Big trip report, #1

 Kathy and I had not seen much of the USA west of the Mississippi. 

When we started redoing Frolic our plan was to travel west, see the sites and celebrate our 50th Anniversary, August 12. we just got back yesterday. It was an epic journey. The little trailer performed above expectations.



I'll take time over the next several posts to debrief and share some highlights. Here is an overview:

Our trip involved a mix of staying in the camper, staying with friends and family, and a few nights in hotels. Frolic tagged along for the whole trip though.

We left August 12, our 50th Anniversary. Our tow vehicle is a 2015 Ford Explorer. Judging from the way the Explorer downshifted, I'd say that the steepest uphill grade we encountered on the whole trip was about an hour-and-a-half into the trip, the climb out of the New River Gorge on I 64 West. As it did for the whole trip, the Explorer handled Frolic well.

We spent the first two nights in a campground in Corinth Kentucky. I'll tell you about our day at the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter later.


Here we are, getting ready to spend our first night out among the behemoths. What Frolic lacks in size, though, it makes up for in cuteness. If I had a dollar for every time someone said, "Your camper is cute," I'd have enough money to pay for Frolic's redo.

After a few days visiting family in Frolic's home, Elkhart Indiana, We made our way to Cedar Lake, Indiana. We had a great visit with friends and spent a restful night at the Cedar Lake Ministries campground.

Our next camping spot was a boondocking place at the end of a long gravel road. It was just us and the cows in a nearby pasture. Here is a quote from a websearch and a link.


"100-mile stretch of North America's longest river, a vestige of the untamed American West. The Missouri National Recreational." https://www.nps.gov/mnrr/index.htm. 
I felt like one of the guys in the Lewis & Clark expedition.



From there it was on to Rapid City SD. Incredible place. I'll do a post about it later.

Laramie Wyoming was just an overnight stop in a hotel. Then we did a lot of hiking etc. around Canon City, where we stayed with a friend. Then after two nights at Garden of the Gods Resort, near Colorado Springs, we crossed the Rockies and drove through the Wasatch to our granddaughter's home, near Provo Utah. 

I'll cut this off, right here, and continue the summary of our trip in the next post.


Well, let me simply list the states we were in. I'll put a "*" next to the states where we camped.
  • Virginia
  • West Virginia
  • Kentucky*
  • Ohio
  • Indiana*
  • Michigan
  • Illinois
  • Iowa
  • Nebraska*
  • South Dakota*
  • Wyoming
  • Colorado
  • Utah*
  • Arizona*
  • New Mexico*
  • Texas*
  • Louisiana*
  • Mississippi
  • Alabama
  • Georgia*
  • South Carolina
  • North Carolina
  • Virginia





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We camped in Frolic for the first time. It's officially done.

Image
 I finally got Frolic on the road, so that means that it is basically done. Do you ever really finish with these sorts of things? Today is Monday. I got Frolic off the blocks and took it out for a ride on Saturday. I needed to burnish the new brakes and I wanted to see how it pulled. The last time it was moved was when it came here from Mt. Nebo WV. I was in the truck, but my friend who helped me out did the driving. Everything seemed good. Last night we (Kathy and I) did an overnight at Douthat State Park, a campground about 20 miles from here. We took notes on what we had forgotten, and what we need to diddle with, but basically, everything worked fine. Here are some pictures and comments of/about the trailer when I got it and what it is now.    I found the trailer looking at Criag's List. It was sitting on blocks in a back yard in Mt. Nebo WV. At the time, I was living in Guam. With the help of some friends from my church, I was able to put new tires on it and drag it ...
Read more

Moving forward, slowly, on three fronts:

Image
 My project has been delayed by some joyful travel and rainy weather. Last week, we spent the remainder of our frequent flyer miles to visit our son and his family, in Texas. A late plane/missed connection, extended our trip by a day, United put us up in a hotel. It was nice, and the delay gave us an opportunity to have a lovely meal and a great visit with some dear friends. Rose and Tom served at Faith Church in Guam. Tom was our pastor. They "retired" a year before us and live in the Chicago area.  It was all great, but none of it advanced the renewal of the Frolic. Jesus gives new life instantaneously, not so, when Howard does it. Anyhow, I've been able to spend a couple of days working on the trailer this week. Partly because it has been rainy, and partly to stave off boredom with some tedious tasks, I've adopted a strategy of going back and forth between several tasks. I'm continuing to remove the skin, where needed. It looks like all of the wall siding will ...
Read more

Big Trip #9, Utah, Arizona, & New Mexico

Image
 I need to finish this travel log up. I figure I'll do one more Big Trip post after this one. Ten is plenty. Our granddaughter, Carrington, is an artist. While we were at her and Harrison's house, Frolic was parked out front. She gave us this lovely portrait of our camper before we left. Before we leave, though, here is a picture of Harrison and Carrington with Clark. We left the Provo area and went South in Utah. When I planned the trip I failed to take into account that this was Labor Day Weekend. That kind of complicated things. We were fortunate to find a campground with an opening. As the name would imply, Bryce Zion Campground is between two of Utah's national parks.  Here is the entrance to B/Z Campground. The other picture is the view from behind and to the left. We had hoped to see both National Parks, but crowding at Zion slowed us up, so we decided to just enjoy Zion. As usual, our pictures don't do it justice. It was a fairly short trip down to the Kaibab Na...
Read more