Still planning...way more than expected

OK, for a trip that was supposed to be a spontaneous get-up-and-go, I am buried beneath paper and email reservations, confirmations, blah, blah, blah. I am overwhelmed. This was supposed to be easy, Just hop in the car and drive, stopping only where and where we felt we wanted to.

The reservation cascade started with the change of plans from driving from home, to flying to our first destination. Flying necessistates airline reservations, reservations #1. Then we would also need to rent a car, reservation #2. It also gave us a definite date that we would be somewhere (Minneapolis, starting our trip at the Mall of America), so might as well reserve a hotel there, reservation #3. Then, we of course had to get our tickets to the Price is Right in advance, reservation #4. Since that now also gave us an exact date when we needed to be LA, might as well make our reservations there, reservation #5.

Having gone that far, I started thinking, well, perhaps I should reserve as much as I can in the places that we have designated as "must see." Nothing would be worse than driving to Yellowstone only to discover that the closest hotel is an hr or more drive away. I know how crowded the National Parks are in the summer, and I'm guessing it could be hard to get a hotel room close by at the last minute. I also remember when we traveled to LA and Londono a couple of years ago, and there were a bunch of things that we couldn't do and wished we had thought to book them in advance. So, trying to learn from past mistakes, there went reservation #'s 6-6,583.

The question is, is what we're giving up in spontaneity worth what we're gaining in being assured of seeing/doing that things that we had in mind to see/do? I'm wondering if it's really possible to just do the get-up-and-go vacation, during busy season, and really get to do/see every thing you wanted to. I mean, I already discovered, much to YD's relief, that the mule rides to the bottom of the Grand Canyon book 1 year in advance (I did however book a ride on horseback to the bottom of Bryce Canyon. Stay tuned for how fear-of-heights YD fares on that excursion!).

Well, I must go sort through my reservations. Later