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We've been home a few weeks now, but I thought I would post a pic of our full route. If you want to scan the blog in chronological order, start with the oldest post. Thanks for following. We are looking forward to our next adventure!

Back to Minnesota

September 2: Aloft Wichita, Wichita, KS

We left Dodge City at 2-ish after leaving the urgent care. Annie had a freak accident the night before, tripping while midnight peeing. Three stitches in her cheek later, we were on the road again. We were looking forward to a shower that morning, but the urgent care trip meant we had to skip it. Instead, we decided to splurge again and book a room at Aloft in Wichita so we could have our showers! 

September 3: Leavenworth State Fishing Lake, Tonganoxie, KS

After Wichita, we continued on our path west, aiming for Kansas City. We chose a "state lake" which is reserved for fishing. The campground was "primitive camping" (which we now use a lot). We pulled in and explored a bit before retiring to Lucky. It was another hot and dusty night.

In Kansas City, we went looking for the jazz district, but there was no activity. Too early in the day for those jazzbos and we had to get moving. We did manage to find the best BBQ joint in the world (according to them), Arthur Bryant's. They had many photos with celebrities/presidents, and great tasting rib tips!

September 4: Arrow Rock State Park, Arrow Rock, MO

Now that we are in Missouri there are trees and grass and our coffee doesn't take 15 minutes to brew! We can tell we are getting back to the terrain we are used to. Arrow Rock is a historic site and another key part of the growth of western US. They have maintained the old main street, which includes a tavern that claims to be the oldest continuously-running restaurant west of the Mississippi.

Our original planned route back from the Southwest was via Route 66, but we decided that was not far enough north. We planned or routes day-to-day and by the time we reached Arrow Rock, we realized we had pretty much followed the Santa Fe trail the whole way.

The Arrow Rock visitor center also had a display describing riverboats. Both of us have been reading Huckleberry Finn, so it was fun to start seeing historical information from that time. The town of Arrow Rock was used in the filming of Tom Sawyer, a movie made in 1974. We watched it the next day at Jo's house.

September 5-6: Jo's House, Columbia, MO

We were hosted by Mat's sister Jo, who is an equine vet/professor in Columbia, MO. It was great to do laundry and shower and hang out with Jo. We watched Netflix, went hiking at Rock Bridge State Park (see us below at the "Devil's Icebox") and had a fun meal in town. Mat even got his haircut (last cut more than 3 months ago).

September 7: Ted Shanks Conservation Area, Ashburn, MO

As we get closer to Minnesota we are finding less to do. It is past Labour Day, lots of things close down and there are less people touring around. Most campgrounds are close to empty, but we are enjoying the cooler weather and hearing the crickets and birds sing.

This campground was right next to the Mississippi, so we could re-live excerpts from Huckleberry Finn and watch the huge barges navigate the river.

Unfortunately, we left our side vents open across very dusty roads and we had to spend a lot of time vacuuming and wiping to get rid of a layer of fine dust.

September 8: Blanchard Island Recreation Area, New Boston, IL

The next night, another campground on the Mississippi. We were the only ones here at a great location with 15-20 sites. No riverboats, but a lot of jumping fish.

The woods on the river side of the levy have mostly dead trees and have been taken over by vines. It gives a Dr Suess feel!

Near our campgrounds in Muscatine, we found the National Pearl Button Museum. The majority of pearl buttons in the late 19th century were made here from freshwater mussel shells from the Mississippi. It was quite an industry and the whole town was involved until they depleted the supply of mussels and plastic buttons were introduced.

September 9: Yellow River State Forest, Harpers Ferry, IA

For our last night, we stayed in a nice campground near Harpers Ferry. On the way to the campground, we stopped at Spook Cave in McGregor, IA. This a former town that has been transformed into a charming campground. They offer boat tours of the cave, so we took one. The boat was a small skiff with an electric motor and the host (an excitable teenager) guided us into the cave as we ducked to avoid the low ceilings and stalactites.

We're looking forward to being back home and seeing everyone again!

Heading East

August 27-28: Rio Bravo Campground, Orilla Verde Recreation Area, NM

The drive from Mesa Verde to Taos wasn't that long. When we were almost into town we stumbled upon a housing development called Earthship. There was an info center but it had already closed for the day. The community is centered around solar power and using alternative building techniques.

Farther down the road was the Rio Grande bridge, a spectacular view of the grand river basin. The river was low. 

To get to our campsite we were directed to a dirt road. Yes another and it was just as bad and full of hairpin turns. Mat did a great job of getting us down! That night we had fun playing games in our screen tent, and we met our camp host who travels with her 2 cats, and the old cat goes on hikes with her in the hills, on a leash of course.

The next day we spent in Taos. It is a cute town full of shops and galleries. 

August 29-30: Caja Del Rio Dispersed Camping, Santa Fe National Forest, NM

This site was our first real camping in the desert. Hot sun and not much cover. We were thankful for our solar charger to keep our fan and refrigerator working! Here we also saw the huge "super blue moon".

Santa Fe is a beautiful city with lots of tourists. Lots of them with money! The shops on the downtown square had some of the most beautiful Native American jewelry I have ever seen. I enjoyed looking at it, and Mat was patient with me, he found bookstores and benches to keep himself occupied. 

Our first full day we went to Meow Mouse, an artist created "museum" full of psychedelic paint, animals, and passageways, all infused with a story and clues and mystery. when we asked if the gift store person knew what the story was about, she said that even the artists cant remember what it was. The museum was created 20 years ago and things get added in . Meow Mouse was a great time! Mat LOVED it!

August 31: John Martin Reservoir State Park, Hasty, CO

At this point the heat, sun, sand and driving was starting to get to us. There wasn't much for camping and we settled for a site near a dam in Colorado. Sadly it had lots of bugs and the lake was low. Mat was getting down. The good ending is that we did our laundry and in the morning we both felt better. I guess it was the start of dove hunting. Our neighbor and his son were there for the opener. He likes to eat his dove wrapped in a green chile and bacon.

September 1: Dodge City KOA, Dodge City, KS

We are starting to get homesick and are taking longer daily drives and one-night stays. Today we stayed at the KOA in Dodge City, Kansas. KOAs are expensive but have many great services, including electrical and water hookups, Wi-Fi, showers, laundry, camping supplies, and snacks/drinks.

We picked Dodge City because the Internet "agreed" it was one of the hippest cities in Kansas. It was a key city in the wild west and they have a great interactive museum that included a gunfight reenactment.

We also enjoyed a brewery/pizza joint and a distillery in town.

The Great Southwest

August 20: Lava Point Campground, Zion National Forest, UT

Most camping sites within national parks are booked many months in advance. Zion had a small "dry camping" (no water or electricity) site at the north end that had an opening, so we nabbed it. The best part about this site was the camp host, who gave us lots of great information and even free firewood! The worst part was the rain from Hurricane Hilary had followed us from Las Vegas. Still, most of the rain was at night and early morning, so we were able to see a lot of Zion the next day. The Zion canyon shows off great rock walls and lots of flora. The park has a great shuttle system that eliminates that car traffic.

The next day some trails were partially washed out. This picture shows one of the trails after it was fixed.

When we first arrived at the campsite, a group of 4 young men came walking into the campground looking tired and hot. They had just hiked a trail from the visitors center up to Lava Point. It took them 10 hours! There is no other way back down to their car other than walking the trail back, or hiking down the road that takes 1 1/2 hrs to drive! They thought about hitch-hiking, there weren't many cars around, so they called a cab; $300, a 3 hour ride round trip for the cab driver. $75 for each person. Not bad for stupid planning!

August 21: Ruby's RV and Campground, Bryce, UT

Next we were off to Bryce Canyon for more canyon viewing. Lucky's battery was down to 0%, so we opted for an RV site with electrical hookups so we could charge up. More hard rain overnight. We felt bad for the group camp of French kids in small tents. The red soil had puddles everywhere! And the roof of Lucky leaked a bit down Annie's side door.

We both agree that Bryce Canyon was one of the best parks. The "hoodoos" (rock formations) are amazing, and the rim trail gave constantly new views of the canyon. The shuttle system here is also very efficient. There are trails that go into the canyon that give a different view of the canyon. We went down one and it started to rain and was slippery and muddy, so we only got a little glimpse but it was well worth it!

August 22-23: Canyon View Campground, Navajo National Monument, AZ

We were headed to Mesa Verde (CO) next, so we were looking for a halfway point to stop. This campground in Navajo National Monument area looked good so we set Google Maps up to take us there. We didn't realize that it would take us through 10 miles of bad dirt roads when we should have traveled the highway a little bit longer to get to a paved road. Annie championed us through the roads in darkness and we discovered an empty (and free!) campground. It took us one hour to drive that 10 miles!

When we woke up, we also discovered a beautiful view, and after a short hike to the visitor center, we found several hikes around the canyon that showed off the plant life in the canyon and the ancient pueblo houses built into the side of the canyon wall. We could only see it from afar, but we didn't expect to see this much here.

We enjoyed the site enough to stay another night. Again we had lots of hard rain, but so far we have timed our hikes well and we sat several big storms out in Lucky in "bench mode", while celebrating our anniversary!

August 24-26: Chutes and Ladders Dispersed Camping, Cortez, CO

We arrived in Cortez and settled in to explore Mesa Verde National Park. The main feature of the park is the Pueblo cliff dwellings. These date back to the mid-1200s. In addition to viewing them from afar, the park offers ranger-led tours that bring you directly into the structures. They call these "strenuous" tours because they require climbing ladders and squeezing through small tunnels. It was a bit of hype, but I guess necessary.

We learned all about the Ancestral Pueblo people and how they came to develop the cliff houses. They were quite advanced engineers and an advanced civilization. We also saw the beginnings of Pueblos, pit houses, 600 ad. 

We were staying on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land; no frills camping, and a big storm made  the dirt roads rutted and slippery. We made it though and the next few days were fabulous, so we stayed on another night to plan our next steps. Here we sit in a restaurant in Cortez, finishing this entry and planning our next stops.

Starting the Loop Back

August 10-12: Skyline Park, Napa, CA

We had a hard time finding a place near San Francisco, but eventually found a park with an available spot in Napa Valley. Our spot was in an area separate from the RVs and tents. A few camper vans joined us. (Many campsites are geared towards either large RVs or tents, and they don't always know what to do with us or other small trailers or camper vans.) The campsite had a lot of things going on, including a disk golf course, archery range, horse boarding and courses, and a native pants garden. 

We went in to do some wine tasting in Napa. Most of the wineries require reservations, but the city itself has some tasing rooms. We had a nice dinner in town and then had some wine while we listened to a local musician. Someone in the audience surprisingly (and anonymously) paid for everyone! There is a lot of money in that town. We found an alternative for wine tasting at the Napa Town and Country Fair. $15 for tasting and they were generous with the pours! No more free tastings and the wineries cost $40 a person and up for their tasting experiences. I guess what I learned was to experiment with wine from your local liquor store, find what you like and when you get bored with that, try some others. The beauty of driving the winding roads through wine country was a nice experience.

In San Francisco, we met up with our niece Alice where we had a Korean lunch and visited some parts of SF that we had not seen before, including Japantown. She was a good host! Afterwords we went to the Fisherman's Wharf and had a nice dinner. Big crowds at the wharf. The fog is amazing on the upper coast, and from Carmel to Oregon the weather was colder than you would think. Sadly, we were too wimpy to swim, but did enjoy walking into the waves.

August 13-14: Elkhorn Ranch, Elkhorn, CA

Our plan was to head east after SF, but we decided we needed more ocean time, so we headed south of SF and found a goat ranch that was hosting campers (HipCamp has many opportunities like this). There were many goats, plus some sheep, a few pigs, chickens and a few turkeys. Not to mention vegetables and other plants. We were in a nice grove.

We went to Carmel and enjoyed the rolling coast and a nice dinner. Carmel is a charming seaside town with upper class pricing.

The next day we went on a "Elkhorn Slough Safari Trip", where we explored the slough on a pontoon boat with a naturalist. We saw many sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters and many different birds. The slough is an interesting and important ecosystem.

Elkhorn also has a large power plant, and the towers went right over our camping area.

August 15-16: Hardin Flat Road, Stanislaus National Forest, CA

We found a great boondocking spot here, large and full of pines. This is our 2 night spot for Yosemite. All of the west coast is so dusty, I had a tank top on for one night in this spot, and when I washed under my arms with a wet wipe, the wipe was full of dirt! We had neighbors from Czech Republic, one morning they woke up early to find a bear right by their van, it started walking towards our camp and he shouted and it turned direction and loped away! We also found a stash of massive pine cones.

Yosemite is awesome with its granite peaks, tall waterfalls and fast running rivers. We swam in a clear lake and watched climbers reach the summit of a mountain.

 

August 17: Lower Lee Vining Campground, Inyo National Forest, CA

We came here to take in Mono Lake. I call this spot a show-stopper, multi show-stoppers is one spot! The mountains, the clouds, the tufa towers, and the display of weather all around the lake. The pictures actually do give a glimpse of this lake's wonder.

Mono Lake is more salty than the ocean. As the lake water level dropped over the years, towers of calcium-carbonate, formed by the interaction of fresh water springs and alkaline lake water, peaked out from the lake. These towers are called tufa. The lake is over 1 million years old and has no outlet.

                                                                                 

August 18-19: North Las Vegas Inn & Suites, North Las Vegas, NV

The trip into Nevada was long and flat. The interstate runs through the valleys of mountain ranges. Strange, almost ghost town-ish cities are dotted here and there. Again with the dust, showing up in puffs from the wind or as a cloud of white from the dune buggies that ride the flats and foot hills.

One city along the way bragged about its "famous" Clown Motel, sitting beside an abandoned cemetary.

Our agenda for staying in a hotel for 2 nights is to shower, sit in the hot tub, maybe swim, do laundry, catch up on e-mails, get the car's oil changed and live a large life, before heading back into our teardrop cocoon in the wilderness. Ahh! Fresh linens- for real, this time!