Road Trip I: Planning

Some people might find the idea of planning a 2 week international road trip with a dog stressful, daunting, maybe hire a travel agent? Being a planner by nature, however, I found the prospect of planning this trip (TX to Alberta, stay a bit, and come back), a welcome challenge.
I decided from day 1 to rent an SUV, since my car is both small and not exactly new and I didn’t want to deal with any breakdowns ruining my trip. Was this more expensive (and way the heck longer) than flying? Yes. But I was planning on driving up with Galen next year after getting a new vehicle, and I super didn’t want to leave my buddy running his knees to heck out of anxiety in boarding when we could do this together, so we’re doing it this year too. Maybe it’ll become a tradition.
I wanted to get in hikes along the way, but not spend extra days driving and extra money on hotels, so we’ll be camping each night and getting a hike in each morning for our daily exercise. I used Roadtrippers to plan my stops, but will be using Google maps and Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Maps for the actual day-to-day driving. Overall it worked well, but because the places I’m staying don’t all have addresses, for some of them I had to get close enough and add a note to get directions. It would be really nice if you could drop a pin for a stop as opposed to having to type an address or use one of their known places.

Very excited to photograph some different landscapes!

To find hikes I used the Recreation Maps on National Forest websites for the areas I’m staying, and they happened to be on Bivy app, so I’ll be using that to stay on track while hiking. I’ve tried it out on trails I know, although they weren’t ones I was able to download because they weren’t in the app. I’m staying in one state park on the way up that has maps consisting of satellite images with the trails drawn over them, so hopefully the app will help there as well (or the trails are reasonably marked).
For food I started testing meals a few weeks ago to find a couple that could be done with or without fire (I expect there will still be restrictions at least for the first night going up), and with minimal effort. I’m also bringing a can of dehydrated meals I opened last fall that need to be used as backup (and maybe to eat on the way down if I don’t feel like shopping while I’m up there). For the border crossing, pet food and treats have to be in original sealed containers, so I’m getting a small bag of Galen’s food and packing enough for the drive up from his currently open bag. I thought about getting some after crossing, but all that’s available are the largest size bag (at like double the US price, and I just opened a large bag), so small bag it is.
I have about 7 lists of the things I’m bringing and need to do in the next week and a half. I have some stand-up and music to download, food to acquire, and space to clear on my camera’s memory card, but other than that it’s just packing everything so I can throw it in the rental and go! I’m planning on going into what I’m bringing for both Galen and myself in separate posts (with more pictures!), so stick with my dilapidated blog.