Planning

The idea that Cindy came up with is that she plans the first half of the trip and I plan the second.  This is not entirely true.  Cindy has meticulously planned from July 1 through July 16, and then the 23rd through the 27th.  That, according to my count, is 21 days.  That leaves me with planning how to get from Olympia, Washington to Crested Butte Colorado in a week and then heading back to Tucson over a few days to be back by the end of the month.

So what are we going to do for that week and where are we going to stay?  I have no idea, none. Being totally unprepared is very much worth it to see how Cindy reacts to such lack of planning.  She insists that she will, as she says "Go with the flow"  but she is genetically incapable of that.  Last week she asked me  if I wanted her to start looking for places to stay in Boise  and Salt Lake City.  I said no thanks.  Two days later she asked me the same thing and added "this will be the last time I say anything about this."  So far, she has only asked twice more.  As those days draw nearer, I think she'll crack.

As I've said, I have packed some camping and cooking gear.  (Cindy's comment after reading that blog post: "I don't really know what a Pocket Rocket is, but it sounds like it might be a lot of fun.")

Some might say she prepares well, some might say she's a bit obsessive.  (Not me though, let me make that clear.  No way, not even a bit, uh uh.  I would never say such a thing.  Never.  Never.) Don't get me wrong, I am usually very thrilled about this.  I don't have to think about a thing and it's all taken care of.  But sometimes it's nice just to not be on a schedule, not to have to be somewhere at sometime.  To be completely flexible and NOT know what's going to happen next.  

The pitfalls to this method are many.  Frantically searching for a hotel room after driving all day and finding nothing available except some fleabag hovel, or at the other end of the spectrum the presidential suite at the Ritz Carlton,  is always  in the back of my mind.  The idea of Cindy sitting on the passenger side with her arms folded and with that "I told you so" look on her face.  "I told you this was going to happen.  If you only let me make reservations when I wanted to, we wouldn't be in this predicament right now."

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I need to take a couple of pictures first, but in my next post I will contrast our actual packing style differences.