Vacation dreaming, no decision yet...

Let's see, a few weeks ago I thought I had decided on this year's bike tour. Then I experienced three seasons in three days during my escape to Sedona, and I started rethinking my trip. Why? I was concerned about spending a week (or a day or 2 less) on Vancouver Island, which I thought was a rain forest. As it turns out, the west side of the island is rain forest, and the east site - where I would be cycling - is not. It could still rain, but in late July the odds are about the best that they could be. I started to get excited about the trip again, but then as the days went by the indecision set in again. I still think it would be a very cool trip - cycle up the east coast of Vancouver Island, take a ferry up the Inside Passage to Prince Rupert, take the train to Jasper, and cycle from Jasper down Icefield Parkway to Banff and then on to Calgary. It still sounds interesting.

So what's my problem?
Is it that I wanted to do a credit card tour and this one will require some camping since the northern half of Vancouver Island is very sparsely populated and has a large stretch with no towns? Probably not, because many of the other options I'm looking into now will also be part camping.

Is it that to do this trip I'll need to take all of my vacation time at once? I think I'd rather take two trips and spread the time out a bit, but some of the other trips I'm thinking of will need all of the time too.

The geographic area fascinates me, and I think I want to take that ferry trip and the train ride. But - the ferry is 15 hours, and the train ride is two full days. That's 3 days in a row with no activity, and I have a feeling that I could be stark raving mad by the end of those three days. Oh. Maybe I should rethink this.

I don't know why none of the areas that currently are high on my list for this trip are good candidates for credit card tours. Maybe it is time to buy that camping gear! (Lighter is better, right?) The Vancouver Island / Canadian Rockies two trips in one is still a potential. What else? I'm still seriously looking at visiting British Columbia and Alberta. First I thought about taking a shorter trip and focusing on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast. Then I started thinking about flying to Vancouver and biking to Calgary - but maybe that's too far. Maybe flying to Vancouver, taking the train to Kamloops, and biking from Kamloops to Calgary, maybe via Revelstoke and Glacier, two Canadian National Parks that I want to see. Maybe I'll fly to Edmonton, take the train to Jasper, and ride from there to Calgary.

And as long as I'm rethinking this, how about Australia? Or maybe... well, there is no end to the ideas. One of these days I'll have to make a decision, but for now I'm still having fun dreaming.

This is a good type of problem to have!