I describe the way I generally muddle through life with the term “flexible planning”. I don’t know if it’s an original word or not, but it describes the vague middle ground that I’ve settled into with regards to how I organize my time. On the one hand, I like to plan things in advance. I don’t like entering into a situation without at least sizing it up and figuring out how to make the best of the time I have to do it.

On the other hand, I’m rather lazy. I can only take planning so far before I get bored and want to move on to something else. These two elements of myself are constantly at odds with each other; I wish I could be a better planner, but I’m too lazy to be good at it. I also wish I could be more spontaneous and not worry about how things will play out, but I’m too anal to just let things happen on their own.

I guess I’m an organized slacker.

Anyway, my slacker self wanted to approach the planning for this trip more loosely, and let the road and the landscape inform me where to go and what to see. But my rigid self wasn’t having any of that and soon took over, as rigid martinets are often prone to do. Soon, what started out as a loose chain of cities to visit became a full-blown itinerary. I stopped short of making it hourly and, as it stands, it’s precise  to the general time of day – morning, afternoon, etc.

So I have an idea of what I’ll be doing every day of this six-week trip, but I tried to incorporate as much looseness and flexibility as I could (or could be comfortable with). What follows is my current tentative itinerary. It doesn’t look like it’s very pliable right now, but don’t worry… I’m going to try to let my slacker self have his way with it as much as I can without having a complete id/ego/superego Lord of the Flies-level breakdown.

(Note: I’m linking to an existing Google spreadsheet. I sincerely hope this works and it’s halfway legible.)