Still too cheap to buy an atlas, I downloaded some maps from the information super highway.  They would have worked fine, but I forgot and left them on my desk.  The first leg of our trip was Lubbock, Texas, and my mother-in-law’s home.  While there, my wife sought some free maps from her mom.  We borrowed them, but they were over 20 years old, when I-40 wasn’t finished yet.  Somehow, we made it to Yosemite anyhow and at our destination visited the local thrift store (you can find some cool stuff in thrift stores).  Lo and behold, I got two atlases: one of the world and the other of the United States.  I am now set for all future travel!  Still, as I’ve checked around it seems that I don’t really need the atlases or maps from AAA (no matter how pretty they are).  All I really need to do next time is go online and download all my travel information.  That is, if I can remember to take it with me.  Below please find some sites and programs that can help you make your travel plans.

You first might want to try a site called Free Travel Brochures.  There you’ll find the latest free travel brochures, maps, and travel planning kits. 

Map Nation is another site you might want to access.  Just go HERE: It will allow you to type in your starting and destination addresses and then provide a map to get you there.

I should also mention MapQuest, which usually provides all the travel information I need. 

If you are booking flights and hotels, it may pay to access a travel site on the Internet.  Not long ago I booked a car rental from priceline.com.  The only catch is that once you make the reservation you can’t change any of the details.  If you do, it is full price, full steam ahead!  Still, a friend and her husband booked all travel arrangements on line not long ago.  They went to Rome for a couple of weeks for in the neighborhood of $3,000 (including travel, lodging, food, and gifts).  My friend said it would have been even cheaper had they gone in the off-season.  You might also try Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz.

Smart Rover 1.0 may also be to your liking.  With it you can search the best Air Travel Deals across Multiple Dates, Multiple Airports and across the most popular Travel Web sites. SmartRover searches every few hours and alerts via e-mail on your Price Match. Search Travelocity, Hotwire, Expedia, American, United, Cheaptickets, Orbitz, ATA, Southwest, America West, Aloha, Hawaiian, Mexicana, Alaska. 
FREE
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 Perhaps your budget will not permit much travel this year, but you’d still like to take off and see some pretty country.  Not a problem.  You can achieve this without even leaving your computer workstation.  The Travel Photo Workshop Screensaver 5.0 will take you to many places in the United States.  This stunning screensaver collection, featuring images from professional travel photographer Kenneth Wajda's live Travel Photo Workshop (offered throughout Colorado) captures the beauty of locations from Alaska and Colorado to Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The remarkable thing is most of them were taken with a point and shoot camera! This collection has been described as "inspirational to good travelers and bad photographers alike" and proves that it's not the camera, but the person behind it that makes the picture. Study the images and learn how to take photographs like these yourself. Or you can always fly to Colorado.   
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Lastly, would you like a summer trip that is out of this world?  Well, have I got a deal for you!  If you’re old enough, you’ll remember Jackie Gleason’s line to his sitcom wife: “To the moon, Alice.”  Well, regardless of your name, you can go to the moon (sort of).  The Travel Space Screensaver 1.0 will take you to worlds unknown and beyond!  From Earth to Saturn, 165,850,000 km in Deep Space. This OpenGL/Direct3D screensaver will bring you in a stunningly realistic solar system exploration. Kicked out of Earth orbit, you will approach the Moon surface, cross the Martian atmosphere, orbit the gas giant Jupiter and finally arrive at Saturn's rings. 
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Postscript: One last word on my California trip to the beautiful Yosemite National Park.  While there, I purchased a giant sequoia tree.  You should have seen the 100-foot trailer I rented to pull it back behind my Volvo (Just kidding).  It is only three feet tall, but I have faith in its growth potential.  You might warn your young grandchildren to be on the lookout for a lone sequoia towering over San Antonio in another 100 years.  Who knows?  One of them might live long enough to see it.