A Thought On Travel Books

So, I am no expert on travel books by any means, but in an attempt to master the use of this thing...I make one more rambling post. In reading up on stuff for this trip, I've used Fodor's and two other books as main sources of info. Both Dave and I picked up Fodor’s, which is suppose to be one of the better guide books. They do kind of make you feel like a haughty tourist a bit, but some information is without a doubt useful.

However, we’ve noticed a few things about Fodor's:  

-EXPENSE-they happen to direct you to the most expensive and mainstream sights in each area. It’s been more beneficial to look further into the random names of places they mention or glaze over than use exactly what’s in the books.
-GENERIC-there are a lot of “touristy” clichés in these books, though they seem to admit it when it happens. Again, random web searches and suggestions from people who have traveled has been much more detailed and interesting.
-SITE INFO-there is definitely enough to go off of in these books, its overwhelming at first, but some things are missing. There weren’t always prices and hours, unless it was a focal point. Luckily, the books does have all the websites, so clicking through those of places like museums, tours, etc. is probably more helpful.
-WALKS and OFF THE BEATEN PATH-the books do have pre-planned routes in them with timing, distance, and sights to see along the way. They are kind of neat ways to see major neighborhood and must-see sights in short amounts of time. There are also sections that have non-mainstream (though still mainstream, let’s be honest) things to see in the nearby area. Helpful. PLUS there is a decent website of the company’s to go with it: fodors.com
-BUY? Would we have been better off buying a bunch of Fodor’s for the roads, or just gleaning info and putting it into the binder? We’ll let you know. We have a books for the National Parks that Dave bought, but to buy all the ones for all the other places we’re going would have been a small fortune. So we’ll see if we wish we had a guide book when we’re anywhere besides a national park
-25 BEST VERSION-had this one for Seattle. It’s really easy to use, narrows down options, and hits major/popular things to see. Useful to see what everyone says you shouldn’t miss, but maybe missing some things. It seems like it’s more useful for cities maybe?

The other two books I've used, which have been uber entertaining are:

1,000 Places to See (In the USA and Canada) Before You Die by Patricia Schultz
Interesting, and awesome, to see that a lot of this stuff was on the route that Dave already plotted! There’s really great descriptions on certain aspects of each place and a TON of info for resources. Since it’s split by region and then state, it’s crazy easy to skim through. And each place has a little catch phrase under it that gives you a clear idea of what the place is about.

The Ruby Slippers, Madonna’s Bra, and Einstein’s Brain: The Locations of America’s Pop Culture Artifacts by Chris Epting.
Ever seen the movie Michael with John Travolta and the world’s largest ball of twine? Yea, awesome. This is literally all the stupid things you can see all across the country, from “the largest”s to celebrity stuff to old stuff. It’s not as easy to use for this because it’s split into sections like Roadside Relics, Criminal remains, Sports Memorabilia, and Celebrity Antiques. It’s really interesting to actually sit and read for curiosity or history’s sake, but there is a state-by-state index in the back that helps.

Alright...this is enough posting to see how this thing works now. And more than enough for anyone to read.

~Justine

The Basics

So what is all this? A 3 week road trip west, just the two of us, in the minivan.

Justine has never been to a state that doesn’t border Illinois, and Dave would love to run away to the mountains. We just graduated college, and are having one last hurrah before we have to become real people and have real jobs (aka become adults).

Here's the plan:



Dave is in charge of navigation and all national park (aka woodsman) excursions, and Justine is in charge of city sites, random things to see along the way, and music.

We’re going to try to post stuff as often as we can since Dave is bringing his computer, but this may fail based on internet and energy. If nothing else, we’ll keep track of what we did, what we liked, etc. and post it with pictures when we get back.
If we succeed, odds are long rambling messages that sound like inner monologues will be from Justine, and concise informational entries will be from Dave. Hopefully we’ll do them together, but it may be a necessity for each of us to release a bit by writing at some points :)
Also, we will attempt mobile blogs thanks to the ol android phone, but this may or may not succeed, seeing as Justine is technologically challenged.

So...what have we been doing thus far? Planning...planning...planning...

Dave has made a step by step Google Map, which is pretty fantastic, and a Google Calendar to go with it. What would we do without the wonders of technology, or Gmail for that matter?



Justine has made a binder, complete with decorated cover and tabs inside, that has all the sites to see and reservations and such.



It’s going to be interesting to see how we figure out where we’re going when. We have a guidebook of the national parks, have info about the other areas from books, the binder full of randoms, and the advice of other people. We’re not planning things out minute to minute, cause what’s the fun in that?! So the idea is to shove all this travel info in one place, reference the binder and maps when we are bored (haha), and rely on the lovely friends we have in some of these locations for guidance.

First Post

So...not quite sure how this works entirely, so for the first post I'm just going to try to put up the lyrics to the DMB song that's kinda the subtitle of the page. I think they're pretty awesome, but I'm a sap. Oh well...let's see if this works!

~Justine

Wanna pack your bags, Something small/Take what you need and we disappear/Without a trace we'll be gone, gone /The moon and the stars can follow the car/and then when we get to the ocean/We gonna take a boat to the end of the world/All the way to the end of the world

Oh, and when the kids are old enough/We're gonna teach them to fly
You and me together, we could do anything, Baby/You and me together yeah, yeah

You and I, we're not tied to the ground /Not falling but rising like rolling around /Eyes closed above the rooftops /Eyes closed, we're gonna spin through the stars /Our arms wide as the sky /We gonna ride the blue all the way to the end of the world /To the end of the world /Oh, and when the kids are old enough/We're gonna teach them to fly 

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby/You and me together yes, yes

We can always look back at what we did/All these memories of you and me baby/But right now it's you and me forever girl/And you know we could do better than anything that we did/You know that you and me, we could do anything
You and me together, we could do anything, Baby/You and me together yeah, yeah