Parts known and unknown

The last hotel has been booked for my soon-to-begin vacation. Six stops, nine states, just shy of two weeks long. I don't necessarily know what I'll be doing, but I know where I'll be and who I'll be seeing. For right now that's plenty of preparation.

It is, to be sure, an unconventional vacation with a lot of driving. Essentially I pulled it together in about a week, although I had a vague idea or two of what I wanted to include. (I never would have tried to do this with the old car lest I end up stranded in who knows where.) I'm excited at the prospect of this nonsensical trip and the nice surprises it might contain.

The process for choosing the first destination was pretty random. I knew where I was starting (obviously) and where stop #2 would be, but the first city on the trip was decided, more or less, by opening up an atlas on Monday and seeing what might be an interesting way to get to the second location. I would have never thought of going to this place, but in this context it seemed like a fun idea to travel there.

My family didn't travel a lot when I was growing up. Dad ran the business and couldn't afford to leave or close it for an extended time because there usually was no more than one other employee. And of course it's expensive to haul and lodge a family of six. To a certain extent I've made up for that with rambling summer trips every now and then.

Driving a car across the country may not be the fastest method to get around, but it is a way to obtain a better feel for the nation and its regional and local differences. This upcoming trip mostly takes me to cities where I've been, but even such pseudo-familiarity will be a change of pace from my day-to-day surroundings. Anyway, the first couple days take me somewhere I've never been, so that ought to be fun.

Yes, I'm being vague because I might as well keep an element of surprise here on the blog. Think of it as "Where in the World is the secret knitter?"