The Plan

Before I go too much further, I should post the original plan. I wrote this the morning of October 24th from my hotel room:

The Plan
Well, there is none, really, since this is a game-time decision… Before I leave, I’m going to have a quick look online and see what Starwood hotels I can use points for my journey. Looks like I have some choices in KC and Oklahoma City, or I can go through Denver. I’m a bit worried about the weather in Colorado. I’d seen lightning from the Denver airport on my earlier layover on the way out from LA. I figure I can get down to Oklahoma City and catch the 40 from there. That will give me the chance to do some side trips exploring The Mother Road. The budget is small. I have a few hundred dollars and some credit cards that I don’t want to use for meals. I’ll pay cash for meals, points for hotels, and credit for gas. Gas is $1.00 - $1.50 less here than it was in LA when I left!
The trick is to see if I can break the trip up into reasonable stretches. I want to drive 5-10 hours per day, including stops. I want to stop where I can stay for points (or cash and points), which means I’ll have to stay in larger cities. Since I don’t know these cities, I’ll have to check online and see where I’m going to stay each night. I’ll print up directions to each night’s hotel (or first choice at any rate) so that I have a destination. Worst case, I can get to one Starwood hotel and book a room and get directions for another. A quick check on the Starwood site proves that there are no Starwood hotels between Albuquerque and LA. In my mind, anyplace closer than Needles doesn’t count, since I can’t justify spending money or points on a place so close to home. Oh, and I'll travelog the whole thing.