On Friday, September 27, 2013, my parents picked me up from a conference in Baltimore, Maryland to start a 10 day cross country trip in their RV!! I took a taxi to the airport which we thought would be the best meeting place so they were not taking a 27' RV into downtown Baltimore. We got out of the airport and headed west on route 70/40. We drove an hour or so and when we couldn't find a campground, we stopped at a gas station to see what they could give us for information on a campground. We ended up buying gas and parking in their lot for the night. It was getting dark and late enough that we were ready to sleep anyway. We parked and had dinner and then slept the night away!!
Saturday, September 28 ... We traveled from the gas station outside of Baltimore to Louisville, Kentucky (~548 miles). This was my first day of being behind the wheel of the RV! Wow! It wasn't nearly as bad as I was envisioning before this trip. I only drove for around 50 or so miles to get my "wheels" under me. Traveling the interstates was helping us eat up the miles pretty quickly!! We stopped at a really nice campground tonight to get a shower, dinner and a good night of sleep!
Sunday, September 29 ... Today was our first 600+ mile day!! We left Louisville KY around 8 am and traveled to Alma, Arkansas (~657 miles). I got to put many, many more miles under my driving belt today. We got into a routine. Dad started the day with the first shift. Mom would take second shift and I would take the third morning shift. Then, Dad started us our after lunch and I would take the next shift with Mom bringing us in for the night! We were traveling with two dogs, Pahoo and Macy! What wonderful little travelers they were. They would get in the lap of whoever was riding shotgun and snooze!!! Another night in a campground!!
Monday, September 30 ... Another long 600+ mile day!! We went from Alma, AR to Moriarty, New Mexico (~660 miles) where we just parked the parking lot at a truck stop. We went over 170 miles on the interstate in Oklahoma with NO rest areas!!! We just wanted to get some sleep and get moving again the next morning! This meant we didn't have power to run the air conditioner and it was sweltering hot until we figured out if we moved to the other end of the parking lot and opened the windows we would get some nice cool air moving through!
Tuesday, October 1 ... GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN!!! Our first stop was going to be the Petrified Forest but since that is a National Park, it was "closed due to lack of budget". That was a huge disappointment!! But, we were not to be deterred!! We drove on to get to the Hoover Dam!! As we got closer and closer to the Hoover Dam ... what a drive that was from Kingman, Arizona to the dam ... we did not see a single campground!! Yikes! We found the entrance to the dam and decided to take a look. We drove back in (across the dam) and parked. We took the dogs with us and walked back to the dam. There were alot of signs that said, DO NOT LEAVE DOGS IN VEHICLES and then the next sign said DO NOT TAKE DOGS OUT ON THE DAM ... nothing like making it easy to see this damn dam!! So, Mom stayed at one side of the dam with the dogs while Dad and I went out onto the dam. Honestly, it wasn't nearly as big or I should say as wide, as I thought it would be. It was impressive, but not exactly what I had in my minds eye. We were too late for the tour down in the heart of the dam, so maybe that would have made it feel more sizable. Oh well. It was starting to get dark so we took off toward Las Vegas and programmed the GPS for the Oasis Campground. The freaking GPS took us all over the residential areas of Vegas before dumping us out on the south end of the strip. I could have thrown that freaking thing out the window!! After arriving at the campground and getting set up, we had dinner, showered and called a cab to go down to the Bellagio!! If this was going to be their only trip to Vegas, they had to see at least one hotel and part of the strip!! We had fun!! Saw the fountains go off. Went inside and saw the conservatory all decorated for fall and even did a little bit of gambling to support the local economy!!
Wednesday, October 2 ... The government was still shutdown so after talking with Tom about our options (thank God for cell phones and internet access) we decided to go to the Grand Canyon West that is run by the Hualapi Indians. We did not travel this far to not see this great sight!! After a morning of travel, we arrived at the reservation right around lunch time. The guy at the parking area told us that it is illegal to leave dogs in any vehicle for any amount of time. We we had to decide to either break up to go see the Grand Canyon or we could go down to the "ranch" they had kennels for dogs to stay in. We decided to stay together and kennel the dogs for the few hours we would be sightseeing! The dogs were not very happy with us but they survived!! We had a great time and the canyon was beautiful. Federal Government be damned!! We saw almost all of what we came to see!! We traveled back to Kingman, Arizona and found a Safeway grocery store to get restocked. We found a really nice campground once again and got showers and sleep!!
Thursday, October 3 ... on our way to Albuquerque, New Mexico to see Uncle David and Tracy!! But, we didn't make it!! We all ran out of steam about a hundred miles out. We found a campground that had a casino right next door!! Whoot whoot!! We got all settled in and Mom and I left Dad with the dogs and took off for the casino!! We didn't make any money but we sure had fun leaving them an additional $40!
Friday, October 4 ... We were able to take a morning off from driving!! We didn't leave the campground until around noon!! We made it to Albuquerque with time to spare so we found a truck/RV wash and got the RV all spiffy!! Then, we needed to get an oil change! We spend over an hour trying to find a place that could do an oil change on an RV. Jiffy Lube wouldn't touch it so we ended up at a local shop to get it done. Awesome! All set for more miles!! We were then ready to meet up with Uncle Dave and Tracy for dinner and an evening of visiting!! We even got a chance to hear Uncle Dave play on the piano!!
Saturday, October 5 ... got up and had a great homemade breakfast thanks to Tracy!! We had a great time visiting and they even escorted us to the right highway!! We were on our way toward Denver!! While stopped for lunch at a rest area, Mom found a brochure for Pikes Peak Cog Railway!! Yeah, one more thing to mark off the bucket list!! We drove into Colorado Springs and stayed at a nice little campground there and we were only a few miles from the depot!!
Sunday, October 6 ... up early to get to the depot for our ride up the mountain!! We were on the first train and had a beautiful day for going up. It was clear and cold but we had great views from the top!! Didn't get many pictures because the altitude rise in such a short time really made all of us dizzy. After we were back down, we had lunch and then took off for Denver. The campgrounds that Tom found online were nasty in reality so we went to the Cherry Creek State Park and had a lovely evening. Even met a new friend while doing laundry! :-)
Monday, October 7 ... sad day ... it was finally time for my adventures with Mom & Pop to come to an end. We were up early to get to the airport for my flight back to Alaska and they took off for Uncle Paul's and then will end up back home this weekend. I made it back home and have been trying to get back into the swing of things again.
What a GREAT vacation! Looking forward to the next trip!!
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