Since it’s 2001, we tweaked a word from a movie title set in this year (adding our personal flair to the spelling) and dubbed our trip the oddyzee of 2001. We started formulating our plans for this trip last winter, and our ambitious original itinerary progressively became more modest.

Oddyzee 1.0 had us traveling the west in a camper thru the spring, flying to Europe, taking a side trip to Zambia for the “Solipse” music festival… during a total solar eclipse on the summer solstice, then back to Europe for the rest of the summer. Time and sanity eliminated Africa from the picture, so oddyzee 2.0 had us on the spring camper trip out west and in Europe for the summer.

Since things never happen as fast as we’d like them to (and even a modest cab-over camper is expensive), we ratcheted our plans down until oddyzee 3.0 put the western trip in the summer (instead of a camper we’ll carry a tent) and Europe in the fall. That’s the trip we plan to embark on next week.

Making the schedule

We need to be back home for a friend’s wedding on August 11. There’s a music festival in Kansas we try to attend in late September, and after that we’ll take our trip to Europe. Planning and preparation for Europe can happen after we come back from out west, which is what we have to plan for right now.

We have 60 days to work with, so we’re planning for 58 days. That way we can afford to fall behind by as much as two days. We made a list of places we want to go, and tried to fit them into a tour. We’re looking at a loop that goes to one end of the west coast, travels to the other end, and comes back.

Obbie used to follow tours that often required driving 600 miles each day, which was crazy and stressful. We want to stay off the Interstate to make the journey more interesting, but that will take more time. 300 miles will be a long day.

Some places on our wish list didn’t fit into our loop. Some places were cut to make the trip fit into 58 days, but we were surprised at how few destinations had to be cut. Since many of the northern destinations are too cold this early in the summer, we will do the loop clockwise, going southwest first.