Vacation planning

I slept much better last night with no epic story dreams. However, the ragweed must have been bad, as the detail I remember from my dreams was that I always had a handful of tissues and kept sneezing.

I got a fun box from a state tourism office yesterday. I'd requested some maps and brochures from their web site for my vacation, and ended up getting a whole box of stuff. The main thing I needed was the current official map, but I got the rest of their trip-planning stuff, a guide to state parks, and the brochure about fall foliage drives. Based on some information in one of the guides, I'm pondering a slight modification to my plans, with a side trip to see something nearby. I could do it on the way up if I get an early start, since check-in at my hotel isn't until 3, and then I wouldn't have to go anywhere else for the rest of the time (all the things I want to do are on-site where I'm staying), or I could devote half a day to making this side trip. I can be spontaneous and decide on the fly how I want to handle things.

The brochures got me started thinking about actual camping, like with a tent. I have fond memories of doing that as a kid, but I'm not sure how I'd deal with it now. The state parks have bathrooms and showers, and some even have electricity at the tent camp sites. It might be a way to force myself to have a writing retreat, with enough electricity to charge the laptop, but no TV or Internet. I suspect, though, that this is the sort of thing that sounds good in my head but that I would find less appealing in reality. I like being outdoors, but I like coming in from the outdoors.

But before I can get too crazy thinking about vacation, I must work, and I'm already behind on the book.