Epic

We’re planning an epic summer trip.

It started out simply enough: we invited a couple of friends and their families to join us in Winter Park for a day of fun riding the alpine slide, playing miniature golf, and running the human maze. One of my friends suggested we get a cabin up in the area and stay the night, so I did some poking around and found a few cabins that seemed reasonable. Finding one big enough for fourteen people in all was a little tricky, but it seemed like we’d get a good deal. When our plans were set, I started making the reservations for the cabin. It turned out that one night wasn’t okay– everyone wants two or three nights at minimum. Okay, with a little more conversation amongst our group we decided to go up the night before. More fun together, right?

Then it turned out there was a cleaning fee. And a damage deposit. And taxes. By the time all was said and done, we were looking at about $800 per family for two nights in a cabin, a day at Winter Park, and a couple of restaurant meals. Whoa.

Jokingly, one of my friends suggested we just take a road trip to California instead. I had mentioned that a few weeks earlier– what if our three families trucked out to the beach for a few days? Well, given the expense of our Winter Park adventure, it seemed like we could take a road trip… for a little more cash and have a whole lot more fun.

Today we sat down and started planning. By the time we were finished with our itinerary, we’d mapped a route through Zion National Park, Las Vegas, north Los Angeles, Monterey, and some lonely towns in the desolation of central Nevada.

epic-map

All told, we’re looking at 40 hours of driving across 10 days, covering at least 2,700 miles. We’ll see a bunch of awesome stuff, visit family in Utah, friends in California, and do it all in two vans (one of which is a rental). This is going to be epic.