Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

Dave and I have been talking about whether or not to take one more trip together before getting back to reality (read: finally stop procrastinating on updating that resume and get a job!).  The decision hinged on this very scientific analysis:

Pros of going on a month-long trip:

1. We love to travel
2. We can see some friends we haven’t seen in a while
3. We’re tired of being hyper up-to-date on news stories (doesn’t everyone check the news 10 times a day?)
4. Election season makes me talk to the TV in anger
5. Watching the value of our investments decrease on a minute-by-minute basis is a drag
6. We aren’t ready to go back to work yet
7. We get to post regularly on the blog again

Cons of going on a month-long trip:

1. We’re starting to run out of money
2. We love the quality time we’ve spent with our friends in Boston since we got back from the last trip
3. We would probably miss most of Soxtober
4. That resume isn’t writing itself!

Guess what we decided!  We’re heading out West with our camping gear.

We don’t have a detailed itinerary at this point, but I’ve posted a new itinerary page with a very loose list, which we will update as we go.  We know we’re flying into Denver on Tuesday October 7 (tomorrow!), and flying out of Oakland on November 5 (don’t worry about us missing election day; we’re going to do absentee ballots.  Make sure you’re registered by the deadline and vote on Nov. 4!).  We’re renting a car for the month and we hope to hit some national parks in Utah, Arizona and California, as well as spend some time with friends in Boulder, Southern California, Lake Tahoe and the SF Bay area.

We have trip preparation down to a near science by now.  We’re not stressed, even though we’ve only given ourselves a few days to get ready.  I did buy a few new items, including trekking poles, so that I can hike confidently while my ankle is in its last stages of recovery.  We also got a broadband access card, so we can update the blog regularly.  I also bought a snake bite kit and bear whistles.  According to Dave, this just reaffirms my crazy.  Personally, I don’t understand what the big deal is; these things hardly take up any space in our luggage, weigh next to nothing, and could save our butts in the (admittedly very remote) chance that something bad happens.  And Dave used to be a boy scout!  Some preparedness…

Talk to you from the road!

– Meredith