The most essential part of planning a trip is knowing what the purpose is and set goals for each day. Everyone knows that there will be detours, changes in plans, and even weather events that will affect it. However, if you have a purpose in mind it shouldn't be too hard to change daily goals and still stay in line with your purpose.
For example, one of my top favorite trips to take is a star expedition. Sounds crazy, right? How can we travel to see stars? Let me explain. Check out this list of Dark sky parks. https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/parks/ There are quite a few here that are great places either day or night. Some are even close together like the Capulin National Park that is at the top of a volcano and nearby is the Clayton Lake State Park. The Volcano is a nice climb for the day time and while it does not have a campground, the Clayton Lake State Park nearby does and it even has a telescope you can use for viewing the stars. Both are dark sky parks and the view isn't bad in the daytime either. Clayton Lake state park also boasts of Dinosaur tracks and great fishing. Down the road is the Fort Union National Monument which hosts star parties on weekends. It might be a little hard to do because Capulin does not have a campground and Fort Union star parties are held on Saturdays. However, there is a campground down the road from Capulin so it can be done. I would suggest starting at Raton NM and driving out towards Capulin National Monument. Its not that far and you can still have the Amenities of Raton. The observation area is open all night so you can stay as late as you like-just not overnight! Coming back into Raton, there is a nice KOA and restaurants to chose from. The next day, you could drive down to the historic Las Vegas NM...the first Las Vegas! There is a cool old hotel down by the city park and the Rough Riders Museum to visit for the day. They also have a KOA or my personal favorite, Storrey Lake for an overnight stay. It is an easy drive down to Fort Union to catch their Star Party and it really is worth the trip. The placement of the Fort is away from any light pollution and the park rangers are very helpful. Finally, the trip could finish with a visit to Clayton State Park. Don't be intimidated by the long drive from Las Vegas, it is well worth the drive! There are some nice stores in town and a place to get a good lunch before heading out to the park. On the way out, you will notice a strange little peak...it was actually the top of an extinct volcano that ran by the river. Once you get there, catch the trail down to the dinosaur trackway and see how many different species you can locate. The streambed that goes along that canyon is as old as time itself, or so it seems. Spend the afternoon by the lake and wait for sundown! The observatory boasts of a 14 inch Meade telescope. Not only that, but the position of the lake being sunken down into the prairie makes it ideal for any telescope to observe long after the park office closes. That concludes the Expedition of stars. It could easily be changed for bird watching along the Rocky Mountain Corridor or Fossil hunting. The point is to have a definite purpose, places along the way to explore, and a backup plan in case something comes up. Now it is up to you to find your purpose and build an expedition around it!
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So after presenting the checklist and an addition to our tips page, we have decided to make a video series out of it. Starting next Monday, we will release one each week until we complete the five part series on planning your expedition! This week, we will go into details in the planning part of the process and have a link with a checklist. The series will be available for free, but don't forget if you want in on the back room scenes...sign up on Patreon for extra footage!
This week, we are going to highlight some of the steps we take before planning for a highway challenge. Today, we are going to focus on the template for success. Before starting out on any highway challenge, I look at the goals and objectives of each trip. I used to love watching the Amazing Race and I have kind of planned my own trips accordingly...with a road trip! The objective of the trip ahead will be to cover a circle of an interesting stretch of country with a few landmarks along the way, a nature stopover, and one or two historic sites.
The purpose is to look over nature by day and enjoy the stars at night. Whenever I take a nature trip, I like to include birdwatching, botany life list, and cover any interesting geologic formations along the way. Weather providing, I like to take advantage of dark sky parks to get in some star searching along the way! With that in mind, I can set up a itinerary and a day plan. Goal-nature trail Starting Point: Way Point Way Point Overnight: Way point Way point End Point: Then I set up a day plan in my journal like this: Plan for the Day: Overnight stop 1-Review waypoints, miles to stop, gas stops along the way, rest stops, and any food prep necessary. 2-Go over the weather to see what to expect for the day. It may be necessary to make an adjustment for a hot day or a rainy one. If there are detours, I log them in my journal 3-Review Check-ins, let someone know of a possible detour, keep in touch. We will be releasing downloadable templates on Tuesday for all of our followers to download. There is also a referring link to another Overlander who has a great template for the journey. That will be released on Wednesday. Stay tuned for more updates on Highway Challenger. After a week of trying to get our systems to work together, we have our first video out on packing for a weekend road challenge. Click on this link : Video to see the first in our series of preparing for our road challenges. Next weekend, we cover equipment for the journey and finally a video will cover the car care. The Road Challenge is coming up next month so get ready for our new Adventure skits.
Today will be a great day! We are working on our packing skills and will be taking a practice run with our group! It will take practice for each road challenge so today I am going ahead and scoping out the first leg of the trip. It will be a great chance to make sure I have everything I will need and that my little crew will be okay with a full scale road trip. I will have more later.
So we have got a lot of new moving parts to this! We now have a facebook page devoted to the Highway Challenger Club. There is also a new link to our Youtube Channel. We are also working on a new section on our Patreon page for fan followers and exclusive fan footage with a subscription. Let me know what you all think of the new things that are being added.
We also have a new challenge picked out! There will be clues released on our facebook page every Friday. This month, we have an introductory video series for our new followers. It will be available to the public on preparing for an expedition! We will take you thru all the steps as we prepare for our next adventure! Thank you to all our followers up to this point! We are going to do great things together and I can't wait to share this journey with you! |