T Minus 18 Hours and Counting

The time of departure for the Great Road Trip is drawing near. If all goes according to plan, we will be heading down to our local car rental outlet tomorrow morning, hopefully arriving just as the doors swing open. This is with the idea of having the best selection and first right of refusal, so that we end up with a car that we can tolerate for 30 plus days. I may be too optimistic, but I've taken further measures, like buying a mesh back support that may or may not work to increase the comfort of the standard-issue car seats we're likely to get stuck with.

Planning for the trip has highlighted some differences in our temperaments. Andrea has been packing for several days, and planning for longer than that. I have been relatively oblivious, and it is only on this final day before departure that I have been stirred to action, slowly piling my collection of clothing on the bed and finalizing what tubes and bottles of stuff I can't live without for a month. However, I have not been lolling about this whole time; instead I've concentrated on what fascinates me, which is the route. Endless hours have been spent fiddling with Google Maps, and these stretches have produced both joy and near-desperation. The first thing to learn is that Maps is far better for a trip across town or a journey with a few stops than a countrywide extravaganza. The first limitation is that only 15 destinations can be included; that would normally not be an obstacle, but when your friends start suggesting obscure, remote places that just can't be missed, the destination points start multiplying. And of course Maps wants to send you from point to point in the most efficient manner possible, which is only moderately useful on a journey like this. When we want to cover many miles in a short time, great! For instance, Google has drawn a lovely straight line right from Santa Fe NM to Oklahoma City OK on I-40. Other than the Cadillac Ranch and a curious-sounding restaurant in Amarillo TX (more on that as it unfolds,) we don't see a whole lot of stopping-off points. On the other hand, our path through South Dakota and Wyoming is quite convoluted. This is where we have run into the second limitation of Maps: you can only create so many route changes via dragging around on the map before Maps simply refuses to allow any more. The program doesn't tell you what has happened, but Andrea figured it out. The final surprise in store for anybody who attempts what I have with our maps is that it is incredibly hard to actually save any updates to your work. If you make changes, and drag the URL to your computer, it will be the URL for the map BEFORE you made changes. Instead, you have to click on the Link button, and send it to yourself as an email. Then click on it, and then drag the URL to your computer or into an email to create a "webloc" file. These will take you right to the map with a single click (or you can click through the email link.) Far too much work, but after sufficient struggle and breaking our monolithic East-to-West and West-to-East maps into two pieces each, I have arrived at four reasonably accurate maps. These are, of course, subject to change at any time due both to our whims and possible weather or forest fire interventions.

By the way, the TripTik software from AAA proved to be completely useless in this case, but it is great if you're going from city to city or to known parks, significant points of interest, or even any hotel/motel in their database. They're all pre-programmed into the map building program, making it easy to assemble a trip. But trying to insert Muley Point, for instance, into your TripTik is a dead end. Which is just what we're trying to avoid.

If you're interested in checking out the route, here are the links:

http://goo.gl/maps/MM4x - - will get you from Portland OR to Asheville NC, eventually

http://goo.gl/maps/v6B1  - - that's eastbound from Asheville NC up to Gloucester MA

http://goo.gl/maps/t5DQ - - I think I finally got Maps to accept the fact that we are visiting Milwaukee on the way between Gloucester MA and Spearfish SD . . .

http://goo.gl/maps/lCvQ - - Spearfish SD back to Portland OR

Of course you can zoom in and out on the map to get the overview or see as many details as you're willing to absorb.

And with that, I am back to packing. There are already several plastic boxes full of maps, water boilers, a  french press (plastic for roadability,) vitamins (most of you know I am a supplement maniac,) mugs, trail mix and more. By tomorrow they should be brimming, and most likely will be so packed that they will serve equally for organization and disorganization. Organized until the first time you need something packed at at the bottom, and then forever disorganized.

 - - J D a.k.a Daniel