What's the plan?

When we started planning for this trip to the States, one thing stood out above everything else – we didn’t want to have too much of a detailed plan. Yes, we would need some sort of broad outline, but we want to be able to stop and smell the roses, if there were any to be found.

The main outline that evolved was to focus loosely on two activities: Live music, and Photography. These two would drive the route, with practical consideration to other issues like the temperature, visiting Cynthia in Dallas, and having Kasana and Graham come to stay with us somewhere on their trip.

When you read some of the travel writings, such as Lonely Planet, and the Internet, one thing is very clear – there are too many places to visit and things to see and do. This brings up the age-old problem. “How can we be sure that we see everything that we want to, without wasting any time?” Well, I guess that it is impossible. All the guidebooks only list the things that the authors think (hope) the majority of their readers will want to know about. But there is a lot of extraneous info included. For instance, LP has a format that includes information on accommodation, entertainment, eating, transport, on just about any place that has something of interest. Other books have their own slant on things.

We will just have to take it for granted that we are going to see some things that we could have done without, and we are going to miss some other things that are absolute must-sees. Life is just too short to worry much about it. - To say nothing of how boring the research into where to go and what to see is. David says that he has a low threshold of tolerance when it comes to reading LP.

First item on the agenda is getting into the Phoenix area (Mesa, Sun City, Tucson), to get a motorhome (RV in American terms). Then we will head towards Austin for the active live music scene, and up to Dallas to visit Cynthia, a colleague that David worked with in Amsterdam, before heading south for New Orleans. Here is where it gets a bit uncertain. We know that it gets too hot for us down south in the summer, but how hot? And what is our tolerance? And when? The only thing that we can be certain of at this stage is that the heat is going to drive us north to escape. On the way north, we want to visit Yellowstone, and the Canadian Rockies, but the gold-mine for photography is in the Colorado Rockies, Four Corners / Canyonlands. The only question is; Can we stand the heat?

How much we can cover remains to be seen.

In the meantime, watch this space…