Ken Nelson

• RV driving is much slower than car driving.
• RV driving is much more tiring than car driving. You cannot “autopilot” in an RV you have to pay attention all the time.
• RV driving requires patience. No “Harry Hop Across” moves. Getting up to speed, changing lanes, exiting, all require more distance. I generally just stayed in the right lane until I had to switch for exiting or because of some extremely slow driver I had to get around.
• Driving an RV requires thinking ahead. You just can’t go everywhere. We planned our entrances and exits. We never went anywhere we could not obviously see how we would get out of. 

  Tip: Use Google Maps satellite views to ensure parking size/exits. Once we sorted this out finding places to eat and gas were a lot easier.

• RV height gives you unparalleled views.
• We would get an RV with the engine in the back next time. The engine under us made it loud and hard to communicate at highways speeds.
• We would get an RV with cab seats for 3 or 4.  The distance back to where the kids sat made communication while driving nigh on impossible.
• Some insist on getting a diesel engine. Our gas RV had plenty of power, but a major advantage of diesel is you can get gas at truck stops in the diesel truck area – with pull through pumps and lots of room.  The price of diesel was consistently higher on our trip, although in some places it was a tad lower.
• We would take MUCH less stuff. 2/3rds of what we brought never was used.
• Do not leave home without a good GPS that has up to date maps. Our Garmin Nuuvi was invaluable on this trek.

  Tip: You can search for things while still navigating. When hungry we would just search for food and it would list stuff by distance and direction. So we could say “Hey, there is a German place 25 miles up, want to wait for it?”.

• Tollbooths love RVs. Bring lots of cash. For some reason a car is $2, let’s say. And an RV is $5. But an RV towing a car is $18. Multiply by 12 times to get through IL.
• Our Verizon data USB card hooked into a Cradlepoint WiFi router worked well when we were stopped. And surprisingly well while moving. However, it and trees do not get along. So don’t expect good WiFi while moving in the east. 
• Taking the Jeep was a good move. We went to many places in it much easier than the RV.  The RV did drive a bit snappier when it wasn’t towing, but the extra weight was well worth it in places visited easily.

More later… and I suspect Paula will chime in in the comments.

The most common question on our return was “Would you do it again?”.

We each have different answers to the question. My answer is an emphatic “yes but”.

First off, I enjoyed the trip very much. The space confinement and long days did stress us,  as did the general problem of fitting the trip to four different desires.

I would certainly RV around the country with just Paula. Or just Brian. Or just Jenny. Each trip would be tailored to the specific interests of my companion. Thus Jenny wouldn’t be forced to tramp the battlefield at Yorktown, or Brian to shop at a Mall of America, or Paula to hear bickering sibling rivals for 40 some odd days.  As to my interests… well, give me a bike ride in the morning and tasty food and I’m good to go.

And I would take longer. It is a big country. 6 weeks is a long time, but nowhere near long enough to cover the USA.  I would also stay longer in areas and try to have more time between travel days (which are painful).

And if I were to do it again, I’d buy an RV. Or rent an older one in good operating order. Having an essentially new RV as a rental was stressful. We didn’t want to mess it up. That complicated many things, including how hard we drove it (we drove it soft and thus were slower), where we put our shoes on entry, how we ate (tucking towels over all furniture). and the amount of driving I did (much more than planned). That worked. The RV arrived home in excellent shape, but doing that definitely affected the overall experience.

I’ll go into lessons learned in another note.

We had fun. I’d do it again. But a tad differently.  (-:

Our final day with the RV… we headed south, to have it cleaned at Camper World in Las Vegas. There they cleaned it (nice job). And we saw lots of stuff we “wish” we’d had on the trip.

Then off to Havasu. The RV rolling along nicely without the Jeep to slow it down.

About 20 miles out of Havasu the nastiest storm we’d been in on the entire trip hit. Messing up the detailing from the Las Vegas cleanup )-:   The strong wind scared us quite a bit. We had no place to hide the RV. No bridge, no real cover. So we just went slow and hoped.  But we remained upright.

Then into Havausu where we returned the RV to Bob and Deb. We swapped stories with them and then back in to the Expedition for the 4 hour ride home.

We got home at 1:30AM.  The trip “ended” but with stuff still left to put away.

Would we do it again???? I’ll give my answer to that question in  a later post…

I did the big lifting, carrying stuff out of the RV. Paula cleaned it – and did a good job.  I had to bow out mid afternoon – stomach upset that bothered me til the next morning.

It was hot. 110 or so.

We found many of the things we’d lost. The RV, while much smaller than a house, was “stuff” hungry on the trip. We were constantly losing stuff and wondering “what happened to it”. Well… it all turned up.

We spent the day at Paula’s folks camp at Little Cottonwood in Beaver Canyon, above Beaver, UT.  We caught up on the trip (they hadn’t had internet for a while). Paula’s Dad drove me up to the top of the mountain (about 10,200 feet). While he checked camps on the way down, I tore down the mountain. Nice – no pedaling for 15 miles.

Then we had a picnic and later in the day Paula and I loaded up and headed the RV south less 2 kids. They would be camping a bit longer. This did create some angst, especially in Brian, but that was solved when a neighbor camper came over and offered to teach him fly fishing and to take him shooting ( a fellow gun enthusiast). So we headed off with clear conscious’s.

Still over 100 when we arrived in St. George about 9PM… ick.  We parked it out front and called it a day.

It thunder stormed vigorously through the night.  With lightning and thunder seemingly right beside the RV. But it was all better by 5:30 when I got up to do an early morning bike ride through Jackson. The streets were empty and it was nippy but it was a fun ride.

Then breakfast at the Virginian (tasty) and then off we went.. heading to the Little Cottonwood Camp in the Beaver National Forest, near Beaver, UT.

The drive was uneventful. And I took no pictures. Sorry!

We were nearly home now!

Start: Cody, WY
End: Jackson, WY

Eager to get an early start, we decided to skip breakfast and just grab snacks when we gassed up.  So we loaded up and westward we climbed out of Jackson, through Wapiti and into the mountains leading to Yellowstone National Park.  Near Wapiti we saw this odd house:

Which seems to be a normal house with a bunch of mining stuff jammed on top of it. Very odd, but no signs. If you know what it is, let us know.

We climbed steadily and very quickly got to Yellowstone National Park. Lovely as ever, and still with snow in the higher parts:

Paula was driving so i could handle photo duties – an opportunity I took advantage of.  After a bit of driving and numerous scenes like above we reached a high point and could see Yellowstone Lake in the distance:

 
Yellowstone Lake from the west – distance about 15 miles

 
It is a large lake prone to sudden high winds that generate waves that can capsize boats, canoes and kayaks quickly. But today it was calm (until later).

Driving through Yellowstone you are spoiled with endless “oh ah” scenery:

We stopped, as we usually do at the Continental Divide for a picture. Fortunately a relatively camera savvy traveler was there as well and we exchanged photo duties for each others families:

Alas, we’d had to wake Jenny up for this stop:

She had car sickness much of the trip and spent many days sleeping from non-drowsy Dramamine. We woke her up for the really good stuff – like… Old Faithful – a hot geyser.

The risk @ Old Faithful is that you would arrive right after it erupted. But we were in luck… the Ranger said “10 minutes or so” so we didn’t have to wait long before it did its thing:

 
The entire area was packed with a few thousand people. Then we all disappeared back to a huge new parking lot. But not before hitting the gift store and the ice cream shop… Oh… and taking a picture of the kids while it was erupting:

Note that I usually convert their pictures to b/w because they almost invariable pick hideous clashing colors for their outfits.

We then drove south, out of the park (seeing lots more cool scenery) and headed into Grand Teton National Park. Ho hum… just more awesome scenery:

We then stopped at a place I think I could earn a decent living as a portrait photographer:

This time the guy I handed the camera too really knew what he was doing. The light on the mountains was fading due to an incoming storm, but the results came out pretty good.  Do I look like I’d been driving an RV for 42 days and had pretty much given up on morning shaves????

Then down to Jackson, WY to stay at the Virginian RV Park.  Getting there was one of the few times “Garmin Buddy” – as we called our Garmin Nuuvi GPS let us down. It took us to the east side of Jackson on to smaller and smaller roads. We got worried when it turned to dirt, and REALLY worried when we passed an “Entering National Forest” sign… fortunately there was a nice big turn around at a trail head and we headed back to the Virginian, this time using a paper map.

We, of course, ate at the Gun Barrel. They have two locations, one in St. George, one in Jackson. They have nearly identical menus, but quite different spaces (architecturally). Both are decorated with extensive taxidermy. We ate a lot….

Then we walked back, read a bit and went to bed.  We had a long day the next day…

My laptop took a dive off the RV table while I was driving. We couldn’t revive it on the road. I’m confident I can at the office. So posts will have to wait until then.  I’ve got pictures from Yellowstone, Jackson, Grand Tetons to post and a couple missing days to blog.

We are home now. Temporarily. Tomorrow we return the RV to its owners in Lake Havasu. Then we drive home.

Start: Sheridan, WY
End: Cody, WY

Today’s Pictures.
All Pictures.

A short hop… just over 200 miles. Little problem…. big mountains in the way!  And road construction on that mountain road. So while we had planned to arrive in Cody, WY around noon, we ended up not getting there til close to 5.

We rolled up over the Big Horn Mountains. It was a big climb, here is a panorama looking back towards Sheridan:

Then down the other side. Stopping regularly to make sure the brakes weren’t getting too hot.  They seemed fine, but better safe than sorry.  At the bottom, I got out to take a panorama of some interesting formations (that shot didn’t work out) but this one of the RV from across the road looked good:

On the way to Greybull we passed by the one room school house from pioneer days. Pretty tough looking!

We ate at the Uptown Cafe in Greybull. Pretty good and affordable. I feel bad for not trying the sauerkraut balls. Maybe next time…

We passed a herd of wild horses on the way from Greybull to Cody. Sorry, no pictures. I was driving and Brian told me he “got it” but he didn’t (blurry).  Impressive, though, 50 or 75 wild horses running across the BLM land 25 miles or so east of Cody.

Then onto Cody.   After a brief rest, the kids and I loaded in the Jeep and headed back into Sheridan.

We ate dinner at the Irma Hotel. It is Buffalo Bills hotel in Cody and is remains quite authentic. As we sat down to dinner the gunfight started, so I held our table while the kids watched the gunfight. Then excellent steak for the guys and salmon for Jenny. 

Sorry no pictures of the Irma… I’d left my memory card at the RV in the card reader of the computer. Having just one is silly (I should have brought more!). But Walmart was on the way to the rodeo. So there are pictures of the Cody Stampede Rodeo – every night from Jun though Aug.

We liked the rodeo. It was easy. Just park, pay, go in. Full, but not crowded. We got good seats, even though there weren’t any “bad” seats.   They start the rodeo with Toby Keith’s Red White and Blue. Oddly, many the crowd stood and many had there hands over their hearts. A new national anthem?   Then the real anthem played, and afterward the plan was to have three horses bring out “God” “Bless” “America”:

but what the heck… where is “bless”…. oh.. he had a problem:

The first of many falls we would see!  Including innocent calfs:

Bull riding was the final and marquee event.  Nobody finished a ride.  And there was one scary time when rider John Herman got crunched by a bull and stayed down and not moving:

The EMS team was out in seconds and they carted him off:

The rodeo clown said he was talking and wanted to get up but they wouldn’t let him. So, we hope it went okay.

Then… home and bed.  Brian and I would have an early rise in the morning to see the Cody Buffalo Bill Firearms Museum.

Start: Wal-mart, Pierre, SD
Stop: Wal-Mart, Sheridon, WY

450 miles.

View Larger Map
This was a travel day with two stops – Wall Drug and Mt. Rushmore:

Wall Drug, such hype, but a big let down:

it used to be cool. An unexpected quirky stop in the middle of nowhere on the 90. But now it is a tourist trap – with other stuff sprung up all around it and the merchandise dumbed down for the masses.  I guess if you’ve never been, give it a shot, but if you’ve been there 20 or more years ago, you won’t like the “improvements”.

Next up.. Mt Rushmore.  It has grown amazingly as well. And not for the better. The new visitor center is impressive, but detracts from the main attraction – the Presidents!

You used to walk through trails and have lots of different perspectives. Now they took out a big chunk of the lower mountain and built a visitor center, gift shop and amphitheater:

Then they march you right up and show you the statues:

 
I liked it better when you would see them from a number of different perspectives and framed by trees and rocks.  We didn’t stay long. After the obligatory “we were there shot”

the ladies headed for the gift shop and the boys headed for better photographic opportunities (which involved violating the “stay on path” signs):

Then we headed over Rt. 16 through some lovely country in the Black Hills, and into Wyoming.

Again, driving a long way, we headed for the Wal-Mart in Buffalo before discovering our map software was wrong – there wasn’t one!   So off to Sheridan we went. Along the way the sun set and NATURALLY, I got out and took some shots:

More later, and panoramas.

Start: Faribault, MN
End: Pierre, SD

Pictures will be uploaded later.

You will recall that due to the lousy conditions _below_ the surface of Roberds Lake that we had decided to move along a day early. That proved extremely wise….  Our goal for today was to see two places Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie) lived.  To do this we had to get to Walnut Grove, MN and then De Smet, South Dakota:

As we drove west we could see very ominous clouds slightly to our south. They never reached us, but they did slam I-90 and curve up in to MN to Faribault and Worthington and other towns.  Severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and GRAPEFRUIT sized hail bashed windows and knocked over trees.  So our departure day, and route, were fortuitous!

The road was flat and straight. We didn’t stop in Walnut Grove because you cannot explore with an RV and we didn’t want to unhook the Jeep.  We did pass Plum Creek and view the Ingalls dugout home site from a distance.

She wrote a few books, Paula has read all of them and watched the TV series.   As it turns out most of the stories and characters in the TV series were from the De Smet, SD period of their lives.  Most of her childhood was spent homesteading in 4 different startup towns.  Her Dad, Alonzo, was always looking for the greener grass.  Given that fewer than 25% of homesteaders actually succeeded with their farm and were “proved” (thus getting the 160 acre parcel), it is pretty impressive he succeeded 4 times.  Here is Laura in 1884 as a young woman:

 
De Smet, SD bills itself “The Little Town on the Prairie” both because it is a small town on the prairie and because it is the town Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about.   The Laura Ingalls Wilder visitor center has recreated the old setting to a very accurate extent – including a replicate of the dugout the family first lived in, and the house they later built – on the exact site. They also have a barn, school house and a workshop for doing things that the pioneers did.

First, an obligatory barn kitten shot – the place was loaded with them:

I hate cats. But they do photograph well, and I think they know it!

At the Ingalls house a friendly lady from Germany, dressed in authentic attire gave us a tour of the house.  And then since it was wash day, put Jenny to work:

Then we went over to the barn:

Notice the clouds to the south…. we never had a drop of rain, but it was slamming them hard 15 miles south.

A new baby Shetland pony was testing its legs. Very cute, and surprisingly fast:

Note there were no fences. Only vast space constrained the little bugger.

Then off to the workshop, where Brian and Jenny made corn cob dolls:

and rope:

I was impressed and felt it well worth the $8 dollar admission. We’d spent two hours there, and we had to get to the cemetery where most of the Ingalls were buried and then get as far west as we could by sunset.  So we climbed up the viewing tower and took some pictures:

and off we went.

Paula is fascinated by old cemeteries, we’ve visited quite a few.  Was was unique about this one, to me at least, was the number of civil war veterans buried there. Apparently, a lot of them moved west after the war. Thomas Dow, of Company H, 16th Wisconsin Infantry did:

He was lucky to make it through Shiloh and the disease that ravaged the regiment.

Then we drove west for Pierre, SD.  We would arrive close to 11 PM.  Somewhere along the SD 14 west, I came over a hill and saw this scene. I slammed to a halt, ran out the door, climbed to the top of the RV and took this picture:

When I have more time I’ll stitch together a larger panorama of this scene.

Location: Roberds Lake, Wells, MN

Only one picture, from my cell phone (below)

Today we woke up around 6 and decided “way to early”. So we hit the imaginary snooze button and didn’t wake up again until 9:48! 

We had seen the breakfast menu at Perkins Family Restaurant (a chain here) and we decided to try it instead of cooking and cleaning up after it in the RV (to save time). Their breakfasts are terrific. Tasty, good portions and well priced.

Then, off in the Jeep to just south of Minneapolis, to a little place called the Mall of America.  It has changed a lot since I was there 17 years ago. Mainly in the surroundings. When I visited on a business trip long ago, I drove and could see it from quite a distance. I then parked in a big mostly empty parking lot.  This time, you couldn’t see it until you were there do to other structures and new parking garages.

The Mall seems to be doing just fine in these “troubled times”.  It is very large. Basically, 4 sides wrapped around an interior covered amusement park:

The picture doesn’t do the scale right. It is big. We shopped. Then Brian and I did “Aces” a 1/2 WWII fighter aircraft simulation. That was fun. When we finished we met up with the ladies and they did a “mirror maze” that took about 10 minutes to get through (and unfortunately gave Paula a headache).

Then we all raced two Nascar races on the very real simulators.

They had little webbed window cars – I had the #5 Kellogg’s Corn Flakes car, Paula the #29 Havoline (only Ford). Brian had the Tracker (or as we called it the Crasher) car. Jenny drove the Cheerios car. The simulation is good. The car goes up down, bumps and so forth.  Paula won the 2nd race. I was in the race but the fool in the Tracker car kept taking me out when I lapped him. Pretty fun. I would have done a few more races but lunch called.

After that, lunch at Raves – a place with a very broad menu. Very good. 

Then time for the amusement park. We bought the kids passes and watched them on a couple rides. The rides seem very good. Like an entire Lagoon crammed into a small space. Everything was well calculated to fit and all areal space was accounted for by something moving rapidly!

We quite liked the amusement park. The rides were fun. The lines short or non-existent and the entire place was air conditioned and comfortable.  After verifying cell phones, stay together and if separated instructions, Paula and I headed off to shop.

We returned after doing the 1st floor of the mall and found the kids blowing their funnel cake $ in the arcade (Jenny is very good at Deal or No Deal). Then crepes for them and a funnel cake for me and we were off to Northfield, MN.

Northfield is a small quaint town with a HUGE Malt-O-Meal plant right in the middle of it. It is the home of St. Olaf college and also Carleton College (which came very highly recommended by a trusted source).  We drove around the college.  I could easily imagine skiing it, which is why I’d never go there!    Jenny however thought it nice and liked the rustic downtown. We explored there too and visited the eastern most bank that Jesse James ever robbed. 

Then back to Faribault/Roberd’s Lake for a calm evening of computing and Kindling.

Location: Roberd Lake, Wells, MN  (40 miles or so south of MN)

Today’s pictures.
All pictures.

After a very late night with Brian @ the ER for his stiches we slept in for quite a while and didn’t hit the water until 10AM or so.  The docks are old and nearing their useful life, but they work and off we went in a pontoon boat:

We had 3 bottled waters, a bag of new lures from Cabelas’:

and high hopes!  That were soon dashed. Not a bite. Nothing but weeds. The water, while looking nice from afar was actually dense with weeds and floating particulates.  In some places (on the leeward side of the lake) the particulates were so thick lures couldn’t even sink into the water.  We tried for a few hours, but were skunked. As were all the fisherman on the lake.

We called it quits for a bit and went in to grab the ladies for a boat tour of the lake. We decided to let Jenny skipper it. That worked as long as we reminded her occasionally that she was driving the boat:

We did the 5 mile loop around the shoreline, admiring the lakeside houses and occasional wildlife:

We took the boat out a that afternoon, and then that evening again. No luck. No bites. Nothing.

We asked the owner of the resort “Are there fish in this lake?”. He says, tons, but they fed all night on the shiners that proliferate the lake and pretty much don’t eat during the day.

Would have been nice to know before we picked this lake and rented a boat!

We decided that tomorrow we will do Mall of America and Northfield, MN and then the next day move west, leaving Roberd’s Lake a day early.

It’s a shame something this lovely:

is so weedy and icky underneath.

And it also explains the smell when we got here. We thought it was the fish cleaning shack (ominously empty!) but it was undoubtedly rotting weeds.

Needless to say, any future lake houses we own won’t be on Roberds Lake. But on the positive side,  this is a lesson in what to look for in a lake besides a pretty view.

Start: Hidden Valley RV Park, Somewhere south of Madison, WI
End: Roeber Lake Resort, Wells, MN

Today’s Pictures
All Pictures

We thought we would be tired by this part of the trip. So we slotted in 3-4 days of “nothing” somewhere in MN. Close enough to Minneapolis to visit it but on a lake so we could fish.

We chose Roeber Lake – about 40 miles south of MN a few miles off the I-35 near Faribault, MN. 

On arrival we realized after we drove into the park that they had asked us to call when “10 minutes out” so they could guide us in.  That would have been useful, had we done it!   As it was, we had pulled in, drove around, and tried to make a right turn that was a bit too narrow. So I had to back the Jeep up and not jackknife. Tricky. But it is MN, so the people are helpful, so a driver I was blocking got out and told me how far I could go without jackknifing. And he did it with a smile!  I like MN.  

We then got our guide and it turned out we had an easy spot – right by the lake. I reserved a nice boat for the next 3 days and then we setup camp.

The camp is a mix of cabins, permanent RV sites, and temporary for rent. The store has a cafe and video games. The staff is friendly. When we asked for a list of cable channels, she said “phooey, we don’t’ have that”. But a few minutes later, she delivered it to our RV after having printed it off the web.

And… fresh donuts every morning:

My kind of joint!

I was aching to get on the bike, so after setting up I changed and road around the lake. It isn’t quite as simple as that, as roads you think go around it are dead ends. But I took them and then eventually had to ride a couple miles past to get to a road the went to the other side.  Total time – about 45 minutes, distance, about 10 miles.

We didn’t think we had the right “stuff” for the lake in our tackle box. And a Cabalas’ was just 10 miles back down the 35, so off Brian and I went.  We got the skinny from a helpful Cabalas’ outfitter, stocked up, got some ammo (we buy whenever we find it).  Then dinner at Famous Dave’s Barbecue. This was a must since we like it a lot and the one in St. George closed.  By then Paula had texted “bring Pepsi!”, so we went to Wal-Mart bought Lime Diet Pepsi (and more ammo and lures). Then back.

The sun had already set, but Paula – expertly tutored by moi had taken some nice pictures of our view from the RV:

The girls got talent!

Brian built a fire. But, alas, while he was splitting out some kindling he put the hatchet into his index finger. Deep enough that we didn’t feel a band aid would suffice. It needed to be cleaned and stitched or butter flied (or those new liquid stitches). So Paula and he went off to the ER in town.  The doc put in stitches because the cut was deep and in the wrong spot for butterfly or liquid stitches.   They came back and Jenny had kept the fire up so he could roast a marshmallow and feel better. I guess sibling rivalry ends at stitches…

Start: 6 Lakes RV Park, Hillsdale, MI 
End:  Hidden Valley RV Park, Somewhere in Wisconsin (south of Madison)

Sorry, no pictures. A travel day!

/rant

The fishing stunk (not just for us, even the guys with the fancy fishing boats were striking out). And the rowing was getting old. So we decided to move a little closer to our next major stop (Minneapolis).   So we drove 327 miles north and west to just shy of Madison, Wisconsin.  The park, Hidden Valley RV Park, had spacious sites and was very well appointed. Too bad to just spend one night.

Driving through Illinois took a toll on me. Literally and metaphysically. Literally because the entire state is guarded by toll booths.  We went through 8 booths before escaping. I felt a bit like those robbed by highwaymen in the past might have felt… An RV by itself $5, a Jeep by itself $3, an RV towing a Jeep – $18.50.  Idiotic!    Just on principal I’d have been delighted to skip the worthless state.  Oh.. and the roads I was paying for sucked. Bumpy, no shoulders. All in all it will be a LONG time til I go to Illinois again.

Oh… and the drivers were aggressive and pains in the butt.  New York and Jersey were joys to drive in compared to these idiots.

Things got better when we hit Wisconsin. No tolls and, amazingly, the roads were smooth and well maintained. Imagine that. I guess not having the Alderman’s nephew pave the road works better!

\rant