Tuesday, February 27, 2007

How do I finance this thing?

Roughing out the expected major costs, I decided to list the cost categories we expect to face on this venture.

  • Lodging
  • Gas
  • Food
  • Park admissions
  • Souvenirs
  • Shopping
  • Highway tolls
  • Car costs and surprises

As a family, we are firm in our commitment not to incur debt to make this trip possible. The goal is to expense the trip from current funds accrued by saving money for the next 17-18 months, and to maximize the accrual of rewards points from business and other family travel. I expect lodging to be the most significant cost - somewhere between $1500 and $2000. We are hoping to lodge in "Fairfield Inn class" hotels, rather than "Motel 6 class" or lower, even though the latter would be cheaper.

Since I am a member of Marriott Rewards, I will be attempting to accrue free nights over the next 18 months to offset our lodging costs. Since we don't have extended family spread out conveniently across the fruited plain, and not all of us thrill at the notion of car camping across America, we plan to stay in hotels. Marriott brands are prolific across the country, so we will try to stay in Fairfield Inns as much as possible. Most of those properties are "Level 1" reward categories, meaning that they are the most efficient to redeem for free nights. With my work travel I have accrued 4 of the 18 nights already, since switching from miles to hotel points rewards. I think I can accrue enough in the next year and a half to cover lodging completely. Fingers are crossed in that regard.

My next post will discuss the transportation issue - rent or drive the family car...


// posted by Steens Ranger @ 9:33 PM 0 Comments

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Some conscious decisions, up front...

We have to bound this excursion with some practical limits on time and scope. We live in Richland, WA, and we will have no more than 20 days to spend on this road trip. When investigating potential routes, it quickly became apparent that we would not be able to provide due time to the Northeast in one trip, and that we would need to devote a second targeted vacation to that region of the country some other time. So, we have taken the Northeast, from DC to Maine off the table for the road trip in 2008. Further, we decided - subject to change as we progress with planning - that we could bypass Chicagoland and the Upper Midwest entirely, as well.
We do have some loose goals - the trip should include:
The working route appears below. Please offer any and all suggestions for either key attractions along this route, great eats, or route variations. Keep in mind that this route has been constructed to take 19 days on the road, so we can't add time anywhere. If you suggest changes, they need to net out against the balance of the trip.


"Loose" route - not all stops are indicated.
// posted by Steens Ranger @ 11:12 PM 0 Comments

Feb 10, 2007: First, you have to dream


Here's my situation; my wife and I have great 2 kids entering their teenage years (Kimberly, 12 / Jacob, 10). Both are heavily involved in the standard extra-curriculars (church, sports, dance, band, drama), and both are great students by all accounts. I want to have them encounter the great country we live in, not by flying over it, but by driving it and experiencing as many of its regions as your basic family vacation will allow. I want them to understand the geography of the history they have begun learning in school. I want them to actively and willingly participate in this excursion. Since I don't always get what I want, we'll see how it goes.


The motivation to move beyond dreaming began when my sister-in-law and her family of 6 from Redding, CA, accomplished this feat in the summer of 2005 - visiting Mormon church history sites from Utah to New York. I have been further motivated by the recent miniseries on the Food Channel called "Feasting on Asphalt", in which Alton Brown and Crew traverse the country on motorcycle in search of "road food". That extremely entertaining and informative series really got the juices flowing. I would suggest to all thinking of such a trip, buy this DVD box set.

// posted by Steens Ranger @ 10:23 PM 0 Comments

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