As keen-eyed blog readers will know, we have just hit the 11 month mark in our grand “A Year On The Road” RV trek across the US. After Louisiana, we arrived in coastal Mississippi, our 23rd state in this epic voyage.
The story so far – 11 months on the road (NB: The pin-points are not our only stopping points – there are more than 60 of those so far!)
Since our last monthly update, we have covered another 181 miles – a totally sedate travel distance at this stage of our journey (especially when we covered more than 2,200 in the first month!).
In the last month we have moved from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Biloxi, Mississippi, and our traveling has been a lot more focused on the areas close by, rather than trying to cover vast distances quickly. Even including the last two months, we have only gone a total of 672 miles in our trusty Winnebago, Indefatigable (or Fati for short).
The last two full months of our journey, from Port Aransas in Texas all the way along the Gulf Coast to Biloxi via Louisiana
Mind you, we have still covered some territory in our trusty tow car, Nippy, putting an additional 2,534 miles on our little Ford Fiesta (and 3,991 in the past two months), which shows that we’ve completely changed the balance of our touring – going shorter distances in Fati but doing more exploration in Nippy.
Now, with just a month left of our travels (but still more than 550 miles from home), it definitely feels like the end of our grand adventure is firmly in sight, which is very hard to contemplate after such a prolonged – and intense – period of traveling.
In total, we have come 9,225 miles in Fati since leaving home, and another 24,604 in Nippy, for a grand total of 33,829 around this amazing country. Eat your heart out, Hardest Geezer!
Catching up on the first five months of our Ultimate American Road Trip, being serialized in The Independent
Keen readers of our road-trip blog will know we are also serializing the whole trip, month by month, in The Independent newspaper in the UK, and you might like to see the story so far, Months 1 through 5.
It all started back on May 14 with our departure from Orlando and then a month heading north as far as Minnesota…
After arriving in Montana, Part Three of our year-long epic saw us focus on Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park for two of the undoubted highlights of the trip…
Taking time for the geothermal marvel of West Thumb Geyser Basin in Yellowstone
Here we are at the two-thirds mark of our grand ‘A Year On The Road’ RV adventure, and we have reached deep south Texas. We are currently in Donna, TX, and we have traveled a full 928 miles in the last month from our December base in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Our route from Las Cruces took us down through El Paso to Van Horn, and then on to Alpine (for the magnificent Big Bend National Park), before heading further south to Del Rio and then Castroville for Christmas (just outside San Antonio). The New Year then took us southwest to Donna via Kingsville.
All safely set up at our RV resort in Donna, Texas. We could end up being here a whole month!
Our total RV mileage since we left home is now 8,242 and Texas is our 20th state (not counting Florida). That 928 miles probably doesn’t sound like much, but it is more than the total for months 6 and 7 combined, as we had started a significant slow-down in favor of being longer in one place and exploring further by car.
The story so far. The full track of our trip in Fati is in yellow, and our multiple side-trips in Nippy are shown in pink. We still have another 1,500 miles or so to get home!
Our little Ford Fiesta, Nippy, has put in an additional 1,558 miles in the past month, giving her a total to date of 19,708. Combined with Fati, we have driven a grand total of 27,825 miles, or basically enough to have gone right the way round the world, plus an extra 2,924 miles!
We had to make sure we didn’t arrive too early at our Donna campground, so we paid a call to the local Post Office (which had a nice empty parking lot!)
In all honesty, we are not looking to break any long-distance records at this stage. We knew we had to get some miles under our belt by January as the weather becomes a major factor at this time of year, and we need to stay as far south as possible. RVs are not built to travel far during the depths of winter and, even being this far south has had its challenges, with temps dropping below freezing several times this month. Including the wind-chill, we hit 15F/-9.5C at its coldest and, living in what amounts to a glorified tin can, that gets REALLY cold, really quickly!
Our route from here will hug the Texas coast all the way to Louisiana in March, and we should just be warming up again by then!
Charting our “Year On The Road” RV adventure across America after Month 7
As another milestone rolls around, it’s time to update our ongoing Map of the whole trip and tot up our latest mileage chart.
The 259-mile route from Tucson, Arizona, to Las Cruces, New Mexico
On face value, this has been our least-traveled month, at least in RV terms. We have driven a scant 259 miles in our Winnebago Indefatigable (or Fati for short), starting a month ago in Tucson, Arizona, and reaching Las Cruces in New Mexico, a simple journey almost entirely on Interstate 10. Not the stuff of traveling legend, especially compared to our hectic first two months, when we covered fully 3,849 miles from Florida to Wyoming.
How our Road Atlas looks after seven months of our RV adventure. Our overall route in Fati is shown in yellow, with all our various side-trips in Nippy show in pink
The larger view of the past month’s travels, showing our steady 259-mile easterly progress from Arizona into New Mexico
Even by the standards of the last 3 months (869, 579 and 545 miles respectively), it is a slim return. But the fact is we are now spending longer in specific places (like Tucson and Las Cruces) and doing more of our actual journeying by car (our faithful Ford Fiesta, Nippy). We learned our lesson several months ago, after Fati suffered several mechanical issues with our hectic pace, that it was better to reach a destination from which we could explore by car in all directions, and this last month has been the perfect example of that.
Because, while our RV mileage is WAY down, our travel in Nippy has increased substantially. In month 6, she chalked up a whopping 1,927 miles, and in month 7 we have added an even-more-whopping 2,884, which included long-distance trips to Silver City, White Sands and, especially, Santa Fe. But, with Nippy getting a good 45 miles to the gallon on longer drives, and gas prices in New Mexico the cheapest since we left home ($2.25/gallon on our most recent fill-up), it is an economical and strategic success.
The wide, open and inviting mountain roads of New Mexico, as seen from Nippy’s front window!
What all this means is that we have now traveled 7,312 miles in Fati and a humongous 18,150 in Nippy, for a total of 25,462 miles since we left home.
Next up, we turn south for Texas and a long tour down the western half of the state as far as the Gulf Coast. Probably more miles for Fati than Nippy, but you never know…!
May 14, 2023 seems like a long time ago. In fact, it is just 7,053 miles ago. That’s the 6-month distance we have covered in our “A Year On The Road” RV adventure since leaving home in Florida.
From that original departure point to November 14, we have traveled through 18 states and totaled a mind-boggling 22,319 miles when you add in the mileage we have covered in our little Ford Fiesta, Nippy, as well as that 7,053 in RV Indefatigable (or Fati for short).
This isn’t quite 6 months, as Google won’t allow additional destinations after Lake Havasu in Arizona, but it should show the most recent part of the trip, to current spot Tucson (see below)
The last month has added 545 miles to Fati’s total but also 1,927 to Nippy’s. That means Nippy has now piled up a whopping 15,266 miles to date, so she is proving a real workhorse.
Of course, we should have gone even further afield, as we scrapped plans to head out to Washington and Oregon after reaching Glacier National Park in Montana, but we think that is still a pretty respectable total.
Below are two maps showing just the last month of our travels, from Kingman in Arizona to Tucson, via sparkling Lake Havasu City, Hope, Goodyear and Mesa (with 3 weeks in the greater Phoenix area in all):
From Kingman in northern Arizona, we traveled down the extreme west part of the state before reaching Interstate 10 and heading east to Mesa and then Tucson, with a week in between in Goodyear
And this shows the more detailed version, highlighting an overnight stop in tiny Hope and the (rather confusing) route through and around Phoenix before reaching the chic Voyager RV resort in east Tucson
Having just hit the 5-month mark on our grand RV adventure, it is especially illuminating to see that we had by FAR our lowest month for mileage in Fati, with just 474 miles covered from Fillmore in Utah to Kingman here in Arizona.
Month 5 – picking up in Fillmore, Utah, and traveling to Kingman, Arizona
Showing more detail of our Month 5 route from Utah, through Nevada, to Arizona
The main reason for such a low total for the full month (as opposed to the 868 miles in Month 4 and the mind-boggling 2,504 we travelled in the first month!) was because we spent two full weeks in one location (Laughlin, Nevada) , and used our tow car, Nippy, for our more extensive travelling once we were settled.
We haven’t been sluggards, though. Our mileage in Nippy was a whopping 3,718 for this month, which included trips from Cedar City to the Grand Canyon (North Rim) and Palm Springs from Laughlin, as well as our just-completed 779-mile 3-day round-trip from Kingman to the Grand Canyon (South Rim), Monument Valley and Flagstaff.
Fati and Nippy in our current campground, the Blake Ranch RV Resort in Kingman, AZ
Highlights of the last month include Las Vegas, the Mojave Desert, both North and South visitor centers of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River, Monument Valley, and the city of Flagstaff, which really caught our attention, in addition to a fascinating section of Route 66.
When all added up, we have travelled 6,403 miles from home in Florida in Fati, and another 13,339 sight-seeing in Nippy from our various RV campgrounds.
The first 4 months – from home in Florida to Fillmore, Utah, a total of 5,929 miles
That’s a total of 19,742 miles in and around the US since we left home. And we’re still hungry for more! We do still have another 7 months to explore this half (or two-thirds) of the country, though, and the next month will include more iconic stop-overs, notably Lake Havasu and London Bridge, the RV Mecca of Quartzite, Phoenix, Sedona and Tucson. Stay tuned…
Highlighting our fourth month on the road and the route so far – all 5,929 miles of it
After three months of fairly hectic traveling, our four-month mark shows that we have come the shortest distance for any month of the grand RV trip to date, from Wheatland in Wyoming to Fillmore in Utah (via what looks like a strange detour to Declo in Idaho, but which was the best way to see some of Idaho without putting too many miles on our RV).
Our mileage for Month Four was therefore just 868 miles, compared to 1,318 last month, 1,239 in Month Two and a whirlwind 2,504 in the opening month.
The total distance in Indefatigable (or Fati for short) since we left Orlando is now 5,929 miles.
The slower pace has been deliberate, of course. We realized that we were trying to pack too much in to this crazy 10-wheeled adventure and we have purposely changed both our itinerary and our pace of travel to avoid the mental and physical breakdowns we experienced in the first two months.
The key has been to identify an area that allows us to explore in multiple directions for a week or so, and then use our tow car, Nippy, to do more of the exploration.
To that end, we have actually gone an additional 9,621 miles in Nippy in those four months, almost 3,000 of them in the past month alone. That total includes a spur-of-the-moment trip into Canada from Montana, our overnight excursion to Rocky Mountain State Park in Colorado and an extensive day trip to the Flaming Gorge in Utah, both from Wyoming.
Our total mileage for the trip so far is therefore a whopping 15,550, or 3,887.5 a month!
The next month could see us top that record for Nippy, too, as we plan on basing ourselves in southern Nevada for trips into Southern California. As ever, this is an – ahem – moveable feast, but you can be sure to read all about it here!
In the last six weeks we have dipped in and out of the Rocky Mountains in each of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, but we hadn’t driven through them. Until reaching Utah.
Driving west along I-80, what was initially a dark smudge on the horizon rapidly transformed into a formidable vertical barrier as the Uinta Range loomed into imposing view.
From the relatively flat southwest plain of Wyoming, the Rockies suddenly provide a formidable barrier to the west
The highest peaks of the Uintas reach 13,534ft above sea level, which is only 42nd in terms of the overall peaks in the Rockies, but Colorado has fully 39 of those, and Wyoming two, so Utah actually comes in third of all the states that feature the Rockies. More significantly, it is ninth when it comes to the prominence, or highest vertical rise, at 6,358ft.
Looking up at that 6,000-plus feet of mountain ahead of us was a sobering prospect. We were supposed to drive through there?
Thankfully, the highway into Utah was simpler than it looked and our Fati coped admirably with the winding mountain pass route from Wahsatch to Emory, where we branched northwest on the lower elevation of I-84. Still, surrounded by the massive bulk of peaks reaching almost 10,000 feet put our WPMs (Wows Per Minute) back into high gear.
This is the bulk of Thurston Peak, which reaches 9,705 feet above sea level, with a vertical rise of almost 5,000 feet. Small, it isn’t
Amazingly, I-84 dropped our overall elevation to just below 5,000 feet, meaning Thurston Peak on our immediate left towered almost 5,000 feet above us. It made us feel incredibly small.
We were heading for Layton, Utah, just north of Salt Lake City, where the spectacular Valley View RV Resort awaited us. However, it had to wait a bit longer than expected as our GPS systems (two of them) decided to play silly buggers with us, not for the first time.
Our Garmin wanted us to turn off the highway onto a road that did not exist, while our Samsung phone’s system couldn’t locate us at all. A quick call to the RV resort revealed that we needed to turn off at Antelope Drive, but we then found ourselves in a quiet residential area with our Garmin telling us the road had a six-ton limit. At fully 11 tons, Fati was potentially just a teeny bit over that limit, so we pulled over.
Someone who’s name begins with Simon tends not to handle GPS malfunctions terribly well. It usually includes lots of words beginning with F in a tirade of angry invective. For once, this didn’t reach DEFCON 1 thanks to Susan volunteering to unhitch Nippy and scope out the road ahead, which appeared to drop off the edge of a cliff.
Sure enough, she found the way in, which didn’t involve any cliff-hanging, and, communicating by phone, guided the RV safely to its intended port.
Valley View RV campground is a genuine high-caliber resort, with lots of facilities and a wonderfully modern, clean look
Our new home for the next 8 days is a slick, modern and feature-packed RV resort, with 121 berths for RVs of all types, plus facilities like a swimming pool, clubhouse with fitness center, pickleball courts, and a dog park. Food trucks visit periodically to provide a handy dinner option while the clubhouse also offers complimentary coffee, just like a hotel (much to Simon’s liking). To one side, we have a view of the Uintas; to another it is the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island.
Oh, and we are half a mile from Hill Air Force Base. Who fly F-18s. Every weekday. From 8 a.m. So, there’s that….
Our 8 a.m. alarm call, courtesy of the US Air Force
Next, we’re off to see Salt Lake City, more of the Uintas, and Antelope Island. We have a truly excellent base to explore from and the views of the mountains are truly spectacular. This is yet another scenic wonder in what has been a string of them since we hit Upper Michigan back in June, and we are eager for more.
Antelope Island lies to our west, full of intrigue and scenic promise. This is another epic location…and we’ll take you there soon!
Some of our adventures begin with “It all started out so well.” This is one of them.
With three hours to kill before we could check in at our new campground in Green River, Wyoming (just 15 miles from the Rock Springs Walmart, whose parking lot we spent the night in after we drove two hours longer than we’d planned to), we popped into the Rock Springs Visitor Center to get some local knowledge about what to do in the area.
Along with the famous Flaming Gorge, we were told to drive out to the White Mountain Petroglyphs, visit the Killpecker Sand Dunes, and take the scenic Wild Horse Loop as great ways to spend time and soak up some natural wonders.
Each time we talk to a Visitor Center person we tell them three things: We have an elderly dog who can’t hike more than a mile round trip; we want to avoid high places with sharp drop-offs; and we’d like to skip any dirt roads, to avoid damage to our little Nippy.
Our Ruthie. In Nippy. With Simon. And a treat.
In this instance, we pointed at Nippy and at our elderly dog, just outside the Visitor Center’s front window, to drive home the point, having been totally ignored by another Visitor Center representative who only told us about long hikes in his area, which were, apparently, his favorite thing to do.
No problem at all, we were assured. We should go to Flaming Gorge, of course (“Well, yes, there are sharp drop-offs, but they only last a few minutes,”), and we should also go out to the White Mountain Petroglyphs, which include what is now called Birthing Rock, a secluded spot where Native American women went to give birth. The highlight of the place was that you could see fingernail marks in the rock, where laboring women tried to cope with their pain.
Okay, odd, but count us in!
We should also drive the Wild Horse Loop in the evening, and see where thousands of wild horses live, our girl said. The loop would take an hour or two, depending on how often we’d stop. Then, on another day, the Killpecker Sand Dunes are “so much fun,” we should go there and do some dune surfing.
Perfect! We’d do the petroglyphs before checking in at the campground, the Wild Horse Loop the next day, then fit in the unfortunately-named sand dunes and Flaming Gorge, with a day in between to do some work. Plan made!
This isn’t us in Wyoming. It’s us at an Orlando City Soccer game, with our hair covered in beer from the people behind us. But this is how we feel when a plan comes together.
CR-191 heads north out of Rock Springs, and it’s a smooth, paved road into the “Red Desert.” We quickly left the city behind and were passing an increasingly dry, desolate landscape of low, gray-green sagebrush, tufted bunchgrass, some sort of spindly yellow flower, and sand, made even more godforsaken by the harsh summer sun hammering down on us and on the swirling dust-devils.
Foliage we are not familiar with
A sign pointed to the turnoff for the road leading to the petroglyphs, and we were mildly dismayed to discover it was, in fact, a gravel road. But it was an “improved gravel road,” meaning, it had recently been watered and graded. Okay. Not too bad. And it was only 17 miles to our destination.
Within minutes, we both agreed if that monstrosity was “improved” we’d hate to see what an unimproved gravel road was like. Unfortunately, after 10 rough, pitted miles, we found out. Some of the cracks created by winter’s run-off in the not-at-all-improved road were so deep we were reminded of the Guernsey Ruts, and extensive holes full of tire-sucking sand threatened to end our journey in the ditch, with a slipped Nippy.
One lone pronghorn watched our progress, and we were certain it was thinking, “What idiots.” Three wild horses turned to observe us briefly, surely wondering if we had a death wish. A small herd of cattle paused mid-chew to give us looks that indicated we were the kind of people who should return to the comforts of the city. Now.
After they looked upon us with scorn, they turned their backs and shunned us altogether.
But we pushed on.
We’d gone more than 17 miles, but there wasn’t a petroglyph or birthing-worthy rock in sight. We’d been traveling parallel to a cliffside for many, many miles, but it was never closer than a mile or so away. We could see quite a way down the “road,” in front of us, but there were no signs indicating our destination was imminent. Where the actual hell were we?
Several miles back, it had begun to dawn on us we had one individual-serving-size bottle of water, no extra gas, no cell phone service, and a dog with very little hind-quarter muscle mass, who could never make it back to the main road. Not only that, but we were totally alone. Some pissed-off rancher could come out and shoot us between the eyes, hide our bodies in the shrubbery, and never spend a moment in prison for the murder of two tourists who didn’t have the sense God gave a goat.
We absolutely are not going to compare ourselves to the brave pioneers who faced immense hardship while founding this great country, but really, sort of, we are.
If the car broke down or we got a flat we could probably make it back to the main road, but there was no way our Ruthie would survive the desert of the damned.
It was time to call it.
So near, yet so far, and with the Grim Reaper’s hot breath on our necks, we turned Nippy around and prayed we’d make it back to pavement.
You’re reading this, so it’s obvious we did. But only just.
It was windy, too.No one can be expected to bear this with grace.
We’ll spare you the next day, when we ventured out for the Killpecker Sand Dunes, which turned out to be much, much further down that same horror of a dirt road. We won’t mention our dismay when we switched gears and decided to do the Wild Horse Loop instead, which (say it with us) was also down an ass-end-of-nowhere road.
This isn’t the Wild Horse Loop. This is the super-easy, get-there-on-a-paved-road Horse Corral we found the next day, where the Bureau of Land Management rounds up wild horses and auctions them for adoption. Wild herds can double every 3-4 years, and, if left in those numbers, most would starve to death.
Later, when we read the multi-page booklet we were given by the Visitor Center, we discovered additional information we hadn’t been told. The fine print for these locations insisted:
“Grab your camera and binoculars, pack plenty of food and water, and make sure to travel in a fueled-up AWD (all wheel drive) vehicle and always let someone know where you will be going and when you will be back.”
Oh, and by the way, it’s a steep, nearly two-mile round-trip hike to the petroglyphs from the road, through sand and shrub and probably loads and loads of infuriated rattlesnakes.
Since we didn’t get to see the petroglyphs, we made our own.
That is the kind of information you give to people who don’t own trucks or cowboy boots. The kind of people who carry designer purses or wear Ray Ban sunglasses. In short, us. We’re the people who need to be told.
Us in our natural state
But we won’t be the people who need to be told next time, because we learned the lesson and survived to tell the tale. So, in the end, it’s a story of triumph. Right?
On August 14 we celebrated the third month of our grand ‘A Year On The Road’ RV adventure, with a chance to tot up our mileage and chart the latest course of the scenic route we are forging across the US.
Having ended Month Two at Fishing Bridge RV Park in the heart of Yellowstone National Park, we have basically undergone a bit of an about-face on our original planned route and gone “freelance” for a few weeks. Our third month covered a total of 1,318 miles, giving us a whopping 5,061 for the trip to date.
Month Three – 1,318 miles, starting in Yellowstone and reaching El Rancho Village RV & Cabins in Wheatland, Wyoming, via Glacier National Park in Northwest Montana
As you’ll see from the map, we continued north from Yellowstone to Glacier National Park, but then broke away from the proposed westward trek to Washington and Oregon via a bit of Idaho in favor of seeing more of Montana and Wyoming, two states which we have found utterly enchanting.
We have tried not to cover any of the previous route, apart from a few miles along I-90 in Montana, and have dived much deeper into Wyoming in particular, including side trips to Cheyenne and Laramie – very much the heart of the Old West – in Nippy to avoid putting too many miles on Fati. From here, we’re looking to turn West again, with each of Colorado, Idaho and Utah on our radar – and more of the magnificent Rocky Mountains.
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