Change in Travel Plans

The entire morning yesterday was spent evaluating the different options for travel when we leave here in early October. The original plan to drive to IL, visit Patty's family and drive to AZ for the winter was scraped. It was about half the cost for us to drive to AZ from here, set up in our space at Lake Pleasant and fly from Phoenix to Chicago. Instead of 3200 miles of travel, it amounts to around 850 for the new plan. We will still leave on the 2nd of October and will arrive in AZ on the 7th. There will be stops in Utah - probably the Provo area - and then at Bryce Canyon which is on the way. From there, we will take the route east of the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff and on to Camp Verde where we will spend a night at the Thousand Trails campground. Our tickets were purchased for the flight to Chicago on the 9th, returning on the 16th. We will check into the campground at Lake Pleasant about two weeks earlier than planned. Since we have already taken the proposed route from here to Patty's, we will not miss anything that we wanted to see along the way and we get to visit Bryce Canyon which we missed last year. The only thing we would miss is the trip to AZ from Patty's where we had planned to stop in Branson, MO and Dodge City, KS where we have never been. Maybe we can do those places next year, or sometime while traveling through those areas to some other place in the country.

We have been very busy at work with some special events that are in town for the final push before the slow season. There Is a high school rodeo and a medical convention in town that is taking all the rooms. There will be no rooms available anywhere in town for the next several days. It is tough to have to tell folks that are traveling to Jackson from faraway places - especially older people - that there are no rooms for them anywhere in town. The only chance for them is to stop at a hotel where a cancellation was received. Not only are rooms scarce, but they going for top dollar.

I need to make some final reservations for our trip to AZ - Campgrounds especially - and to call Lake Pleasant to make sure we can get our space a couple weeks earlier than planed. Our "Friday" is today and the countdown has reached two weeks remaining before the end of this second summer in the wonderful area of Jackson Hole, WY...