Odyssey in an Odyssey (2017)

The newest addition to our kitchen is the 16-month calendar from the Pennsylvania State Parks and Forest Foundation. It's a much more adequate calendar for our kitchen than the free one we got from Gettysburg College which, for 2016, seemed to be trying too hard in its photographs. Now, though, as the weather gets colder and the family and work schedules less forgiving, I'm taunted by photographs of beautiful parks I want to visit.

Salt Springs is this month's temptation. 

The calendar got me to thinking, could I get to all sixteen parks during the time this calendar is hanging on our wall? A park a month might seem too ambitious. However, I could exclude from the list the parks I've already visited, so that would make this quest more doable.

That's Shades of Death Trail!

So, I got to thinking. What about a road trip that would take us through the parks on the calendar that we haven't yet visited. If we did that, here's what the trip would look like:

This 700-mile trip has been arranged for efficiency. It doesn't include the trip home, which would tack on a mere 268 miles to this odyssey.

Setting up and taking down campsites at nine state parks seems like a poor use of our time. Obviously, we'd have to simply stop and see some of the parks. Neshaminy, for instance, might be worthy of a quick hello rather than an overnight stay. Bald Eagle, too, might just get the drive-by as we make our way from Raymond B. Winter to Cook Forest. The tough call would be whether to stay the night at Cook Forest or Moraine.

To further minimize the time and effort consumed by setting up and taking down, we'll obviously require a camper. However, I don't want to get something that would tax my minivan as we traverse the Commonwealth's countryside. Good thing that I know of a place that sells Cricket trailers nearby.

This daydream is becoming expensive.

And I interrupted this blog to look more at the TaxaOutdoors website and I'm seeing other ways to spend money there.

Our family took what has proven to be our favorite vacation last year to England. But trips to England are expensive and we had resolved to be more frugal with our vacationing in 2017. It would appear as if a relatively inexpensive wall calendar is tempting me to backtrack on that resolution.