An Introduction (by Beth)

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Writing a blog is a new venture for us.  We are two newly retired folks--Bill's last day at his job for 37 years was yesterday.  Actually I think we are both too young to call ourselves by that title. Let's just say we finally have the time together to enjoy life and do some of the things we've wanted to do for a long time.

What is Bill doing on his first day home?  Trying to find a place to put his boxes he brought home from his office.   That means freeing some space in the already overflowing garage.  Cleaning that garage will be a lifelong project...(sigh)

We are getting ready for our cross-country adventure.  FYI, we are driving to and from Oregon to visit our son and his wife.  We are visiting as many National Parks as we can and seeing all the sights.  By next week at this time, we will hopefully be heading west in our red Saturn Vue (Yes, I would love to drive my sporty red convertible, but let's be practical here!) which has been methodically and economically packed with all we deem  necessary for this long trek.   Principally, I have been doing most of the planning and running all the ideas by Bill.  (He has been so busy and stressed out about all the details of retiring.)  I've read many articles, made copious lists,  made detailed TripTiks via AAA.  Truthfully, we have a grocery bag full of tourbooks, maps, and TripTiks.

If you are planning to do a trip like this let me give you a few internet sites I have found very helpful.

•  AAA website.  If you are a member, you can go to an interactive map and choose which roads you want to travel and read about all the towns along the way, what you can do there, where the hotels are, restaurants, gas stations, etc.  After you decide which routes to travel, you can get your local AAA branch to prepare your TripTik.  In our case, it was "TripTiks" because we are taking such a long trip.
• www.planning-fun-road-trips.com.  This is written by a lady who has taken many road trips with her family and gives some practical advice.
• www.roadtripamerica.com
• www.vacation-lists.com
• www.nps.gov.  This is the official site for the National Parks and gives lots of good info for trip planning.

I also bought  3 guidebooks.

1. 1000 Things to See Before You Die (US)   The ultimate in "bucket lists"??
2. National Geographic"s Guide to National Parks
3. National Geographic's Guide to Scenic Highways

Today I am referring to my lists and checking off the items I can do this far in advance. I just dug out our bag of rain ponchos from the bowels of the coat closet and Bill and I had a "fashion show" to pick out our faves to take along. (I knew we would need those things again SOMEDAY!)  Back to my lists...