3 in a T@b for 30 days

SGH0004

We have started our epic 30 day western adventure to the west/northwest.  It's always fun to read all of the stories so thought I would pass ours along.  We have taken our 12 year old out of school for a month & heading west.  We left from MS eleven days ago.  The first few days I drove hard to get as far as we could.  We stayed in Cabelas parking lot in Kansas City the first night (our first boondocking).  From there headed to Mt Rushmore.  We stayed at Custer State Park in SD.  One of the nicest parks we've stayed at.  Beautiful!  They were having a buffalo round up to tag & vaccinate the herd.  Pretty interesting.  From there we headed to Mt Rushmore & then to the Grand Tetons.  Stopped at Devils' Tower along the way.  Hit some bumps & lost the television along the way.  Rattled loose from bracket & pulled cable out of back of it.  Likely shot.  I don't like television, anyway so fine with me, lol. We stayed at Signal Mountain at Grand Teton NP.   Another great campground (a little pricey $50 per night).  Tetons are gorgeous.  Wanted to see a bear but no luck. Saw lots of elk & deer.  We went into Yellowstone & stayed at Grizzly RV park in West Yellowstone.  Great park & stayed for off season rates, very reasonable.  Meticulously kept.  Finally saw a bear on Slough Creek Road & lots of buffalo.  Couldn't see Grand Prismatic due to the steam.  From there headed to Glacier NP.  Ran into snow & couldn't make it to St Mary visitor center.  First drive with T@b in snow.  Made it fine.  Went down to West Glacier.  Not much to see there due to Sun road closed.  Stayed at North American RV.  Great folks (from MS, lol).  Had the park pretty much to ourselves.  Washed the T@b & TV there.  Drove MT 49 (I think) from East Glacier to St Mary.  The drive over was better than the drive inside the park IMO.  From Glacier heading to Olympic.  Loving the trip together & so far we haven't tried to kill each other but we're only a 1/3 of the way in.   We were planning on going into Sonoma area in a few days but noticed they are having fires (hope everyone is ok in that area).  I have enjoyed the drive from park to park more than the parks.  Beautiful country.  My wife said she thought we were rural but we don't hold a candle to the folks in MT & WY. Funny, we haven't seen the first T@b since we left MS.  We hoped to have breakfast with the East to West WA group but didn't make it.  Hope to meet some more T@bbers along the way. 

Hope the pictures aren't too big.  Let me know if I need to resize them. 

rkj__

Sounds like a blast, but I gotta ask, how do you sleep 3?

jgram2

Your trip sounds wonderful! The photos give us a taste which is devilish since some of us don't travel in the winter! And the photos are sized perfectly-at least so well they don't crash my wimpy iPad! Thanks for sharing!

ericnliz

@SGH0004, The breakfast is this Saturday. Don't know exactly where you are today, but 'ya still have time to make it & you're always welcome! 

SGH0004

@rkj__ we bought a north face double sleeping bag for the wife & myself. Our son sleeps in a single & we just leave the bed down all the time. Actually have plenty of room. He’s just short enough to fit perfect on the side by the bath & my feet hang off, lol. The only hard part is leaving our clothes in the TV so have to go back & forth a lot to get that days clothes together. I removed the 3rd row seat from TV & we keep our clothes in plastic tubs that are stacked 2 high. Saved on weight & allowed them to fit perfect.

Freshaire

Thanks for sharing your adventure and your photos.  I don't think I would have considered a west/midwest trip this time of year.  It sounds like a good time to travel though as I'm sure you aren't hitting the summer crowds.

I'm curious, how much time are you  driving and how much time are you staying in one place?  Does your balance of drive and stay feel right?

Please keep us updated as you progress.  Safe travels.

SGH0004

I haven't had much cell signal for a few days.  We have been to Seattle (yep, dragged the T@b thru downtown Seattle).  We went down some hills that I thought would drag the tongue off of the trailer.  The family was drawn up thinking we were going to wreck or hit a pedestrian, lol. Fun finding a parking place, btw.  We loved Pike Place Market.  My son was intrigued.  We had to go to the first Starbucks while there.  We took a ferry from Seattle to  Bainbridge Island & headed to Point Angeles.  We stayed at a campground there one night.  It had a lot of full timers so we backed up to Sequim, WA & stayed at Gilgal RV Park.  It was top notch.  Small campground but nothing but nice rigs there.  They asked what year our T@b was before allowing us to make a reservation.  Really clean.  My wife's favorite so far.  We rode up to Hurrcane Ridge one day.  It started snowing & was really nice.  The next day we took a ferry over to Victoria, B.C.  That was a nice trip.  Wished we would have taken our car but decided to just walk instead.  It's hard to cover much ground walking. Yesterday we went to Sol Duck in Olympic NP & saw salmon spawning & a bear.  We stayed at Mora NP campground.  We boondocked there.  It was a really beautiful campground with recently renovated bathrooms.  no showers, though.  We found out our battery was bad approx. 10 min after getting there.  We snuggled up & prayed it didn't come a cold front, lol.  Today we went to the rainforest & coastal areas of Olympic NP.  We have really enjoyed Olympic & are glad we decided to go there.  Yellowstone so far is my son's favorite but Olympic is my wife's & we hope to get to visit again.  It's amazing & it's not crowded like the other parks.  Maybe because it is the off season.  We looked for whales but didn't see any (yet! heading down the whale trail soon) but did see sea otters.

To answer your question, I drive hard going from place to place.  We don't have any reservations (well, 1 but missed it).  I normally will drive until 10 o'clock or so to get to a campground.  Usually we will set ourselves a goal to make it to a certain place & call ahead. Yesterday we were enjoying our day so much that we didn't make it as far as planned.  Planning is not our thing.  We do a lot of "seat of our pants" decisions.  I hate fighting crowds while pulling the T@b so the offseason is perfect.  However, a lot of places are closed down or close early or only open on the weekends so we have to contend with that.  So far so good....except for buying a new battery today & knocking the gray water tank hookup completely off the T@b yesterday.  Just another day for us, lol.  Hop you enjoy the pics.

SGH0004

A few more pics from Seattle & the ferry ride to Bainbridge. 

Ratkity

Thank you for sharing!!! Love the pictures and the story of your journey.

I'm scared to do the seat-of-the-pants thing, but my mantra is to face scary things and just stare 'em straight down and do it. 

SGH0004

It’s not as bad as you think. We are bound to strike out one day for a campground but so far so good. We rolled into cape disappointment at 10pm. Ended up staying in the tent camping area. T@b’s are great for that. New battery kept us warm all night.

Estancio

Looks like a fabulous trip!

2Cougs

Glad you are enjoying the Pacific Northwest!  If you head back thru Spokane, let us know and we will rally the troops for a get-together!

Justin_in_Seattle

Really enjoyed your travelogue. Looks like you've hit many of the highlights of Western Washington.

By the way, that's very brave towing an RV through downtown Seattle!

2Cougs

@Justin_in_Seattle- I agree!  We dropped ours off in Kirkland before going into town!

SGH0004

Well, we survived our trip & made it home safely.  It got really busy after the Oregon coast.  We went thru Redwoods & stayed at a couple of KOA's on our way to San Francisco.  We hopped on Hwy 1 for approx. 4 miles & I decided that it was not near as much fun as I thought that it would be (@ dark) so we turned back around & got back on 101.  We stopped along the way to see a few lighthouses & admire the scenery.  I only made one reservation for the entire trip & it was at Harris State Park in Oregon.  We missed it of course, lol.  We stopped by to see what we were missing.  It's a great park as well.  It reminded me of Cape Disappointment but I feel Cape Disappointment might have been a little nicer.  We stayed in Bodega Bay before going to San Francisco & the next day stayed at Samuel Taylor State Park near San Francisco.  It was nice & I recommend it to get away from all of the traffic & to leave the T@b to go to San Francisco.  From San Francisco we drove to Yosemite after taking a tour of the Jelly Belly factory.  It's a great drive & saw lots of orchards.  We stayed just outside of Yosemite the first night in West Yosemite & were able to score a night in North Pines.  Wow at rv's & tent campers!  We are finally starting to see a few more T@b's.  We drove over to Death Valley & stayed in Furnace Creek.  There were 2 other T@b's there but we were so busy we didn't get back to the campground until bedtime so didn't get to visit.  Death Valley was nicer than I anticipated it to be.  The starts are amazing at night.  2 weeks earlier we were turning around due to snow.  There we went swimming at Furnace Creek Resort.  We saw the lowest point in the U.S. in Death Valley (Badwater Basin).  From Death Valley we skipped over to Zion & finally found a Chick-Fil-A, lol.  They even had sweet tea!  By this time we were getting ready to be home since we had been gone for 23 days.  Sweet tea is as close of a reminder of MS that we had seen in a long time.  Zion is one of my favorites.  We stayed in South Campground & there were deer just a few feet from our picnic table.  There were also 2 more T@b's there but again we didn't get to visit due to not being back to the campground until late & left at appox 5AM headed for the Grand Canyon.  The drive to Grand Canyon was nice.  We made it to Grand Canyon & stayed at the South Rim at Mather Campground.  It didn't have hookups but was actually pretty spacious.  I was ready to be home by this point so when I rolled over at 2AM I woke up & got the family in the car & we hit the road headed for home!  I saw a monster wall hanger elk right on the side of the road between the Grand Canyon & I40.  I thought please don't let us hit one this far into the trip.  Luckily we made it to 40 & were East Bound & Down!  Only 1,500 miles home.  We did stop along the way to take in some Route 66 scenery, Cadillac Ranch, & had a steak at The Big Texan.  Somehow I let the family talk me into staying in a nice hotel in Oklahoma, City.  I have to admit, it was nice for a change.  We stopped in Memphis to pick up our dog from the sitter (sister-in-law) & had some good ol' Memphis Barbecue from The Commissary in Germantown.  No matter where we have been, Memphis Barbecue can't be duplicated.  We rolled into the driveway the next day.  We drove 8,200 miles in 28 days & saw half the country.  The parks were beautiful but to me the drive from park to park is even better.  3 of us confined to a T@b & no major hiccups.  The T@b did awesome.  Around Death Valley I think my wife could have killed me over a campground spot but other than that we made it just fine.  Pretty remarkable if you think about it.  If you ever get a chance to strike out & see the country, do it! You won't regret it.  28 days & we only stayed in a parking lot one time & that was by choice.  We never couldn't find somewhere to stay.  I do recommend the RV Park Reviews app.  It's a life saver. 

SGH0004

2Cougs

@SGH0004- great commentary and photos.  Sounds like you had a great trip!  I agree with your comment of seeing the spaces between the parks is great too!  Glad you made it home with nothing but great memories and a longing for regional cuisine! 

jenmiller

Great snaps!! and truly it seems to be a epic trip.

2Cougs

@SGH0004- Is your first pic at Yaquina Head Lighthouse???  We have almost the exact picture from this summer.

dragonsdofly

Awesome! We did this too. 4 of us, 25 states, 10,000 miles, 6 weeks and 1t@b. Summer of 2016. And we agree, epic adventure! 

SGH0004

@2Cougs That was Yaquina Light House.  Beautiful area.  
@dragonsdofly I just thought we did the impossible.... 4 in a T@b? 10,000 miles? 6 weeks?  Y'all are brave!  LOL.  

2Cougs

Look how similar our shots are!

Anyone traveling down the Oregon Coast, this is a must!  Yaquina Head Lighthouse just outside of Newport.

pthomas745

"Wall hanger elk..."   lol......