We’re coming to the close of another year of wandering the country full time in our motorhome - our seventh year! It feels like we have settled into a good pace and definitely no longer think of this journey as an extended vacation. When we first started back in 2016, we seemed to quickly move from place to place to “see it all”. We even knew that we didn’t want to travel at a fast pace but at the beginning it was hard not to do so since it was all new to us. Maintaining a fast pace allows us to see a lot of different things quickly but it is extremely tiring. Over the years we have settled into a more comfortable pace although we have yet to fall into any set pattern with our travels. We don’t bounce between some fixed spot up north for the warm summer months and another one down south for the winter.
That’s not to say there hasn’t been something in common to six of our seven years of travel. In looking at our route for the past 7 years, I noticed that we have crossed the Mississippi River each year except for our 4th year in 2020 when COVID struck. Sometimes we were heading west to see the Pacific Northwest or National Parks like Glacier, Yellowstone and the Tetons. Other years we were heading east to check out Maine or to winter in Florida. I suppose I shouldn’t blame COVID for us staying out west in 2020 because our original plans for that year were to head up to the Canadian Rockies and British Columbia so we wouldn’t have crossed the Mississippi anyway but it’s more satisfying to blame COVID.
Year seven started for us in the Colorado Rockies on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. We were already 50 days into our 2022 Colorado experience but we still had 92 more nights to spend in the mountains and western Colorado. Our four and a half months in Colorado were wonderful. But we really hadn’t put much planning into what our plans would be upon exiting the state and entering Utah. I guess that was a good thing because normal life got in the way and we found ourselves in need of a new car to tow behind the rig. We discovered that ordering a new vehicle with supply chain issues wasn’t going to be possible for our mobile lifestyle given the 3 to 9 month wait. We ended up finding a suitable car on a dealer lot just north of Salt Lake City. We managed to figure out how to handle the purchase and registration of a car remotely and even found a good place to perform the installation of the equipment required in order to flat tow the Grand Cherokee behind the rig.
We took advantage of some nice late fall weather and even made it up to Idaho while we waited for parts for the tow kit to arrive. Once we had the new car ready to go, it was time for us to go south. Winter was coming and we had no desire to experience what Salt Lake City winters are like! On our way south, we visited St George Utah and Boulder City Nevada for an extended time. We even managed to head over to Death Valley for 9 nights - another stop that wasn’t originally on our radar but worked into our fluid plans nicely. We made it to Quartzsite for a Newmar rally and eventually settled into Tucson for a couple of months to enjoy the area.
By then we had decided where we were going to spend the upcoming summer months so we put in plans to head from Tucson to western New York. We had some long travel days but got to see some interesting places and visit with family in the Dallas and Cincinnati area along the way. We also stopped by northern Indiana and had a solar and lithium battery system installed which should really open up our camping possibilities. We only had one night stay in Missouri along the way but it turned out to be a doozy. A hailstorm hit the campground we were at and beat the new car up pretty good. We recently got the damage repaired at a cost just under $10K! We have settled into our spot in Waterloo NY for the season and have started catching up with old friends from our 32 years living in the nearby Rochester area.
I could ramble on much longer about this past year, but I guess that is better left for the individual blog posts I write for each of our stops along the way. With that in mind, below is a screenshot of the Google Map I used to keep track of our journeys for year 7. Below the image is a link that will open up the actual map which allows you to zoom and pan around our route. Each pin represents a stop along the way and clicking on the pin will pop up a window with links to the blog post(s) that are associated with each stop.
As I customarily do, I have generated the “heat map” for the past year. This shows we have camped in 15 different states along the way. The darker the red, the more nights we have spent in the given state. I like the visual representation of where we have traveled over the past year. A second heat map shows all 7 years worth of camping in one image. We didn’t manage to get any new states during the past year. We could have easily clipped the corner of Oklahoma as we left Texas but decided to save it for some future trip through the middle of the country. Since the tool I use to generate these heat maps is geared towards geocaching, it also creates a similar US heat map but breaks it down to the county level for a slightly finer view of our travels.
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| Heat Map of Year #7 |
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| Heat Map of First 7 Years of Fulltime |
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| Same as Above but at County Level |
I keep track of lots of details from our travels in several spreadsheets - it’s the engineer in me wanting to analyze data. This database allows me to break out many of the statistics from our journey. In past years I have just tacked on the most recent years worth of data but an finding that the chart is getting a bit too much of an eye chart so I will be only showing the current year and the 5 previous ones - so goodbye year #1. I don’t bother with the costs we would have if we lived in a sticks and bricks house. So groceries and dining out don’t get tallied in the table.
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| Condensed Stats for Past 6 Years |
So how did our camping compare with previous years? Well we had the same number of stops as last year and on par with prior years too. We drove the motorhome nearly 5600 miles which is also in line with past years. Diesel cost us nearly the same as last year both of which are higher than our early years. I wish we had started to use our TSD fleet card sooner in our travels since it does seem to save us a great deal at the pump. Campground cost was in line with the past few years. We seemed to favor staying at Elks Lodges more this past year staying at one nearly 25% of the time. Our average daily cost per night was $27.74 and is amazingly writhing 5 cents of our total average for the past 7 years.
Even though many of our stats for year 7 were close to our average, this past year was well above average in terms of great locations. It is starting to feel like it did in those years prior to COVID, when we had some great stops and really enjoyed the areas we visited. Colorado was one of the most beautiful places we visited and even though we spent 4.5 months there, I think we could easily go back for several more months and not feel like we were repeating anything. We are ending year #7 in western New York. It’s a place we are very familiar with having spent 32 years of our working life in the area. For those unfamiliar with this part of the state, you may envision New York City when you hear “New York”. But western New York is not anything like downstate. Our campground is in the Finger Lake region of the state and in the review for year #8, I expect to have lots of great places we visited to tell you about.
For the past couple of years, I have been using our yearly reviews to highlight some of the better hikes we have done over the past 12 months. I only listed 6 of them for each of those 2 years. But when going through our list for year 7, I realized picking just a half dozen from the list of over 120 hikes we had completed this past year would be eliminating some excellent hikes that are worth noting here. So in chronological order (I don’t even want to try to rank them!) here are the top twelve hikes. For each one I’ll give a synopsis of the hike, include a link to the specific blog post that describes the hike better as well as a favorite picture from along the hike.
- Rabbit Ears Peak Trail - Steamboat Springs CO
A 5.5 mile out and back trail with 1000 feet of elevation gain. Named for the pair of rock outcroppings that may look like rabbit ears from a distance, this trail was amazing. It likely helped that we timed the visit to coincide with many of the wildflowers being in bloom near the Continental Divide in early July. The last several hundred feet of the trail is very steep and rocky but the views are outstanding.
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| Columbine in Bloom Near Rabbit Ears |
- Second Creek to Broome Hut - Empire CO
A 2.3 mile out and back trail along the drive to Berthoud Pass. It only gains 740 feet but does get up to 11,300 feet so the thin air adds to the challenge. There are several points where we have views of small falls flowing pretty well with the snow melt. The “hut” at our turn around point was much more elaborate than expected and served as a great lunch spot with spectacular views.
Blog post with Second Creek Hike
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| Broome Hut on Second Creek Trail |
- Ptarmigan Lake Trail - Buena Vista CO
This was one of the most challenging hikes we attempted during our months in Colorado but equally beautiful. A 6.0 mile out and back with about 1500 feet of elevation gain but it tops 12,000 feet so it isn’t for all levels of hikers. It starts on the drive to Cottonwood Pass and heads up to a wonderful lake. We enjoyed the varied ecosystems along the way from thick woods to open meadows to areas with rock slides where we spotted an elusive pika. Bring a fishing pole and see if the trout are biting.
This 6 mile loop trail goes around the town of Ouray - a beautiful mountain community along the “Million Dollar Highway“. There are multiple access points around the loop. We headed in a clockwise direction but I’m not sure it would matter. Much of the trail is in wooded areas or meadows with great views of town. There are some rather exposed sections with steep drop offs - not for the faint of heart and we did skip a portion of the loop on the northern end to keep Chris happy. Cascade Falls, Box Canyon, and Ice Park Via Ferrata are all along the way.
Blog post with Ouray Perimeter Trail Hike
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| Overlooking Ouray CO |
- Valley #3 Trail - Goblin Valley State Park UT
Goblin Valley is a magical place. There are several trails in the park but much of it is just wandering in the different valleys filled with these wonderful small hoodoos. Valley 1 is closest to parking and quite popular, Valley 2 is a bit further south and less crowded. But the hike down the wash to Valley 3 was a memorable one. Few people go there, the wash was muddy and we could tell we were the only visitors since the last rain. This was our favorite hike of the trails here but just getting to this park in the middle of nowhere is worth the trip.
This 4 mile out and back hike with 1100 feet elevation gain ends at a really interesting cave structure. The hike was made that much more beautiful because of our timing with the wonderful fall colors. The cave has several chambers and sits on the edge of a steep cliff. The views of the Wasatch Mountains are worth the effort to get to this spot.
Blog post with Wind Cave Trail Hike
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| Wind Cave and Fall Colors |
- Middle Fork Taylor Creek Trail - Zion National Park UT
Located in the northwest corner of Zion, this 5 mile hike is in the less crowded section called Kolob Canyons. There is also a North Fork and South Fork Trail, but the middle sounded most interesting. The trail follows a canyon with 1500 foot near vertical cliffs so the views are rather amazing. The creek crossings weren’t an issue during our hike in late fall. There are a couple of old cabins along the trail and a double arch at the turn around point. Lots of beauty and not too difficult.
We did a section of a longer trail that starts at the Tuacahn Amphitheater and goes into Snow Canyon State Park. We only did the first mile of so but it does gain 600 feet as we climb up a rather rocky trail along the side of a canyon. From the saddle point of the trail, there are great views in either direction. Keep your eyes open for the camel that resides in the backlot of the amphitheater.
Blog post with Tuacahn Trail Hike
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| View Back Down the Canyon at Tuacahn |
- Seven Wonders and Fire Wave Loop - Overton UT
We visited Valley of Fire State Park in November of 2019 and attempted this hike but got chased away by a rain/sleet storm. We timed this visit with a better eye on the weather. All of this park is beautiful and most of the hikes will be good but by far this 4.7 mile hike is the best and is near the top of our all time list. Much of the trail is on smooth rock surfaces with some spots where it follows a wash. The colors and shapes of the rocks are really hard to describe in words and even pictures won’t do it justice. If you’re in the Las Vegas area, find time to head here, you won’t regret it.
Blog post with Seven Wonders and Fire Wave Loop Hike
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| Heading Up Fire Wave Trail |
- Anniversary Narrows Trail - Boulder City NV
Listed as a 8.2 mile loop with 1500 feet of elevation gain, we did this as an out and back hike to shorten it by a couple miles and eliminate some of the climbing. The real interesting portion of the hike is the actual narrows. This half mile section of the trail is a water carved crevice in the desert landscape. Plenty of obstacles to climb up and over but so incredible to see the power of water up close.
Blog post with Anniversary Narrows Hike
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| Obstacles in Anniversary Narrows |
- Mosaic Canyon Trail - Death Valley National Park
This 4 mile out and back hike falls a canyon up into the mountains. The wash is quite narrow at times and the sides of the canyon are a mix of colorful marble and breccia. There are lots of obstacles and one was too much for Chris to get past but if you can continue up the canyon, the views are quite remarkable.
- Cat Mountain Trail - Tucson AZ
This was a rather challenging hike 5.2 mile out and back hike to the top of Cat Mountain. The first 2 miles was relatively easy but the last 0.6 miles to the top climbs 900 feet! Chris got stopped at one very exposed rock climb that had a rather severe drop if you mess up. I continued with a group from our campground and made it (slowly) to the very top. The reason this one gets on the list isn’t so much because of the hike itself but seeing this mountain jut out of the ground when driving by, it looks so intimidating and impossible to climb that the satisfaction of knowing I made it up there put it on my list.
Blog post with Cat Mountain Hike
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| Nearing Cat Mountain Summit |
Below is a map showing all 296 places we have camped in the past seven years. For additional information on any of them, click on the link below the map which will open the actual Google Map I use. Pan and zoom on the map and by clicking on any pin, a window will pop up with the name of the location and a link to the blog post(s) for that place. Those interested in hiking, mountain biking, geocaching or nature photography, may find some of the posts useful if you plan to visit an area we have explored.
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