Domestic and intergalactic travel roundup...

My RV client family leaves next weekend for the big Black Hills extravaganza. They'll be in a 31 foot class C rig with one slide (I sound like an old hand now, don't I?) as they make their way to Mount Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Devil's Tower, and finally Rocky Mountain National Park...and all kinds of spots in between. They'll park overnight at a variety of campgrounds, from official National Parks sites to family-owned spreads in the hills. Their Devil's Tower campsite even shows "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" every night. How cool is that? Devil's Tower on the movie screen with the actual thing looming right in front of you? I wonder if they get any special visitors out there...their RV is kind of big and flattish with a million lights...and it's like a giant synthesizer...

I've been to quite a few National Parks and Monuments but never to these, so naturally I want to visit these places myself now that I've put in the research time. It's just par for the course in this business, I reckon; I can't help traveling vicariously through my clients and in the end their trips just serve to lengthen my own to-go list.

Next up is a Paris-Brussels-London family jaunt with a side trip to Normandy...I've got these folks booked into all their top accommodations choices in areas I love, so I am particularly worked up about preparing this trip. We are on the same wavelength about most aspects of the trip, so it's almost like planning my own vacation. And we know how expert I am at THAT!

My own plans are rather tame for the near future, at least in terms of distance to be traveled: first up, a road trip to Houston to see a star-studded live Bollywood extravaganza. (Actually the first "journey" will be a root canal--I will SO need to have a dose of Bollywood after the dental horror.) Then my sister will apparently be getting married sometime in the next couple of months, so it looks like I'll be using that airline certificate I bought in the charity auction to fly to exciting Atlanta--oops, I mean HOT-LANTA.

Other than that, my DH and I hope to venture up to Washington, DC, before the end of the year to visit with several of his former colleagues, who for some reason have all independently moved there as though drawn by some...humongous pied piper spaceship playing a five-note tune. We look forward to witnessing some sort of gripping congressional hearing and/or a Supreme Court argument while in our nation's capital.

Seriously. I mean it.

Dept. of You Learn Something New Every Day

I am currently working on the first RV trip I have ever been asked to coordinate. Thus I am learning all about the fascinating and complicated world of RV rental...RV driving...and RV camping. (Thank goodness one of my favorite clients used to sell RVs and helped me out with the basic lingo!) They have a wonderful plan to go to some National Parks and Monuments in the Great Plains states. It will likely include Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, Devil's Tower, Wind Cave NP, Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee, Deadwood, Rocky Mountain NP, Pikes Peak, and others, a super family trip for children and parental history buffs alike. I wonder if the little girls know about the Prairie Dog towns yet!