The Inaugural Trip – August 2020

The plan was to get up bright and early, pack the last few items and head out. This plan; however, was made without consideration that we would spend Friday evening having a wonderful send-off dinner with our dear friends in Vero Beach or that upon arriving home the only thing that would be packed would be our bed with us and good intentions of an early rise.

The sun rose at 6:45. We rose somewhat later and only a little hungover and to this forecast:

Now being fairly cautious people we figured that, even though it probably wouldn’t come ashore or be too strong if it did, we should probably put the shutters on before leaving for 3 weeks. After all it is August and the peak of the season. Fortunately we had already put the big shutters on the back sliders and front door for a little added security and peace of mind so it only delayed our departure an hour to hang the rest.

Of course, all the while we’re being delayed, the weather is closing in from the south. But when finally the dogs and cat and perishable food and last minute this-and-that had been loaded we pulled out to a cloudy and only slightly breezy morning… and got a mile down the road before we had to pull over and check the load that had now had a chance to move around a bit.

And then the storm front hit…

Now we’ve only had this rig a week or so and most of that time it’s been sitting in the driveway. The few miles I had driven from and to and from the dealership and to Jensen Beach and back hadn’t really prepared me for the fun I was about to have heading up the turnpike with a stiff crosswind, tailwind, crosswind, no wind, WTF-gusting wind, etc. Luckily by the time we reached Ft Pierce I was a bit stressed but we had gotten in front of the front and it was clear sailing for the rest of the day.

One frustrating thing about living a ways down America’s wang is that it takes so long to get out of it, specially if you’re heading west. So at the end of day one we have made it to Pensacola and logged 570 miles.

Day 2 and we’re finally out of Florida and feeling in vacation mode. First order of business, a couple brief stops to score the Welcome to Alabama and Welcome to Mississippi signs (yes, we’re trying to collect all 50 welcome signs and actually have 29 before this little 19 state trip).

Then off to Vicksburg National Military Park before the BLM folks tear down all the Confederate monuments. Here we are at a cannon emplacement along the Union lines (we only take selfies with winners)

Vicksburg is very Gettysburg-esque with monuments placed not only along the battle lines but in the middle of fields and anywhere else some researcher or group felt something significant or interesting happened. Some are more impressive than others such as this shrine to the Illinois troops. There are forty-seven steps, one for each day of the Siege of Vicksburg. The Pantheon-like building has sixty bronze tablets naming all 36,325 Illinois soldiers who participated in the Vicksburg Campaign.

There’s also a restoration/reproduction of the USS Cairo ironclad gunboat. It’s pretty impressive and larger than I was expecting. Would have liked to see the attached museum but the Covids have it shut down.

One of the interesting factoids: It was July 4th, 1863 that confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Vicksburg did not celebrate the fourth until 1945!

One more sign stop:

then setting up camp in Hot Springs. 547 miles today, total so far: 1,117.

Day 3 started with a workout! Gotta say, Hot Springs National Park looks like a really cool place to spend several days exploring, hiking, and just hanging out. Unfortunately we only had a couple hours to spend so we went straight to the top for a quick climb and lookabout:

there’s an elevator to the top so of course we took the stairs (up and down!):

After our stair-step routine it was time to do the Horace Greeley bit and go west and after westering a bit we stopped for yet another sign opportunity:

the last stop of the day was what turned out to be a quiet campsite under some cottonwoods next to a lake but on the way there I took some pictures of Western Oklahoma (BTW, I’ll be using the same picture for our drive through Texas and North Eastern New Mexico)

410 miles today, total so far: 1,527.

We love going on vacation and we’ve been fortune to be able to go to some really neat places. But there’s always been something missing and a subtle stress that grows a bit as each day passes and we’re away from our pack.

Getting this RV was as much for them as for us. Now we don’t have to be thinking “Wow the dogs would really love it here …” and they don’t have to be wondering where the rest of their pack is and when they’ll be back.

They’ve really taken to the mobile life. It only took a day or two to get into the new routine and to find their places whether we’re driving

or camping.

Dingo, Shelia, and Peanut are all enjoying walking in new places. They loved the cool endless sands of White Sands

and the never ending 17 mph wind at Great Sand Dunes

That feeling that we have to get back home is gone because when we’re all together, we are home!

The journey from Foss was … uneventful. And here again, I’m going to visualize that for you with our stock Oklahoma, North Texas, NE New Mexico, (and soon to be Southern Wyoming) photo:

On the way to Carlsbad we were able to pickup another state welcome sign, and here we’re actually parked on the historic Route 66.

We skipped the “Welcome to New Mexico” sign because it was in a really nasty part of town which, unfortunately, was the story for most of the towns in New Mexico. This is a state with severe economic depression compounded by Covid and civil unrest and, except for a very few shining stars like Santa Fe, it really shows in the number of closed businesses and run down and dilapidated buildings.

Being consummate geeks, we were really looking forward to spending some time exploring the Roswell tourist traps but again, Covids, and most were not open. So we donned our foil hats and made the best of it!

although the UFO museum was closed…

we found a t-shirt with a glow-in-the-dark alien face in this store:

what more could we ask?
443 miles today, total: 1,970.

So today was the day that vacation really started for us. Carlsbad Caverns had been on both our bucket lists for a long time and now, thanks to the Covids, we were able to have a VIP level experience!

We knew that the Park Service was capping the number of persons in the cave to 25 and the total per day to 500 so we planned to leave our campground in time to get to the Visitor Center before it opened at 8:00. Not only did get there by 7:45, there were only about 20 people in line in front of us and we were able to get into the first group to go in.

Being well versed in queue placement for airline-overhead-access we somehow ended up at the front of our group 😉 which also had a couple of families with younger children. When we were at last released to go forth and explore, we gracefully put some distance between ourselves and the rest of the pack and by the time we’d entered the cave proper, we had Carlsbad Caverns ALL TO OURSELVES! (well, except for one other guy but he kept outa sight so it was OK).

Like that was going to keep us out 🤪

We’ve been in several other caves and seen an some impressive collections of speleothems – stalactites, stalagmites, flowstones, helicites, columns, etc. and Carlsbad has all those in abundance though not so much in intricacy – but the one thing that Carlsbad does have is scale, it’s simply humongous with large halls, chambers, rooms and many many branching passages.







and the best part is, after walking down 750′ below the surface, you get to take an elevator back to the top!

It was then off to White Sands …

The dogs loved it – the sand is actually very cool and firm and great for running or a good walk!

There’s not a lot of contrast, specially on a cloudy day so pictures of the dunes can be challenging at best …

After a bit of frolicking in the sand we headed up to Santa Fe for some much needed rest. 457 miles today, 2,427 total.

Another busy day – We set out through Santa Fe, one of the few decent New Mexico cities, although I think I’d get tired of brown fake-adobe, and through Los Alamos to Bandelier National Monument.

Like the larger Mesa Verde in Colorado, Bandalier was built/excavated by the Ancestral Pueblo People. These homes carved out of volcanic tuff were used for about 400 years before they moved on.

Leaving Bandalier, we headed north to the 565 foot high Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (7th highest in the US):

Continuing north from the bridge, we passed by the mountains of Taos. Skiing Taos is still on Todd’s bucket list.

The plan at this point was to stop at the New Mexico / Colorado border and pick up the Welcome to New Mexico sign that we skipped earlier but apparently we are meant to return to New Mexico because of all the borders to not have a sign, this was the one.

So on it was into southern Colorado and the drive was really great. Although the scenery was not terribly interesting at the beginning (see our photo of Western Oklahoma/NE New Mexico, Southern Wyoming as reference) eventually 14,351′ Blanca Peak of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains appeared in the window and steadily grew until it’s full prominence of 5,325′ filled the windshield.

Taking a left at the peak and circumnavigating to the back side, we arrived at Great Sand Dunes National Park…




where the dogs absolutely loved the wind in their faces:

280 miles today, 2,707 total.

Polkadot, our 18 year old striped polydactyl cat, has taken to RV life with not even the slightest “what’s up?” Her routine before the trip was to sleep most of the day and eat when it pleased her. At home her food is kept full, away from the dogs, and she doesn’t overeat. Her routine in the RV is to sleep most of the day and wake Todd up in the middle of the night when she wants food because in the RV we can’t keep her food down or the dogs will jump on it.

Most of her day, while Todd is driving and Laura is working, is spent tending Laura’s cables:

And apparently, as with old dogs, teaching old cats new tricks is none too easy as this was less than successful:

Today’s journey was a trip through Gunnison and Montrose to Grand Junction with just a few stops on the way. First stop for a photo-op – guess it’s all downhill from here!

Next, a short walk along the Gunnison River via the Neversink trail. A very nice shaded trail with pretty scenery. Perfect to stretch the dogs legs.

And then, the Cimarron Canyon Rail Exhibit. The locomotive, coal tender, boxcar and caboose were restored to look as they would have in 1940 and sit on a trestle built in 1895 which is the last remaining structure of the Denver & Rio Grande narrow gauge railroad in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

After a little drama, recounted elsewhere in this blog, we arrived in Grand Junction. 257 miles today, 2,965 total.

Today we grabbed an Uber from the campground and picked up a rental car. We’re really going to have to look into getting some form of tow behind for trips where we spend several days in the same place. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to scoot around without all your stuff and explore without worrying about roads and diesel fill-ups.

First exploration of the day was the Rim Rock Drive of the Colorado National Monument. After being there and reading the literature, still not sure why it’s the “Colorado” National Monument. While the scenery is pretty and even striking, the area doesn’t strike me as being iconic of Colorado so much as Utah but I guess they had to call it something.

In the background of these pictures are the Pine Gulch/Grizzly Creek & Cameron Peak fires, which, still burning with little containment a week later, have grown to almost 100,000 acres.

Next we headed away from the fires to the Grand Mesa on the other side of the valley and along the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway to Mesa Lake where we found a 1-1/2 mile wooded trail with wildflowers, shade and many views of the clear waters.


Although we got several pictures of the lake, we did miss one of Dingo in the water … Dingo loves water. She loves the beach, rivers, ponds, and lakes. So when we went down by the shore here, she was going in. You may be able to tell from the pictures above that the water level in the middle of August is a little low and that the “shore” is actually lake bed and that the lake bed is pretty much just mud. So when Dingo went for her swim, she walked right into it and immediately sunk to her belly … in mud. So you’ll have to imagine the picture that we didn’t get and know that the dog wasn’t the only one in the mud. Thankfully I was wearing shorts. Did I mention that we were in a rental car?

166 miles today (driving a rental is still driving), Total: 3,131

Not too much to report today, just enjoying the scenery and wildlife on the way into Wyoming.

Thanks for the heads-up …

Starting seeing antelope which was cool … at first. Turns out that this things are everywhere and after a few hundred they lose some of the “oh cool” factor:

Figured out why we never see bighorn sheep:

Took the opportunity to re-do our Welcome to Wyoming sign to replace a much smaller one we took outside Yellowstone a few years ago.

And it’s all down hill from here … again …

Camped for the night in an RV park on the North Platte River called “Deer Haven”. Aptly named as they’re all over town, in the river and in the streets.
267 miles today, 3,398 total.

RV is a 2017 Prism 2200 25′ Class C Motorhome made by Coachman … who is owned by Forest River … who is owned by Berkshire Hathaway … who is mostly owned by Warren Buffett. Can’t wait to meet him!

We wanted to stay on the smaller (shorter) side as we like to go places and on roads with corners that might not be as friendly to a 30’+ unit and, with just the 6 of us (2+3+1), there’s plenty of room inside. The over cab bunk provides ample storage, about 58 cubic feet, and the closets in the back hold more than enough clothing.

The Mercedes Sprinter is a pleasure to drive and, if the wind isn’t blowing, it’s easy to forget that it’s not just a van. This is my first experience with a diesel engine and after learning to not get the DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) on my clothes or worry too much about whether or not the next gas station actually has diesel, it’s been pretty much like operating any other vehicle. I’m a little disappointed with the mileage. This is a turbocharged, 3 liter V6 and I was hoping for at least 15 MPG. However, after 3,730 miles with a good mix of flats, uphills, downhills and mostly highway driving, we’re averaging 12.262 miles per gallon. With a 26 gallon tank, that gives us a range of about 300 miles but since we’ve been driving in the no-mans lands in New Mexico, Wyoming, and South Dakota, I fill up anytime I see a station when the gauge hits half a tank!

We did have a bit of a scare with Sprinter. Since the day we picked it up, it’s had a “Bulb Out” warning light on. I’ve checked all the bulbs on the chassis and the motorhome and they all work. A bit of googling and looking through the past repair orders that we got with the unit and I figured out that this is a known problem with Coachman rigs, possibly due to an non-spec bulb. All the lights are on so I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Then on day 7 coming down the mountain from Gunnison into Montrose we went over a bump and I felt the back of the rig give a thump, nothing special, at this point in the trip we’ve been over plenty of bumpy roads and this wasn’t anything to note except that at that exact moment three warning lights came on at once: Anti-Lock Brake System, Electronic Stability Program, and Brake Assist System. And since we were still at the top of several miles of 7% downhill grade, I was understandably concerned. But the brakes still felt good so I geared down and let the engine do most of the work until we got to the bottom. We made a sight-seeing stop and were relieved when the lights were out after restarting. At least for awhile. After a couple miles, they reappeared along with the “Check Engine” light which was understandable since the computer was probably pissed off with all the codes it was getting. Interestingly enough however, the “Bulb Out” light was nowhere to be seen. We stopped by a couple of RV repair shops to get this looked into but apparently RV doesn’t include the chassis and since the closest Mercedes dealership was 260 miles away in Denver we decided to press on to Grand Junction. So the end of the story (we hope) is this; after sitting two nights at the campground (we rented a car to go exploring) all the codes were gone when we headed north to Wyoming and thus far, 4 days later, they have not reappeared … well … except for the damn bulb out light.

Started into South Central Wyoming and the view rapidly turned into mostly this:

Luckily, they’re turning the area into a huge wind farm so there was at least that to break up the horizon and provide some visual interest

After a short 5+ hour drive, we made it to our first stop of the day and another box to tick off our bucket lists! Devils Tower National Monument:

And it was at about this time that we first started seeing the bikes

because as it turns out, and we didn’t realize when we planned the trip, it’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally week and there are bikes everywhere! We’ve been to bike week in Daytona and it’s mostly confined to Daytona and a few locations nearby but at Sturgis, the bikes are all over Eastern Wyoming and Western South Dakota. Even with the Covids, it’s a huge event with thousands of bikes coming from all over and every bike that I saw made me miss having mine with me 😞

So following the bikes we headed east to South Dakota:

and through Sturgis to our stop for the next three nights:

While taking this photo, we noticed an odd barking sound and following it came upon this sight:

there are prairie dogs everywhere – hundreds in patches all over the badlands area and that was fortuitous as we had just been having a discussion on whether we were on the planes or a prairie – now it was obvious that it had to be a prairie!

And a preview of the Badlands tour to come:

518 miles today and 3,916 total.

Today was a “vacation from the vacation” day. No driving, just hanging around the campsite getting caught up on work (Laura) and the blog (Todd). We’ve been doing pretty well saving money by eating only the food we brought with us but the campground store had buffalo burgers so a little splurge was in order.

Today was a kind of “family history” day. My (Todd’s) father worked for Rockwell International for 45 years and many of those were spent on the Minuteman projects (as well as MX, the B1 bomber, the Space Shuttle and several others). He really was a rocket scientist and probably the reason I use the phrase “it’s not rocket science” so much 😉
We spent a little time checking out the exhibits at the Visitor Center, mostly cold-war propaganda from both sides some Civil Defense, LCF, and silo artifacts.

Then we toured the Delta-01 Launch Control Facility. Of course due to the Covids we couldn’t go down into the underground control center and were restricted to the crews living quarters and site security room 😒 Then we went a bit further down the road and viewed a (decommissioned) Minuteman II missile in the Delta-09 silo which is pretty thought provoking if you consider what it actually was.

Next we drove up to Wall to visit Wall Drug (apparently it’s a thing). Wall Drug is a massive tourist attraction with an interesting history and you can google their website if you’re really interested. It was packed with bikers and the line to get a donut was far too long so we left empty handed.

It was finally time to visit Bandlands National Park. Bandlands is a large area of mostly tuff that originated from volcanic events in the Black Hills (there are also areas of limestone, sandstone and other sedimentary sources). We’ve visited several areas that are similar throughout the Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Utah and Yellowstone. Some are more interesting (at least to us) such as the Hoodoos of Bryce but none are as extensive as Badlands. There isn’t much color but there is significant banding and weathering that makes picture taking a pursuit of light and shadows. Given enough time, it would be fun to drive back and forth through the park and catch the different areas as the light changes throughout the day. Here’s a few pictures we captured with the time we did have:











Obligatory selfie:

136 miles today, 4,052 total.

Today we turned south and started the homeward journey and as I drive, Laura and her helpers work in in the back.

Leaving South Dakota we came upon fields of sunflowers. Lots of sunflowers!

And then it was into Nebraska

I didn’t have high expectations for Nebraska but the northern half is actually quite pleasant with rolling hills, cattle and a few farms. It was a bit greener than in these pictures and not terribly dull although after a hundred or so miles it did get rather redundant. Driving up each hill and reaching the peak, there’s an expectation of a new vista but instead it’s down into the next valley and then the same slow climb to the next crest and then again and again.


There was one new thing; up to now all the hay we had seen (a lot) had been in bails, usually rolls, and here were some real haystacks. I don’t want to come off as Johnny-City-Boy but I think these are the first genuine haystacks that I’ve ever seen.

Eventually the hills got shallower and shallower and we ended the day on the flats of central Nebraska. 249 miles today for a total of 4,301

Yawn. South Central Nebraska and Northern Kansas. 🥱I don’t want to see any more corn. The drive through America’s Midwest and heartland, though dull, has given us an appreciation for the massive volume of beef, corn, and even sunflowers that it takes to keep this country running.

The drive was well rewarded however as we spent the evening having dinner with Todd’s son Joshua. There are too many good things to say about this boy and I don’t want to be a gushing parent so I’ll just say “He’s a good kid” and leave it at that.

366 miles today, 4,667 total.

Spent the day relaxing and hiking with the dogs in this very nice Kansas state park and campground.

Kansas to Missouri. You were expecting pictures?
More corn and huge fields of green unidentifiable leafy something. Traveled across Missouri and down into the Ozarks while staying as far away from St Louis as possible. Missed both Welcome to signs (come on Kansas and Missouri, get your sign game together, I can’t stop in the middle of an Interstate)

482 miles, 5,149 total.

Continued the trip southeast and had a nice ride along the twisting roads of the Ozark Mountains and then across into Tennessee. Picked up a couple of new welcome signs:

We were lucky to find a campground that had both BBQ and music and spent a very nice dinner and evening with Joey Boone:

323 miles today, 5,472 total.

Still homeward bound. Had a nice drive through the Tennessee hills and into Knoxville for a visit with our friends Tim and Rebecca of the Nouveaux Honkies – because true fans (stalkers) make the extra effort 😉. Then onto Gatlinburg for the night after a quick pit stop at the Tanger Outlets Sevierville for some much needed footwear replacements.

Staying the evening at Smoky Bear Campground, the nicest and cleanest RV park for the whole trip that also just happens to be owned & operated by our friends Patrick and Klaire.

252 miles today, 5,724 total.

Down hill. Down down down and down some more off the hills and down to where the flat-landers live. It was the last “vacation” day of our first adventure with RV McRVFace. Tomorrow we trickle down America’s wang to get home and answer the question “leave the shutters on another week?”

It was a great vacation and we did, for the most part, follow our original itinerary and get to 19 states in 19 days, visiting 10 out of 11 planned National Icons (we missed Mt. Rushmore).

391 miles today and when we get home tomorrow, we will have gone a total of 6,475 miles.

For those who haven’t seen one of Todd’s vacation plans, here’s the first few pages of the current one:

Includes a quick index page:

Handy icons to tell you what you’re doing and the resources available:

Turn-by-turn directions (in case the GPS isn’t working) and reservation details:

All stops shown in detail:

Interesting and informative tidbits:

And more!

There were a few unexpected bumps for me (Laura) on our first epic journey. First of all, it takes a few days to get used to a smaller space with pets. For most people this wouldn’t be too difficult but I have a dirty little (or not so little) secret. I have large feet. By large, I mean I have clown feet. I fall down a lot at home because I trip over my giant banana toes. By day 3 my left foot was black from the 3rd to the 5th metatarsal to just below my ankle. Since it was also swollen, footwear was uncomfortable so I stayed barefoot and my foot continued to slam itself into everything that got in its way, or wedged itself under anything with a sharp edge. My takeaway – I would recommend steel toe shoes for the first few days if you can find them in the appropriate clown college orange color and leave your rubber clown shoes at home. 

2 pair of sandals aren’t enough when you have swollen clown feet. Both pairs of sandals broke, my cheap sandals and my Birkenstocks. My takeaway – have a husband as nice as mine take you to the outlets to buy 2 pairs of Merrills. Your feet will love you for it.

I knew I’d be working on this trip. Generally I use dual monitors for most daily work activities, so to keep in the spirit of home office, we purchased a clamp on monitor stand for the table. It works wonderfully when your not moving, but it started to swing wildly on curvy roads. No matter what we did we couldn’t keep the little swinger in it’s place. What kind of worked was me using both of my laptops on a no skid pad on the table. 

A computer mouse has no place on a table when the RV is in motion on rough and mountainous roads. I couldn’t point at anything, it saw more action than that hooker at the truck stop a few miles back. We did bring a lap desk for Todd to use in the event I was hogging the table. I stole it from him when he was asleep and used it for my mouse and keyboard. The mouse is more steady on a lap table since legs tend to dampen vibration. I also drew a little heart on Todd’s butt when I robbed him in his sleep (just for funzies).

If you have 12 pounds of hair or more like I do, use the campground shower to prevent running the RV out of hot water. The tanks in RV’s aren’t terribly large and it takes about 90 seconds per pound of hair to properly wash and condition. Also, bring rubber flip flops that you can wear in the shower and help protect your clown feet from sliding or slamming into the shower wall. (and away from the other guck left over from past showerees)

My nails, I don’t paint them because I’m vain, I do it to keep them from splitting vertically and causing me pain. Colors cost as much as clear so I use color. It’s much easier to pack nail polish remover pads than to bring a bottle of polish remover.  My take away – wait until the cool evening when you can open the windows and get some ventilation. 

Bras – My take away, who really needs them anyway.  (Todd’s take away – take them away)

I did get motion sick while working when we traveled from Kansas to Nashville. I had to take the next day off because it didn’t go away when I woke up. My take away – motion sickness or anti-nausea medication would be a must have if you’re planning to work or read while in motion on hilly and rough terrain.

Stay longer and enjoy where you are. Moving around a lot doesn’t give you time to take in the flavors of every place you plan to visit. The exception would be Oklahoma and Nebraska. Nothing to see, nothing to do. Move along, nothing to see here.

3 dogs, 1 cat. Bathe and brush them thoroughly before putting them onboard. Hair. Goes. Everywhere.