Home Sweet Home

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Home Sweet Home. After 47 days on the road we are back home. We enjoyed our vagabond lifestyle with a new adventure every day. Unloading the car and putting everything away, sorting through piles of mail, cleaning up after our two cats, getting our yard back in order, are what we are concentrating on now. Not so much fun. But all good things must come to an end, and so did our Great American Adventure. We live in an incredible country and are grateful we’ve been able to take such a fantastic journey.

Thank you for coming along with us.

–We drove 8,960 miles

–We were in 19 states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky

–We stayed at 21 different hotels, motels, B&B’s for a total of 37 nights

–We stayed at the homes of friends or family for 10 nights

—We visited the following National Parks, state parks, monuments, etc.

Badlands National Park, Carlsbad National Park, Grand Canyon National Park (both North and South Rims), Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, Crazy Horse Monument, Wind Cave National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Pecos National Historic Park, Bandelier National Monument, Mammoth Cave National Park, Central High School Historic Site, Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Custer State Park, Little Bighorn National Monument, Mormon Tabernacle (choir), and the Minuteman Missile Launch Silo Delta 09 Launch Site

—We visited the following museums:

Akla Lakota Museum & Cultural Center, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, New Mexico Historical Museum, International UFO Museum and Research Center Museum-Roswell (NM), Historical Museum, Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, Route 66 Museum (Kingman, AZ), National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis Rock n’ Soul Museum, Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, National Corvette Museum, Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Clinton Presidential Library and Archives, and The Mammoth Site

—We saw the following oddities, many of which were on Route 66:

Porter Sculpture Park, The Corn Palace, Wall Drug, Al’s Oasis, Homestake Mining Company, Devil’s Tower, Roswell-NM, London Bridge (in Lake Havasu City), Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive In, Alien Fresh Jerky, Oatman -AZ (burros on the street), Clines Corners, Conoco Gas Station, West of the Pecos Rodeo, Giant Hare, Ozymandias, Cadillac Ranch, Beale Street, and a giant pyramid-Bass Pro shop.

Note: There are probably a fair number of places we didn’t list because we went to so many sites our memory banks are on overload. We’ll probably remember them tomorrow.

BY THE WAY, WOULD WE DO THIS AGAIN – YES!!!

New adventures are in the offing…stay tuned.

Side comments/random thoughts:

Dan enjoyed the 80 mph speed limits in South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. Getting from point A to point B is much faster than what we had been used to. As for me, the fast speeds made me very nervous, especially on 2 lane roads.
South Dakota would be a wonderful place to take children on vacation because there is so much to do.
The United States is beautiful and very large. No matter what we saw out of our window it was lovely with the exception of the Texas Panhandle. Where some might find it boring, we really liked seeing the green plains stretching out to the horizon. It just made the clouds in the sky amazingly gorgeous.
Everyone was friendly from the teenagers behind many of the retail counters to the bikers traveling Route 66.
It was quite unexpected to listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for 1-1/2 hours; truly an amazing sound. The acoustics were so great that the sound seemed to enter your body from all directions. Worth attending on a Sunday, which we discovered by accident.
There were many other surprises on this adventure ranging from Friday night services by the Pacific Ocean; to bats flying out of their cave in the evening at Carlsbad; to going to a rodeo, to finding t-shirts with unusual sayings along the way. Going with the flow is to experience – expect the unexpected.
Dan was a fantastic organizer and it made our trip so much easier. We had moving in and out of countless hotels down to a science. One-night stays were simple– just toss stuff into a bag and bring in the cosmetics suitcase.
Leave more time to do nothing. We didn’t do that and it would have made the trip a little less hectic and even more enjoyable.
Wear comfortable shoes.
Pack Less!!!! We took way too much stuff with us and that made organizing things in the car more difficult and limited what we could bring back with us. On second thought, that might have been a good thing.
Enjoy the moment, even when it means sitting in the car doing nothing for hours. There is always something around the corner to make life interesting.
Technology is wonderful. With cell phones, internet, etc. we never felt out of touch. However, it can also be annoying when it fails – i.e. our Subaru audio system, or internet that you can’t log on to.
Nowadays it is probably better to book hotels in advance. If you wait to the last minute you might have problems finding places to stay. Many of our hotels were sold out after we arrived.
If you want to stay in the national parks you need to book the lodges and hotels well in advance, i.e. 12 to 18 months ahead of time. Even your choices in locations outside the parks, i.e. West Yellowstone will be limited if you wait too long.
We both liked taking a break from politics and the craziness of the world. Some information would sneak through to us like Justice Kennedy’s retirement, or the separation of young children of illegal aliens from their parents, but we were able to tune out most of it. We could pretend that all was well with the world for a few weeks. We never watched television but spent the time writing our blogs.
Blogs take time a lot of time to write (Wendy did most of the writing, Dan edited and selected the photos). It took approximately 1-1/2 to 2 hours per blog. It was worth doing because we now have a great record of our adventure.
We found that using GPS (Garmin) was good in most cases but often gave incorrect directions. Without maps from AAA, towns themselves, and the parks we would have made lots of mistakes along the way. Maps helped make this adventure possible. GPS alone just doesn’t cut it for this type of trip.
We booked many of our stays through Best Western, which had locations in most places where we wanted to stop. Eventually, we racked up points for free nights.
We found the Subaru very comfortable and all of the safety electronics were really great. However, as stated earlier we did have problems with the audio system.
All good things must come to an end, but we will have the memories and the blog for the rest of our lives. We hope that you enjoyed this adventure with us.