The planning of the week-long extension has hit a few hitches, some expected and some unexpected.

The original plan was to have 4 people, including 1.5 drivers, in 1 car and driving around. However, the number of travelers soon became first 6 and then 7. The last addition bore the prospect of adding one driver, but it seems you can't rent (and presumably drive) a rental car if you're under 21 (the putative driver is 20).

More importantly, only one rental companies has a vehicle that can fit 7 people, and even then it'll be a squeeze with luggage. Perhaps more pertinently, it also comes with a princely pricetag of ~$250 per day (excluding under 25 surcharge and, I think, insurance and sales tax).

We were toying with having 2 vehicles, but that'd incur communication costs (not to mention very expensive rental, with the under 25 driver charge applying twice), and anyway 1.5 drivers can't handle 2 vehicles.

So it seems we're going to be traveling by Greyhound (which, contrary to admonitions about a bus a day, has 10 connections a day on the popular routes we're looking at; in any case, I have thus far defied predictions that I'd wish for death on a 13 hour bus ride, would die in Italy during the summer and the gods know what else, and Auntie YM says she's taken Greyhound before and it's alright), flying from Las Vegas back to San Francisco and taking tours to the nature areas.

Of course, I could always fly to Chicago to meet MFM, but then there's only museums and architecture to see there, and the CSO to listen to, I haven't been to the West Coast for 20 years and I'm eager to add Yosemite to my World Heritage list.

Bleah, it was so much easier planning for 4.