Jim's Trip Planning Procedure and Plan "A" Is Born

Rantoul, IL.

68 deg. clear, no wind.

Forecast = Partly sunny with a 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the mid 80s. Light north winds.


We tied the record high of 90 deg. yesterday so Jim decided that it would be a good time to start trying to figure out some plans for this fall. He started by laying out a route on the Streets and Trips program based on places he and Linda want to go on the way down to Florida, then started figuring out where we would be stopping along the way. He has the Streets and Trips program set for 3 hour driving time per day with a 1 hour leeway, so it gives him the general area we would be staying at each evening. Then, he uses RV Park Reviews, Campground Directories and park web sites to find suitable parks in that area.

As you can probably guess, there aren't always parks in the area where Streets and Trips says we're going to be at, so sometimes he has to juggle previous stops so that we don't have a really long travel day getting to a decent park.

All of this takes quite a bit of time, but Jim seems to enjoy the planning and research. ; )

After he figures out about how many days it's going to take us to get down to Florida, (with all the stops at friends and family's houses figured in), he has to determine when he and Linda want to get to Florida, and then count backwards from that date to come up with a departure date from here. Then, after all the planning, he and Linda discuss it and if they both agreed, it's written down in pencil. ; )

So, what did Jim come up with? Well, it has been determined that we should be leaving here no later than the 15th of September. From here, we'll work our way to North Carolina, then to Virginia Beach, down along the coast to Beaufort SC, and then down to Florida, getting to Lakeland on or about the 11th of November.

In Lakeland, Jim and Linda's mechanic will check me out and repair any problems I may have. Then, we'll head to DeBary, FL and spend a couple of months there.

So there you have it. Plan "A"! But, as most of you know, plans change and many times there's a plan "B" or "C", or even "D", "E", or "F", so we'll have to see what develops between now and the 15th of September.

Hopefully we won't get to plan "Z" ; )

A Point to Ponder : If your plan is having no plan, do you have a plan?