The back story
Driving is one of the things I like to do a lot, for some reason since my dad taught my sister how to drive and I was sitting in the back sit just watching I imagined myself driving to what ever place I wanted to go. Several year passed by and here I am, remembering all the places I been thanks to this skill.
It is the end of July of 2022 and next month my wife and I are driving from San Antonio TX to the state of WA to do some camping. It is going to be one of the longest trips I've done so far. Originally my wife and I were going to fly there but since COVID is striking again and we both got sick a couple of weeks ago we decided to drive there.
"The plan"
Even though I've driven to several places across North America, a lot of those trips were strictly to get from point A to B without really preparing for the trip other than having the route planned and having a place to stay overnight if necessary. This time I want to do it differently, I want to account for other situation that we have not done in the past like having a cooler with food to avoid stopping several times to get a snack or have a first aid kit in the car (Yes we didn't have that in previous trips, crazy right?). Things like this can make a really big difference when driving long distances.
So, what I would like to prepare for this trip? Basically I would like to travel as lighter as possible, given that we are going camping, we need to take a lot of stuff for the actual camping activity, plus I also want to document this trip with photos and video which involves bringing my camera, lenses and possibly my Mavic pro drone. Also I want to learn how to pack our car the most efficient way taking in account that we are going to travel with our dog, which brings me to the next point. How to travel with our dog safely and take the least of space on our little car (a Fiat 500).
I been researching what would be a good way to travel with our dog in the car. We have done this in the past but we have done it in a, some what, bigger car, so this time is going to be a little different. I will probably just buy a smaller kennel. We already had one but it use to belong to Mustis and since he was a bigger dog the kennel takes a big space in the car. The other option I'm considering is to buy a net to keep him enclosed just in the back of the car and also secured him to the seatbelt. I guess I'll have to decide soon.
The route
Another important thing we need to decide is the route we are going to take. Even though I want to plan this better, we are still going to travel from point A to B as fast a possible, at least from the first part of the trip, which is driving to our first destination.
So, planing the route is going to be an important part. At first glance looking at the map Salt Lake City looks like a first stopping point since we want to make it all the way to our fist destination in the Tri-Cities area in two days, but as I'm getting older driving more than 15 hours a day is getting tougher, it looks like that is too much of a stretch, so maybe stopping in the upper part of the state of New Mexico close to Utah and Colorado might be better and then the next day we can drive all the way to the Tri-Cities area.
The conclusion?
I guess writing this post was just an exercise to make me think about all the implications of doing this road trip and what needs to be decided to make the most confortable driving experience.
Most likely I'll write another post once we come back to see if this road trip went as smooth as I intended to be.