After more than a year of planning the departure date is near. We are going to drive our motorhomes around 15,000 miles over a period of around six months. The we includes Dorrie’s brother and his wife – Rick and Mary Otto, our two shitzus (Chloe and Sadie), Dorrie and myself and finally a red duck keychain with the baseball Cardinals logo on it - given to us by our kids and grandkids as part of a Cardinals gift package for Dorrie’s retirement and my 65 birthday.
The Ottos will be in their motorhome and will be pulling their Jeep Liberty while we drive our own motorhome.
We will go through around 16 states, three Canadian provinces, and see around 30 lighthouses. However the lighthouses are a side benefit. Our original goal was to see Alaska. That goal grew many times during the planning. A few years ago we planned a two-week trip to see the National Parks in Utah. That trip was cancelled with the illness and then death of my Mom. Now with no time limits we decided to include that trip in with our Alaska trip.
Then we said, why not see the Grand Canyon National Park, and then we would be close to Vegas and the Ottos had never been there so we decided to include that as part of our adventures. Mary has a cousin in Scottsdale, Arizona so we included a stop in the trip for her to visit. Another add-on is a planned visit to Antelope Canyon and Lake Powell.
The trip would then continue on to Yosemite National Park and on to San Francisco and up the coast of California. More changes and we re-routed to San Diego from Las Vegas to do most of the California coast. We still included the side trip to Yosemite. We all four enjoy viewing lighthouses and have taken several lighthouse vacations in the past. It was just a natural add-on to include any lighthouses we could get to see on this trip.
Our plan is to not plan, just create an outline of what we want to see and do. We will stop when we want, take our time, and most importantly we will enjoy the adventures.
