At 11 we see the waterfall

The first derivative of the too-many-stops issue I discussed the other day is over-scheduling each day. I think most of you would agree that having to set an alarm to get up each morning and watch the clock all day long is not a relaxing vacation.

Vernal Falls, Yosemite, May 2010




On the other hand, having driven hundreds of miles to an awesome destination like Yellowstone means you want to, in whatever way makes sense, maximize the pleasure you get at that place. Since these parks are so big, and there are so many great sights to see and things to do, it's once again a balancing act: it pays to plan your trip, but it also pays to be flexible, relaxed about it, and leave plenty of time for loafing.

One technique is to have an outline of a day, with more ideas than you can accomplish, and explicitly agree to just work down the opportunities until you're tired, or hungry, or whatever. The good news is that none of the places we're visiting are likely to disappear in our lifetime, so we can always come back if it's important (this blog is subtitled "A-first-in-a-lifetime trip", after all).

The equally valid but opposite approach is to deliberately under-schedule the day, and find somewhere to loaf if you exhaust the sightseeing or other activities.

As always we will be mixing these techniques. In fact, I suspect that we will have some days where we're on slightly different plans for the day, and one of us will be chilling while the other is active. And vice versa.