Here is a summary of our itinerary, listing the places we spent the night: (Home –) Twin Knobs Campground, Cave Run Lake (near Morehead, KY) – Babler State Park (near St. Louis, MO) – Big Lake State Park (near St. Joseph, MO) – North Sioux City (SD) – Gettysburg (SD) – East Totten Trail Campground (near Coleharbor, ND) – Miles City (MT) – Lewistown (MT) – Great Falls (MT, two nights) – Dillon (MT) – Logan (UT) – Cedar City (UT) – Henderson (NV) – Long Beach (CA, a week) – Kingman (AZ) – Flagstaff (AZ) – Albuquerque (NM) – Alamosa (CO) – Dodge City (KS) – Lee’s Summit (MO) – Rend Lake (near Mt. Vernon, IL) – Ashland (KY) – Natural Tunnel State Park (VA, three nights) (– home)
We drove 4695 miles going and 3277 miles returning. This makes sense considering on the way there we ended up north in North Dakota. I don’t know the exact amount of fuel we bought, but at 18 miles per gallon I can estimate that we burned 440 gallons of gasoline. This could have been less if we did not have to idle the van to keep our doggies cool.
We visited or drove through: VA, KY, IN, IL, MO, NE, IO, SD, ND, MT, ID, UT, NV, CA, AZ, NM, CO, KS, MO, IL, IN KY, TN, VA, a total of 19 different states. Personally, I added North Dakota and Nevada to the list of the states I have set foot in. Before this trip I had been to all the other states on this list. How long did we spend in these states? In total we spent 8 nights in CA, MT 5 nights, MO 3 nights, VA 3 nights, SD 2 nights, UT 2 nights, KY 2 nights, AZ 2 nights. We did not sleep in IN, IO, ID and TN and in the others only one night. Does this reflect our love, enjoyment or dislike of a certain state? To some extent, we really liked Montana and Missouri; in addition, we drove from one side of the state to the other (east to west, and in Missouri again from west to east on our return trip). Both states are big, but yes, we enjoyed both and fell in love with Montana. Kansas was liked least <here>. While I loved the countryside in certain areas of Kansas, we were bothered by all the feedlots, the looks, the smell that they produce and as a result the huge number of flies we had at our camp site. It was almost too much and it made us wonder if vegetarianism was the answer. Getting the hell out of Dodge seemed appropriate.
What did I or we learn from this trip? This country is damn big! No wonder it took Lewis and Clark so long to get across <here>. I realized that I still miss the desert, or maybe being an arid-land ecologist, observing all the changes in the plant life. I am and will stay a biologist or ecologist at heart. You read that folks complain about the monotony of the Great Plains; however, to me this area is fascinating. This includes the land use, differences in vegetation and most likely soils, the prairie potholes, the limitless sky, you name it. Moreover, I realized during the trip that the desert still remains my second love (after my wife/family/dogs of course). I have often written about forest bathing and my love dor wandering in the wood; I even presented a sermon on the subject. Yes, we drove through forests in Montana, New Mexico, Colorado and even in Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia, and loved it. However, I wonder if traveling through and spending time in the prairie and desert gives you the same benefits as experiencing the forest.
What did we learn about camping? You run out of time! Our van is small, and with two dogs we tend to cover the bed, a place where they spend most of their time while driving. The cover is used to keep the allergens (read dog hair) off our pillows and bedding. It generally took us 30 to 45 minutes to set the van up for sleeping once we decided it was time. Getting ready to get on the road in the morning is a different story. We never got on the road before 9:30. Stowing everything and cleaning up takes a long time. Thank goodness we both have our tasks and overall, it went very smooth. Usually, Donna would walk the dogs while I got the van ready for sleeping and driving the next day. I would make coffee in the morning while the dogs got their walk and breakfast, and at night I would make our evening coffee while Donna did the dishes. But still, it is a process to arrive at a site and depart the next day.
A little about camp sites. We stayed at commercial RV sites, KOAs, US government and County sites, and a town park. While KOAs started out as the last resort, they are the most expensive, later in the trip they became a great fall-back option and actually a preferred option at times. We found that commercial sites packed as many campers or RVs into their places as humanly possible. The sites were on gravel, which is a pain for the dogs, and two of the sites were next to livestock holding areas, smelly and teaming with flies. With the possible exception of the camping in Lewistown, MT, we left none of the commercial sites with the thought that it was so nice that we should return soon. Commercial sites charge around $50 per night.
KOAs are generally cleaner, have larger plots per camper, often have trees, clean restrooms and shower facilities, recreation facilities, a store, and sometimes a restaurant of sorts attached to it. Now, if you are passing through this may not be important, but it is nice, albeit more expensive. The cost for a night is close to $80 or even higher in desirable locations.
We fell in love with the State and County parks in Missouri and Virginia. They are relatively inexpensive ($20 to $35) and as good or better than the KOAs in my opinion. They miss the miniature golf, camp store and swimming pools, but they are clean, have nicely spaced sites and are well managed. With the special government pass, the US government sites are $10 per night. We stayed at one in Kentucky and in North Dakota. They were the two favorite sites on our trip. Finally, the city park site in Gettysburg, SD <here>. It seems that some of the small towns in the mid-west have opened their city parks to camping. They even provide electricity, water, bathroom and shower facilities to the weary campers. This is all for free, but a donation is welcomed. Moreover, you are expected to spend some money in town. We had breakfast at a local coffee shop the next morning. We loved the place and will return.
Something we never realized is that the public camp sites, like those owned or operated by the federal, state, or county governments have camp hosts. We encountered a camp host for the first time during our camping outing in July <here>; I wrote about them thinking they were unique; however, I now realize how ubiquitous they are. Hosts are folks that are volunteers who stay in the campground for free and manage things. At the campground in Lee’s Summit, Missouri and Rend Lake, Illinois <here> they even handled the registration and money. Camp hosts will bring firewood and ice to your camping site, and they all seem to drive around in golf carts to check on you and occasionally to chat. Now the town park site in Gettysburg <here> had no host and we were all alone, but the sheriff lived across the street.
As I mentioned above, we stayed in motels four times during our trip. Three of them were weather forced, in North Sioux city we read 108 on the thermometer <here>. In Cedar City we were hit with thunderstorms, and just outside Las Vegas we hit the heat again <here>. We had agreed to meet up with our friends who were moving from Yorktown wherever our paths crossed and stay in a motel <here>. The dogs behaved in the motel rooms, so it was actually not bad. Motel rooms are more expensive than camp sites and therefore are something to avoid.
Concluding this long post, we had fun. Will we do something like this again? Yes, probably but we need to plan the season better to avoid extreme heat, cold or inclement weather. Thirty-four days? Who knows, but first some shorter trips exploring our immediate area and the East Coast.
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| Google gave me a location map for September, and this shows the route we took. |
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| Our dog Jasper is happy to be home, not to wear a harness and cuddle with mommy. |
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