So, just a few months after our epic Anniversary Adventure trip (last September, check it out starting with this post), Hubby randomly asks me where we're going to next! We talked about it for a while, and he calmly suggests that we look for a place to which we can fly! Hubby - who is afraid of heights, mountains, The Big World, and most importantly FLYING - is open to flying!
There's a caveat, though... he wants to go somewhere flat, like FLAT flat, with no mountains to deal with. He doesn't want to drive though anything like the western Pennsylvania/New York area, which we went through on our Wisconsin trip. He wants prairies and views and roads that go on for miles and miles and miles (though he didn't say this specifically...)
I asked him if we should do Cold Flat, such as northwestern "Flyover" states like Iowa, Idaho, etc, or Warm Flat, such as southwestern "Flyover" states like Oklahoma, Kansas, etc. He thought that Warm Flat was a good idea, so I played around with a few ideas.
Option 1 - Fly into Oklahoma City and drive up to Kansas, making sure to hit the Geographical Center of the Contiguous 48 states. Make our way west to Denver. Visit Colorado Springs, Colorado, then drive south to Albuquerque (in honor of Weird Al). Maybe visit Carlsbad Caverns, before driving East to Dallas and flying home. Though, we could also do this in reverse, flying into Dallas and home via Oklahoma City.
Option 2 - Fly into Kansas City and head north to Omaha. Drive west through Nebraska to Wyoming, then at some point head south to Denver. Drive back to Kansas City and fly home from the same airport to which we flew in. Again, this could be done in reverse.
Option 3 - Fly into St. Louis and visit the St. Louis Arch (he's liking the idea to visit - and go up in - the Arch). Maybe visit Mark Twain Forest before driving west through Kansas City, Topeka, Salina, Wichita and over to Oklahoma City, then Amarillo on our way to Albuquerque, before flying home from ABQ.
He also wants to make sure that there's fun things for him to do, too, not just following me around when I take way too many photos of the Midwest! We will definitely have to take into account that we CANNOT amass the massive stash of snackage that we've done on previous trips (unless we pack very lightly and leave lots of space in our luggage for return snacks). If we want to do more snack reviews, we'll have to do it in our hotel room or something, or one by one as we get the snacks, so we eat them all before flying home.
As of this post (June 2022), it looks like one-way flights to St. Louis or Kansas City are averaging $175 per person (including all taxes/fees). That's a hefty chunk of money ($700 round-trip for both of us), and I feel like it sucks to blow that much just on transportation to or from a place, especially when we just did a huge road trip where the gas and SUV only cost $955!
And worse, if we did Option 3, where we flew back from ABQ, return tickets are $400 each! I may want to look into where my local airport flies to, non-stop, and see if renting a car there would be a cost-saver, kind of like a hybrid Fly Trip/Road Trip...
I dunno... right now it's just something we're kicking around, letting it rattle around in our brains, to see if it gains any traction. Like, I definitely want to go west, and I know it's going to cost more to fly than to drive, but I don't know if I'm ready to drop that much on plane tickets yet...
