We’re Home!

Well…..our Summer 2019 RV Trip has come to an end.  It is a bittersweet feeling.  We are very glad to be home, but we are also sad that the trip is over.  We truly enjoyed this one – it might be our best ever!  We came away in awe at the beauty of our great country and we thank God for sharing it with us during this journey.  We were blessed by the time together and the chance to enjoy this season of our lives.  We also thank God for keeping us safe and returning us safely to our home.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we drove the final 350 miles from Williams, Arizona to home.  No problems along the way and we arrived at about 2:15 PM.  That brought the grand total mileage for the trip to 6,046 miles on the truck and probably another 1,500-2,000 miles on the trike!  We stopped for fuel just before we left Arizona and entered California.  We suspect that will probably be the last time that I pay less than $3/gallon for diesel for a while 😉

The weather was awesome for the trip.  Unlike last year where we had almost daily thunderstorms, we only had rain a few days of this trip.  Days were warm and nights were cool – we slept with windows open every night!  We were on the road a total of 81 days this year – not as long as our first trip, but close!

Here’s a pic of the map that is mounted on the front of the Raptor.  The states that are colored show the states where we have spent at least one night in the 5th wheel.  Obviously, there are other states that we’ve driven through, but we decided to only show those where we have slept while on an RV trip.  You can see that we have covered quite a bit of territory in this rig (note that it doesn’t show Canada and we spent a good bit of time in Ontario on our first trip in 2016).

It seems like a long time ago, but we left home for this trip on June 7.  After a quick two-nighter in Buellton, CA, our first big stop was in the Monterey, CA area to volunteer at the US Open in Pebble Beach on the 17th hole.  It was an awesome beginning to the trip.

From Pebble Beach, we headed northwest to Sparks, NV where we spent a week visiting old friends and beautiful places in the Reno/Tahoe area.

The Lake Tahoe Viewpoint Above Incline Village

From Reno, we again turned west toward the coast and our next stop was in Bandon, Oregon.  Neither of us had spent any time on the Oregon Coast and we were surprised and amazed at the beauty of this part of the country.

After Bandon, we headed toward Central Oregon and the town of Bend.  Again, neither of us had spent much time here and we were blown away by how beautiful it was and how much there was to see and do.  It will definitely be a place we will return to.

From Bend, we headed once more to the coast and our next stop on Whidbey Island in Washington.  Once again, beautiful country and a great visit with good friends.

At the end of our stay on Whidbey Island, we left the coast for the final time and headed east to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.   Once more, a new spot for both of us and we weren’t disappointed.

After Coeur d’Alene, we finally turned south and started in the general direction of home.  But not yet!  We had more new places to explore.  McCall, Idaho was our next stop and we found it to be a beautiful area and the McCall RV Resort was probably our favorite RV park of the trip.  As with other stops, it was awesome to see friends from home and spend some time.

From McCall, we headed southeast, made a quick stop in Twin Falls, and then settled in for a week in Heber City, Utah (that’s about 45 minutes from Salt Lake City, near Park City).  We like it so much that we have already booked a return visit!

After Utah, our next stop was Colorado.  However, Utah wasn’t done with us yet!

We recovered from the blowout and continued on our way to our return visit to the Uncompahgre River RV Park in Olathe, Colorado.  We love this part of Colorado and it was great to spend some more time here.

For our final stop, we made a return visit to Williams, Arizona to rest and decompress before returning home.  It gave us a chance to visit Sedona – one of our very favorite places.

As mentioned several times, a big part of our trips is catching up with good friends.  Unfortunately, we can’t see everyone and we forgot to get some pictures, but here is a sample of the cast of characters that made this trip such a treat.

Of course, there was lots of golf and trike riding, too!

For the Sammy fans out there (you know who you are!), he also had a great summer.  He has turned into quite the camping dog and loves visiting new places.  He had a little rough patch while we were in Colorado, but we’re so glad to have him as part of our family.

And of course, we couldn’t forget a picture of Sammy’s new best friend!

We’ve got at least one more of these trips in our system and planning has already started.  After all, we still have some gaps in that map to fill in!

Thank you to all of you who followed along this year.  We are blessed to have such wonderful friends and we love hearing your feedback and knowing that you are along with us during the trip.

Until next time, thanks for following along…..