Preparation for 2009 trip

It's June 20th and Barbara and I are getting everything ready for our vacation into Canada's Rocky mountains. Our departure date is July 1st, so we will be on the road over the big weekend. We will be meeting our son, Jay in Calgary on July 9th. This is also the end of the Calgary Stampede. We will leave Lubbock on July 1st and take Interstate 27/US 87 toward Amarillo , Dalhart, Raton NM, then north to Denver CO. We will take US87 all the way to Raton, NM then join I25 north to Denver. This might be all done on the first day, just depends on how far we want to go.

Our plans call for staying in Drumheller AB before going into Calgary. We will visit the Dinosaur Capital of Canada. On Thursday the 9th we will travel the 100 miles to Calgary and meet Jay at the Rundell bus stop just south of the Calgary Airport. From there we will travel into the Banff area all the way to Jasper. This will take about a week and at the end of that, Jay, will catch a bus back to Calgary. He has reservations at River Wynde B&B in the Kensington neighborhood, just north of downtown, where he will stay for 3 days before catching a plane back to Dallas. He wants to see some special points of interest around Calgary. At Jasper is when we have a choice as to venture toward Alaska or turn around and make a route back toward Lubbock. I guess it depends on a number of things. Stay tuned...

We both have been getting the trailer and the car ready so that maybe we won't forget anything when the time arrives. A few of the items that I carry for navigation are a notebook computer running three different mapping programs all connected to a single GPS receiver. I have done this for many years, but this will be the first time I have used a Delorme program called Topo07. This gives all the contour lines and many other topographical features. We will also have on board our Mio stand-a-lone navigation GPS. On this trip, we will be carrying more items and weight then we have ever carried before. We will have more food, more gear (also carrying gear for Jay), and more liquids. I expect the total combined weight of the Suburban and the Bigfoot trailer will be a little over 15000lbs. We have a lot to do on the 1st of July, therefore our leave plan will be around noon.