Months ago, I decided that I wanted to run a marathon to start spring break and make a vacation out of it. Last year, I stayed home for break but after a year I started itching to travel again. I searched for marathons that fit the bill and found Salt Lake City. From there , I started to built out the vacation. As I started this entry on the plan descending into Greenville after a successful trip, I have learned a lot of lessons from a fantastic yet imperfect vacation. IN this post, I discuss what I have learned and how I plan to apply those lessons to future trips, especially my upcoming three and a half week Grand European Adventure.

First, I need more time to plan my vacations, way more time than I gave myself for this trip. Some may say that the best experiences arise out of spontaneity. I agree that spontaneity has its place and has brought fascinating experiences my way before. However, when I fail to plan, I tend to forget all kinds of things and miss out on others. For example, in the past I wrote packing lists to make sure I bring everything necessary and nothing more. This time, while I thought about writing a list, I prioritized the Model UN field trips over this trip thinking that somehow it would just happen. We could have avoided a few kinks had I made a list and in so doing devoted a little more time to the end stage planning. These kinks ranged from the minor like forgetting the water bottle to go along with my OrangeMud vest that I planned to use for hydration in the parks to the relatively major like not realizing that the remote wilderness of Utah would likely have less than optimal cell service coverage. These caused further expenditure when I had to purchase two replacement water bottles (I neglected to hold onto the first one because I cannot seem to remember where I put things lately.) The much larger kink added a bit of stress to the trip by leading us up a scenic route which included something called the Hogsback, a stretch of road with no guard rails to offer assurances of safety despite the sheer drop offs on both sides of the road. I have a bit of an adventurous spirit but not enough to risk traversing it again when we realized that we had travelled an hour out of our way.

Along with the overall lesson of needing more time to plan, I learned a few secondary lessons along the way like the usefulness of paper maps even in the age of the ever present cell phone. After Saturday’s harrowing drive over the Hogsback, we purchased a paper map specifically geared towards the National Parks region. This helped tremendously throughout the rest of the week. Southern Utah, while overflowing with natural beauty, suffers from a lack of reliable cell service. Thus, we could attempt to rely on unreliable coverage draining our batteries exponentially faster than the car could recharge them. With the map, however, we could conserve battery for photos, the primary use for this device on this trip, as well as for the occasions when we had service and needed to communicate. An additional benefit of paper maps comes in the form of choice. A handful of times, the GPS would have taken us back over Hogsback since, technically, we would safe time.With map in hand, we chose the less terrifying route. Even though that meant more time on the road, we found immense value in peace of mind.

We learned a second lesson, this one regarding food. I had the vague idea that I would bring a small amount of snacks with me from Greenville to tide us over until we could stop at a grocery store in Salt Lake City. We never ended up stopping at a grocery store so our food situation ended up more expensive than I had planned. On the positive side, I did plan ahead and bring the rest of my Gatorade powder packaged in individual baggies. This helped us drink the amount of water we needed as we hiked since flavor always helps keep us drinking water. One side note, apparently, bringing large amounts of food in your carry-on luggage will get that luggage flagged for further TSA review. I like to snack. What can I say?

A third lesson I learned, or rather re-learned, was the importance of reading reviews ahead of visiting specific sites to discover what should be seen and what the visitor short on time could and should skip. A couple weeks before the trip I took an hour or so and searched for information regarding hiking trails in each of the five parks we visited. I made the mistake of writing down just the names of the various trails without any other details such as teh length or the manner of access. I also have no recollection of where I wrote this information. Thus, this list did not make the journey to Utah with us. For three of the days we made our trail selection after we arrived and picked up a park map. While this worked fairly well since the park map included details, we spent some time at the start attempting to figure out our path from trail to trail and otherwise navigating the park. Tuesday night, however, I took over an hour to map out six different possible trials or scenic overlooks at Canyonlands and five at Arches. Not only did I write them out and put them in in the most efficient visiting order but I also listed out how to access them and other important things to know about the trail and parks. I still managed to leave that paper at the airbnb the next day ut the act of research and writing it down helped us maximize our experience that day and at Arches.

At the end of the day, while no vacation will ever work flawlessly, every experience, imperfect or not, contributes meaningfully to the lasting memory of the trip. Reflection on the logistics can contribute to improvement on future vacations as well as a feeling of gratitude for everything experienced throughout the trip. Next week, I will indulge in some nostalgia driven reflection on the trip before moving on to the next topic.