In three short weeks, my husband and I, and our dog Cody, journeyed with our ’64 Safari through 9 states and logged in over 4,300 miles. We experienced spectacular views of the abundance of Nature’s splendor as well as being able to visit with family and friends.

What made this trip time, cost effective and fun for us was a little pre-planning. The following items were taken into consideration and acted on before we set out on our trip.

Our first order of business was to have a garden drip irrigation system installed and in place for our fruit trees, vegetable and flower plants. Living in Sacramento’s valley with summer temperatures rising to the high 90’s and low 100’s requires frequent watering and we wanted the system to be in good working order.  We asked our trusted neighbors to mow our lawns and to collect our mail for us and we let our family and closest friends know about our pending trip.

Next I scheduled the next month’s regular monthly premiums, other required payments and utility bill payments using Online Banking. I knew that I’d be making a lot of extra calls on my cell phone from the road so I overpaid on that particular bill.  Finally, I obtained a copy of Cody’s updated health and shot record and proof of rabies vaccination.


Having tackled all that, we got down to serious planning. We compiled Campground books, Tour Guide books, maps of the different states and the list of family and friends with whom we had made plans to visit. We calculated how many miles and guesstimated how many hours it would take to get our truck and Safari from one destination point to another.

This planning helped us get to our destinations early enough to navigate through the different cities’ weekday commute traffic and to drive with the optimum amount of daylight, rather than getting lost and having to pull into a campground’s site in the dark. It also helped us avoid getting overtired and cranky with one another.

We planned to stay within a 250-350 miles limit per day traveling to the different campgrounds. Stops for rest, meals, and of course diversion stops to see something that caught our eye were all taken into account.

I called all the pre-determined campground destinations for availability of full hook-up accommodations, shady sites, pull-throughs and/or back-ins and location of nearby showers (since we prefer to use them instead of using our Safari), made the reservations and jotted down any confirmation numbers given.

We kept all the campground reservations we made on our trip except for two where we extended a night’s stay in order to take in more sights. I made the call to the first campground to add the additional night and after succeeding in doing so, called the second campground and moved the check-in day there ahead by one day. The adjustments were made cheerfully by the 2 campgrounds with no problems.

Points of interest that I can recommend highly include: