The End

You know the trip needs to end when everyone in the car sees this sign and groans

Image source: Micah Costello

Sadly our trip ended on July 31st with a bang, actually it was a crunch...of my car between two semis on highway in Indiana. We were are all OK physically, we were so shaken we got a rental car and headed straight home. 

How many National Parks?  18 plus Monument Valley (technically it’s not a NP)

First thing we're going to do when we get home?
Rachael & Micah: Binge watch Stranger Things Season 3
Chris: Get her dog

What was your favorite Park(s)?

Rachael: Monument Valley,Glacier and Zion 

Chris: Zion (most spectacular), Wind Cave (most enjoyable)

Micah: Zion, Glacier, Yellowstone 

Image source Micah Costello

What was your favorite tourist site?

Rachael: Oatman, Natural bridge on Oregon coast, San Antonio River Walk, 

Chris: Blue Ridge Parkway, San Antonio River Walk

Micah: Crazy House monument 

Image source: Rachael Costello 

Favorite State?  Oregon 

How many days of trip? 42 days (6 weeks exactly plus 3 days home after accident)

How much did it cost? $ 7,190.08

How much did you spend on gas? $ 957.23 w/ hybrid Camry

How many miles did you travel? ~10,000, I had the oil changed twice on trip

How many nights in hotels/cabins? 18 all in South West

Favorite motel/cabins

Deluxe cabin Goulding’s Campground in Monument  Valley

Worst hotel/cabin?

Tie: Motel 6 in Beaumont, TX also the cheapest $ 44.00 & Watkins Village motel, NY also most expensive at $179.00

How many nights in tent? 24

Favorite campsite?

Blue ridge Parkway, Bledsoe State Park, 

Image source; Rachael Costello 

Worst campground?

Brantley Lake State Park, NM (spiders in bathroom)

Coldest location? Low 40s in Yellowstone at night

Hottest location? 118 degrees in So. CA. 

What did we need that we did not bring?

Binoculars 

What did we buy that we forgot?

2 pillow cases

A fan

extension cord

A metal fork (for making tuna)

State with worst roads? TX & CA 

State with worst drivers? Obviously Indiana

State with best roads? Wyoming 

Friendliest People? New Orleans

Places/sites still on our bucket list...

Rachael: swim in Great Salt Lake, Colorado Sand Dunes NP, Trip to Telluride, soaking in a Hot Spring, sleeping in covered wagon, La Brea Tar Pits, Antelope (slot) Canyon, 

Chris: Olympic NP, Northern Cascades NP

Micah: staying on a houseboat, traveling in an RV

Places we want to go back to...

Rachael: Oregon Coast, Zion

Chris: Oregon, 

Micah: Oregon, Yellowstone, 

Image source: Micah Costello

Funniest incidents

Micah going into bathroom with navigation running on phone & Saara telling him “proceed to route.” Other men laughed. 

Rachael cleaning bird poop of rain cover of tent only to have another bird poop as soon as she finished 

Chris looking for her reading glasses only to see them on Rachael’s face. 

Best restaurants/food?

Mulates in New Orleans, LA

Restaurant des Familles, Crown Point, LA 

Solstice in Hood River, OR

KOA restaurant in West Glacier, MT

Wise Cracks (breakfast) in Corvallis, OR

KOA restaurant in West Yellowstone, MT

The Hanger in Casper, WY

Interesting things we noticed...

More foreign tourists than American especially in Utah and California.

Only met 2 groups from New England (1 Maine, 1 Massachusetts)

No self-serve gas in Oregon 

Lots of multi-generational groups traveling

Asian women use umbrella to keep away sun (a lot)

Lots of older couples taking walks while holding hands. 😁

Cattle In Wyoming have own bridges/overpasses across highways. 

In South Dakota sales tax jumps up to 8+ % in summer months.

Tenting is a dying way to camp. Very few tents in all campgrounds. Everyone in West has camper/RV in their yards. I suspect it’s b/c unlike the East where we either have pools or camps/cottages/lake houses there isn’t enough lakes, rivers, streams suitable to own property for all. The west is very dry.

Most children we came across were surprisingly well behaved (even mine).  

Would you do the trip again? Even before the crash we all said no. The trip was grueling. We were all glad we did it, but would never do it again. 

Rachael: NO (3 weeks on road every day is my limit)

Chris:NO

Micah: NO, he didn’t want to do it to begin with. 

Shout Outs...

Elyse for book Moon’s USA National Parks by Becky Lomax 

Mike Stevens for advice on scenic boat trips in NPs and KOA campground suggestion. 

Liza Brackbill for NP advice & introduction  to Roadtrippers App

Rachael for buying Eli (portable Wi-Fi hotspot)

Micah for being Sara’s (navigation App) assistant. We would have WASTED FAR MORE TIME w/o Saara the navigation App. 

Christine for saving us so much money with her NP senior pass and doing half the driving. 
KOA's for always having clean bathrooms, and usually kids for Micah to play and many had basketball courts. :-) 
Jessica Raspa for all the Blog support and checking-in. 


 All Pictures are updated to the Dropbox 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3dsnlo1clw9woli/AAAxWbXtNqPfcu2vDGk9scOxa?dl=0

Badlands National Park

Our day started with two unexpected stops. The Wall Drug Store had been advertising on the highway since Jackson, WY so I had to stop and see what all the fuss was about. It was actually a fun place. Then we missed the road to the Badlands so we had to turn around and there was Delta 9 MinuteMan Missile Silo historic site. They had a great telephone (call) audio tour. 

Finally we got to The Badlands National Park. It is so unique with its Pinnacles and canyons of rock. The fossil lab at the visitor center was amazing. They had so many prehistoric fossils of weird animals. Not dinosaurs because South Dakota was a tropical sea during dinosaurs times. And we finally got to see big horn sheep. 

On our way out of the Badlands we saw a sod house Museum:Prairie Homestead. It was also great. It was an original sod house from 1911, they had a great film,  podcast, and signage sharing the story of the Homesteaders, the brown family, who lived there. 

Wildlife:
2 herds Big Horn Sheep (finally)
100s of Prairie Dogs
1 turtle 

2 roadkill 

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date $510.50

Black Hills

We had a good but long day in the Black Hills.we drove through Wyoming which is all low prairie for hours and hours To finally get to South Dakota. 

Then we went to Cave of the Winds National Park. The drive through the park was awesome. We finally saw a herd of bison and  prairie dogs galore. The elevator was broken down into the Cave which was fine with me because our guide books said one had the crawl at places inside the cave. Crawling in the tiny spaces in caves is not for me. I am no caver. 

Next we went to the Crazy Horse Monument. It’s very expensive.. $30 per car. Once we watched the video on the Museum we were ok with the cost. Henry Standing Bear himself asked

Korczak Ziolkowski to design and build the monument. The federal government offered 10 million dollars, twice, to the project, but Korczak refused. Obviously the Lakota have not had a good or trusting history with the US government and with money comes strings. The project has outlived both men, but still continues with donations 

Then we did a beautiful trail ride in the Black Hills State Forest on the fattest and thickest  horses. 

We ended our day at Mount Rushmore. Unfortunately, all buildings were closed for renovations except the gift shop and restaurant. 

Sorry to take do long uploading pictures. We have been camping since Northern California with little electricity and even less good wi-fi. Now the Pictures are updated to the Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3dsnlo1clw9woli/AAAxWbXtNqPfcu2vDGk9scOxa?dl=0

Wildlife (in route through Wyoming)

6 herds + 85 separate Pronghorn 

8 mule deer

2 normal deer (inside fence with cattle)

1lizard

1bunny

Wind cave National Park & Custer State Park (So Dakota)

2 herds+ 2 Bison

100s Praise dogs

1 pronghorn (while trail riding)

9 Road kill 

331 motorcycles (Sturgis Motorcycle Rally starts next weekend so there are tons of Motorcycles around)

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date $485.50

Grand Teton National Park

The Grand Teton National Park was stunning. The snow-capped peaks go straight up from the plains below. We ate lunch over looking a lake and the mountains-so beautiful. Again we are so surprised that the landscape here is so different from Yellowstone just ~30 miles away. 

Because my mother had worked here she took us to all her old haunts and on a little known dirt road where we saw moose. 

We took the tram out of Jackson Hole Village to the top of a peak (can’t remember the name). I don’t know what I was thinking, I am already suffering from altitude sickness and it rose to ~10,000 feet in just 15 mins. The platform at the top was just metal grates and so scary, we walked around the platform and got on the tram to go straight back down. Then we went into Jackson to get groceries. Jackson was lovely. We have been buying groceries for breakfast and one other meal and eating in a restaurant for either lunch or dinner. The restaurants in the west have been spectacular. I have eaten trout 3x this week, once was trout tacos- Yum! Huckleberries are huge here. They have whole shops just dedicated to huckleberry products. I had huckleberry pie in Glacier, huckleberry ice cream in several spots, one chocolate huckleberry truffle and I bought huckleberry lemonade mix for home. 

Wildlife

1 Swan

2 moose (mom and baby)

2 squirrels 

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date $480.50

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone is a special place. Ethereal at times, but so much variety of landscape: thermal areas that look like another planet, but also forests , Rocky cliffs, grassy plains, serene lakes, narrow shallow rivers, waterfalls and canyons...spectacular!!!! I struggled to breathe here it actually started in Glacier. The altitude is so high. We learned a lot: about the volcano under our feet, benefits of forest fire, history of Yellowstone and bears. 

My expectations for Yellowstone were very low. I heard about the crowds and animal jams that tied people up for hours. Our trip was so enjoyable for two reasons 1) my mother has been here many times so she had a solid plan of where to go and what to see; 2) I had everyone up at 5:00 AM on Day 1. We literally had the park to ourselves. We finished the upper loop by 8:30 AM which we had planned all day for. We saw tons of animals (see below). So after NPS exhibits and films at a visitors center and the best ice cream in the Park (Canyon) at 10:30am we then headed to the southern loop. We did the whole loop but couldn’t find parking to do the Grand Prismatic Spring Overlook.

Day 2: We planned to hike up the overlook above Grand Prismatic Spring and then do a ranger-led boat cruise on Yellowstone Lake. We were able to do both with only two minor delays. In the first jam we never saw the animal but we suspected it was an animal jam because when traffic cleared there was nothing including vehicles-they just disappeared. The second jam was because of stupid people-way to close a mana black bear and two cubs along side the road. I wanted to yell at them, but my mother wouldn’t let me. That’s what people don’t understand about wild animals in a park: If they have a close encounter with humans they get put down. Those people who were way to close to that mama bear were actually threatening her life. 

Day three: We drove from the west Entrance to the south entrance on our way to the Grand Tetons stopping at fountain paint pots, Where we saw 4-6 geysers erupting and mud boiling out of the ground. 

Wildlife:

In Route:

1 deer 

2 eagles

flock of Swans

1 heron

Day 1 In Park

4 Grizzly bear( 1 single, a mom & 2 Cubs)

Herd of elk

Many bison (no herds of mom’s & babies)

2 Swans

Day 2 in park

3 black bear (mom & 2 cubs)

Herd of elk

Many bison (still no herds of mom’s & babies)

many Canada Geese and ducks

1 grouse

2 swans

Day 3 in park

2 pronghorns

1 elk

4 Roadkill en route

1 Roadkill in Park

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date $445.50 

Glacier National Park

Wow. You think these National Parks cannot be any more beautiful, but each one is. Glacier National Park is stunning even without Glaciers. There are still 18 Glaciers, but mostly farther  away than we wanted to hike. We saw only Two spots where glaciers met the road. Glaciers are moving masses of ice. The USGS predicts the glaciers will stop moving and thus cease to be glaciers in 2030. 

We took the shuttle up the  “Going to the Sun Road” and we were happy not to have to drive that scary road. They have had 4 head-on collisions on that road this year so far. We took a ranger-led scenic lake cruise, and learned how to fly fish. It was a good stop. Micah had a group that played soccer each night for 2hrs. 

Again, we feel really lucky to even see this park. Last year a forest fire broke out on August 12th and they evacuated the west side of the park for 2weeks then only opened the “Going to the sun road” for red buses and park shuttles then it snowed on ~ Sept 12th and the road closes when the snow starts to fly. It’s a short tourist season in Glacier. In May they start to clear the road of snow. Many people who we’ve talked to said they were here 20+ years ago and the Glaciers were ever present in the Park. It’s sad, but glad I got to see what little is left. It’s the same way I feel 

The world is so small. The night before we stayed in a KOA outside of Spokane, WA only to see a Pentucket Graduate, Jackie Kawicki (sp?)in the laundry room. They were also doing the National Parks but had started along the Northern route. 

We are so tired, Micah thinks I’ve had a stroke. I’m jumbling words, struggling to retrieve words, and uttering incomplete sentences. 

Time change has challenged us the whole trip, but is especially challenging now that we are losing an hour each time we cross a time zone. We just never know that we’ve entered a new time zone until one of  us realizes the car clock is different than our Fitbit clocks. 

Wildlife:

1 deer 

3 marmots 

2 squirrels 

0 mountain goats😕

1 Roadkill

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date $410.00

Oregon

I have been fantasizing about visiting Oregon for over a year. Search Oregon on Pinterest and you’ll see why. The whole state should be a National Park. The coast is gorgeous. It felt a lot like a Jurassic Park movie.  It’s like Maine in that the coast is primarily rocky. The old growth forest meets the Ocean. These pictures and my words can not convey its beauty.

When we left California into Oregon there was an agriculture check station on the other side of the road checking cars for fruits and vegetables going into California. The fruits we ate all the way from Tennessee across the country have been amazing!!! The raspberries, cherries, oranges, and strawberries don’t even taste like what we get in New England. We are spoiled now!

An interesting fact about Oregon, no self-serve gas. I pulled over to get cheap gas and jumped out to pump and a man met me at the pump. I said I wanted to pump my own, he said I couldn't; state law in Oregon, says it had to be pumped my an attendant. He also called me hun or darlin’ four times.

 We stayed two nights at the same KOA which was a treat not to have to pack up in the morning. Our second day we went inland to Silver Falls State Park for the waterfalls. we hiked 5 miles and saw 8 of the 10 waterfalls.

Then we drove the the Columbia River Gorge scenic area. It was amazing too. If I couldn’t live in Maine, I’d live in Oregon. 

Wildlife:
6 buzzards eating Roadkill
2 blue herons

1 Roadkill the buzzards were eating.

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date $ 375+