Damn you Tim Allen for making me miss home!!
video via YouTube
You're probably wondering: "what does this have to do with your honeymoon Kari?" Well, the one season I love, I always miss. Fall! So when we decided to have our wedding in end of September, one of the things that came to mind was to have a honeymoon somewhere in the Upper Peninsula (UP). So I can take pictures like this!
above three pictures from michigan.org
Look at all those colors! I see these pictures and can practically smell the breeze. I can hear the leaves rustling. I'm getting goosebumps right now just writing it out!
I personally love Marquette. It's the only other place, besides where I grew up, that feels like home the minute I can see the dome across the lake. The thing is though, there really isn't enough to do for a whole week in Marquette alone. I got an idea... but I wasn't sure if Lance would go for it when I told him about it.
I said "Lets do a fall colors driving tour of the UP." You know what? He agreed!
Key of when the colors arrive!
via michigan.org
Once I get an idea in my mind, I run with it. I plan it out until I can't plan anymore. I make spreadsheets and itineraries and have weird color coding systems that nobody understands but me. Ask Lance, he'll tell you. It's very common for him to say to me "did you make a spreadsheet for it?"
proof of my spreadsheet, and example of me color coding something.
Lance gave me a budget of $2000. I'm sure thats quite small compared to some honeymoon expenses, but we are paying for the wedding ourselves. That includes the rehearsal, travel expenses from Louisiana, honeymoon and our rings. So we didn't have much to put towards the honeymoon. Regardless, I'm a planner, so with enough digging through websites and such, I have planned us a honeymoon chuck full of fun and adventure!
I have everything planned out by the day, I know how long it takes to get from one city to the next, which is why you see the "arrival time" column. I know how much gas it will cost for the whole trip based on the car we are going to rent. I have looked at hotel prices in each city. Everything is in the spreadsheet. I also like to round up, or add on to the cost just to make sure we are covered.
I know not all of this is set in stone because gas prices change, hotel rates change, traffic changes.. you name it. Something will not go as planned, and that is OKAY! We are still going to have fun!
Here is what our trip looks like.
screen shot of our trip, via mapquest.com
Look at all the pretty purple dots! Oh yeah! Those are all of our stops. Including the the circle I had to add in Microsoft Paint. Thats right over Mackinaw Island. Apparently, you can't mapquest islands.
In order to figure out how much gas would cost, I used the website http://www.gasbuddy.com/.
Just enter in your cars information and where you are going, and click "fuel my trip." In my personal experience with using gas buddy to check how much fuel will cost for a trip its has been very accurate.
Remember though, gas prices change often so the number you can can go up or down slightly. Case in point - the last time I checked it said round trip from Slidell, LA to Saginaw, MI was around $275. When I looked this time it said $281.
Is it different? Yes. Will it break the bank adding $6? No.
Next up- 16 cities in 8 days! I will tell you the nitty gritty details of where we are going, and what we are looking forward to seeing!
How did you plan your honeymoon? Did you stay in state, or did you travel pretty far? How did you budget everything out?
No comments:
Post a Comment