Big Plans for 2024
Now that we are on the road full time, we needed to have a plan for where we are going to go and what we want to see and do. After alot of research and discussion we’ve come up with a preliminary itinerary for 2024. Its focused alot on outdoor and adventure activities since thats what we enjoy the most.
At a high level, the plan is head to Florida and establish residency there and take care of all the paperwork to get new drivers licenses, register and insure our vehicles and register to vote. After all that, we’ll spend a few weeks along the Florida Atlantic coast before heading to Orlando to meet up with out Penn State football/tailgating friends. Our group of 4 couples has done an annual Disney trip for the last 8 years and its always a blast. We ride a few rides but its mostly a few days of drinking, laughing and eating. A bonus this year is that our son Austin is going to join us for a couple of days.
After Orlando, we are heading west toward Big Bend National Park in western TX. On the way there, we hope to visit with several friends in Houston and Brownwood TX. Once at Big Bend, we’ll be doing alot of hiking and maybe some backpacking. The spring and summer will involve a bucket list of National Parks as we slowly work our way north toward Glacier National Park. Along the way we’ll spend time in the following:
Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument
Jeeping/mountain biking in Moab
Craters of the Moon National Monument
There are alot of bucket list hikes along this route and we’ll try to do as many of them as we can. Many of them require highly sought after permits that are difficult to get. We’ll do our best to get as many as we can. A few of the hikes we are targeting are:
Angels Landing in Zion National Park
The Wave in Vermillion Cliffs Wildness
4 day Jeep Overlanding trip in The Maze in Canyonlands National Park
3 day Jeep Overlanding trip on the White Rim Road
In the middle of all this, we are going to leave the RV behind for a couple weeks and join our Penn State friends for a trip to Iceland. We’ll be renting cars and driving around the Ring Road.
Another reason for all the hiking is that we’ve signed up for another 29029 event. Actually, we’ve registered for two 29029 events. The first is a new event they are starting in 2024 called 29029 TRAIL. Its in Lake Tahoe and rather than climbing 29029 vertical feet, this one involves doing 3 trail marathons in 3 days. We’ll have 12 hours each day to complete the 26+ mile route and we’’’ be hiking, not running. Two weeks after that, we are going to try 29029 Stratton again. We have unfinished business at Stratton and we are going back to conquer that mountain.
In additional to all of this, we are hopeful that our exchange student Rena will return during the year for a visit, this time with her boyfriend. If so, we’ll make some adjustments to our plan to make sure we get to spend some time with her. Also, our son Nick and I would like to do a backpacking trip during the year. The time and location is TBD so we’ll also likely have to make some adjustment once we nail that down.
If you watch the video, you can see where we are planning to travel during 2024 and if any of you live along our route, let us know as we’d love to try to meet up and catch up. Also, if you’ve been to any of these place and have some “must do” ideas for us, please let us know in the comments. And if you’d like to join us on any of these adventures, we’d love to have you.
Finally, we’ll have regular blog updates as we move around so you can ride along with us throughout the year. Happy Trails!