The Gypsy Granddaughter

Today I am doing what gives me more energy and satisfaction than almost anything else. That is, I'm planning a trip! I spoke with my granddaughter today, and she told me she will probably be driving a car back to school - Sacramento to a small town in central Pennsylvania. A good friend of hers will drive with her and fly back, and there is a possibility her boyfriend will fly out to Sac and drive back with the two girls.

So I called my AAA membership and had her added to mine. They agreed to send her temporary card out today, and since my current membership runs to November, I won't get charged for her until the renewal. Then I started looking at routes and running mapquest for the initial mileage figures for various routes. When she decides basically how she wants to drive it, I will then call the Sioux Falls AAA and have them prepare a classic manual triptik for her.

I think they should stay on or close to the interstates, for safety as well as access to fuel, rest areas, food and lodging. I explained that she can always look at the map for a parallel stretch of highway, and get off the interstate for a few miles. That works exceptionally well in states such as Nebraska, where the roads are fairly straight and a parallel road is about 10 miles away, with a lot of connecting roads along the way.

Mapquest first showed a route that follows I-80 across the country, but that entails going around Chicago, Toledo and Cleveland, which are also toll roads with road work in many sections. So I thought they might drop south a bit from Davenport and through Indianapolis and Columbus, and then straight over into PA. I remember Indianapolis as being easy to drive around, and Columbus being pretty congested and the roads more confusing, but it would be a definite step up from the Chicago area.

Sooo, my little gypsy girl is gonna love it, I think. I will have all sorts of advice for her and she will humor me by actually listening to it, and then probably doing what she thinks best at the time. I get so excited and energized by this sort of thing that I probably won't sleep much tonight. It will be a great experience for her. By the time I was her age I had driven several times from Cincinnati to Washington, DC, as well as a couple of times to New England, and that was long before interstates. I know she will love it.

Meanwhile I haven't made any inroads into my own packing, but I did buy Pop Tarts for breakfast and snacks along the way. I need to vacuum out the pop tart crumbs from my recent trip to North Carolina. I've also made lists for foods to carry along in my cooler for snacks as well as in the motel room or campsite. I hope I can do some camping along the way, and I think my granddaughter and friends will definitely like to camp now and then.

We had rain off and on all day and I think the high got up to about 71 degrees, which was a welcome change. The temps will go back up into the 80's starting tomorrow, but this is a promise of better weather ahead.