Here I am - Last minute trip planning for Arizona

We're getting ready to leave and in my ever present thought that it's all about MEEEEEEE! I thought I would create a blog to tell the stories about our travels. I'm going to try to keep some information a little vague, but the people that matter know who we are. 

We're getting ready for a 14-day trip to Arizona, which started out in my mind as a 12-day trip because on my calendar, it looked like we were coming home on a Thursday. Nope, that would be the last night we have a HOTEL. We come home FRIDAY. OOPS. Yesterday, yes, yesterday, we decided to add another day because the Verde Canyon Railroad is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so the only way to do that would be to leave on Saturday instead of Sunday.

Now it's a 14-day vacation and we leave in 3 days instead of 4. What, me? Panic? Of course I am!

Fortunately, I have always said of myself that I might not know all the answers or be the strongest member of a team, but I know how to put a good team together. I never plan a family trip without the input of my wonderful AAA Travel Advisor. She puts up with me even though I have her home and cell numbers and have been known to call her on a weekend screaming into the phone about a hotel in Santa Barbara messing up our reservations. (By the way, I have vowed to never again do this. I might call during business hours at her office if I need to, but I will not abuse her at home ever again. Promise! The PS is that the Hotel ended up upgrading us and charging us $40 extra to fix the problem, but working with her afterwards, they refunded the $40 and made adjustments to the system so that the mistake would not happen to other travelers in the future.)

This trip will be to Arizona. We'll be starting up at I-40 and over the course of the vacation, we'll be hitting kitschy Route 66 sites along the way, as inspired by the Disney presentation of a Pixar movie, Cars, which is one of our family's very favorite movies. There will be some surprises for our boys along the way (I hope!) 

The big challenges will be:

Being on the road for 14 days with our boys.

Being in single room hotel rooms for all but the last two nights. 

The heat.

I'll most likely post some more trip planning updates in the days ahead. My big accomplishment for the day was to purchase our National Forest America the Beautiful Annual Pass. For $80 we get admission for a year to any National Park. The amazing thing for us is that there just happens to be a forest service office 10 minutes from our home! It's rather random, but it's here! I stopped in today and purchased our pass and hangtag. I know it's dorky but I was tickled. (Perky People are often easily tickled.) We plan to visit many National Park/Forest/Monument type places in Arizona so this will more than pay for itself. We've also packed our family's four National Park Passports so we can collect (rubber) stamps along the way.