Long Overdue Road Trip Fast Approaching; I Need To Do Some Planning!

From my last road trip to Yellowstone.  Early morning at Mammoth Hot Springs. (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E, 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 38mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 100

Its a long story as to why it is overdue, but my wife and I have a long road trip fast approaching.  I want to share a short version of this story as I think it will be interesting to many of you who love road trips or may want to take a similar one in the future.  This is the first of several posts I plan to write about planning and decisions that have to be made, etc.  I hope you come along for the journey.

About this road trip, I say it is long overdue as we were supposed to make this same journey in September of last year.  I don't do road trips in the summer as the traffic, families with kids, crowds, etc. often times gets in the way of seeing and doing what I plan as well as causing stress.

In the United States we have some absolutely fabulous National Parks.  Couple that with my love for the Rocky Mountains, the American southwest, the western states as well as road trips in general, and I had a wonderful 4-week road trip all planned for last fall.  In fact, our National Parks are so popular, that one has to make reservations a year or more in advance if one wants to stay in the parks, especially in the lodges.  I had made my reservations for lodging in Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park in May of 2016 for the September 2017 trip.

As things sometimes happen, my 94 year old mother-in-law, bless her heart, on March 1, 2017 was knocked over by a huge city trash can which was blown over by some very strong winds. That left her lying on the ground in pain for over an hour before someone found her and left her left femur fractured at its junction with her pelvis.  After surgery and a return home, my wife and I cared for her at her home 24/7 to help her get back to a normal life, which she did.  Things were looking good for the trip!  Did I mention she lived alone and thrived in her life?  Then on Father's Day in June, 2017, the left pelvis itself fractured, causing her to fall again and she was back into the hospital for more surgery.  This time the surgeon replaced her entire hip.  

Because of this second fall and break and knowing that we, again, would have to stay with her 24/7, I was forced to cancel the fall 2017 road trip.  But, I love this woman as I did my own mother and through over 43 years of marriage to her daughter, she has always treated me as one of her own.  The decision to cancel was easy and necessary as we would do whatever was necessary to make sure she fully recovered, which she, again, did!  She is quite remarkable.  With the exception of a bout of the Shingles in the late 1970s, in 44 years of knowing her, I've never seen her sick.  Not even a cold.  She told me that until the first surgery, she had never had an antibiotic!  My wife has never seen her sick her entire life, except for those doggone Shingles!  But I digress.

2000 lb. (907 kg) bull Bison giving me the "evil eye." (click to enarlge)
Nikon D800E, 70-200mm f/2.8 lens @ 185mm; 1/320th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 250

The road trip was postponed to this fall and time is getting close.  I am excited.  Except for high tourist areas where there is a likelihood that lodging may not be available, I never have specific agendas for my road trips and don't make advanced reservations.  I find travel agendas too confining and cause stress.  

There will be no "we have to drive another 200 miles today to get to our hotel," for me.  Each day we go where we have decided the night before.  We have a general direction in mind, but we take side trips and change our route often, if warranted.  We might drive 50 miles or 500, depending upon what we want to do.  We may stay in an area one night or several, depending if we find interesting things to do and see.  Additionally, I try to stay off the Interstate highways and travel through small towns on secondary roads as much as possible, eating at local restaurants and meeting really great people all across this country.  One benefit of being retired is that there is nothing back home pressing which would make us "have" to get back at any specific time!  We get back when we get back.  I call it "no stress" traveling.  Wonderful way to travel!  Very relaxing.

I have a checklist of everything I need to do with our vehicle and home before we leave.  I've developed the checklist based upon past trips.  I edit it when we return if something needs amended.  Having a checklist is a blessing.  It really makes a difference and gives one peace of mind.  If we find we have forgotten something, we don't stress or worry about it as there are stores all over the country which will have what we accidentally left behind.  No problem.

Of course I will photograph during this trip.  I always photograph during my travel.  Also, I will be posting to this blog, hopefully, each evening with a short recap of the day's events illustrated with an image or two.  Photography is not the primary reason for traveling, but for me it is an important part of exploring and traveling.  As does photography, traveling and exploring energizes me.  

The first decision I need to make is which gear to take!  As many of you know and have read in this blog, I own and use two different camera systems.  I love both my Fujifilm X-T2 and lenses as well as my Olympus E-M1 Mark II and lenses.  Deciding which photo gear I will take will be a chore and won't be easy.  It will take some careful thought and a bit of logic.  I can't take it all (well, I guess theoretically I could since we will be driving an SUV, but I'm not) and it doesn't make sense to take parts of both systems.  I'm not entirely sure what I will do when it comes to which to take, but in the next post, I will have made this big decision so I can get on with my planning.  Come back to find out.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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