The dog sitter has arrived, and arrangements for Britta have been finalized. Our first big trip together. Some have doubts about how we will fair in truck as a couple for 16 days and about 5000 miles. I guess we will see. We plan to camp and stay at the occasional truck stop, only going to a hotel about every three days in order to keep our costs down.
We will be doing some geocaching to help the trip go faster and give us a break. It should make the miles fly by, and given us a reason to stop at some neat spots we might pass up.
Friday 7/14, Day 1
It is 5:30pm as we pull out of the driveway for our first big road trip. We make it across the Ohio / Indiana state border by 1:00am and to our first, and last, truck stop sleepover. We crawl into the bed John’s truck which we have fitted with an air-mattress to use as our bed. It is a little warm / humid tonight, but the truck is dry, secure and much more comfortable than sleeping on the ground. John’s glad we aren’t going to be staying in a tent.
Total Miles Traveled: 483
Saturday 7/15, Day 2
It is around 7:30am and it is very foggy. John had a good night’s sleep, I however did not, on account of his snoring. After a look at the map and a little discussion we have decided that we are going to drive all the way to South Dakota, no matter how late it gets. With the air-mattress in the back of the truck we can always take turns driving and sleeping.
The sun is swinging around and is now beating down in John’s lap, heating up a "sensitive" area. He says that pointing the vents down there would make his belly button cold…hmm what to do. He rigs something up with a hand towel, trapping it in the window, but he left to much out and now it is making a noise. He thinks if he can just inch the window down a hair he can pull it in a bit. Oh by the way, we are traveling down the highway at about 75mph. Well the window doesn’t come down a little it comes down a lot and sucks the towel out the window….we laugh about what will become "the towel incident" for 100 miles.
We have arrived in Sioux Falls, SD and it is about 102 degrees. We are spending some time looking around and taking pictures. John loves the old buildings that are left over from a different time, and I love the pink and green rocks. What neither of us like is the odd smell coming from the water. Yuck! It would be cool though for your city’s central park to look like this…
We are both hungry so we find a restaurant and have some supper. The plan is to stay at a hotel, log cabin themed, in Chamberlin. No we don’t have reservations anywhere, we are taking things as they come. However the $45 a night hotel is booked, some convention. In fact EVERYTHING in Chamberlin is booked and John is getting testy. We have ended up at a Holiday Express, spending $120. At this point I don’t care, it is a bed and a shower with breakfast included, and we are tired.
Total Miles traveled: 1388
Sunday 7/16, Day 3
It is 10:30am and 96 already. We have both had a good night sleep and are feeling refreshed and ready to head for the Badlands. We would like to camp out tonight but it may be just too hot. It is almost noon and the temperature is up to 99.
We passed a tourist trap call the “1880 Town”, and in the field were metal statues of Indians on horseback surrounded by live buffalo. What a cool thing to see.
Now we have come across the "Petrified Gardens". I just have to stop. You need to experience at least one tourist trap on a trip like this. Yep you guessed it, a lot of petrified logs, plants, a few dinosaur bones and some cool rocks.
Back on the road, and $20 lighter.
Wow!! The Badlands are something to see with the colors of the rocks and their unique formations, stretching as far as we can see.
It is 106 now, but it doesn’t feel that hot so we are going to go for a little hike, beyond the tourist walkway. Bad idea. We are on our way back to the truck, and John comments that in PA we would be soaking wet with sweat. That is when we notice we aren’t sweating at all.
We get back to the truck and crank the air conditioning. My face is so hot and bright red. We are on the verge of heat exhaustion. This is going to totally wipe us out for the rest of the day. We are heading for a place called Wall Drug, and hoping it is the oasis the billboards have been making it out to be.
It is, thankfully. After what we have just been through in the Badlands, I appreciate the "free water". (The Wall general store survived the depression by offering free water to draw in tourist and travelers.) We’ve decided on ice cream for supper to try and cool down from the inside out. There is this adorable little motel just down the street called Ann’s Motel. It is clean, neat, and above all air conditioned. It is actually better than the Holiday Inn we stayed at last night. This place as a kind of B&B feel to it.
Monday 7/17, Day 4
We’ve had a great night’s sleep and we are both feeling better. We are on our way the Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, and Crazy Horse. The plan is to be in Wyoming tonight and camping in the Medicine Bow park. We are going to fill up our 5 gallon container here at the hotel, in the hopes of finding away to wash up since the park we are heading to has no facilities. 
With it being a weekday, nothing is really that busy. Mt. Rushmore is not as big as I pictured it after seeing it on postcards and books for most of my life. It is an interesting sensation. 
The Crazy Horse display however does appear massive, though incomplete. There are a lot of Indian artists here selling their wares, as well as statues of artwork by the man responsible for the Crazy Horse monument. I love his fighting Stallions statue.
We are now on a scenic byway to the Blackhills. The scenery is the most breath taking I have ever seen. The views / vistas and rock formations are just amazing. On our way down and out of the hills we have decided to take a small detour and drive a wildlife loop.
There are buffalo, pronghorn deer, and the most fun to watch are the prairie dogs.
Finally on to Wyoming, but wow is is flat driving now that we are out of the hills! The mountains ahead of us don’t seem to get any closer.
It is getting late so we have stopped at the first camping area in Medicine Bow that we came across. There is no one around which suits us just fine. Apparently you just put some money in an envelope, write your site number on it and drop it in a box. Vuala you have a campsite.
Tuesday 7/18, Day 5
I need to wash up. I don’t mind camping but if we are only "hosteling" it once every three days I need a way to wash so I feel good. I lay out some bottles of water in the sun for them to warm while we get breakfast around. We strip down and wash top to bottom rinsing with the warmed water. John agrees it feels wonderful to get cleaned up and refreshed for another day on the road. He will come up with a way to warm enough water for both of us to wash.
Medicine Bow is supposed to have one of the largest free roaming Mustang herds in America. It is too far out of our way to go where the herd is reported to be, but I would have loved to see them. Instead we have grabbed a cache by Lake Mary in Medicine Bow. We found snow along the road and thought how cool. Here we are in shorts and sandals and we are standing in snow.
We want to make it to the next camping area (which will be just across the Colorado border) early so we have time to relax and plan our trip down through Colorado. So, we are hitting the road now to drive, drive, drive. Again to keep costs down we are limiting our meals at restaurants, and we stop at a grocery store and buy some steak and potatoes before looking for a camping area. 
The State park we have come to has fee camping areas but so far we don’t like any of them. We keep driving around and low and behold we find a free site next to some water. Ok so it just looks like someone pulled in and made a fire ring out of rocks. I figure as long as the ranger doesn’t tell us to leave we are good. Thunderstorms are rolling in but we’ve got our supper made and are eating in the truck before it really started to down pour. It is the best steak.
Wednesday 7/19, Day 6
That was the worst night yet! I thought John was going to slash the air mattress. Neither of us thought about what would happen to the air mattress as we went up in elevation. I felt like we were in one of those comedy’s where the characters are in a very small space with a life raft that is expanding. So first order of business today will be to find a Wal Mart type store and by a smaller mattress, and also a bath mat to stand on for bathing. We used our pail to heat water on the coleman stove for our baths this morning and it worked great.
With our plan in hand we are ready to start our journey through Colorado. The plan is to pass through the Rocky Mountain National Forest stopping off in Este along the way.
Este is quaint little tourist town, as we are going to find at most of our stops. We ate fabulous hamburgers at the Grub Grilled restaurant.
Unfortunately it is raining, so our plans to hike a short trail at 11,000ft in the Rocky Mountain National Forest, just to see if we could, is off the agenda. That is OK, just sitting and breathing in the truck at 12,135ft is hard enough. The alpine tundra and it’s ecosystem are remarkable. I would like to learn more about it someday. 
We have been looking for a camping spot along the way to Hot Springs but we haven’t liked the looks of any of them so it is off to our first stay in BLM lands. We have found a great spot on top of a hill looking out over a small ravine. Cows / Cattle are abundant in the area, at least that is what I’m guessing from all of the evidence around. We are falling asleep listening to the cows and the birds. I’m really glad we are not in a tent.
Total miles traveled: 2394
Thursday 7/20, Day 7
It is 6am and we are waking up to the sound of birds, coyotes, and cows. While John heats our breakfast and bath water, we sit and wait for the sunrise. We’ve had a very attentive hummingbird in camp this morning. He’s been checking out the truck’s taillights and us. There are some red flowers near by that eventually caught his eye. Well it’s on the road again.
We were going to eat lunch in Aspen but we can’t find a place to park…in the entire town! I always pictured it bigger, but this is a little town about the size of Watkins Glen with probably 100 times the amount of people even on a race day, and this is Thursday during the summer. So we drive up the road a bit out of town and stopped at one of the many overlooks and eat our lunch from our stash. 
Our first exposure to a "pass" in Colorado is Independence Pass. Let me tell you, is very narrow, sometimes only wide enough for one car. The road in places is washing away up to and past the white line. Not a big deal until I see where it is washing away too. BIG drop off. In some places trees are growing at the road’s edge. There is snow/sleet in some places from a recent storm laying on the ground and the temperature up here is only in the 40’s.
It is on to Buena Vista to find a hotel and get something to eat.
Friday 7/21, Day 8
We are going to be spending the day caching around the area. At one of our first caches we meet two retired teachers from PA, at the Cottonwood Lake. Dave and Ruthie, they work as camp hosts at campgrounds in exchange for a free place to stay. Not a bad deal, and look at the view they wake up to every morning!
There is this quaint little town called Fair Play that we have stopped at. It looks like something out of a cartoon. There is a part of the town that is walled off by a high fence and it looks like you have to pay to go through the gates. We stop in a real estate office and while there learn that this town is the one South Park is modeled after, right down to the mayor. That’s different. Who’da thunk it? 
We are starting our our first geocaching travel bug and have decided to do so in this park outside of Buena Vista, called The Four Mile. We have spent hours 4-wheeling around the park how fun. Also we have just found some massive rocks that are calling to us "come climb me". So much for the great rock climbers. I have twisted my knee and it hurts a lot. I’m wondering how will I get down from here. It is amazing how big the rocks are once you walk up close to them. I love the terrain and vegetation in this part of the the country.
We are hiking to another cache that is close by the Four Mile trail and I have to say it is my favorite place we’ve been so far.
Again I think it is the combination of the terrain, the vegetation and the sky. Just Beautiful. it is getting late so it is back to the hotel to clean up and go for dinner.
This town is comfortable, the atmosphere is very inviting. It is taking us a while to pick a restaurant. There is a Mexican place up the street, I guess we are going in.
Total Miles Traveled: 2850
Saturday 7/22, Day 9
There was a ghost town that we wanted to visit past Tin Cup called Alamo. There were a couple of ways to get there, and one of them was a 4 wheel Jeep trail. Well how fun would that be? So over we go. The trip up to the Continental Divide at the top of the pass wasn’t to bad. We even got out and took a short hike down the Colorado trail. It was 55 degrees and breezy but surprisingly not chilly.
OMG!!! We continued on Cottonwood pass to Tin Cup pass to Alamo. When they say Jeep Trail in Colorado, they mean nothing wider than a Jeep kind of trail. We took the Avalanche places I don’t think it was meant to go. John asked at one point how close to the edge he was to about a 2000 ft drop off. I answered "I don’t know. I can’t bear to look again. The last time I looked I couldn’t see any road out my side window." 
The ghost town wasn’t quite what I expected but the buildings were very interesting. At the General Store, which was open, they had hummingbird feeders hung, and they were packed with birds. Now it is on to Gunnison.
We made it to Poncho Springs where we got some gas for the truck and food for us. We had pulled pork sandwiches at a little diner attached to the gas station. While we were eating we looked out and noticed the truck had a flat tire. Not wanting to ride around on the spare we headed for Salida for 2 new front tires. 
Exhausted we head for BLM lands. Now it normally takes John a good long time to find a spot. So far more times than not we have driven around for an hour only to end up back at one of the first camps we passed. Any how, he was quick this time deciding on a location and we had time to take about mile or so walk after setting up camp. Here we were surrounded by hummingbirds and other strange sounding birds. We also heard female elk and coyotes fairly close by as we drifted off to sleep.
Sunday 7/23, Day 10
We are heading to Gunnison National Park. We had planned to do some more 4-wheeling but after yesterday, we really aren’t in the mood.
Driving through the Black Canyon National Park was very interesting. It has a unique look to it compared to the other places we have been.
From there we made our way to Silverton where we planned to camp out and then explore the town the next day. There was camping listed as just being right out of town, but when we got there it didn’t look that great so we decided to try BLM lands. However the BLM lands were not very inviting. Everything started out OK but then the road got rough, then it narrowed, then the long drop offs. The little road turned in to a stony pass. With no way to turn around we headed up. The clouds rolled in, the thunder started and then came the rain. 
Talk about scared! Water was starting to flow down the road. We get to 12,000 ft or so, tundra area, and found a turn around. We stopped debating about whether to head down or stay the night. For some reason we were both more nervous about staying so we went down. Let’s just say the camps that didn’t took so good before looked perfectly inviting.
Monday 7/24, Day 11
We got up to a chilly start. John thought it would be too hard with all the people around and too chilly to take a shower. I said oh no, I need one. I setup a little stand-up shower and by the ttime the water was heated the sun had come up over the rise and was beating right on my make-shift shower. It was the warmest one yet! 
We wanted to see an old gold mine area so 4-wheeling again we go. There was a point where the road ahead looked very narrow and was not presenting a way for us to turn around and come back down so we pulled off the road and walked the next 1/2 mile or so. We met a couple coming down from the mine. They had a jeep and were from Maine. 
After John took lots of pictures we headed Silverton. It was an adorable little town. We found this old truck parked in someone’s yard on our way into town. I just had to have a picture of it!
We stopped at shop selling funnel cakes, but not like any funnel cakes that you’ve every had around PA. These were meals. John had a taco with all the trimmings it was about 5" high and the size of a normal funnel cake. I had a cream cheese and apricot. 
Now were are heading for Mesa Verde National Park, one of our last stops before heading home. We bought tickets for 2 tours on Tuesday, and we decided to camp at the park, which is half way between a hotel and BLM lands as far as comfort.
Since we didn’t have to spend hours looking for and setting up camp we had time to take some walking tours of some Pueblo ruins. Then it was time for showers, laundry, local beer and then to bed.
Tuesday 7/25, Day 12
We Took our tours of the Ancient ruins of the Ancestral Pueblos today. Remarkable people. The engineering and skill it took, not to mention how agile and hard working they were to survive in this place. This is my favorite stops so far. It is hard to describe the beauty of the land and the ruins. What we did notice is that with all the walking and climbing, we were hardly winded compared to the other tourists around us. Hmm…we finally are becoming acclimated to the high altitude just in time to go home. 
We went back to the campground and took showers. We are heading for the BLM lands again tonight.
Total Miles Traveled: 3548
Wednesday 7/26, Day 13
We went to sleep by ourselves and woke up surrounded by cows. Another reason I’m glad we are sleeping in the truck and not in a tent. There was a baby on the other side of the cattle guard by itself. We could hear cows calling in the distance. Two babies form our side of the guard went up and check out the other baby.
Coyotes were baking in the distance and the herd started moving up the hill. The baby on the other side of the guard walked away with them. It is starting to rain now. Time to move on to Westcliffe. 
We are making our last stop at a national park, the Great Sand Dunes. It is, well, sandy. Not as hot as you might think though, the constant slight breeze keeps it quite comfortable.
Westcliffe. What can we say, we really like it here. The view of the mountains can be had from anywhere in town, and there is definitely a small town feel, like in the old westerns. There is one main drag in town and not a whole lot behind it. The sheriff is sitting out on a bench in front of the jail / town hall. It has a romantic sense in an old-time sort of way. 
Grabbed some pizza at a local shop and talked with a woman working there who had sold everything and moved from Montana to Westcliffe and hasn’t regretted a day.
Again it was off to BLM lands to find a temporary backyard.. John found a spot really fast, which left lots of time for exploring. This so far, has been the only BLM Lands that we have found trash. To bad to because it is a nice spot.
Total Miles Traveled: 3903
Thursday 7/27, Day 14
Well it is time to start heading for home. We are going to go through Canon City and cross America’s highest Bridge. There were no animals to wake us up this morning so we got to sleep in a bit. We had our tropical pancakes this morning but they would have tasted much better if we had been back packing.
The Bridge was a big disappointment. I mean yes it is an amazing piece of engineering, but we couldn’t go across it without paying $28. On the other side…an amusement park. We decided it wasn’t worth the money, so we took some pics and were on our way.
It was on to St. Louis MO, well at least that was my plan. I thought it was about half way across the state…oops my bad. I guess our trip to Greenfield OH tomorrow will be a quick one. We will be spending the night at a rest stop.
Friday 7/28, Day 15
Well that was the worst night of the whole trip, it was so humid I almost couldn’t sleep.
I got some very strange looks as I was washing up in the restroom. Oh well, I won’t see them again in my life right, and if so they probably won’t remember me anyway.
We found an IHOP for breakfast. So much for never seeing the restroom people again, there they were, sitting in a booth at the restaurant. John was never at an IHOP so he had great time. We both ate so much food that we almost can’t move. I’m sure we won’t eat again until tomorrow.
Since I was a driving crazy fool last night we have lots of time to kill so we are spending the day caching around town. We’ve found a cozy little hotel in Greenville. Now are heading into town to attend the Anne Oakley festival. They have shoot offs, a horse show, crafts and food vendors, and bull whip, knife and axe throwing shows.
We don’t need any supper so we are heading off to bed.
Total Miles Traveled: 5206
Saturday 7/29, Day 16
We got up at 4am to meet a farmer who has two black and tan coon hounds that we are transporting to some friends. I was expecting cute little puppies that I could cuddle and hold on the way home. We set up a nice little bed for them in the backseat area.
The farmer asked John where we were putting them and when he showed him the farmer said "Oh they’ll like that." He handed john the paper’s, scooped up two wriggling puppies. Only they weren’t 8 week old puppies they were more like 4 months old. And talk about a stench! They smelled like…I’m not sure…rotting dead animal maybe?
Well after about 5 minutes in the truck I had had enough. They were trying to crawl into the front seat with us and everything they touched took on "the dead" smell. So we pulled over, emptied the truck, closed up the back, and threw the dogs in the back where our bed had been and put all the stuff up in the back seat area.
Every rest stop we got them out and boy were they a handful. They came with no collars or leashes so we rigged up some slip leashes out of string we had brought along. All the dog people just thought they were adorable, though only one woman pet them after getting a whiff. She didn’t seem to mind.
We got them delivered and headed home. Finally.
