Travels to the Northwest--Pre trip

 

Last minute change.  We will leave one day earlier in order to cut our mileage for the first day. June 1.

On June 2 we begin our big trip for the year.  We have hopes to make it to the last 2 states in the lower 48 that we haven’t been to.  They are North Dakota and Idaho.  Jan still has Oregon to make, so our trip will include it also.  We will, of course, head west to Missouri, then up through Iowa into Minnesota.  This is where the trip gets into our goals, going through North Dakota into Montana.  We will cross Montana to Bozeman and drop down into Idaho.  This will take us just west of Yellowstone as we go to Pocatello.  In Pocatello we will set up for a couple of days to explore the area.  Then up to Boise for a couple more days then up to Coeur d’Alene for another stay.  Our trip will turn southwest through Washington and to the Columbia River stopping in Cascades Lock, OR.  Exploring most of the Columbia River, like Lewis and Clark.  When we leave Cascade Locks we will go south through Bend to a couple of days in the area of Crater Lake NP.  We will drop south again into Northern California to Mt Shasta, the last time I saw Shasta was from a train at 3 am with a full moon rising illuminating fields of sunflowers.  I can’t imagine this place being anywhere as spectacular as it was last time, but years have enhanced my memory.  Not withstanding Shasta, we will drive to the Pacific coast to visit the Redwood NP.  There are several locations of this park in the area of Arcadia.  We hope to visit all but time may be an issue.  Our next stop will be at Lake Tahoe to see its beauty.  This is our last stop before we begin our trip home, crossing Nevada, Utah and climbing up into Wyoming (to avoid the biggest mountains) and back down to Colorado to visit Jan’s sister. Then we will begin our travels across Nebraska and home from there.

This trip has been planned/scheduled for over 4 months.  Sadly, we have lost the flexibility that we used to have RVing because of all the folks that bought RVs during COVID.  The new campers make reservations but fail to show without notice.  This has caused the campgrounds to require payment upfront.  And with all the RVers vying for the smaller number of campgrounds, it has forced us to schedule way too much.

I know that several of you have wondered about the fuel prices and how that will affect us. We have wondered also.  I have done some calculations and we are looking at the trip costing less than $400 more than we planned, that is if the fuel prices don’t get over $6 for diesel on average.  As you are aware, we aren’t spring chickens so we plan to suck it up regardless.

We have had our RV checked out from stem to stern, put new shoes on it and have set up our own wifi to travel with us. 

Hopefully, all of this planning and preparation won’t be wasted.  I don’t want to force this on anyone, so if you would prefer to not get these updates let me know and I will remove your name from my list.