How much work ... (continued?)

How much work went into making our plans?  I continue from my last post.

3.  Now came the hotels.  We wanted to space our trip so that there wouldn't be too many crazy-driving days in a row.  More a pattern of drive lots, drive little, drive lots, drive little.  Then we had to figure out where exactly to stay to fulfill that. Our longest driving day is the first day - that was on purpose so that we could do lots of driving while we are still feeling fresh and motivated.  I think we've done a great job on spacing out our trip well but of course we will see how it works out (stay tuned!).

4. Other stuff.  We have actually written down lots of things to do on the way.  Most of it we don't have to buy tickets or reserve anything ahead of time but we wanted to make sure we do it - like going to the evening lighting ceremony at Mt. Rushmore or stopping by Nebraska on the way to Colorado - it's just a small way off the highway and then we can say we've been too Nebraska (is that cheating??).  We also found and recorded the sunset times of every single day/place along the way.  That way we can know when we should arrive places - as much as possible we want to drive during daylight so we can see interesting things along the way.

5.  And now.... now we're just doing little things. I'm thinking about packing.  What to pack, and how not to pack too much.  And worrying about the wildfires!  There are so many wildfires along our route because of the terrible drought conditions.  I hope that we will not get stopped or have to go on a major detour around the fires.  Anyway we will watch and see what happens.