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Monday, May 14, 2012

Route Update

In April Gail and I spent a good chunk of time planning out more details and reserving campsites at national parks. It turns out that you can't reserve these sites too soon, since many choice spots were already taken, and we even had to shift our agenda a little. Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado was to be our first stop, but due to limited campsite availability, the Black Hills and Badlands come first now.

We also decided that it was a bit much to try to reach our first park in three days, so we now have a much more civilized plan:

  • Day 1 (July 1): Ithaca to Toledo, OH, 7 1/2 hours
  • Day 2: Toledo to Iowa City, IA, 7 1/2 hours
  • Day 3: Iowa City to Mitchell, SD (Corn Palace, here we come!), 7 1/2 hours
  • Day 4: Mitchell, SD to Black Hills, SD, 5 1/2 hours
Even our motels are reserved for the first three nights. To make up for the fact that we will be putting in long days in the car, we have motels with pools for days 1-3. Day 4 will be our first night of camping,   and we chose the Black Hills rather than the Badlands so that we might get a little more shade and forest.

Lucky Toby got his cyclocross bike yesterday, which means that he'll be having a blast cycling in the national park. Leo is bringing his mountain bike, which should suit him just fine. I have racks for all bikes, as well as a couple of Thule rooftop wheel carriers to keep bulky wheels out of the van.

Our trip is tantalizingly close! It's hard to believe that we're hitting the road in only 1 1/2 months.

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