Decisions, decisions !!!

No matter how much you study and read up on places you intend to visit, someone always seems to jump up at the last minute with a route or place suggestion that that you have never heard of.. Thanks Graham Merrick! This particular route or rather series of routes form the TCAT or Trans Canada Adventure Trail. Hmm, that's put the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons. My problem on this trip has always been that Canada (not to mention the US and Alaska) is one damn big country. Overall I'm looking at covering something around 15-18,000 miles. And in spite of not wanting to run to a strict timetable, realistically there is a fairly narrow time frame in which to get up to Prudhoe Bay if I don't want to be slushing around in snow and ice (which I don't.....).

My GPS is starting to groan under the weight of routes, waypoints and maps that I keep downloading to it. I just hope it doesn't follow the lead of my previous unit.  That one decided that it didn't want to play any more within 10 miles of setting off for a three month trip across Europe ! Additionally I seem to be accumulating paper maps and guides at an alarming rate... and I haven't even left home yet. It is one of the advantages as well as a  disadvantage of not having a definitive route plan. On the one hand I have the freedom to "go with the flow" and change routes on a whim: on the other hand there is the danger that I might faff around to such a degree that I never get anywhere. The reality is that that won’t happen as I have arranged to arrive in Creston to meet up with friends Taz, Joel and Jim by sometime around the end of June. So if I want to also run Route 66, unfortunately most of the TCAT will have to wait; either until I'm on my way back down country if time permits or for the next visit across the pond.  Of course I still have the option of leaving “the Beast” in Canada but that would mean a long, long break and I'm not sure I could bear that! There is no way I could get back until 2017 as next year is already spoken for with trips out to Afghanistan and Gambia in the pipeline… I guess “go with the flow” is likely to become my mantra on this journey.