June 30-Home Again!

We got an early start out of Whiskey Pete’s, even at that it was in the mid 80’s by 8am. We are thankful our trip home was uneventful and we decided we probably won’t make in more cross country driving trips unless we have a lot of stops along the way. Driving everyday is not fun. We are blessed to be home even if we face a lot of yard work, unpacking, getting our trailer back in pristine condition, and generally playing catch-up on everything! Thank you LORD that we are home safe and sound.

Good-Bye Whiskey Pete’s

CA Desert

Almost Home! Orange Trees on Clovis Avenue

Almost Home! Grape Vines on Clovis Avenue

June 29-Primm, Nevada

Everything went along fine today other than the heat. I believe the highest registration of heat was 111 degrees on our thermometer. If it was hotter I didn’t see it. Our van did fine with no overheating at all. We are so thankful the guys at Big O in Evergreen, CO did an excellent job for us. We enjoyed a lot of conversation today about our lovely trip and future plans. We got to Las Vegas by early afternoon with the help of PDST (turning the time back another hour) and figured we could optimistically plan for a Barstow, CA stop tonight. However, as soon as we were on the S/W side of Vegas things changed radically. It took us approximately 2 hours to travel the additional 12 miles to Primm, NV where we planned to get fuel. About 1,000 other people decided to get fuel here as well so it was quite an experience. We learned from others that this is typical traffic back into CA on a Sunday afternoon. Unbelievable! It took us close to an hour to get fuel, then sizing up the circumstances we figured it would be at least an hour to make it back onto the freeway. There were lanes merging from multiple sources in the parking lot to the one little on ramp going our direction. We checked on RV parking, there was none, well none with hookups anyway. We could have parked in a parking lot behind a casino and baked in our trailer in the now 109 temperature. The a/c doesn’t work without at least a 30 amp plug in. We surmised that a night at Whiskey Pete's Casino and Resort might be the ticket. We called the hotel section while waiting in the on ramp line and YES they have a vacancy, and YES for a mere $20 extra we can even bring our little furry friend! YAY! We were quite relieved, well, until we go TO the room.  I don’t think I am really picky but having an empty beer bottle on the nightstand and a rumpled bed makes me think it is not really the room for us. John went to talk to the front desk while I fed Tony, and also discovered the sink doesn’t drain in the bathroom. We moved rooms walking through the casino laden with smoke, walking our dog, past a car I later found out was the automobile Bonnie and Clyde were killed in (eeewww) and secured a much nicer room. We can see the traffic from our window, it is still crawling along. Our trailer is parked right outside as well. We will make a real effort to get home tomorrow.

In case you wondered, our room does NOT look like this:

Tomorrow, LORD willing…

June 28-Richfield, Utah

Colorado is a lovely state, in a few ways it reminds me of California because of the diversity. There are farms and crops, yet mountains and evergreens, then the mesas and desert areas, just missing the ocean like California has! No traveling issues to day other than the place we paid over $5. per gallon for gas. Passing through Colorado we were up to 11K feet at one point, so lush, green and lovely. Into Utah it is so dry and different but has so many lovely things to see as well. We are bypassing all but the few overlooks and interesting sites on Hwy 70. The geology is fascinating. We are in a “hard to find” KOA tonight, but we found it! Nice little oasis in this “desert” area.

Rocky Mountain High, Colorado

Colorado

Utah, San Rafael Reef

Utah, Black Dragon Canyon

 

 

 

June 27-Evergreen, Colorado

We didn’t make our tentative schedule today. No sooner did we pass by Denver when we began to overheat. We stopped, cooled off, began again with the same results. Three more stops to cool off before we were able to limp into Big O in Evergreen. We did try AAA first and they were willing to tow us of course but it was less than 2 miles, we had cooled down so we felt we could make it. We used our phones to “Google” and call around and found out Big O did replace thermostats. We only drove around 160 miles today but it was pretty stressful. At one of our stops a nice young man and his girlfriend (and dog) stopped to see if we needed help. He agreed with our assumption that it was probably the thermostat. He really couldn’t help but it was sweet of him to stop and I told him so. He grinned and said he saw the Casita and knew he had to stop because his mom has a Casita. At another stop the Colorado Patrol stopped. They were very nice but of course they couldn’t really help either. They left a number and card with us that we could call if we couldn’t make it to the Big O. I did let them know later that we made it and we were fine. Each stop, except the one where the young man stopped, we were well off the road and safe. We were on a back road and safe enough when the young man stopped. There ARE still nice people in the world!  Big O was a delight for us. They were so nice, friendly, helped up unhook, found a place to park the trailer in their lot and invited us to spend the night. Yes, diagnostics showed the radiator cap is faulty and the thermostat is not working. Before the guy who help us left for the night he came to check on us to see if we needed anything. We can definitely state the people at Big O in Evergreen, Colorado are a friendly bunch of people. We will be writing to their corporate office to complement them when we get home.

The Culprit: A thermostat, without a good one you don’t get far!

June 26-Sterling, Colorado

We had some rain in the night but when we awoke it was sunny and warm. We had a simple day driving mostly on I-80 until we got to a cut off of Hwy 76 and slipped into Colorado. It is still a decent freeway and the miles ticked away. It was 80 degrees by the time we left Lincoln, NE. The highest temp of the day on the road was 90. A/C in the car and in the Casita, we are comfortable anyway. Thunder storm warnings here until 9pm CMT but I assume we are safe and sound where we are. This seems like a rather poor area here at Buffalo Bill’s trailer park where people are living in travel sized RVs. A few very small spaces are set aside for overnighters. 

The Archway

Pony Express Memorial at Julesville, CO visitor center

Inching our way home!

June 25-Lincoln, Nebraska

I am feeling much more positive tonight than I did last night. My brilliant husband got us a nice shady spot with trees, running water, electrical hookups, all the comforts of home and I am feeling MUCH happier tonight. I guess he was tired of hearing me whine last night! It was very hot and uncomfortable with with the high humidity last night. We never really used our A/C unit before but we found it works very well. We are quite comfortable. We traveled about 300 miles today but it was good weather even if it was warm with a lot of road work. A lovely day. I still feel it is MUCH more fun to stop, explore, and see what there is to see along the way, but our goal is to get home now.

Omaha, Nebraska

Camp A Way campsite

Tony always cheers me up! He is the outlook for a fluttering leaf or insect! John’s pillow is his favorite spot!

Home…24 driving hours (we always take longer) 1,632 miles

June 24-Davenport, Iowa

We woke to rain in South Haven, MI and figured if we were waiting for the rain to stop we might be there all day so we headed out. We had rain off and on, not really too hard, through most of Michigan and part of Indiana. Moving along toward the Mississippi River the clouds gave way to the sun and the humidity rose accordingly. Tonight we are parked at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant in Davenport, Iowa. It is 86 degrees, but the good news is, it is supposed to drop to 64 during the night. We can hope that is the case. In retrospect, Michigan was just too far to go in the length of time we had. There are so many things we would love to stop and see but we are just driving now to get back home. Driving and not exploring isn’t much fun. We shall have better planning if we come this way again. At least we made our goal of all 50 states.

Weird “selfie” – I was trying to show how frizzy my hair is in the humidity. How do people do those pictures of themselves?

Cracker Barrel Tonight

The best I could get of an Iowa Sunset

June 23-South Haven, Michigan

It was a rather bleak day. It was gray when we woke and remained gray all day punctuated by rain and high humidity. When the cloud bursts began in earnest we stopped her in South Haven Wal-Mart and have been here ever since. We crossed another time zone along the way as we are now 3 hours different from home in CA. It is almost 10pm and still light outside! I think I took a few photos today but honestly I am not sure since I didn’t want moisture in my camera. We drove mostly on Hwy 75, but now we are on 196 heading for the shoreline of Lake Michigan tomorrow morning. We will pick that up, then head south to 80 and south to 70, I think. Both Tony and I have had a “bad hair day” due to the humidity. However, mine hair smells a LOT better than his does at this point in time!

June 22-Cheboygan, Michigan

Here we are at Wal-Mart again! We used a dump station for free this morning where we stayed last night so this is a good option for us tonight. I noticed something though, you know how we have to have so many trees in each parking lot? Well that’s not a problem here, no trees in the parking lots but there are so many, MANY trees everywhere else it would be a joke to require trees! We had an uneventful day driving across the upper peninsula of Michigan, even dipping into Wisconsin for a short time. We were on Highway 2 all the way to the Mackinac Bridge where we switched to Hwy 75. From there we went slightly southeast on Hwy 23 to get to this Wal-Mart in Cheboygan. Of note, the French named this area Mackinac, but when others heard the pronunciation they spelled it Mackinaw, either spelling is correct but regardless of how it is spelled, it is pronounced “Mackinaw.” We decided to take a more inland route in Michigan instead of our planned lake side route, the mosquitoes and flies are swarming and a bit like heat-seeking missiles! The worst of them were at the Mackinac Bridge overlook today. It was hard to breathe without getting them up our noses when they were swarming our faces. Surprisingly, we have very few bites, so we are thankful. I would love to spend the summer exploring the Great Lakes but definitely need a repellant that is safe for use and effective.

Lake Michigan, lovely views, lots of mosquitoes!

Lake Michigan

Mackinac Bridge Overlook

Mackinac Bridge Overlook

Mackinac Bridge

Lake Huron on the Left, Lake Michigan on the Right!

June 21-Michigan!!! We’ve Been to All 50 States!!!

Crossed over Lake Superior in the morning with fog and bleak skies, more roadwork but the weather improved slightly (fog lifted some) as we crossed into Wisconsin. We saw a Casita at a gas station and honked at them but we were unsure if they saw us or not, or even cared. However, at the next rest area we stopped and they pulled in just after us. they were Dominic and Debbie from PA. They were pretty young compared to us but have sold their house and everything and are in their Casita full time! He is retired military. Their Casita is a 2014 Freedom 17’ Deluxe. They just got it 7 weeks ago in TX. It was nice to chat with them for a time and we were quite impressed to see the improvements made to the bathroom with the water tight storage in there, very nice. On we drove through beautiful mountains and lakes in Wisconsin with gorgeous wild Lupine in blue/purple, white and pink all along the road. I was not sure it was Lupine as it looks very different from what we saw in the Tetons but I looked it up on the internet and found a photo.  I will share that photo as I don’t have a decent one of my own. We didn’t see the sun today but it did not dampen our spirits and we made to the Michigan state line at 1:20pm CMT. We pulled over in the tiny spot there was (more detours and road work)and took photos of each other when a pickup truck pulled up and a burly man got out…I thought we were in trouble.  No, this nice guy just made a U-turn and offered to take our photo together! Can you believe that? I had planned to set up my little gorilla tripod and do our photo together but there was no way I could run around and get over the fence in time for the photo. What a nice, nice man. I expressed how much this mean to me and he even seemed embarrassed. It truly completed the goal and we even have a photo to prove it!!!  We stopped at Paint River Hills Campground (a little private campground) in Crystal Falls, Michigan and we will spend one night. Let me say, they have some good sized mosquitoes in Wisconsin and Michigan!

Crossing over Lake Superior by Duluth into Wisconsin

The Lupine really looked like this, even more beautiful, all over!

50 STATES!!!  CHECK!

The First Roadside Park

June 20-Saginaw, Minnesota

We came to the conclusion today we need to seriously think about just getting to Michigan and then heading home. We planned to be at Voyageurs National Park tonight but when we Googled we found many areas of the park are flooded and campgrounds closed. Coming from CA we didn’t even consider this with our drought and all! We scratched that off our list. Then we Googled to find out about Isle Royale National Park and discovered they do not allow domestic animals (Tony) on the Isle and it really takes a few days to see it, the ferry ride alone is 7 hours round trip and trying to do this in a day would leave us very little time to see anything. WE could probably find a kennel but then we don’t have the extra days. SO we reworked things and decided to stop and see Itasca State Park where you will find the Headwaters of the Mississippi River. I had heard about this before and really wanted to see it. What a lovely place, so woodsy, lots of ferns, also lots of people. We are told the Headwaters are really high right now, but we are taking maybe 12 inches deep, or less. The Mary Gibbs Visitor Center is really nice and there is a beautiful little path to the Headwaters on Itasca Lake. Driving thorough Minnesota is more picturesque than North Dakota, there are many trees both deciduous and evergreen and so many lakes! Each mile or two there is a turn off for a resort or something along the various lakes. Fishing is big as you might guess, along with boating. We are “camped” in an RV park in Saginaw, Minnesota, aptly named Saginaw Campground. It is simple pull through spaces but we will depart in the morning. We are just 20+ miles from Duluth, MN but we will go south of there and avoid the city when we leave tomorrow and ease into Wisconsin on Hwy 2, which we have been traveling on all day. We hope to make it to Michigan tomorrow sometime, the border should be less than 3 hours away from here. It is cold this evening, in the upper 40’s, lower 50’s and thunderstorms expected after 8pm CMT, nothing so far though!

Itasca State Park

Headwaters of the Mighty Mississippi

John and Tony on a log placed over the Headwaters

Itasca Lake (headwaters in the background)

John and Tony at Mary Gibbs Visitor Center

June 19-Fargo, North Dakota

What can I say about today? This was more or less our view for most of the day on Hwy 94 all the way. We did have about 20 minutes of heavy rain but we drove from Theodore Roosevelt Nat’l Park to Fargo, ND and that was our goal for today. We did cross another time zone! Staying in the Wal-Mart parking lot just off Hwy 94.

Hwy 94, North Dakota

June 18-Theodore Roosevelt Nat’l Park

We were awakened by rain around 4:30am but it was over by the time we got up several hours later. We took the 36 Mile Scenic Loop Drive today and enjoyed it very much. We took a few trails along the way and managed to make it back to the trailer with only a few sprinkles along the way. The skies are very dark and ominous, it looks so much like it will really rain hard but it hasn’t. It is upper 60’s and low 70’s most of the time but since the humidity is 80% it seems almost warm and sticky. I am sure I saw at least 5 new varieties of wildflowers along the various paths today. We also saw a few wild horses, many bison, a deer, and a multitude of prairie dogs. The Coal Line Trail caked our shoes with red and gray mud, so much so we had to change them. We had to soak each of Tony’s paws to get all the caked clay out of them, it was like rocks before the soaking. At one point on our trip today we had 4G service so I was able to post yesterday’s blog from a lovely spot overlooking the Badlands. We are relaxing back at the trailer now, John is sleeping. By evening it is sprinkling again. Tomorrow we will continue our Eastward direction once again.

The Badlands

Wild Horse on the hill

Bison

The Little Missouri River

Coal Line Trail (this is the only part that was not muddy!)

Pretty Tree on the Coal Line Trail

Deer

Prairie Dog (there are hundreds, if not thousands of them)

June 17-Theodore Roosevelt Nat’l Park, North Dakota

State number 49 got ticked off our list today!  One more state and we will have been to every state in the United States of America! (A personal goal of mine that John is more than willing to go along with!) We hope to make it to Michigan on this trip but we will need to see how the timing goes. We left Devils Tower and headed north east easing into South Dakota for a time passing through Belle Fourche that claims to be the “center point” of the USA. Just how that can be possible is unknown to me but perhaps it is east to west centered? I’ll have to check that when I have Internet. We got gas and a pizza and moved along from Belle Fourche. Today we traveled first on Hwy  24, which turned into Hwy 34 when we entered South Dakota and then on Hwy 85, and finally Hwy 94 to the park. The skies got darker and more bleak as we moved north. Despite that we had some lovely views of the Badlands at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center and Overlook. The wind is really blowing, I recall a book I read about covered wagons moving west that the winds were unending and the feeling of no escape from it, it seems that way today, I can only imagine this in a covered wagon! It will be nice to stop for the night. We were told when entering the park there is a tornado advisory until 8pm MDT and thunder and lightening storms are certainty. Well, we are here now and if there is a tornado we will hope for the best and know the good LORD watches out for us. The campsite we are in ($10 per night $5 senior price) is a drive through, as many of them are and the drive through portion is lower so a good place to be I guess, well I thought that until they added flash floods to the weather report! Seriously, it is only sprinkling and we saw some beautiful lightening on our way in but down here by the Little Missouri River it seems pretty calm. Nothing more than a little wind and a few sprinkles, it is warm too, in the mid 70’s. We are so blessed to have the opportunity to take this trip, thanking GOD for HIS provision.

State #49 for us, one more to go!

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

The Badlands of North Dakota (much prettier than my photo)

We are here!

Theodore Roosevelt, it saved a lot of land for the people to enjoy!

Our Campsite #19