Sabbatical Planning
We we originally were planning my sabbatical, the reality of the pandemic meant that most of my current bucket list was simply not going to happen. We weren't going to take a toddler on a plane in a world without a vaccine, and while one has since come through, we didn't know that then. We could have waited, but since we hadn't really gone on any substantial trips since the start of the pandemic (indeed, we hadn't been farther than 3 hours from our house in that time), we didn't want to wait until some undefined "future" time to take the trip. Plus, even at the best of times taking a toddler on a plane presents its own set of challenges.
This effectively limited us to options we could drive to. My initial thought was to do an extended trip to the northeast to cross off the four New England states I haven't yet visited, with the potential to drive into Canada for to potentially go near Prince Edward Island again or to Quebec and Newfoundland. I thought we could do some extended stays in a few locations.
I never got particularly far in planning that trip because we got a better option. M's friends Jess and Robert of trivia fame moved to Los Alamos during the pandemic, in part to be near Robert's parents Katie and Richard, who had been there for some years. M actually stayed at Katie & Richard's house in 2019 when she, Jess and two other high school friends had a "ladies weekend" there with a lot of hiking.
It turned out that Katie and Richard had a long vacation planned in September 2022 - did we want to house sit for them while they were gone? M had already raved about how pretty it was looking out from the deck of their house and it was just a few miles away from Jess and Robert and their family. I think M would have killed me if I'd said no, not that I had any inclination to turn it down.
With that decided, filling in the details was pretty easy. We opted to limit our daily driving to 4-6 hours a day in deference to Birdie. That meant it would take us five days to get out to Los Alamos using more or less the most direct route.
- Cleveland OH to Casey, IL
- Casey to Rolla, MO
- Rolla to Tulsa, OK
- Tulsa to Amarillo, TX
- Amarillo to Santa Fe, NM
- Santa Fe to Los Alamos, NM
We looked around at what else was in New Mexico, and added some time after house sitting to visit White Sands, Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns.
- Los Alamos to Ruidosa, NM (with a stop in Albuquerque)
- Ruidosa to Carlsbad, NM (with a stop in Roswell)
From there, we planned the route home to visit M's high school friend Samantha in Dallas (which nicely let me plan a trip to the new Rangers park). M wanted to stop in St. Louis to visit a friend and to visit some of her old grad school haunts.
- Carlsbad to Abilene, TX
- Abilene to Dallas, TX
- Dallas to Little Rock, AR
- Little Rock to St. Louis, MO
- St. Louis to Columbus, OH
- Columbus to Cleveland, OH
Once the route was chosen, our biggest pre-trip effort was nailing down all the AirBNBs. We had all five of our stays on the way to Los Alamos booked before we left. The remaining two for southern New Mexico and five for the long trip back were all scheduled while we were house sitting. The credit for this goes to M, who looked at an exhaustive list of AirBNBs in each location and then presented me with options to consider. Our general plan was to check into the AirBNB, hit the grocery store for dinner and breakfast foods, particularly with regards to milk for Birdie.
Our other big pre-trip effort was buying a luggage carrier for M's Subaru, which was subsidized in part by a generous gift from her parents. We knew from visiting my parents and her parents that Birdie's assorted kid (particularly the stroller) filled out the interior of the Subaru. That was fine for a weekend, but for an extended trip we needed more space. We tested the carrier out on our trip to PA and NY over Independence Day, and it worked out great. One of us would sit in the back with Birdie. The front seat held food items. The rest of the backseat held a bin of toys/books, our travel high chair, the diaper bag and the hiking backpack. The stroller was covered with the smaller bags for our trip, and the luggage carrier held the pack and play, our suitcases, a box of diapers, a box of wipes and some additional toys and books. While we were in travel mode, we only had to hit the luggage carrier for diapers and wipes as needed, plus the pack and play every night for Birdie to sleep in.
And so we had an itinerary and a plan. It was time to travel!
This effectively limited us to options we could drive to. My initial thought was to do an extended trip to the northeast to cross off the four New England states I haven't yet visited, with the potential to drive into Canada for to potentially go near Prince Edward Island again or to Quebec and Newfoundland. I thought we could do some extended stays in a few locations.
I never got particularly far in planning that trip because we got a better option. M's friends Jess and Robert of trivia fame moved to Los Alamos during the pandemic, in part to be near Robert's parents Katie and Richard, who had been there for some years. M actually stayed at Katie & Richard's house in 2019 when she, Jess and two other high school friends had a "ladies weekend" there with a lot of hiking.
It turned out that Katie and Richard had a long vacation planned in September 2022 - did we want to house sit for them while they were gone? M had already raved about how pretty it was looking out from the deck of their house and it was just a few miles away from Jess and Robert and their family. I think M would have killed me if I'd said no, not that I had any inclination to turn it down.
With that decided, filling in the details was pretty easy. We opted to limit our daily driving to 4-6 hours a day in deference to Birdie. That meant it would take us five days to get out to Los Alamos using more or less the most direct route.
- Cleveland OH to Casey, IL
- Casey to Rolla, MO
- Rolla to Tulsa, OK
- Tulsa to Amarillo, TX
- Amarillo to Santa Fe, NM
- Santa Fe to Los Alamos, NM
We looked around at what else was in New Mexico, and added some time after house sitting to visit White Sands, Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns.
- Los Alamos to Ruidosa, NM (with a stop in Albuquerque)
- Ruidosa to Carlsbad, NM (with a stop in Roswell)
From there, we planned the route home to visit M's high school friend Samantha in Dallas (which nicely let me plan a trip to the new Rangers park). M wanted to stop in St. Louis to visit a friend and to visit some of her old grad school haunts.
- Carlsbad to Abilene, TX
- Abilene to Dallas, TX
- Dallas to Little Rock, AR
- Little Rock to St. Louis, MO
- St. Louis to Columbus, OH
- Columbus to Cleveland, OH
Once the route was chosen, our biggest pre-trip effort was nailing down all the AirBNBs. We had all five of our stays on the way to Los Alamos booked before we left. The remaining two for southern New Mexico and five for the long trip back were all scheduled while we were house sitting. The credit for this goes to M, who looked at an exhaustive list of AirBNBs in each location and then presented me with options to consider. Our general plan was to check into the AirBNB, hit the grocery store for dinner and breakfast foods, particularly with regards to milk for Birdie.
Our other big pre-trip effort was buying a luggage carrier for M's Subaru, which was subsidized in part by a generous gift from her parents. We knew from visiting my parents and her parents that Birdie's assorted kid (particularly the stroller) filled out the interior of the Subaru. That was fine for a weekend, but for an extended trip we needed more space. We tested the carrier out on our trip to PA and NY over Independence Day, and it worked out great. One of us would sit in the back with Birdie. The front seat held food items. The rest of the backseat held a bin of toys/books, our travel high chair, the diaper bag and the hiking backpack. The stroller was covered with the smaller bags for our trip, and the luggage carrier held the pack and play, our suitcases, a box of diapers, a box of wipes and some additional toys and books. While we were in travel mode, we only had to hit the luggage carrier for diapers and wipes as needed, plus the pack and play every night for Birdie to sleep in.
And so we had an itinerary and a plan. It was time to travel!