm officially unemployed, the preparations for the trip and selling my house will begin in earnest. But they'll have to fit around body-part memorization time.