And relax....

There's a  certain amount of relief in my household now. All the accommodation has been taken care of now and although I haven't been able to book 2 first choice hotels, there is a possibility they could still be booked nearer the time. If not, we shan't be left wanting or having to sleep in the car!

Today also saw me book our flights and car hire. I've been tracking the cost of both for a while and have been a little dismayed to see the flight costs creeping up. We were waiting for a couple of quotes from friends in the business. In the end though, we have gone it alone AND saved ourselves a sizeable chunk of cash. An employee rewards scheme at Cath's place of work, gave us an 8% discount on a Virgin gift card, which we were then able to use to purchase our flights. We were always going to go Virgin anyway, as they were cheaper than British Airways from the start but this worked perfectly in our favour. We shall be leaving Blighty at 11:35 on Monday 31st August and saying our goodbye to the US at 17:01 on Sunday 20th September.

I've booked car hire with National, for collection in the city. As we plan to spend a day sightseeing in Chicago, it didn't make sense to pick up the car from the airport. Not only was that more expensive but on top, we'd have parking at our hotel to pay for. We'll collect it early Wednesday 2nd September. It'll go back in LA on 18th September. The car return is only about a mile from our hotel at the airport, so that's good. Once again, we plan a sightseeing day in LA, so no need of the car and added parking charges for an extra day. Let someone else do the driving, eh? This time, it was better to go direct to the National website, than use the employee scheme, as that gave a 10% discount over the employee scheme tariff. Win, win, today!

These long dark winter months coming up, will allow me to fine tune our itinerary. I'm the sort of person who likes to do detailed, meticulous planning. I hate to leave anything to chance. Some might say that takes away any spontaneity of the trip and to a degree that may be true but I'm sure if you were to ask my Wild Hog biker pal Grizzly, who has been on two tours with me now, he'd agree that all that planning made for two very well structured and very enjoyable tours. Would he have wanted it any other way?

Anyway, that's all for now.

Branson's finest. Probably not Virgins!

And still they plan

No-one would have believed....

..that it would take so long but, we have, finally, arrived at dates and got a major chunk of the tour, stopovers, hotels, etc., nailed down. We shall be on the road for 17 days, though not driving for all of those, as we have a couple of 2 nighters planned. We'll arrive in Chicago, 31st August, return from Los Angeles, 20th September, arriving back in Blighty on the 21st.

Having finalised the dates and cross checked our route distances and timings, we were able to identify our overnight stops, taking into account that this is not just a road trip from A to B to C but one where we want to experience the real Route 66, so 4 or 5 star hotels are not a dominating feature. We may be sacrificing some of the more usual creature comforts of the 21st Century but given the choice of having a TV or sleeping in a room where Clark Gable reportedly slept, which would you choose?

My main worry was that we were going to be away for Labor Day, a Bank Holiday in the US. I'd been warned, by David at Orange & Black, that it might prove difficult to find accommodation for that weekend and that the roads would be busier. As it goes, the hotels are booked. How busy the roads are, we shall discover soon enough.

There's still a few ends to tie off, 2 or 3 hotels to confirm, car hire and flights to organise, then I can relax and you can have a rest from blog updates for a while. It has been questioned, as to why I have to write about it before we've even set off!

Anyway, that's all for now.

El Rancho Hotel, Gallup, New Mexico