Where Are We Now?
🚐 Week 11 Stays and Exploring
Heading into Ohio where we lived for four years, we definitely were feeling excited to experience the variety of landscapes different from the west for a change.
Our favorite place to stay overnight here was also a place that we explored for a few days and rented a pontoon boat for an afternoon. Salt Fork State Park has a couple of marinas to rent boats, lodging, swimming, fishing and hiking.
It reminded me of the many years spending the summers up north in Michigan on my grandparents boat tooling around the lake. It was a beautiful day, not crowded with tourists as we were in the off season, yet it was the perfect temperature for riding the waves, watching the birds and feeling the peace of the moment.
Week 10 Stays and Exploring
We’re on a mission to get to the east coast to visit family and to see the full spectrum of fall colors in time for peak leaf peeping. Since we have lived almost two decades out west, we have experienced the Rocky Mountain autumn spectacular scenery of Aspen tree yellows against the pine greens. It is quite unique in its own way, but we are super excited to remember the season in its variety.
We were super excited as well to get to experience, even if for only a couple of days, two new states we had not visited before, Minnesota and Wisconsin, making them our 45th and 46th states we’ve now visited!
Here’s a fun video clip of the Harvest Hosts brewery we stayed at in Baraboo (love that name!!) Wisconsin. Bill is such a good sport 🤓
And, here we are, after living in the west for almost two decades, avoiding toll roads for the principle of it all…
Weeks 8-9 Stays and Exploring
From Three Forks, Montana, we decided to take an hour longer route to start heading back to Cheyenne to visit the (grown) kids and grandkids. We went through Yellowstone National Park. This was our third time through, but we focused on just the north east side as that part was closed last year due to the flooding.
Once, again, we saw the impressive bison and we had an even closer encounter this time around. Just as we were 3/4 of the way across a very long, two lane bridge, a bull started his way down toward us. I don’t think he focused on us until he got closer. Check it out …
After getting in a good, long visit with the kids before continuing to head east again, we made an amazing visit to Badlands National Park. I have to be honest, that I didn’t think I would be so impressed after having lived in the Rocky Mountain area in Colorado and visiting so many amazing places recently. We boondocked on “the wall” which is a bucket list item for many, especially large RVs and trailers, where there is almost unlimited room and space for everyone.
Week 7 Stays and Exploring
We started our way east after spending several weeks along the west coast and vowing we would be back! It was actually nice to not be in bucket-list locations for awhile to catch up. Luckily this was the week that all of the US had quite the hot flash in weather so we spent a lot of our time indoors working or driving to stay cool.
Once we got to the northern Idaho area, we were able to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen in a long time. We had a wonderful, but short visit with them a had beautiful scenery to see in the Coeur d’Alene area on our way further east.
My favorite overnight stop was at a Harvests Hosts stay at a small ranch in rural Missoula, Montana. See my TikTok video below. I also really loved the Brewery we ate at and stayed as a Harvest Hosts guest as well. See the following YouTube video.
Week 5 and 6 Stays and Exploring
We boondocked a few days on the weekends in our in-law’s driveway and then stayed in the national parks on the weekdays. We loved getting to visit with my daughter and her husband’s family for a few days at a time. It worked out so well to visit, leave, visit leave for a few weeks overall.
Mount Rainier was stunning and different from the Rocky Mountains which we know well after living in Denver, Colorado area for 14 years. This mountain is actually a volcano and is solitary in the landscape, giving it quite the unique, stand-alone appearance starting from about sea level to 14,411′ making it quite an impressive 14ner to behold from all around it. We thoroughly enjoyed the Paradise area much more than the much more busy Sunrise side.
Olympic National Park was perfect temps for summer along the coastal rainforests and stunning beaches. I would definitely go back to Kalaloch Beach and campground as a home base to visit the picturesque beaches nearby. Second Beach was my favorite hike through coastal rain forest and beach to visit.
I just loved the Oregon coast. We were not able to see a lot of the must see stops along highway 101 as the coast was immersed in fog most of the southern shores. Finally, as we kept heading north, it cleared up and we were able to start to understand just how amazing the Pacific Ocean dots the coastline with islands of boulders, trees, flowers and wildlife.
Two areas we visited this week have to be specifically mentioned in the Redwoods area. Firstly, there isn’t just one place to see the Redwoods. As a matter of fact, there are multiple State Parks and National Park areas that have joined together to encompass a very large area in which to discover for yourself and see many of the tallest trees, the Redwoods.
Secondly, these areas where there are State Parks and National Parks that protect the Redwoods, are the vastly diverse coastal beaches too. We just loved the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park for its abundant wildlife in the waters and coastline. We saw harbor seals each night, following the tidal surf and elk herds roaming the trails, campground and beaches.
Two amazing areas of the country during week two certainly were a great kickstart after getting our bearings the first week. Of course, Sequoia National Park is a bucket list, although many may not know that there are two redwood bucket list places to visit. The Sequoia trees are the largest in volume, often the biggest around and differ from their coastal redwood cousins along the north western Pacific Ocean which the majority are in California as well.
Hitting the road, full time!! After building out our camper van over the last two years and trying it out on short and long trips, we finished it and are ready to go. Our tiny home on wheels! Our first stop, Colorado to visit long time friends we made over the 14 years we lived there. From there, we traveled the well-known Rocky Mountains along I-70 and stayed at one our favorite camping spots, Sylvan Lake State Park.
We ventured through Utah and visited more friends there. Our main goal as we set out is to get to the west coast to visit many of the bucket-list spots there that we have not seen by way of the north to avoid horrid hot, dessert temperatures in the summer.
We’ve Made our Dream Come True
After several years of dreaming of building a camper van to travel in, we downsized from our home in Colorado, moved to Wyoming and bought a van soon after in January of 2021. When we saw this Ford Transit with all that we wanted to build a camper van, we knew it was meant to be.
Have a good night on the trail wherever you are on your journey 🚐✨🌙