Starting a New Adventure

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In the summer of 2023, we took WOW on her maiden 2-month trip through 4 states, visiting 6 National Parks (Canyonlands, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Great Sand Dunes, and Rocky Mountain) plus Canyon De Chelly and Dinosaur National Monuments. We hiked, biked, kayaked (in Dillon Reservoir, CO, pictured above), and basically took Whisper anywhere she wanted to go. Along the way, we met up with friends for a week in Vallecito, CO.

We had a great time but decided not to blog about the trip. Now we are into the first month of our 2024 summer trip and are resurrecting the blog to track our travels.  Here is the start of our new adventure.

Peoria, AZ to Yellowstone NP, WY   06-03-24 to 06-13-24

We departed from our home in Peoria, AZ on Monday, June 3, to begin our second summer motor coach trip believing it would be a 3 1/2-month trip, our first long summer trip in WOW.  WOW stands for Wandering Outside in the Wilderness or Whisper On Wheels. (Our first summer, which we didn’t blog, only took us to CO, NM, and UT.)

This trip will start with a circle northbound to SD, then west to WA and back down CA before arriving back home in mid-September, with excursions throughout.  We hope to hit 10 or more National Parks (NPs) this summer, adding WY, SD, MT, ID, WA, OR, CA, and NV to our WOW U.S. decal map and visiting NPs we haven’t seen before.

We took about 3 weeks prepping the coach, made easier by the fact we finally had a space in our Westbrook Village RV lot, only 3 minutes from our house.  When we pulled out, we had most of the groceries from the house (though we couldn’t take all the freezer stuff); at least it wouldn’t expire while we were gone.  All of it didn’t fit in the coach, so we had 2 bins in the Jeep.

Camped at Lone Rock on the shore of Lake Powell

Our rig included the 35’ Tiffin Class A Allegro Red 33AA with our Piaggo Liberty S-150 scooter on a custom rack Tom made in front.  Pulled behind was our matching 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee with our 2 Ancheer e-bikes on a rack behind the Jeep.  60’ in total!  (Plus, we had an inflatable kayak on board.)  We were set for any transportation desired.

We couldn’t have left home at a better time.  Spring had been relatively mild but there was a high heat alert for the week with forecast temps from 113-116°.  Sent off with the prayers of our wonderful neighbors, the Kingstons, we pulled out at 2:10 PM and drove a whopping 130 miles to Flagstaff and spent our first night in a lovely, wooded campground in a pull-through site that didn’t even require Tom to disconnect the Jeep.  In the morning, we walked Whisper in our fleece jackets.  Sweet.

Paula figured out the maximum number of days we were ever on the boat without a break – 105 days.  Wow, 3 1/2 months.  Wonder if we’ll be just under or just over that at the end of this trip!  We had so much more room on the boat, and it was a much smoother ride.  At this point, we don’t see how anyone actually RVs full-time without owning a land house.  Even in our rig, it’s tight.

Tom had created a tentative route for the summer using an app called “RV Trip Wizard” which allowed him to plan our route and pick potential campgrounds.  The route was 5200 miles, with 48 stops, for a total of 92 nights. Wonder how close we’ll be on that projection.  We also had AAA make us a Triptik and we had that on board, as well as all the necessary paper maps (plus many e-devices).  There is a suggested rule of thumb for RVers called the “1-2-3 rule.”  If you travel 100 miles or 1 hour, stop for at least 1 night, 200 miles or 2 hours, stay for a minimum of 2 nights, etc.  Using that rule, 5200 miles would require a minimum of 52 nights.  There are 105 days in 3.5 months; therefore, our vacation should be much more relaxing than “the rule.”  Great.

Night 2 was spent relaxing along the shore of Lake Powell, a well-known lake in the SW (with 1900 miles of shoreline) in dispersed camping (no services, park where you want) at Lone Rock Beach in a National Recreation Area (pictured above).  Beautiful.

We spent the following night at Junction RV Park in the crossroads of Junction, UT, our first evening with power, water, and sewer.  And again, although it was tight, we did not have to disconnect the Jeep.  The power was nice for air-conditioning onboard with temps in the 90s.  After dinner, we walked the town.  The camp host, when told we were going to walk the town, said it might take 45 minutes (stretching it!) and suggested we head left and look at “the big house.” We have to set the picture.  This house would have been dwarfed by houses in Scottsdale, AZ, but it did have a 5-car garage and a big barn behind.  But across the street was a rundown mobile home, which describes the neighborhood.

We named our walk “Wild Kingdom.”  We met 5 Scottish bulls, stray dogs, a huge cat house, many goats, and ponies. Whisper didn’t think much of any of them.  The following morning when Paula walked Whisper, she decided if you removed all the things that used to roll down roads or fields (cars, trucks, tractors, etc.) but didn’t move anymore (which numbered more than the current 200 residents), mowed some yards, and did a little fix-up, it could be a quaint little town.

Night 3 was at Yuba Lake SP, UT, and again, we didn’t have to disconnect.  We set a record for set-up.  The site was level enough that we didn’t have to use blocks under the tires and from pull-in to done, it took 9 minutes – plugged in power, pushed the “leveling button,” extended all 4 slides, and moved a few things around inside to make it “home.”  That probably won’t happen very often!  In the morning, we took the scooter off and took a short ride around the area.

Time to slow down.  We next spent 3 nights (over the weekend) in Jordanelle SP near Heber City, UT.  There was a large lake.  Whisper was a hit on our walks, especially with the large gathering of young girls close by who always wanted to feed her treats.  A walk through Park City revealed a quaint ski town with a long window-shopping main street, but the $22 burgers sent us back to WOW for lunch.  We found a very friendly Calvary Chapel Church near Heber City on Sunday.

Over the weekend, we found out Wind Cave NP, our destination after the Tetons and Yellowstone NPs, was closed for the year!  Oh no!  (Thank you so much, June, our Great Loop friend, for telling us about that!!!)  So, that led to scrapping our eastward turn to SD for Wind Cave, the Badlands (which we had been to before), and Theodore Roosevelt NP, which was now too far out of the way in ND after the other two were scrapped.  That meant lots of trip replanning and 10 more days free.

Monday night’s stop was at the very small Cokeville Hideout Motel & RV Park.  We are members of Harvest Hosts, a membership program that invites RVers to have unique overnight stays at over 5,200 places in the US like farms, wineries, ranches, and other attractions. After paying the annual membership fee, the stays are free (unless you might get power) with the expectation that you spend some money at their place of business.  Most allow only one night.  Hideout Motel & RV Park was our first Harvest Hosts stay.  There was a restaurant across the street but that was about it.  Nice for a free night, free breakfast (bagel and granola bars), and time for some trip planning.

Before leaving in the morning, we set up Whisper’s agility course and had Sarah, the office gal, and the couple from the other rig staying there watch as she ran her course.  For not having done any agility for a while, Paula was really happy with her. Click HERE to watch her run.

The 150-mile drive to the Tetons was the prettiest of the trip so far.  We drove through beautiful pastureland with hundreds of cows and horses and alongside many overflowing streams.  Everything was so green and lush.  We crossed Lander Cut-Off, elevation 7,475’, where tens of thousands of people passed in wagon trains on the Oregon Trail to the PNW until the transcontinental railroad was built in 1867.

We spent the next 2 nights in a free NPS campground (nothing more than a gravel parking lot) just 2 miles off the main road that ran through the Tetons NP.  What gorgeous scenery to awaken to each morning.  We drove the Jeep to Jenny Lake and did a short hike there.  The water was crystal clear!  The next day, we drove the Jeep along some of the pretty interior roads of Yellowstone NP.  If you ever go to either of those places, you’ll want to spend much more time there, but since Tom had written a book on those parks, and we had already spent lots of time in them, we did not need to do a lot of the “touristy” things.

We stopped at Grant Campground at Yellowstone just to ask if they might have any openings.  Tom had tried unsuccessfully to book online, but you never know.  Turned out the campground was nearly empty!  Their reservation system did not start until 2 days hence and that is why he couldn’t book!  The next morning, we moved WOW there and were able to leave Whisper in the coach and go watch Old Faithful erupt and took the (surprisingly) free tour of Yellowstone Lodge, something Paula had wanted to do before but it never worked out.  The amazing 130-room, 76’ high lodge, constructed of local lodgepole pine and rhyolite rock, was built in 13 months from 1903-1904 by 50 carpenters!  Beautiful.

This blog is a little more detailed than the future blogs might be, but we’re trying to set the picture for how we are doing things.  If it’s too much, just look at the pictures.  Next, our exit from Yellowstone over the 8,500′ eastern Sylan Pass!

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