Long Trip Planned for this Spring and Summer

[Lynn1130]

I was stationed there back in 71/72

You missed it because they were not discovered until 1974 and kept secret until 1978 to avoid damage. It was kept from the land owners for a period. Between the land owners (Kartchners), the explorers and the state (including Barry Goldwater) every effort was made to keep them in their original condition. The formations in the caves are still growing and one or other is closed during certain times of the year to protect the bat populations. You enter through several air locks that keep the humidity in the 90+% range. Anything touched by a tourist must be cleaned after the tour to avoid contamination. I could go on, but these caves are a wonder, hidden inside the Whetstone Mountain Range. If you want to read the history go to the state park web page for the caverns. This is always on our list of places to take visitors or send people new to the state.

Oh, and on the southern end of the Whetstones, back in a canyon is a spring where Wyatt Earp and several others, on the "vengeance ride" killed Curly Bill Brocius in a shootout. Lots of history in this part of the state.

I probably dragged this one off topic far enough now.

 

[campfire7]

we have been on the road for 12 day now, after stopping in Akansas and then in Oklahoma to visit relitives we then made it to Cortez Colorado to visit Mesa Verde NP. seeing this for the first time, I felt like I was in a John Wayne movie. My wife and I really enjoyed it . The next day we drove the Million Dollar Highway from Durango Colorado to Ouray Colorado going thru Silverton, This was the most challenging and most beautiful road I have ever seen. I don't use the word amazing very often , But this road is the very definition of the word. If any of you have not driven this road yet, you are missing out on some of GODs best creations, As Dale Jude said in the movie Jeremiah Johnson, "The Rocky Mountains are some of GODs greatest sculpturens "
Well today we are camped in Green River Utah to visit the Arches NP. , Canyonlands NP and Dead Horse SP. , If any of you have any other suggestions as to what else to see why we are here that would be great because we are here for 5 days.

 

[campfire7]

Well we have spent a day in each Park, Arches NP., Canyonlands NP. and Dead Horse State Park in Utah, Managed to do some hiking in each park and have, I think seen most of everything that we set out to see, and none of it has been a disappointment, we are having a blast.
Today we stayed in camp doing laundry and cleaning up a bit. And I spent time going over the truck and camper tightening thinks up doing some maintenance, we've driven 3000 miles and the rough roads really put a pounding. on the rig.
In the morning we hook up and head to Bryce Canyon for a few days, looking forward to that.

 

[campfire7]

We made it to Bryce Canyon NP , are camping at Red Rock RV Park just 10 miles from Bryce.

 

[campfire7]

Well, we have completed The grand Canyon, another amazing place, traveled to the Sequoia and King N. P. in California. I was mystified at the size of the Sequoias, but the floor of Kings Canyon was a special place with the snow melt in full swing right now the water falls are roaring, we had a good time playing in the Grizzly falls. So now we are base camped in Coarsegold Ca. where we visited the Yosemite N. P. , Tall cliffs and water falls shot over 600 pictures in two days. But in the morning we hook-up and start our two day journey to the Redwood N.P park.

 

[campfire7]

We have completed the redwoods portion of our trip. We hiked a couple of trails and were at aw at the size of the trees. so far hiking the redwoods I think was the best trials that we have ever hiked. spent some time sitting on the overlook at the coast watching the whales feeding just off shore.
But we are now in Jackson Hole Wyoming camping at Fireside resort, a very nice campground. Here we will spend the next week visiting the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole before moving on to Yellowstone.
We have not seen any Heartland members on this trip so far, But we have met some Heartland owners and told them about this forum. maybe some of them will join.

 

[TXBobcat]

This has been a great thread. I agree about seeing Crazy Horse. When you go there you might get there early enough to park up front in the parking lot. Easier to see the laser light show when it gets dark.
When you are at Glacier NP stay at the KOA near the entrance of Road to the Sun. It is a nice campground. May be expensive but they only have a short summer to keep the park running. While there ask about Bowman Lake. It is about 12 miles off the main area but when you get to the lake it is smooth with pastel colors and 3 mountain ranges in the back ground. The last 6 miles or so is rough and narrow but I made it in my 2006 F250. Get some cinnamon rolls from the shop that is on the way.

While you are in Jackson WYO check out the Bar J Chuck Wagon Dinner show. It was fun when we were there some time ago..

Safe travels and may God Bless.

BC

 

[campfire7]

we already have reservations at Horse Theif campground, As for the Chuck Wagon dinner ? this is right down the road from our campground but it wont open until next weekend, and we will be gone to Yellowstone by then, oh well, maybe next time.

 

[campfire7]

The Jackson Hole, Grand Teton area is a nice place. even with the rainy /snowy weather we are having a real good time. BUT !!!, A word of warning for any of you that have Jackson Hole in your travel plans, Don't rely on your GPS entirely to get here, My GPS sent me the shortest way which at the time I did not know that included driving over "JACKSON HOLE PASS " the road sign said it is a 10% grade (locals told me that is incorrect, its actually 15%) I don't know which is correct but coming up the grade, for the first time on this entire trip, the aux fan came on for the transmission cooler in my truck, And for the first time on this trip my brakes were over heating coming down the other side, even using manual 2nd gear, I still had to apply brakes to keep the speed down. The good thing is , that the some of the locals told me another way in and out of Jackson Hole. No high grade climbs, they said no one that knows better, never drives a big truck or any trailer over that pass. So in short, do not take highway 22 over Jackson Hole Pass to get in or out of JH.

 

[campfire7]

We are now camped in the Mountain side KOA Campground in West Yellowstone for the next 16 days, Very nice campground, very well organized, and very clean, the bathrooms are the cleanest I've seen on this trip.
We spent a few hours in the park, seen tons of Bison and Elk, seen Old Faithful and just drove around. sense we are going to be here so long we decided to hang around the camp thru the weekend to get some much needed things done, and to let everyone else have the park for the holiday.
If anyone on here have suggestions as to what to see other than the usual, we would love to hear them.

 

[campfire7]

we have left Yellowstone far behind in our rearview mirrors, We made it to Banff Canada, which was very beautiful, some of the tallest mountains that I have seen of this trip, we spent a week in Canada but, we are now back in the good ol USA. We are camped in Mountain Meadows RV park in Hungry Horse Montana to visit Glacier National Park. And our neighbor camped right behind us is also a Heartland owner and member. We have only talked briefly, hopefully I will get to know them better before we leave.
So if you ever visit Yellowstone, Driving the Beartooth highway is a must, that was the highlight of Yellowstone and Yellowstone is full of beauty and excitement. And the must do in Banff is the Icefields highway between Banff and Jasper, The Glaciers and mountains are amazing. And hopefully the Highway to the sun Road will open before we leave Glacier N. P. and we leave on June 24th, they are saying that the road to the Sun may open on the 22nd. I hope so.

 

[campfire7]

Sorry for not updating the thread for a while.

The " Highway to the Sun" did open the day before we were to leave , The drive over Logan's Pass was beautiful, It rained on us , It snowed on us, it Hailed on us and it was very foggy, Days like this have its own beauty on Logan's Pass, and maybe someday we will be back to drive this on a more sunny and warmer day.

We left Hungary Horse Montana, heading to the Black Hills and Badlands of south Dakota. We did a one night stay in Miles City Montana, Miles City was a very fascinating town to me. Looks like an old western town and appears to be still be ran that way, live stock yards and all. I hope to come back and spend more time there one day.

We made our camp in Hill City South Dakota in the Black Hills, We visited the Badlands, and even though it was interesting, we neither of us were overly excited about it, but we can say that we have been there. We also stopped off at the world famous "Wall Drugs". But the Black Hills on the other hand, we loved it , Mount Rushmore Monument and Crazy Horse Memorial was really exciting, The Black Hills themselves is what we enjoyed the most. We drove the "Nettles Highway" ( our campground , Horse Thief R V park was right on the Nettles Highway ) we made several trip round this Highway.
One night we did a Chuckwagon Dinner deep in a canyon in Custer State Park, had a great time.

Our last destination of our trip was Rocky Mountain N. P, we made camp in Estes Park Colorado, anything you would want to do in the out doors can be done in the Estes Park area, winter or summer. We visited the National Park several times , it was as expected, it was beautiful, we seen lot of Elk and Moose.

On July 7th we decided it was time to head back to Florida , Home. We thought that we would take the long scenic route home, and we did, for a couple of days, But the closer we got to home, the faster and more direct routes were takened. It seemed like the truck was like an old horse, the closer it got to the barn the faster it went. We arrived home about 9:00 pm on the 11th of July, and all of our kids and grandkids were there to meet us, with dinner. was a great home coming.

We were gone from April 5th to July 11th. 3 and half months, this was the longest either my wife or I had been away from home, ever. This was a once in a life time trip. we will likely do it again but never for this long.

People are always asking what our favorite part of the trip was, its hard to answer that, everyplace was beautiful and interesting. Every park was beautiful and fun, But the Yellowstone was definitely the "Crown Jewell " . And every part of this country of ours is amazing, we had a wonderful time visiting and seeing it all. I guess if I had to pick a place from all of the places we visited to live ? I think maybe the Black Hills area.

Thank you all for keeping up with us and posting on this journey.