Subj : My upcoming adventure
To   : MICHAEL LOO
From : JERRY MOORE
Date : Fri Jun 30 2000 10:24 am

Traffic here seem a bit slow, so I've decided to un-lurk a bit before 
my upcoming drive across the US.  Assuming my leave is approved (I am
a database programmer/analyst where I work, and Y2K concerns have had 
a noticable effect on long-term leave requests--besides, asking for a 
whole month off all at once tends to cause management to think before 
granting or denying) we will be leaving on the 1st weekend of August.
Beginning quite near Washington DC, our vacation will be a month-long 
driving trip which will probably extend through Canada to Alaska, and 
then continue down the west coast to Santa Rosa (with stops at nearly 
every beach along the way), through the Napa valley wine country, and 
on to Sacramento in time for the California State Fair on August 20.
On the twenty-second, we plan to take Interstate 5 to Los Angeles for
a brief visit with inlaws, then on to Albuquerque to visit a friend I 
haven't seen in nearly thirty years.  After that, we'll take whatever 
route triple-A considers the best (or fastest) back home to Virginia.

Our style of travel is about as different from yours as  it could be. 
We spend many hours on the road enjoying the scenery, with occasional 
stops at scenic viewpoints or other touristy locations. When possible 
we sleep in the car about two nights out of three, stopping at motels 
more for the showers than anything else. I just heard Paul Harvey say 
that Wal-Mart allow overnight sleepers in their parking lots whenever 
the state laws permit it, so I'm going to check that out on this trip. 
We carry a cooler in the trunk and stop at grocery stores for most of 
the food we eat on vacation (sandwiches, fruits and stuff that we can 
eat without cooking) and suplement that with stops at all-you-can-eat 
places about as often as we hit the motels.  It is frequently cheaper 
to eat there for lunch, rather than dinner, and probably healthier as 
well, since we don't go to sleep on a full stomach. I prefer to drive 
in the daylight and sleep at night, but I tend to look for a motel in 
the early afternoon, since I do not make advance reservations, and it 
is much easier to find available space right after checkout time. ;*)
I don't take a lot of cash, preferring to tap my bank account with my 
"Visa-ATM" card along the way.  That way, I can take advantage of the 
continuing automatic deposits of my paychecks back home, and not have 
to worry about saving up in advance for a vacation. In fact, since we 
tend to eat out more often when we are at home, the last two or three 
long-distance vacations (Calif, Maine, Niagra Falls) actually did not 
cost any more than staying at home!

Anyway, there's still a month to go before we hit the road, and parts 
of our itinerary are not yet set in stone.  We originally planned the 
first part of our journey to include Niagra Falls and entry to Canada 
at that point, but decided to speed things up by heading northwest to 
or near the Chicago area, then northward into Canada.  I am undecided 
at this point as to which route to take since we previously came east 
from Vancouver to Regina, and west from Quebec to Niagra, and I would 
like to see some part of Canada I haven't been to before. Does anyone 
reading this know what the roads  are like between Niagra and Regina? 
How do they compare to those from Regina to the west?  When we are in 
Canada, will there be any problems regarding sleeping in the car? Can 
we use the ATM card in Canada and get the favorable exchange rate, or 
should I get cash in the US (as we did the last time) and exchange it 
once we're inside Canada?  Gee, I hope there's still a few folks from 
Canada reading this conference!

               Internet:  js_moore@hotmail.com
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