Planning for the moving - the initial plan

After I settled on the theme of the moving trip (That is, coast-to-coast driving), I moved on to the stage of planning the route and points to visit. National parks in south Utah was the first major chunk in the plan. Then, for the route I had chosen, I figured out the cities I may stay at by checking the daily driving distance. This formed the framework of my trip schedule.

Now, another important question was when I should start. Of course, if I start early I will also arrive early, and I should plan not to arrive too late to start the new semester at the new school. Even with these constraints, I had some freedom about the exact starting date.

The way I decided about the timing was by checking the schedule of Major League baseball. As a big baseball fan, it would be a shame if I visit cities where baseball is played without catching a game. I tried to maximize the number of games I could go to on the road by cross-referencing the homestand schedules of several teams. And luckily, it was not difficult to fit my other time constraints with the baseball schedule. I found several potential dates that I can nicely fit three or more baseball games in the trip plan without adding extra delay. That was just perfect.

I ended up with a handful of potential schedules to played with. From time to time I moved them up and down, and finally I settled on this version of initial plan (verson 6):

day #	Date	morning	afternoon	evening	stay at	Approx. mileage
1	16-Aug	Leave LA, heading Vegas	Arriving at Vegas	Baseball	Vegas	270
2	17-Aug	Vegas	Vegas	Vegas	Vegas	50
3	18-Aug	Vegas	Vegas	Vegas	Vegas	50
4	19-Aug	Vegas	Vegas	move to Springdale, UT	Springdale, UT	158
5	20-Aug	Zion NP	Zion NP	move to Mount Carmel, UT (or Bryce)	Mount Carmel (or Bryce), UT	76.1
6	21-Aug	Bryce Canyon NP	Bryce Canyon NP		Mount Carmel (or Bryce), UT	100
7	22-Aug	Leave Bryce Canyon	Drive through Capital Reef NP	Arrive GreenRiver, UT	GreenRiver or Moab, UT	231
8	23-Aug	Canyonland NP	Canyonland NP	Moab	Moab, UT	100
9	24-Aug	Arches NP	Arches NP	Leave for Denver	Denver	354
10	25-Aug	Denver city tour (US mint??)	Denver	Baseball	Denver	30
11	26-Aug	Leave Denver	driving	Arrive at Salina, KS	Salina, KS	433
12	27-Aug	Leave Salina, KS	Arrive at St. Louis, MO	Baseball	St. Louis, MO	422
13	28-Aug	St. Louis city tour (the monument?)	Leave St. Louis	Keep driving	Somewhere in Tennessee
14	29-Aug	Keep driving	Arrive at Atlanta	Baseball	Atlanta, GA	554
15	30-Aug	Leave Atlanta	Keep driving	Arrive at Gainesville, FL!!!	Some friend's place	331

It looked like a decent plan for places I have never been to. I think I was happy about the plan before I started. Towards the end of the this story, we will revisit the plan and see how much I deviated from it along the way. Planning for a trip in itself is an interesting thing, and usually I prefer to have as detailed plans as I can when it comes to traveling. Sometimes, I even feel that my trips are like full-filling the plans I set before the trips take place. That is just a habit, and I would rather leave it to you to judge it.

The only thing I didn't like about the plan was the extended stay in Las Vegas. And it was there to meet the starting pitcher rotation of Las Vegas 51s, the AAA team of Los Angeles Dodgers. They have a Taiwanese pitcher, Hung-chih Kuo, who I wanted to see very much. To avoid missing that game, I would rather leave LA one day early, just in case the rotation is changed.

I finalized the plan in a hurry, I must admit. With a tight schedule, I had to take care of everything about the moving in two weeks. It was indeed a lot of hassle and hard work although I had replayed what I have to do in my mind for maybe 100 times during the summer. Just like many other things, you can have a lot of rehearsals or dry-runs, but the real one is always a bit different.