Final thoughts, random musings, stats

Well, here is our map.  FL, GA, & SC (and obviously NC doesn't really count) were from prior trips, but everything else we just added.  Notice how we went all around Kansas.  We were so close in Kansas City!

We went into 17 states and 9 state capitals.  This will shock none of you that know us, but we forgot to note the mileage before we left.  I'm going to try to find an invoice from when we had it serviced right before, but for now we are estimating 7000 miles.

We get asked a lot what kind of fuel economy we get.  Most of the time it was 7.5-8.5 mpg, but there were really windy days that it was 5.5 mpg.  It is a diesel RV.  In most states, diesel was more expensive than gas, but not CA!

We got everything unloaded today and the RV back in storage.  But the house is a mess!  I had some trouble remembering where things were in my kitchen, and I was so used to the gel mattress topper on our camper bed that I limped out of bed like an old lady this morning.  The boys helped unload stuff, but have been glued to their computers the rest of the day.

Chuck & I said the other day we never got homesick and could've stayed out longer.  This morning he said he wanted to go camping again.

If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask.  I took notes on the campgrounds and kept all the campground maps (yeah, I'm a packrat).  Many of them were parking lots, most were gravel.

Here are some observations from the road and some stuff I forgot in other posts, presented in random order with no attempt to segue between them.

Windmills - there are a lot of windmill farms.  I think the windmills look pretty cool.  They are so big and move so slowly, it's kinda graceful.  We went by some really close to the road and Ellie was mesmerized by them.  It was so funny watching her watching them.

Speed Limits - there are some really high speed limits out there.  I think 80 mph was the highest we saw.

Motorcycle Helmets - I thought SC & CA were the only two states that didn't require them, but the majority of states we went in had many riders not wearing helmets.

Tractor Trailers - some of the states out west allow triple piggybacks.  So, a rig pulling a trailer, pulling another trailer, pulling another trailer.

Elk - we saw two huge Roosevelt Elk herds on the way to Redwoods, just hanging out next to the road.  A billboard stated one of the herds is the largest in the world.

Shoes - whatever version of the Reebok zig I have was the absolute worst shoe I could've taken.  I was picking gravels out everywhere I went.

Motorcycles in San Francisco - it is very common practice for the motorcyclists to drive between two lanes of traffic to the front at a red light.

Weigh Stations - approached one in NE(?) that weighed you in the lane and then said if you had to exit or not.  The sign told us we had to exit, so we went in the weigh station with no idea what we were supposed to do.  We got the green light to move on.  Later we saw one that said no RVs, so that would've been nice to know.

GPS - our struggles with the routing are well documented, but one funny thing was in San Fran, the GPS lady turned into a sorority girl, saying several times "Golden Gate Bradge".

Dust - It is so dusty out west I was sneezing & coughing for weeks.  I cannot imagine what it was like during the Dust Bowl.

Antenna channels - we watched the ME channel a lot, Adam-12, The Big Valley, M*A*S*H.  Also, the network channels are way clearer than cable.

Campgrounds & wi-fi - also well documented here, but I just want to reiterate - if a campground advertises they have wi-fi, don't count on it.  At least one of the ones we went to had the decency to say "limited wi-fi"on their website.

Jeep wave - in Charlotte, Jeep drivers have a silly habit of waving at each other.  We didn't see that anywhere else when we were out in the Jeep.  Also, at the beginning Chuck kept waving at fellow motorhomers, but eventually stopped when no one would wave back.  I had to laugh when I saw another driver wave at us and Chuck didn't see him or wave back.

Roads - besides the obvious backcountry dirt roads, there are some really bad road conditions in this country. Interstates everywhere are horrible!

Roads #2 - some of the states must really get a lot of snow, when they have signs all along the interstate saying "closed when flashing. must turn around and go back." Guess I just assumed interstates would get plowed.

Man 'o War - Chuck looked at his memorial & burial site while the boys & I were in the gift shop at the KY Horse Park.  He says it's the biggest memorial he's ever seen, like way bigger than Elvis's (I think that's the only other one we saw this trip.)

SF Tolls - every bridge into SF had a toll (only one way). We crossed the Bay Bridge in motorhome w/ Jeep and had to pay $20 and wait in an extremely long line. We crossed the Golden Gate Bradge in the Jeep only, and it is automated.  As in, they take a pic of your license plate and mail you a bill.  We did not have one waiting for us in our mail.  So, we'll see if it comes.

Cheyenne Frontier Days - Chuck felt under-dressed.  He was shocked at how dressed up everyone was.  I was pretty much expecting that and wore my designer jeans.  I did not have a fancy belt or boots, however.

Remote places - this country is full of them!  I am from a small town, but that did not prepare me for how many wide open spaces there are in the US!  My cell phone spent a lot of time saying "searching" or "no service".

This was my favorite of the decorated horses scattered throughout the Horse Park - a Trojan Horse, with little guys climbing a ladder in.

I think that's it.  I'm sure I'll think of other stuff later, but for now, let us know if you want to go camping!

Kentucky is for horses.

On Mon. (7/28) we went to the part of the Horse Park that required admission tickets.  That was a very unique experience.  We went through a couple of museums and saw a couple of shows.  We had the schedule beforehand and were planning on going early but as usual we could not wake up. I think maybe we are still stuck on Pacific Time.    Anyway, we went to the later shows and found out the shows were different each time.  Oh, well.

One was the Hall of Champions.  They have several retired champion horses living there.  A woman told about the horse and then played footage from winning races before someone else walked the horse out.  We saw Go For Gin ('94 KY Derby winner), Be A Bono (quarterhorse), Da Hoss (2x Breeder's Cup winner), and Funny Cide ('03 KY Derby winner).

Go For Gin

Be A Bono

Da Hoss

Funny Cide

After that we went to the Horses of the World show, which was narrated by the same lady.  We saw an Icelandic Pony, a Marwari (super rare), a Gypsy Vanner (my fave), an Andalusian, a Morgan Horse, and a couple of others I didn't get the name of.  The Marwari is so rare, I didn't even get a pic of it. Seriously, I don't know what happened.  They have really weird ears, so maybe I was looking at that.

Icelandic Pony

Andalusian 

Gypsy Vanner

After the shows, we walked around some more and looked at the horses in the Big Barn.  Yes, it's a very big barn, but it's also where all the really big horses were.  Here are some of the pics from the museums and grounds.

We thought this was a little creepy.

These horses had mounting and dismounting instructions.

That was good for the boys since they haven't ridden before.
 

We liked this one's haircut.

Zack is about 16 1/2 hands tall.

Ben is about 15 hands tall.

These were part of a jump in the very 1st competition here in 1978.

Some miniatures.

After the park visit, we rode our bikes part of the way on the Legacy Trail, which ends (or begins in our case) at the campground and goes 12 mi. to downtown Lexington.  My bike is in pretty bad shape right now - the brakes and chain are rusty for starters.  Ben's bike is not changing gears any longer, so we were afraid to go too far downhill in case he couldn't make it back up.  But that's a nice trail.

This morning we got up and headed home.  We had booked tonight at Tom Johnson's Marion campground since they gave us 5 free nights there when we bought our RV.  We ended just up making a short pit stop since the boys were dying to get home.  We moved all the stuff from the closets and drawers that aren't accessible when the slides are closed (our driveway is not really conducive to leveling RV and opening slides), did a little cleaning, one last dumping of the sewer, and then headed home.  Got here about 7:30.

Tune in tomorrow (or maybe a couple of days since we still have to unload everything) for some final thoughts, stats, random things.

Storms, storms everywhere!

Sun. morning we woke up to a horrendous thunderstorm.  The lightning and thunder were simultaneous.  We had packed the outside stuff the night before, so all we had to do was unhook the utilities.  We moved the slides in and worked on getting the inside ready.  Then a torrential downpour started.  I heard water and discovered there was water pouring down the side of the slide into the RV. Remember back at Great Sand Dunes the slide topper was destroyed and removed? That would've been nice to have.  We threw all our beach towels on the puddle in the floor, with the exception of one we threw on top where the water was coming in.  We had a couple of hours before we could check in at the Horse Park campground, but we decided to leave a little early to beat the next storm.  Well, we ending up driving through one, but we made it there.  Not long after we got set up, a woman made an announcement over a loudspeaker that there was a tornado watch until 8pm.  It's one thing to be in my house with a basement during a tornado watch, but it's quite another to be in a campground in an RV.

We rode our bikes around the Horse Park to check it out.  There were some jumping competitions going on like there wasn't impending doom.  We had parked our bikes where the competitors parked. The common modes of transportation at these events are apparently golf carts and dirt bikes.

I was keeping up with the weather back in Va./Tn. via Facebook, and their tornado watch turned into a warning, and then I saw videos of actual funnel clouds there.  I'm glad everyone was okay!  We had some pretty skies after all the bad weather. 

Red sky at night

When I got back in from playing photographer, I discovered the tornado watch for us had been extended to 2am.  So then I had to stay up!  Luckily they canceled it around midnight.

3 more states!

We left our MO campground on 7/25 and headed east.  I would've liked to stop in St. Louis and go up in the arch, but we weren't sure how maneuverable this motorhome would be on the downtown streets and if there would be any parking, so we just looked at it as we drove by.

I was trying to find a campground in Lexington, KY for our next stop, and I could only find one slightly north in Georgetown, and one in Frankfort.  That one was full, but the other one said they could fit us in the full-timers' section.  There seems to be a real shortage of campgrounds in these parts! My Uncle John had said everyone was always telling him to check out the Kentucky Horse Park, so we thought we would do that.  They actually have a big campground there, but it was full for the weekend.  We decided to stay in the Georgetown place for the weekend, and then we're heading tomorrow to the Horse Park.

The campground is just a few years old and is off a narrow, unmarked road.  I spent a lot of the drive yesterday reading online reviews and stuff trying to make sure we could get here.  When I called I asked if there were any low overpasses or anything and the lady said something like, "well, it'll look like you're going to hit it, but you won't know until you get to it."  Well, that was really reassuring.  A lot of reviewers complained about the road it is off of and the roads inside the park.  We don't know what their problem is - maybe they haven't seen some of the roads we've seen this summer. There were tons of motorhomes already here, so obviously it's not too bad.  It's actually really nice here.  Ellie made friends with the guy next door right away.  The boys have been fishing.  The people and terrain and stuff remind me a lot of Southwest Virginia.  Saw a beautiful sunset last night.

Today we went to downtown Lexington to check it out.  We kept seeing signs directing us to downtown attractions, but we didn't really see any.  We finally parked and walked around a little.  Saw a farmer's market packing up.  Would've liked to have gotten there a little earlier.  Went and had lunch. Chuck was excited to see Rupp Arena, but we all agreed it's really boring looking from the outside. We drove over to the UK campus and saw the football, baseball, and soccer stadiums.  There were 4 or 5 motorhomes parked in a circle in one of the lots and people sitting out there.  I don't think there's anything going on to be tailgating, but Chuck allowed he wished he had known we could just stay there.

Forgot to add the exciting pics of downtown Lexington.  Here they are!

Tomorrow we head to the Kentucky Horse Park and then Tues. head for NC!

In the words of Lady Gaga, Nebraska, Nebraska I love ya!!

... just not for driving through.  We left Cheyenne on 7/23 and drove across NE.  It was incredibly windy, but Chuck did a great job keeping the RV on the road.  I found a nice campground right off the interstate in Waco, NE, just west of Lincoln.  It was pretty old, going by the pool, buildings, and playgrounds (they had a metal slide just like Weber City Elem. when I was there!), but had new owners.  They must've gotten a deal on swings (like porch swings) because there were no less than 30 new ones scattered around the small campground. In fact, I was sitting in one of those while blogging and being attacked by mosquitos the other day.  They also had a tornado shelter, which looked like a tube into the ground.  The weather was so nice and pleasant when we got there after driving in the wind all day, I was saying I could stay another day.  Alas, we woke up to huge wind gusts the next morning and skedaddled.

Some kind of arch monument touristy thing we drove under

Watching some golfers

Right next to a 9 hole golf course

We headed toward St. Louis.  Chuck had made a reservation near there (Eureka?) on Historic Route 66, but about an hour west of St. L, we saw a campground nearby advertised, so I called to see if they had room and they had one spot!  Chuck was really tired, so we told them we'd be right there.  He's been driving lots of long days. He says he'd rather drive than me, so I say okay.  This campground was also really nice and had the biggest dog park we've seen (and that's including Disney's very large one.)

Ben said there weren't enough pics of Ellie

She was happy to run around.

There aren't beaches in Cheyenne, Garth.

We left our Yellowstone campground on the morning of 7/22.  We pulled over at a turnout to get a good pic of Grand Tetons.

One of our (well, my) must-sees at the beginning of this trip was Mt. Rushmore.  After looking at the map, we decided we would like to just stick to interstates and start heading home.  We ended up having a pretty boring drive to Cheyenne.  I called a campground I found on my AllStays app (well worth the $10 if you have an RV), and was told they had one spot, but only for that night. Fine with us, we're just staying one.

The campground check-in was kind of chaotic and this guy told us he would show us to our spot and we could just come pay later.  Chuck & I walked Ellie over after we settled in.  They have BBQ every night in the summer, and that's where we had to go pay, so I waited outside with Ellie.  He came out with a lb. of BBQ and was all excited.  We had stumbled into Cheyenne Frontier Days and it's like the world's biggest rodeo (Ben was skeptical and kept asking what the credential for that was.)  There was a shuttle bus at a high school about 2 blocks away, so after supper, we walked down there and just missed one.  The next was 30 min., so we sat there and talked with some other campers who walked over.  They told us the event was championship bull riding and had already bought their tickets.  They made us a little nervous about it being sold out, but we figured we'd just walk around and take a shuttle back if necessary.

It was a huge carnival/county fair atmosphere, but we didn't do any of that, because we did get tickets to the bull riding (2nd row from the top!), and it had started as we were walking in.  We had a great time.  It was very exciting. Everybody was great - the bull riders, the clowns, the guys who lasso the bulls when they won't leave.

There was a rider from Statesville, so we cheered louder for him.  I noticed a man and boy right in front of us were, too, so I asked if they were from NC.  He said yes, so I said we were from Concord area.  So were they!  I asked the boy where he went to school and he said Winkler, which is probably the next closest middle school to us.  Small world indeed.

There were fireworks after, but we were so high up in the stands we couldn't see them for the overhang roof thingy.  So, we left to go catch the shuttle bus.  The bus was there and already full, with 3 people standing.  The bus driver told the 3 in front of us that they were full and he wouldn't let anymore on.  So, we waited another 30 min.  The bus that came back had a woman driving, and she let almost everyone in the state on.  We were pretty sure we were going to tip over, but thankfully we didn't.  We did drag pulling into the high school lot, though.

Last day in Yellowstone

We headed to Yellowstone to do a hike right near the South Entrance.  There were 2 or 3, but they     were all closed!  So we drove up to the West Thumb area to see those geysers and stuff.  According to the map or the guide that is the most dynamic area.  We didn't see any dynamics, though.  But it was cool to see geysers in Yellowstone Lake under the water.  And they had some very pretty "pools".  

More wildlife!  These Canada Geese don't think the water's too hot.

Nice looking hot tub

There was an info station there with some hiking guides, so we bought one.  The free map given to you at the entrance doesn't really show any hikes.  We decided to do the trail to the Lone Star Geyser.  "Hike" and "trail" are kind of a stretch since it is an old road.  Apparently you could drive to it until like 1972, so it's an old paved road.  But it was a nice (5mi. out and back) walk.  We were sad to discover it's one of the few trails in the entire park you can ride bikes on since ours were like an hour away at the campground. The Lone Star Geyser is off by itself and is very predictable, with a major eruption like every 3 hours.  There is a log book there for people to record eruptions so others will know when to expect it since there is no ranger there.  There was also a page from a notepad stuck to the trailhead sign with a large bandaid where people had recorded that morning's time. So, before we set off we knew what pace we needed to go.

Pretty easy to watch for bears on this one

When we got closer to where we thought the geyser was, we saw several people leaving.  I asked one lady if we'd missed it, and she said there was a minor eruption and a major should happen within the hour.  I guess she wasn't waiting for it.  When we got to the clearing, there were quite a few groups waiting.  We saw a minor one and a lot of people cleared out thinking it was the major.  But thanks to our handy guidebook, we knew the major would last at least 30 min.  We waited probably another half hour, and then it started.  Wow! Chuck liked it better than Old Faithful due to lack of crowds, how long it lasted, etc.  The rest of us didn't really compare the two.  We left after like 15 min. because it does about a 15 min. steam phase.  

This one has a really tall cone.

Waiting for the big one!

This is it!

On the way back we met a family who told us there was a moose around the bend and across the river. Wasn't hard to find since there was another family taking pics.  Ben & Chuck took a lot of pics, until the moose started looking at them and got in the river.  Meanwhile, Zack & I were being terrorized by biting files or some other kind of bug.  I sprayed us both with bug spray, but they still swarmed us for like a 1/2 mile farther.

Ok, stop looking at me.

After that, Chuck wanted to stay longer and do more hikes, but we would've had to dry camp for a night (which our campground guy said we could do) and then get back in a campsite.  The rest of us decided we had seen enough and wanted to move on.

Old Faithful is still there

The next day we drove to Old Faithful.  I want to say it was like an hour or hour and a half drive from our campground, and it is one of the closer things to the South Entrance.  It's a pretty boring drive, so we spent the time looking for wildlife to no avail.

It's kinda like DisneyWorld when you get over there - there is a long access road to the huge parking lot and lots of people.  As we drove toward the parking lot, we could see OF was erupting right then.  Of course.  The next time predicted was 88 min. +/- 10.  Luckily there are lots of other geysers, hot springs, etc. to walk around and see.  There are 2 rows of benches, and they started filling up, so we sat down and waited after we had seen all the other stuff.  Finally water started gurgling up and then kabam!

Heart Pool or something - I think it looks more like the US.

Finally, wildlife!

Everybody filing out after was just like Disney, too.

Yep

We drove to another area north of OF with hydrothermal? geothermal? (I don't recall) features, but the boys had seen enough.  We made the long drive back to our campground, had lunch and a longer naptime than planned, and then headed on a long drive back down south to Jenny Lake in Grand Teton for a hike.  We started about 5:30 or 6, and of course you are supposed to avoid times when bears are most active, such as late in the day.  This was a 2.2 mi. trail (out and back, so 4.4) along Jenny Lake to a waterfall.

We hadn't been going too long when Ben, who was leading the pack, said, "oh my gosh." I was bringing up the rear and looked up and all I could see was brownish fur.  So, I had a small panic attack before I saw it was something else (besides a bear).  We still are undecided on what it was because of the color.  Chuck says fox, I say young wolf.  Whatever it was, it was not scared of us and started coming toward us on the trail.  Chuck had to scare it off down into a ravine.  There was a couple just sitting on the other side that we had just walked by.  Chuck started yelling at them and they waved at us.  Then they saw the animal coming and the guy jumped up and moved up onto a rock.  I did not get a great pic as I was scared for my life. Not really, but it was freaky how it really wasn't scared of us.  The animal had brownish fur with a little red, and its eyes were amber colored.  Still can't figure it out with the power of Google.  The fur color just doesn't match anything.  Whatevs, we survived.

Just look at this menacing creature

Made it to the Hidden Falls, that were kinda hidden - mostly because part of the trail was closed and they didn't have the alt. route marked well - and then up to Inspiration Point (well, it's possible only Chuck made it that high).  Sadly, when I was googling animals in Grand Teton, I found a news story about a man being found dead at Inspiration Point the day after we were there.  According to his girlfriend, he had gone hiking the same day as us.  We were there late and saw several people, but I don't remember anyone alone around there.  Kinda freaky.

Chuck on his way up to Inspiration Pt.

Not actually Hidden Falls, though someone told me it was.

The real Hidden Falls

The boys & I watched a pika building a nest while we waited for Chuck.  It went by us 5 or 6 times, taking the exact same route each time.  I have about 10 pics of where this pika was mere seconds before.

We turned around and started heading back.  Caught up to a guy and then 2 other guys.  I felt a little bear-safer in the larger group, but we eventually left them behind.  One of them yelled something, and we looked in the lake and could see an otter swimming along.  Then when we got to the last bridge before the parking lot, we saw another strange animal that we also can't identify.  It was fast so I didn't get any pics, but we got several good looks at it.  The closest thing I could see was a mink, but again, the fur didn't look quite right.

We had planned on swimming in String Lake (which was supposed to be warmer) after the hike, but by then the sun was behind the mountains, so I passed.  Didn't stop Zack though!  He went way out into the lake and was only waist deep.  It was colder than he let on, because when he got out his feet and legs were bright red.  We decided to go back to the bridge where it was more like a river connecting String and Jenny and he and Ben both waded across.  They said it was warmer than the lake.  Zack then got dared by Chuck to go all the way under.  He did it, and it was hilarious.  Luckily I remembered beach towels and a sweatshirt, because that was a long, chilly ride back in the open Jeep.
 

See Zack out there? 

Before dunking his head

Just unbelievably majestic mountains

On the ride back we saw a herd of elk in the trees on both sides of the road.  One of them even crossed behind us.  Then we pulled off on a side road where a bunch of cars were and saw a moose.  Grand Teton kicked Yellowstone's butt on the wildlife sightings.