Weekly Countdown: 8. It's all about the money

The past week has been busy, and I've got some organising done.

Some of my eBay listings ended last night, everything sold, and raised the princely sum of £45 or so. By the time eBay and PayPal take their cut, that will be cut down to less than £40, but it's forty quid for stuff I had no need for, so it comes in handy and gets frees some space at home.

The big dollar items I'm selling were listed for 10 days, so they don't end until Wednesday (an old Garmin Street Pilot III, and a touring screen for my bike that I wasn't happy with). I've got high hopes for them, and might clear close to £100 - and it all goes into the Route 66 fund!

This past week I've been thinking about accomodation on my trip. I've got a good deal on the Crowne Plaza in central Chicago on my first night - $90 sounds good to me anyway, so that's booked. Of course you have to add tax on everything, but even so, it's a nice hotel and very central. That's important as I'll be without transport until I pick up the bike the next day, so I don't want to be in the middle of nowhere.
I also looked at hotels around Laughlin when I'm planning to be there for the River Run, but needless to say, they are in demand, so quite expensive. I might be better off staying in Needles or Kingman.
I looked at hotels in Las Vegas too, and found I could get a room there for $30 per night (Sundsay and Monday night) at the Imperial Palace hotel on the strip, but reviews are not great. Then again, it's just me on my own for 2 nights, and it's better than camping! I'm going to need some cheap hotels on the way to keep the average down to my bugeted $75 per night, so I'm still deciding about that.

I've also ordered the US maps for my Garmin Zumo GPS. At £45 the price has come down quite a lot since I first started looking a couple of years ago - then it was cheaper to buy a GPS over there than buy additional maps! So that's where the money's gone from the tat I sold on eBay this week, so you could say that the maps were free! Next week I start the long but enjoyable task of mapping the route into the GPS mapping software. Can't wait!

Days to departure: 54
Paydays to departure: Still 2
Funding: $$$Desperatley looking for more eBay-able items$$$