Today, I decided to do something I never did before for any of my trips. While I would plan the route that I would take, and stick with it (except when I chose to deviate from it, which happened often), I never planned my target campsite for the night until the night before, before I broke campo the next morning, or even on the drive itself. So many things can happen that can set me back a critical hour two, or even five weeks, as happened once (i.e., on the ALCAN in 2016). But planning for target campsites takes at least 30 minutes, sometimes an hour, which at least for the first leg of the trip I would like to save. So, I spent several hours today mapping out the route I will take on the first leg of the trip, DC to Yellowstone. Below is that plan. This has me averaging 241 miles a day on the road, but as little as 119 and as much as 317. The blank rows are there just in case I want to break that part of the trip into two as I will be in no rush to meet any deadlines as in previous years. I planned the itinerary to stay in as many state or national parks as I can.
SP=State Park; NP=National Park; PP=Provincial Park.
Day | Take | Miles | State | Camp | Near/Before |
1 | I70, I68 | 192 | WV | Coopers Rock SP | Morgantown |
2 | I79, I70 | 277 | OH | John Bryan SP | Springfield |
0 | |||||
3 | I70, I74, | 298 | IL | Weldon Springs SP | Champaign |
4 | I74 | 181 | IA | Wildcat Den SP | Davenport |
5 | 61, I80 | 119 | IA | Rock Creek SP | Grinnell |
0 | |||||
6 | I80, I29 | 287 | SD | Union Grove SP | Vermillion |
0 | |||||
7 | I90 | 317 | SD | Badlands NP | |
0 | |||||
8 | I90 | 270 | WY | Indian Campground | Buffalo |
9 | US 16,20,30,14 | 229 | WY | Yellowstone NP | Wyoming |
2166 | 241 mpd | 2046 SHORTEST ROUTE |
This is leg 1 of the trip. The other legs will be as follows:
Leg 2- Yellowstone and northwest to Vancouver Island or wherever.
Leg 3- Vancouver Island down the west coast to San Francisco or wherever.
Leg 4- San Francisco to DC
Of course, all this might change if the Defender does not cooperate this time, but I would not be taking the trip if I did not have the confidence in it.
One goal this year is to get into the campsites long before sunset, at least three hours, so I can enjoy them. And maybe get some reading done, which I have generally failed to do on all eight of my prior trips. I just bought Mike Wallace’s the history of NY, about 1300 pages, or about 25 pages a day if I am gone 51 days as I hope.
Here is what the routine for a typical day looks like:
6:00 a.m. Reveille (get up); walk with Donner; breakfast; plan the day; service Defender
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. On the Road, starting each day’s drive with Pete Seger’s “This Land is Your Land”; With my old engine, I could only average 50 miles an hour, with breaks. I might be able to bring that up to 55, so seven hours at 55 equals 385 miles.
4:00 p.m. Arrive campsite; set up camp; prepare dinner;
8:00 p.m. In tent; download photos; write in journal; write blog; repair items; read
9:00 p.m. Taps (lights out)
ED
