The Pre-Adventure Jitters
Michael and I are about to leave on the longest trip we've ever done together. Not all the logistics have been figured out, but I'm thankful the important things like campsites, car rentals, AirBnbs, backcountry permits, etc have been taken care of. We're flying out west and embarking on a somewhat chaotic road trip. We're starting our journey in Glacier National Park where we have a little bit of camping planned, a backcountry backpacking trip and then we'll have a tiny, electric-less cabin on a big mountain river where we'll be doing a bit of fly fishing. Next stop will be Banff National Park. I somehow managed to snag a campsite beside Lake Louise last minute so that's where we'll be spending our first few nights. My parents will be flying into Calgary and meeting us in Banff. Then after camping for a few nights in the park we have a place in Golden, BC. The whole time we're there we'll be checking out the areas of Banff, Jasper and Yoho National Parks. After we're done in Canada we'll be traveling back down through Montana into Wyoming where we'll be camping on public lands (something we really don't have here in the east) and exploring Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. After that we head down to Denver, Colorado to spend the last leg of our trip with my best friend who lives in the city. It's a lot, like, writing it all out has elevated my heart rate and I'm starting to sweat a bit thinking about how long we're going to be gone. I'm going to miss my cat, I'm going to miss my bed and I'm going to miss my plants. I won't miss the oppressive southern heat and humidity though!
Michael and I are the kind of couple that work really hard all year to go on a few nice vacations. And when I say nice I mean we usually stay in cheap AirBnbs or campgrounds and buy groceries to save some $$$. So, definitely not what you would call fancy vacations haha. What I'm getting at is there is always a slight fear that things won't go according to plan or that something will happen that would ruin our trip. I know that is literally insane but if you're like me and save up for a big trip you can probably sympathize. You look forward to it for months (maybe even a year if you're a psycho like me and plan things insanely far in advance) and it's always a bit nerve racking before you go. Maybe I'm more nervous for this trip because I didn't plan every single day out like I did when we went to Iceland. This trip is really going to be whatever we feel like. But, the other day I put up an Instagram story asking y'all about recommendations for the parks we'll be visiting and we were flooded with responses with recommendations. I swear I got 80% of our itinerary from those responses alone! So many cool breweries, coffee shops, hikes and fly fishing locations and I'm forever grateful.
Okay so now that I've written all my thoughts down in this rambling post I think the issue is I'm a control freak when I plan vacations and I'm nervous because I haven't planned out every detail of this trip like I've done with our trips in the past. But I know we'll be fine. I'm actually really excited for this trip!
* Cover Image from Road Trippers.