An Audacious Plan

au·da·cious [aw-dey-shuhs]

–adjective

1. Extremely bold or daring; recklessly brave; fearless: 
2. Extremely original; without restriction to prior ideas; highly inventive
3. Recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety, law, or the like; insolent; brazen.
4. Lively; unrestrained; uninhibited

(from Dictionary.com)

Yea, that sounds about right.

After meeting GCox in Vegas in December and hearing/reading the adventures of TripJax and Maudie, I decided that I should get myself to Oki-Vegas at the next opportunity.  The dates for that next opportunity were announced on Monday.

Oki-Vegas will be open from July 11 through 13, 2008.  As there are no limits on North Carolinians, I am so there, although questions remain.  How I would get there and back being the main issue.  I though of calling up TripJax, since he also lives in NC, to see if we could share the ride.  I thought of pinging the Falstaff home game crowd to see if one or more wanted to join the quest.  I thought about spending US Air points and flying.

Then it hit me.  I have other things that need doing this summer, most notably to take Dr. K to baseball games in cities we have yet to visit.  Why not combine the two?  Because it's stupid, that's why.  No, that has never stopped me before.  Why start now?  I'll just call it audacious instead.

So I started looking at the specifics.  Oki-Vegas is in, well, Oklahoma.  The remaining baseball cities are Phoenix, Kansas City, St. Louis, Dallas (Arlington), and Houston.  As it turns out, we could catch a game in Dallas just before Oki-Vegas.  After three days of partying and recovery in OKC, we could head off to Phoenix via Boulder/Denver, then to games in Denver, KC, and St.L. before returning to CLT.  The baseball schedule was kind and fit our schedule like a glove (except for Houston which will have to wait until later in the summer).

I plugged all of this into MS Streets and Trips.  It turns out to only be 5400 road miles, give or take.  We can do it in less than 2 weeks and we won't have to spend more than 8 hours on the road any day except the return home from St. Louis.  We might even see a good bit of the USA in the process. (Where is that "World's Largest Rhubarb" display?)

I ran this plan by Dr. K last night.  I should not have been surprised, but she sounded down right enthusiastic about the trip.  Her only requirement was that we stay in a nice hotel in Oki-Vegas.  Actually, I think she may have said she needs to stay in a nice hotel in OKC, but I get the point.  The $30 a night motel offered by GCox won't do.  It is not the Oki-Vegas way, but it is a compromise that I can live with.

So it looks like Special and Dr. K will be making an appearance in Oki-Vegas and quite possibly a baseball park near you.  I know I'm excited.