WDM, IA - Planning

        These are the days when I stare at maps wondering where we want to go for the winter and how we want to get there. I spread a map of the US in front of me on the desk, draw imaginary lines, get out my travel books, look at the map again, redraw the line, review the long list of places I’ve read about that we might want to see, and dream.

        In a perfect world, there would be an infinite set of possibilities. We drew a map once with Iowa in the center and arrows pointing out in all directions signifying that we could go anywhere from Iowa. I once joked that Iowa was in the middle of nowhere and the center of everything. However, because we are here in the center of everything in the summer, our set of possible locations for our winter travels becomes much smaller. If our goal is to stay warm, and it surely is, then we must head south. So, I look south for possible locations to light and draw lines to them. So far, the lines have taken us into the Desert Southwest. Here we’ve learned that we love to hike, something we never knew before.

As I draw my lines, I remember a conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Wonderland:

        ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I might go from here.’

        ‘That depends a great deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat

        ‘I don’t much care where ---’ said Alice

        ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

        ‘---so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.

        ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’

And, Gary and I are like Alice: our goal is ‘somewhere’, preferably somewhere we haven’t been before. Our line this year will take us through Albuquerque and Santa Fe to Mesa, AZ, over to Palm Springs and then, who knows where. Somehow we plan to get over to Louisiana and Alabama and head north back to West Des Moines from there.

Once I choose the route, the detail work begins: finding campgrounds, adding up the mileage, plotting days and weeks on the calendar, all the little details that go into the trip itself.