What do you do when you can’t go camping?  You plan trips. Lots of trips.  Trips with optional routes. Trips that include club rallies or caravans. And, that is what I am doing as I sit here, next to the living room window, looking out at a grey, drippy day here in the Northwest.  It’s not so bad though.  daffodils are smiling at me, and temperatures are warming… it’s the first of spring.  It’s time to make plans of places to visit and friends to see. From our small island in Washington, we can head in any direction and find adventure.

Let me back up a few weeks.  I was coming home, sitting in the ferry line, waiting for a boat, when my email notification rang out and showed I had an URGENT email from someone named Deane.  Normally an “urgent” email receives an equally urgent reply in the form of the delete key.  But that name, Deane, sounded familiar.  So, I read it.  I thought, “Wait….What? Oh wow!”.  I then quickly forwarded the email to my wife and traveling partner with a preamble of “you’ll never believe this!”.  I gave her a quick call to home to hear her excitement….no answer, dang!.  Then I called her cell phone….no answer “of course not”, I thought.  

I had to share the news with someone. Ah, I’ll send a quick note to friends in Georgia who we met on the Kentucky Bourbon caravan in 2019.  They will understand why I am all excited. “Guess what,” I wrote. “We got into the WBCCI Canadian Rockies Caravan!!!”, I nearly shouted into the text. Send…. I knew they were also planning to be on that caravan this year.  We had planned to go with them in 2020, but those plans got squashed.  Then last year the caravan was again cancelled.

The phone rang immediately, but it wasn’t my wife.  It was our friends from Georgia.  “What?  You got into the caravan?  You’re going with us?” they asked.“Yep”, I replied. “I can’t believe it.  We had no hope this year. We were #18 on the wait list but now we have some planning to do”. “That is terrific.”, they said.  “Let us know your thoughts and let’s plan on us traveling with you after the caravan has ended”. “This is going to be great!”.

I then sent a note to friends in Oregon who were on the waiting list for the same caravan.  I told them our news and asked if they heard anything.  After all, it would be great to travel up together. They called the caravan organizer to see where they stood on the waiting list.  Next in line was the reply and there were two parties that hadn’t confirmed yet.  The next day, we got word they also got in and we began to make plans.

Planning is an art.  There is a dichotomy involved, an if-then-else set of rules to employ.  There are routes to consider, passes to review, road conditions to observe.  There are many options for nightly stays, be it private or public campgrounds or no campgrounds at all.  Harvest Hosts locations brings in another dimension to consider for free stays in friendly environments.  If planning with friends, we need to consider everyone’s needs including full hookups, partial hookups, or if boondocking sites are okay.  How long of drive do we want between stops?  Are there special local interests involved or sites to see.  What do we want to do when we get to our stop? Where to fuel up?  Is there a winery nearby?  I tell you, it’s an art…..

So, out comes my computer and I set it up next to the big window.  I gather together all the AAA planning atlas’s for the states we will travel through. A pad of paper and pencil, which I still humbly use.  I also grab my copy of the Mountain Directory West guide which provides information about mountain passes and routes geared for RV’rs and truckers.  Now to coordinate.  Emails are sent and Facetime calls are made to pull our thoughts together for the trip. We need to plan the first leg to the start of the caravan in Drumheller Alberta, and plan for the route back home via the Okanagan wine country of BC. The club caravan portion is already planned, which is great.  It’s a lot of pressure off and I really respect all the work that goes into those plans by the volunteer hosts.

I personally use RV Trip Wizard tool because it provides route information, a large variety of places to stay, campground reviews, links to websites, POIs, and even a drive-time limit setting.  I can map each leg of the trip and determine both the mileage and the drive time.  I tend to limit us to no more that 3-4 hours/day of shared driving so a visual on the route map is very helpful.  The tool also lets me put in estimates for fuel costs, gas mileage, and cost of nightly stays.  Then I share the trip Itinerary with the other participants, and we have a happy hour call to review the plans.  Once the destinations are agreed to, it’s up to each of us to reserve our stays based on the trip plan dates.  And of course, there are always hiccups on making reservations which require more wine and more calls to work out the issue.  I add a “Booked” designation to each stay when its confirmed.

I’m now at the stage of completing the plan for this trip which begins in June. I’ll be emailing the final updates with addresses, and details for the entire trip….2,679 miles with 36 nights total.  This is going to be fun for sure!  

Next: The trip to Waterton and Calgary AB