Ski Trip 2023

While we love to travel in our motor home, we also like an occasional road trip with the family. So we started 2023 with a family ski trip to Colorado that our son and his wife planned. After seven hours of driving, the close-up views of the snow-covered high peaks of the Rockies can take your breath away.

They rented a condo surrounded by the mountains, so we could see the snow-covered peaks from our living room. If you lived here, would you ever get tired of those mountain views?

Our kids went skiing the next day. But Mark and Denisa decided that their pocketbooks and their bodies could only afford one day of skiing. So Mark, Denisa, and Carter had a day to get climatized to this higher altitude. Our little grandson, Eli, stayed home with his other set of grandparents since he is too little for skiing--but we're already looking forward to him skiing next year. On our rest day, we walked the trails behind the condo . . .

and rode the shuttle into the villages at the base of Copper Mountain.

We had great weather for a little snow ball throwing . . .

and a lot of snowman building. Using the snow piled up on the back deck, we made a whole family of snow-people.

We even made a snow-baby, lying in its cradle of snow.

Because that white baby got lost in the white snow, Carter wanted a close-up shot. We also made mother, father, and brother. This wasn't an easy endeavor, since the snow was so dry it refused to stick together.

Inside the condo, we spent hours playing school where teacher Carter read to Gram and Grand-dude and a whole classroom of stuffed animals.

The next morning, all of us were up early and dressed for a day on the slopes.

Four-year-old Carter was excited to go to her first-ever day of ski school.

The rest of us were on the slopes when the the lifts opened.

We had beautiful weather with blue skies and no wind in the morning.

On a Monday in the middle of January, we had almost no wait-time in the lift lines. So we made lots of trips down the beautiful runs of Copper Mountain, and then rides back up on the chair lifts.

It was absolutely a beautiful day for us to enjoy more of God's wonders in the Rockies!

The clouds rolled in for the afternoon, but we still had a good full day on the slopes. Even though Denisa is the slowest skier in this group, they were all patient and kind. So the five us skied together for the entire day. What a blessing!

While we looked over the series of peaks here near the black-diamond Rattler run, we thought this would be a great place to hike in the summer.

We were off the slopes in time to check how things were going at ski school. Because the other four-year-old girl cried to go home, Carter had private lessons on her first day.

She was all smiles at the end of her ski day.

Carter was back for her second day of school, while the adults took the day off. We started with a morning of playing games at the condo, and then we braved the falling snow for a trip to the main ski village for lunch.

The skating rink was covered with snow, but that didn't stop us from checking out the seal-shaped ice sleds.

You might think that our children would have been skating with the sleds in the snow. But no, it was just the two old dudes.

We rode the shuttle to check on our favorite ski school student on her second day. Lessons include learning how to ride up the moving sidewalk.

Then the kids learned to ski through arches that are moved around their little bunny slope. Carter was bending her knees and making her skis look like a piece of pizza to slow her down.

Then she made the skis look like french fries to move down the little slope.

We were proud of her good attitude, because we all remember that those first days of wearing heavy ski boots and learning to control long skis can be brutal. She loved having a cheering section to watch her last runs down the beginner slope.

We were blessed that no one had any injuries, and we had great weather for our ski days. But our luck ran out for the drive home. It was snowing when we left the next morning, and we drove in treacherous conditions for the first couple hours in the falling snow. It was a very long drive home! But we certainly enjoyed family time in the Rocky mountains for ski trip 2023!

A List of our Favorite Places in 2022

Every year we try to determine a list of our favorite places and experiences. This is our eighth year of making our list and checking it twice. We are so blessed to get to hike, bike, and kayak around this beautiful country! Instead of trying to put them in order of preference, this year they are just in the order that we experienced them. This long list is proof that there are plenty of God's wonders left to explore. We enjoyed everything on these lists, and would do all of them again!

Favorite Experiences
Visiting Spacex and Boca Chica Beach in South Texas
Shopping for fresh produce and bakery goods in Amish Country
Taking tours on the Bourbon Trail near Bardstown, Kentucky

Touring state capitols in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire Vermont, and Indiana
Visiting National and State Historic Sites all over New England
Seeing the wild ponies on Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland

Meeting some of the most generous hosts through Boondockers Welcome
Boating down the Hudson River to find River Lighthouses in New York

Visiting university campuses like Princeton and Yale
Clamming in Cape Cod and helping our host cook a clam dinner in Massachusetts
Boating to pristine Crane Beach with hosts near Essex, Massachusetts

Watching the whales from our Cape Ann Whale Watch Tour in Massachusetts

Visiting 37 beaches, finding 52 lighthouses, and walking through 32 covered bridges

Hiking all day on Monhegan Island, Maine

Exploring the Roosevelt's Campobello Island, Canada

Taste testing the local produce like wild blueberries in Maine, and Apples in Vermont and New York

Walking where the athletes walked at the Olympic venues in Lake Placid, New York

Spending the day at the free sites in St. Louis, Missouri

Favorite Hikes

Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center Nature Trail - Port Aransas, Texas

Cave-in-the-Rock and Garden of the Gods - Southern Illinois

Mammoth Cave National Park Loop Trail - Cave City, Kentucky

Double Arch Trail - Red River Gorge, Kentucky

Natural Bridge Trail - Natural Bridge State Park, Kentucky

Endless Wall Trail - New River Gorge National Park, West Virginia

Humpback Rocks/Appalachian Trail Loop - Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia

Doyles River Falls Trail - Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Mount Tammany - Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, New Jersey

Cliff Walk - Newport, Rhode Island

Shore Walk - Beavertail State Park, Rhode Island

Coolidge Point Trustee Land - Essex, Massachusetts

Cliff Walk - Monhegan Island, Maine

Bee Hive Trail - Acadia National Park, Maine

Shoreline Trail - Great Wass Island Preserve, Maine

Head Harbor Light Trail - Campobello Island, Canada

Mount Coe Hike - Baxter State Park, Maine

Mount Kineo Trail - Moosehead Lake, Maine

Borestone Mountain - Maine Audubon Sanctuary

Cascade Stream Gorge - Rangeley Lakes, Maine

Step Falls - Sunday River, Maine

Table Rock Hike - Grafton Notch State Park, Maine

Square ledge Trail - Pinkerton Notch, New Hampshire

Sterling Pond - Smuggler's Notch, Vermont

Panther Mountain - Adirondack Park, New York

Gorge Trail - Buttermilk State Park, New York

Ledges Trail - Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio

Favorite Kayak Trips

75 Acre Lake - Choke Canyon State Park, Texas

Eleven Point Wild and Scenic National River - Greer, Missouri

Jackson River - Covington, Virginia

Orange Kayak Trail - Blackwater National Refuge, Maryland

Trap Pond - Trap Pond State Park, Delaware

Mystic River and Harbor - Mystic, Connecticut

Tidal River --  Scarborough Audubon, Maine

Echo Pond - Acadia National Park, Maine

Daicey Pond - Baxter State Park, Maine

Lake Onawa - Maine Audubon Sanctuary

Grafton Pond - New Hampshire

Arrowhead Mountain Lake - Vermont

Bog River at Lows Lower Dam - Adirondack Park, New York

Strickland Boat Launch - Shelbyville Lake, Illinois

Favorite Bike Rides

Thompson Wildlife Loop - Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, Texas

Legacy Trail - Lexington, Kentucky

Woodland Trail/Wildlife Loop - Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia

Gordon's Pond Trail - Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware

Barnegat Branch Trail - Barnegat, New Jersey

Walkway Over the Hudson - Ulster Park, New York

Airline Trail - East Hampton, Connecticut

Block Island Loop - Rhode Island

Carriage Roads - Acadia National Park, Maine

Penobscot River Trail - Maine

Cotton Valley Rail Trail - Wolfeboro, New Hampshire

Colchester Bike/Hike Trail - Burlington, Vermont

Stowe Bike/Hike Trail - Stowe, Vermont

Heart of Ohio Trail - Mount Vernon, Ohio

Jones National Heritage Trail - Terra Haute, Indiana

Seven Loops Trail - Edwardsville, Illinois

Our 2022 Travel Map and Yearly Summary

In 2022, we wrapped up our eighth year of traveling in our motor home, and it has been a memorable one. Our biggest accomplishment was that we finally visited a few of the states that the motor home hadn't seen before. We can now say that we have camped in all of the 48 contiguous states. We spent at least a week in each state, with multiple camping spots before we considered it properly "visited."

At the end of every year, Mark puts together a map that shows our route. Each dot represents a spot where we spent at least one night in the motor home. You can see that the dots are pretty close together in the far northeast corridor. Some of those moves were less than 30 miles in order to stay multiple nights in those tiny states.

Mark has a spreadsheet that includes each one of our camping spots. We have included a list of those places below. We know it is tiny, but you can click on the picture below to make it easier to read. That's a lot of places to find and research!

We started 2022 in Oklahoma, finishing up holiday time with friends and family. After a ski trip to the beautifully white mountains of Colorado, we headed south for warmer weather. It's a long ways to the tip of Texas, and we've been through this area so many times that we are having some problems finding new routes. We arrived at the resort where Denisa's Mother has wintered for 37 years to find that Betty had broken her front tooth that morning. We ended up staying longer than we planned in south Texas, to finish up her dental work in 2022. We headed back north in the spring, ready to start new travel adventures. Then we got the phone call that Betty's house in the panhandle of Oklahoma had burned to the ground in a wild fire. You might say that Denisa's Mother had a pretty lousy 2022! Our leisurely drive north turned into a one-day marathon. We drove on the shortest route to get back to help her with finding a new home, and filing all the fire insurance claims. We finally got back on the road a couple months later, ready to check off all those little states in the northeast.

We drove across the southern edge of Missouri, and through Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. Then we pieced together a loop route that crossed bridges and ferries to purposefully spend time in the following new states. We'll include a picture from each: 

Maryland - While most of the population lives on the western side of state, our route took us through the Eastern Shore. Our hosts here taught us about Smith Island cake, Thrasher French Fries, and a breakfast meat called scrapple. One of the highlights of our time in Maryland was seeing the wild ponies on the beach on Assateague Island. 

Delaware - In a state that only has three counties, we didn't have to drive far to explore many of the state highlights. We loved our time on the Atlantic coast, even though we learned about beaches that charge admission and big parking fees. Besides walking the beach, we were also hiking the board walks. The bike trail pictured below is the same trail that the President often enjoys. 

In our mission of visiting each state, we took a short cut. We put the motor home on a ferry in Delaware for the ride into New Jersey.

New Jersey - We drove the entire length of this new-to-us state, and over and over we got the feeling that New Jersey has a self-esteem problem. We enjoyed miles of beaches, and took a trip across the state border for a historical day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exited very close to New York City. We could see this biggest city from the national sea shore at Sandy Hook, New Jersey. That's as close as we wanted to be to that snarled New York City traffic on this motor home trip. Maybe we can understand New Jersey's self-esteem problem when we just realized that our New Jersey highlights include things in Pennsylvania and New York.

We made one camping stop in New York's Hudson Valley, where we found an amazing number of things to do. Besides visiting the Vanderbilt and the Roosevelt residences in Hyde Park, we got a private boat ride to see the Hudson River Lighthouses.

Connecticut - We found that this state doesn't share well with others. They charge out-of-staters extra to go to their beaches and parks. But we found plenty of places to explore in spite of how unwelcoming they are to guests. We enjoyed the city of New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale University and the city that claims to be the pizza capitol of the world. We toured the university, and ate pizza on Wooster Street.

Rhode Island - The smallest state, we had to work to keep busy for a week in such a small space. We biked all around Block Island, went to a county fair, enjoyed a Fire and Water Festival in the capitol city, and hiked the Cliff Walk among the Newport mansions. That's some big highlights in the smallest state.

Massachusetts - We had the hardest time finding an affordable campground in this state that charges out-of-staters more than double the normal price. We were blessed to find locals that had lived here all their lives, and were happy to share their knowledge and property with us. Two different hosts took us for boat rides to places that we would have never gotten to experience on our own. They turned Massachusetts from an expensive state that didn't seem welcoming, to one of our favorites!

Maine - While we were on a quest to see many states, Maine always seemed like our destination for the summer. We spent three weeks here, driving the entire length of the Maine coastline with its string of beautiful lighthouses. Denisa has a weakness for lighthouses, and it was fun finding some of the more remote lights. Our blog in 2022 includes pictures of 52 different lighthouses. That's a shocking number!

The Maine coastline includes one of the most-visited National Parks--Acadia. We took some great hikes while visiting this crowded park. But we have to say that our favorite part of this coastline was north of Acadia. The crowds decreased as we moved closer to the Canadian border.

After exploring the entire coastline, we spent time in the mountainous interior of Maine. We were joined by our son, Blake, who enjoys eating wild blueberries on the trail as much as his Mother. While the coast of Maine is stunning, it would be a mistake to miss the mountains and lakes in this state!

New Hampshire - We explored the Green Mountains and the clear lakes of this state, and enjoyed them all. This was one of our favorite states, and we're already putting it on our list of places where we would like to spend more time. 

Vermont- This state has more covered bridges than any other. Since we have moved away from the Atlantic coast, Denisa has shifted from lighthouses to bridges. While not all of them were in Vermont, we included 32 pictures of covered bridges in the blog this year. Just like lighthouses, covered bridges took us down roads that we would have never driven. We enjoyed the White Mountains that go down the center of Vermont, and Lake Champlain on its west border. Vermont is another state that we would like to visit again.

We crossed Lake Champlain on a ferry, and entered the state of New York again. We were a little early for the peak fall foliage, but we enjoyed the Adirondack Park that covers about one-third of the state of New York. After leaving the mountains, we headed to the Finger Lakes in western New York. 

You will notice that the dots between camping spots got further apart as we started moving through more familiar states that we have visited before. While we enjoyed our time in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, we must have been in a hurry to see our grandchildren and children. We got back to Kansas City in October, and winterized the motor home. After being blessed with wandering through so many of God's wonders in the northeast, we settled into life with family and friends and got off the road for the rest of 2022.

The year in numbers:

We parked in 81 different camping spots.

Our average nightly camping fee was $14.16 (includes free nights boondocking or staying with family and friends.

Our average paid nightly camping fee was $25.58.

We visited 20 different states this year--10 new to the motor home. We also made a one-day trip into the province of New Brunswick.

We spent $4,176 on 880 gallons of diesel fuel (at an average price of $4.77 per gallon). That includes the low price of $3.29 per gallon in January in Texas to $5.89 per gallon in Kentucky in June. That $5.89 is the most we've ever paid for a gallon of diesel. As you might guess, this is by far the most we have ever had to spend on motor home fuel. The only year that was close was $2,583 in 2019 when we bought all that expensive Canadian diesel.

We spent $94 for 23.5 gallons of DEF for the motor home. That purchase doesn't break the bank, but it's a pain to find fuel stations that carry it.

We don't even try to keep track of the amount of fuel we use in the pickup. While we are glad to have its four-wheel-drive capabilities, it doesn't get as good fuel mileage as our little car once did.

We finished our year with the motor home parked at the same location where it was at the beginning of 2022. It was parked at the ranch in the panhandle of Oklahoma, as we spent time with our family for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We feel blessed to have spent our eighth year wandering God's wonders. Thanks for coming along!