Soulriders Gatherin 2014 - Planning - Updated 4/6

[Dracos]

Since it's locked in, feel free to start setting vacation/ticket setups.

[Dracos]

There's been some prodding about a post trip.

Maybe a drive.

Something to Las Vegas.  Then to Grand Canyon.  Then To Yellowstone.

Not sure if anyone else would be interested, cuz it be one hell-of-drive.  Prolly about 50 percent Travel time (30ish hours over the course of it).

[Corwin]

Or maybe Yosemite. Yeah, I bugged Drac about it since spending even a day (if not a week) in one of those national parks is awesome. It won't be fun on my own, but if some others were interested it could be great! It doesn't have to be a circuit of all of them, say, but we could pick one and make a stop along the way, like Drac's Vegas suggestion? That would be less travel time, if that's a problem.

Either a post or a pre-trip could work, so even days could be flexible here.

[Merc]

Yosemite would be great to include, it's a 2-3 hour drive which is not unreasonable at all.

Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone though might be too far?

One possible suggestion, instead of Las Vegas, what about Reno? Reno is closer to Yosemite/San Jose, and it's also a den of gambling casinos if that's the appeal.

I guess if you did Las Vegas though (it's something like an 8 hour drive from San Jose), Grand Canyon starts being more appealing. Las Vegas also has Liddo-kun, so we could harass him?

[Dracos]

Let's harrass liddo-kun~ :3

Also a friend has been going On and On about the buffets out there.  So it keeps being on radar.

Yosemite is just over a 3 hour drive (3.5 from where we'll be staying), but I recall it taking 4 last time I did that drive.  Maybe because it's another hourish from the edge of the park to some place one can stay.  Sort of out of day trip, but not bad as a stop there for a bit thing.  I found it sort of so-so, but I'm kinda negative anyway so maybe others will find it awesome :P

The thing with all of these is that places to stay become difficult.  So plotting that out early would be a must.

For all of the parks, I wouldn't really recommend them as 'arrive, do a day, depart that eve' because frankly, they're a pain to get in and out of anyhow.   Doing 1 day vegas, 2 canyon, 2 yellowstone might work.  Or some mixture with Yosemite.  But basically 2 day minimum per park to really make it worth the bother of driving to it.

[Merc]

Some other stuff to think of:
1. Would we rent a van? I doubt we'd all fit comfortably in your car (then again, I don't recall what you drive).

I suspect we won't have two cars available for the road trips (unless either Xal or Gate are coming too, but I know Gate had other stuff, and Xal was planning more for a daytrip than week's worth of stuff).

2. Have you already made reservations in house rental (sounded like you did)? Can you reduce it to the 2-3 days we'd be gathering just in California or is it locked now that you've made reservations? Unless people plan to pass on the road trip stuff, it wouldn't make much sense to keep the place during 5 or so days of traveling.

***

Btw, I'm not that sold on doing Yellowstone at same time as Grand Canyon. It'd certainly be cool, but do we want to spend that much time driving?

If people are willing, by all means, big adventure time is awesome. If we just head towards Grand Canyon, we'll naturally hit pretty much everything (miss 3 points: Bingham Mine/Yellowstone/Reno), with a small detour for Yosemite.

From Grand Canyon though, we can do an 11-12 hour drive up north to Yellowstone, passing through Bingham Mine/Salt Lake City. On the way back to San Jose (another 11-12 hour drive from Yellowstone), we'd naturally pass through Reno if anyone wants to do more gambling after Las Vegas.

Here's a map showing a bunch of possible visit locations in addition to those mentioned so far:

[Dracos]

Naw, this is strictly pre or after thoughts, mainly so Cor can get more out of the trip (It's a long one for him to make)

The place for 14th to 21st is booked.  It'd be a bit expensive for me personally to change that at this point in time and I don't really want to do a traveling caravan with 6-7 people.  If 2-3 though are up to it, that might be a different story?

[Merc]

Aaaaah. In that case, I won't be able to take part. I'm probably gonna book for friday 9/12 to sunday 9/21.

Plan is to spend saturday with family, then sunday join everyone until the next sunday when I'd leave.

Not gonna be able to manage extra week for road trip shenanigans. Also, dad's birthday is the week after, so I'd like to be back for that.

[Merc]

A comment on airports since it hasn't been brought up. The San Jose airport (SJC) is 8 miles away from the house, versus the San Francisco (SFO) Airport which is 34 miles away. I don't know if it matters for Drac if he's picking up people, but it might be easier to go to SJC specially since we arrive at different times...

[Merc]

I just purchased my flight tickets, and I'll arrive Friday 9/12 at noon, and leave Sunday 9/21 at noon.

Arrival/departure will both be from SJC. I'll be staying with grandparents for Fri+Sat, as they live nearby.

[Dracos]

San Jose airport is a good suggestion, even though it's been a while since I've done a pickup there.  I'll pick folks up as needed on sunday and help with dropoffs the next sunday.

It maaay be helpful if someone else rents a vehicle alongside mine (fits 4 easily, 5 with a squeeze, which is just a bit underspaced).

[Dracos]

So we're not planning on an Alcatraz route this year and most things can be arranged as whimsy drives us but:

1)What would folks like to see on the schedule?

2)Would folks like to drive by anything Brian related?  Not currently planning on it, but I live here so...

[Rezantis]

I know I'm a month or so late, but I just noticed this.

but Cy and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary in July

What.

Oh god we're all old. O_O

[Merc]

If it makes you feel better, as I was driving past a catholic church today, I saw the billboard sign in front read "Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional."

[Corwin]

2)Would folks like to drive by anything Brian related?  Not currently planning on it, but I live here so...

Yeah. If we can swing that, Drac, that would be good.

As for Alcatraz, I'll probably just go on my own before the meet to not clutter things up too much. Unless someone else is interested in a visit?