When we are deciding where we would like to travel, it's nice to see where we have been. Mark put each year's RV travel path onto one map, and it was very enlightening to see where we have been for the last nine years. Isn't that a colorful collage of travel itineraries?!?
We thought the map needed a little year-by-year summary.
2015 - We started with the turquoise route that took us south for our first winter, then west towards our first national park--Big Bend. We took a side trip back to Oklahoma for our oldest son's graduation from medical school, then continued to Utah to visit five more national parks. We were experimenting with our travel style and trying to figure out the right distance to drive between stops, and the right amount of nights to stay. It was a fascinating year for a couple of new full-time travelers!
2016 - With a year's experience under our belts, we were ready for a long forest green loop into the east. We stayed south in the winter, heading east until we hit the Atlantic Ocean. Then we took a left turn and meandered north as the temperatures went up. Denisa's Mother met us in Savannah, Georgia, friends met us in North Carolina, and our youngest son met us for hiking in Arkansas, Georgia, and West Virginia. So even though we were on an extended loop, we enjoyed time with family and friends while on the road.
2017 - This was an epic year of travel on the red trail in the western United States. We headed west, hugging the southern border of the United States during the winter. Then we followed the Pacific coast from south to north to see an awesome plethora of God's wonders. We loved the tide pools and sea stacks at the beaches, the Redwoods and Sequoias trees in the forests, and the mountains and deserts of the west.
2018 - While we headed south for the winter, we had a very important destination for the spring. Our first grandchild was born in May, and we spent two months hanging out in Kansas City spoiling her. Then we headed north on the yellow route on a Great Lakes route that took us south of Lake Superior, across the Upper Peninsula, and down the eastern edge of Lake Michigan. We learned just how great these lakes are, and also discovered the boundary waters of Minnesota. The kayak got a work-out this year with lots of dips in the water.
2019 - We headed north of the border for the first time in the motor home on the purple route into Canada. We went as far north as Jasper National Park. We found out you better have reservations when traveling through Banff and Jasper National Parks, but it was worth the extra planning to experience them during their short travel season. We spent a cool summer exploring seven different Canadian national parks, and many more provincial parks. It was another epic year of traveling slowly through some of God's wonders in the Canadian Rockies.
2020 - We had the reservations made for a summer in the Maritimes of eastern Canada. We were heading to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland! But the Corona virus changed our plans. The small orange trail found us hunting for campgrounds that were open to visitors. We were lucky that Oklahoma state parks welcomed us in the spring. Then Colorado opened up their national and state forest campgrounds for the summer, and it was our perfectly cool place to hide out from the pandemic. We got back from our travels in time to catch Covid, recover, and then welcome home our second grandchild to the family. We spent the next two months in campgrounds near Kansas City so we could appropriately spoil him.
2021 - After spending the winter in the south, we made an RV trip that doesn't show up on the map. The Canadian border was still closed, so we flew to Alaska and rented an RV. We took a month exploring God's wonders in Alaska. Then we decided it was time for another west coast trip, because our oldest son's family bought plane tickets to meet us in Lake Tahoe at the end of the summer. The only problem with this plan was the summer wild fires that kept jumping in our path as we headed west on the smoky gray colored trail. We changed plans many times to avoid the smoke and fires, but we finally headed straight into the worst of it to pick them up at the airport in Reno, Nevada. During their stay we experienced the worst fire and smoke conditions of our lives. They flew home early, and we finally drove the motor home east until we found blue skies once again. We saw more of God's wonders, but some of them were shrouded in smoke this year.
2022 - This was the year to check off all those states that the motor home had not visited. So we purposefully made a squiggly black line that connected every one of the New England states. We stayed about a week in each, which is difficult considering that some of them are so small. It was also difficult to find campgrounds here, and we were saved by the hospitality of the northeasterners that open up their driveways to RVers through the Boondockers Welcome organization. We learned a lot about this region as we slowly covered each state. What a great year!
2023 - In the last two years we had started noticing that it was harder to find camping spots, as a record number of RVs were sold during the pandemic. We also noticed that we had a large space in the midwest that needed to be filled by an olive green line. We thought we were experienced travelers that knew all about the best mountains, but we were blown away by the Bighorn and Bear tooth mountains of northern Wyoming. This was a cool summer in the mountains with our longest stay ever in one campground. After a month in Buena Vista, Colorado, we realized that style of traveling might work for us as well.
Wow! That was a fun journey through our nine years of full-time RV travel! It also helped to remember the changes that impacted our travels over those years. By the end of 2023 we decided it was time to buy a house close to our two- and five-year-old grandchildren, so we could have a front row seat to watch them grow up. With the purchase of a home, we no longer needed our big diesel motor home. It was sad to see her go. But then we welcomed a smaller, more stealthy trailer with solar power that can open up new camping places to us.
While we still plan to continue traveling, the time we are on the road will be shorter since we now have a house. And now we are used to seeing our grandchildren on a daily basis. We're not sure we could be away from that sweet little family for so long. So we wanted to have this full-time travel picture to remind us of all the fun we had during those nine magical full-time traveling years in the motor home. We see some gaps in that map that look like they need us to visit soon, so stay tuned as we continue to wander God's wonders!
No comments:
Post a Comment