December 10, 2010 by steve.

So once again I am behind in updating the blog. We are preparing to head out on our next camping weekend and I’ve yet to write up the last trip. As we’ve done for the past few years, the CurbCrushers decided to head out of town for Thanksgiving. This year we returned to James Island County Park just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. This was a park that we’d visited in June of 2009 and decided that we wanted to return around Christmas because of the drive through light show that takes place in the park. But first we had to get there.

Hunting Island State Park

On the way to Charleston, we decided to make a stop at Hunting Island State Park just outside Beaufort, SC. The primary reason was to see the lighthouse, but it also broke the trip up nicely. The campground as Hunting Island State Park is an older campground, with tight turns and sites that are not well defined. Erosion is such a problem, that the Atlantic keeps eating away at the sites that are closest to the beach. Apparently the old road (the one in place in the Spring of 2010) is no longer present, since a storm washed it away. Another issue is that in order to fill in some sites, the park folks have dumped sand onto the sites. We saw one poor couple with a 40 foot + diesel pusher dug in up to their rear axles from trying to back into a site. It took the park service calling a tow truck the next morning to get the RV out of site.

There are a number of bike/walking paths on the island. However, be warned that the path between the campground and the lighthouse is hilly and narrow. Lady and Little CurbCrusher were very challenged on the bike trip. At low tide, the beach is wide enough and hard enough that you can easily ride a bike from the campground to the other end of the island. The trip is enjoyable, and the driftwood on the beach is very thick in some places. There is a Nature Center and a Visitor’s Center near the lighthouse, along with cabins at the south end of the island. All of our pictures of Hunting Island are here.

Charleston and James Island County Park

After a couple of days at Hunting Island Sate Park we headed up to Charleston. When we have visited Charleston in June of 2009, we heard a lot about the Festival of Lights that is held at the James Island County Park. We decided then that we wanted to camp in the park during the Festival of Lights, and we weren’t disappointed. The park lights up three miles of roadways in the park with holiday lightscapes that run from the traditional Nativity scene to local attractions like the bridge and the USS Yorktown. In addition, they set up a Santa’s Village area around the splashpad and water park area with gift shops, fair food and interactive light displays you can walk through. We had a wonderful time walking through this area each night we were camping, and it was a great way to get into the Christmas spirit. Our pictures of the Festival of Lights can be seen here.

In addition to camping and enjoying the lights, we did partake of some other activities while in Charleston. Little CurbCrusher and I spent a morning at Patriots Point visiting the USS Yorktown and USS Clamagore (Pictures). The Medal Of Honor museum inside the Yorktown was a great part of that visit. Little CurbCrusher decided that she did not want to work in a submarine after seeing the Camagore and walking through it. We also took a quick trip into Charleston to visit the Ft. Sumter visitors center and the Moonpie Store, along with stopping to visit the Angel Oak, the oldest tree east of the Mississippi (Pictures). I continued the tradition of the last two Thanksgivings by running the Charleston Gobble Wobble Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning.

The camping was great. We had a wonderful site that offered a bit of privacy, and our neighbors were friendly and kind. The sites are good sized, with full hookup and wi-fi, so there was really no reason to wait two weeks to post this blog entry. This is really an outstanding county park, and Charleston is lucky to have such a gem located there. (Pictures)

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November 8, 2010 by steve.

Well it was Halloween and the CurbCrusher clan continued with the second year of our new tradition, camping at Fort Wilderness at Disney World. Of course this is a destination that we’ve been to before, in October of 2009, November of 2008, and September of 2007, so we’re fairly familiar with the place. This time was a little different, as we ended up in the 1600 loop, in site 1645, which is off the main road. On all our previous trips we’ve been in the 1200 and 1300 loops that are on the main road. As always, the site was clean and big enough for the rig. And at Halloween, the Fort is one of the best places to be. Lots of folks decorate their sites, the candy is great and there are number of activities for all ages.

The only scary thing about Halloween at the Fort is the golf carts, or more particularly the golf cart drivers. It almost appears as though Disney has given golf cart folks instructions that it is fine to ignore stop sign, pedestrian cross walks and the arrows painted on the streets that indicate the proper direction of traffic. On more than one occasion we were on a sidewalk that was clearly marked “No Golf Carts” only to encounter three or four carts trying to navigate around the pedestrians. It’s almost as if when issuing you a golf cart, instead of asking for a drivers license, Disney simply ask that you divorce yourself from your ability to reason and whatever literacy you have.

	Enough of the complaints though, we were in the most magical place on earth. To top it off, we had free tickets from the Disney Give a Day Get a Day promotion to use. We choose to visit Epcot and enjoy the Food and Wine Festival by eating our way around the world. It was the first time that we had ever been to the festival and we enjoyed sampling the food from Chile, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Mexico, Poland, China, Italy, Morocco, Belgium, Ireland,and Canada. In addition we took advantage of some of the rides during the visit, riding the boat ride in Mexico, Test Track and Soaring. As always, Little CurbCrusher likes to visit Club Cool where they have different Coke products from around the world that you can sample.
	Saturday we got up and went over to the Meadows at the Fort. The event was a Mummy Run. Teams had 10 minutes to wrap their selected team member in toilet paper as a mummy. Then all the mummies ran about 30 yards across the field and came back. Leaving a trail of mummy wrappings in their wake. This was followed by a visit to Downtown Disney for lunch. Trying to eat healthy, we visited the Earl of Sandwich and Ghiradellhi. After each having a sandwich at the Earl’s we visited a couple of shops and walked over to the Ghiradellhi soda fountain for desert. The three of us shared two chocolate sundaes (a brownie sundae and a caramel sundae) to top off the visit to Downtown Disney. Back at the Fort, we walked over to the main road and watched the golf cart parade. We ended the day at the Fort Wilderness marina, watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks.
	Halloween day started early for Mr. CurbCrusher. 13.5 miles of running around the Fort and back and forth to the Wilderness Lodge a couple of times. After a good pancake breakfast, the family jumped on the boat to the Contemporary Hotel. Lady CurbCrusher had heard about the Dole Whip, which is basically a serving of pineapple flavored soft serve ice cream. It turned out that the Dole Whip is not available at the Contemporary, but can be found at Captain Cooks in the Polynesian. So it was up to the monorail to ride over to the Polynesian. Lady and Little CurbCrusher got their cups from the cashier and headed over to the Dole Whip machine. Lady CurbCrusher put her bowl under the nozzle and pulled the handle. About three ounces of soft serve ice cream came out, and the machine stopped. After the manager came over and turned the machine off and on a couple of times, it became apparent that there was to be no Dole Whip goodness for anyone on Halloween. We concluded the excursion by taking a boat back to the Magic Kingdom, and then another boat to Fort Wilderness.
	Back at the Fort, we wandered over to the dog park and watched the pet parade. There were some cutely costumed dogs, and only only one non-dog pet, a cat. After for a while, it was time to get into our Halloween costumes and trick-or-treat. Park Ranger CurbCrusher, Eyeball Little CurbCrusher and Marathon Girl Lady CurbCrusher headed out and walked through seven loops. It was a great walk. Lots of people out, kids and adults in awesome costumes, friendly campers and great candy. Not to mention getting to look at all the sites that were lavishly decorated.

Once again, it was a great Halloween. So good that we’ve already booked next year’s trip to the Fort. As always, the only real negative (aside from dodging golf carts) was the check-in process. It took over 25 minutes to get through the line and get checked in at the Fort. It is hard to understand how a company that does so much right with hospitality, can get RV campground check-in so wrong. Pictures from Epcot and Fort Wilderness.

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September 21, 2010 by LadyCC.

This was the CurbCrusher’s and Lady CC’s first time camping in the MH w/o PreTeen CC -who got to spend her weekend at the Nick Hotel with friends. We decided to camp at Kelly Park/Rock Springs. It is close by in Apopka and since it was still hot we wanted to tube the river. We had also decided before hand that we would not cook dinner this trip since it was only the 2 of us.

So we set up and got our tubes out and filled them and preceded to head to the spring head. The water was refreshing cold and it was a hot day so it was pure joy to cool off. On our first trip down the river CC put a hole in his tube when he ran into some rocks. So he was left holding the side the entire run to keep the air from leaking out. This greatly lessened his picture taking on the run so we don’t have much in the way of pics on the first trip. When we exited the run his tube was less than 1/2 inflated so we needed to return to the RV to patch and refill.

Upon returning we found that our power was out and so we called the ranger. CC went around and determined that the 4 sites adjacent to us also had no power. In about 10 minutes the ranger on duty showed up and flipped the breaker and all was good. I think she doesn’t understand how RV’s work because she told me that if we were using all 30 amps and we plugged in a fan, for example, we would blow the breaker. In our case, we have a power management system on our MH and it would shut something down if we added more appliances instead of throwing the breaker. In our 5th W, the fuse would blow 1st before a breaker. So the power problem was really the park’s and not because we were over using.

Well after that happened and was resolved we went and got showers and decided to head out to dinner. We seemed to have to drive awhile before we found what we were looking for: a Mexican restaurant.  We had dinner then stopped to get ice cream and headed back to thr RV to watch a movie and take a nightly walk.

Saturday morning we decided to fill the tubes with more air and then take a hike which we have never had enough time for. We walked the Kelly loop trail. It is said to be 2.1 miles and rings the park and springs. It didn’t seem very long but there were parts of it that were pleasant to hike. We saw 2 deer and got to see the 3rd landing area for camping. We walked the boardwalk behind the springs and came back out in front of the ranger house. Then it was an easy walk back to the campsite. We loaded up our tubes and then headed to the springs.  We did a couple of runs and then bought lunch from the concession stand. We had hamburgers and onion rings and both were very good and were not too bad in price either.

it started to sprinkle so we loaded our stuff up and headed back to the RV where we found a neighbor setting up for a party. I guess it is cheaper to rent a campsite for $18 then the pavilion for $50 so they did. They set up, then went tubing and when we were gone for dinner they came back to have cake and ice cream and packed up and left.

We showered then had naps and read our books and then went to the Melting Pot for dinner. We bought coupons last year and this was our last one to use before they expired. We had an excellent dinner, went back to the RV and took a walk around the springs. We saw a deer drinking on the other side of the river but some tubers scared it away. Turtles were swimming around as well as some very large fish. We weren’t lucky enough to see the otters this time though.

After our walk we came back had ice cream, and watched another movie and went to bed. Sunday was restful and we got up and had breakfast and then cleaned up, dumped the tanks and made it home. It’s lovebug season but we were lucky and didn’t hit a swarm of them so clean up was pretty easy. We took the RV back to storage and went  to pickup PTCC at the Nick Hotel. She had a great weekend and so did we.

Here’s our review I posted:

We camped in site #8. Very shady with w/e, fire ring/grill combo, picnic table on a concrete slab. Sites are long enough for the longest RV’s. We did have a problem with the power going out, but it was rectified quickly with the ranger. This our 3rd time camping here and we still really like this campground. It is quiet, but close to the river where the tubing is. Park is not crowded during the week but does get full on weekends. We saw deer on the Kelly park Loop Trail hike, as well as turkeys, raccoons, and a bear was sighted in the campground during the weekend.

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August 8, 2010 by LadyCC.

This weekend the CurbCrusher gang headed out to the beach at Sebastian Inlet SP. It was about a 2 hour drive for us and luckily we had good weather which is not always a guarantee in August in FL.

We arrived in the park which has several entrances and set up in site #14 which was just across from the channel.  We only had the road to the boat ramp/picnic area between us and the water. The site consisted of a gravel base, shared water between sites#13 & #14, 30A power,a combo fire ring/grill and a picnic table. We had the end site so no one was on our curb side which gave us a little more privacy. The breeze off the channel was nice since it was so hot and there were few bugs at the campsite.

After setting up we loaded the bike stroller with all the goods needed for the beach and rode our bikes to the beach. We found out there are no bike racks and there is no rinse off at the beach entry from the office area. Later we found the shower but it was behind the Fishing Museum nowhere near the beach area. We wheeled our stuff out and set up on the beach. There was a lot of wind that afternoon and the waves were fierce. So were the no-see-ums. We waded out into the water and just a step beyond my waist I hit deeper water that was over my head. There seemed to be a steep drop off in that location. Also the beach had a shelf of sand that made it hard to see the water. If you had little ones I would not recommend this section of beach for them to play because the visibility of the water was hard to see from the beach since it was so much lower than the sand. We stayed about an hour an a half and then called it quits to go back and make dinner. First night is always a cookout so we made hamburgers and hot dogs that Preteen Curbcrusher likes. Later we walked around the marina area and near the office to check out the water. The ranger that checked us in said we would be able to see dolphins in the channel and we did as we walked along the water. We also saw wild bunnies in the campground near the bath houses.Then we went inside to watch one of the 2 movies that we brought with us for the weekend.

Saturday morning we are headed to the McLarty Museum down the road about 2 miles. Nowhere did it say on the website or in the paperwork I received that there was a cost to enter but there was a $2 pp charge. They have a movie about the 1715 Plate Voyage of the Spanish Crown that was lost at sea and how people have found some of the treasure including Mel Fisher. The museum is quite small and has an observation area outside of where the treasures have been found scattered on the coast.

After leaving the museum we head to the beach just up the road from it. We liked this section better since it was flatter and there was no drop off in the water. The water was cold to us, especially since we were in it the day before and it seemed warm then. We were only about a mile south of where we were yesterday. We stayed until about 1 pm then went back to the campsite for lunch and rest. CC and I spent our time reading and enjoying the breeze and PTCC napped. About 3 pm we headed over to the Fishing Museum to see what was in there. They have a movie also about cutting the channel and everything you ever wanted to know about fishing. I personally hate fishing, don’t eat fish, so this was not the highlight of my trip.

After the museum we drove over to the marina where they rent kayaks  and motorboats to see what it looked like. Then drove to the  cove area to see if we cold snorkel. It was too shallow and there were not a lot of fish to be seen there. Also a storm was coming in so we headed to the fishing pier to take a look before it got to us. It is a really nice pier but once again fishing doesn’t interest me and I was afraid someone would cast and hook me (it has happened before when I was young I got a hook in my eyelid from someone not paying attention to those around them). It also had the requisite fishy smell. The one good thing was we had a great view of the surfers at the beach north of the jetty. There seemed to be well over 100 that afternoon.We watched them surf for awhile but after the 3rd lightning flash we left to go back to our campsite.

We got dinner together and hung out at the campsite until it got dark then walked around. The night before when we walked it was steamy but since the storm blew in it was very comfortable for walking around. Then back to the RV again and to watch our 2nd movie we brought with us.

One thing I noted was this is a 24 hour park and if you get sites by the channel expect to hear road noise from fisherman coming and going at all hours. Probably not as much a problem if you book sites farther away from the road. Overall park was OK but I would give it a 5/10. Mostly because it is so spread out. There  are 5 entrances we found: a beach side parking lot, McLarty Museum, Camping area/boat launch/fishing museum, Marina rentals, and main picnic area/surfing area/pier. So if you don’t bring a car it would be harder to get around. Especially since the bike paths do not go over the bridge- they stop just before it and it doesn’t seem safe to me to try it even though we saw bicyclists riding on the bridge. We would probably come back just not right away.

Photos are on Flickr.

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July 24, 2010 by steve.

Well, home for a little less than a month, and we’re already headed out for a weekend trip to Rainbow Springs State Park just west of Ocala, Florida. After our long trip out west, we’ve decided to try and spend the next few months close to home with short drives. Of course if feels weird to hook everything up and head out for a two hour drive. For some reason it feels like I should be driving for six to eight hours before stopping. Also, since it’s summer, we’ve decided to try and visit springs and beaches until Halloween.

Rainbow Springs State Park is separated into three sections. There is the spring head, the campground and the tubing area. You are only actually at the springs at the spring head, which is the source of the Rainbow River which runs by the campground and the tubing area. As a camper, you get access to all three areas, but you have drive to the tubing area and the spring head.

The spring head is located near the intersection of FL-40 and US-41. It was originally a tourist attraction until the mid-70’s. So there are walking trails that take you by the old zoo area and by a number a man made waterfalls that were featured in the gardens. You can also swim in the springs, nice cool refreshing water at 72 degrees F. The water is very clear, and a great place to swim on a hot day. The only drawback is that the access to the swim area is off a large dock platform, and you can’t really stand up in the water once you get in. So there is a large crowd of people trying to hang onto the dock. If you move away from the dock, the crowd thins out, but you have to tread water or swim.

The tubing Area is located about a mile and a quarter south of the campground entrance to the park. For day visitors that want to tube, they park at the tubing area and take a tram up to the campground river access. If you are staying the campground, you can tube down and take the tram back (the tram has a fee that is not covered by park admission or camping fees), or you can do what CurbCrusher gang did: I drove down to the tubing area first thing in the morning and parked the toad and rode a bike back to the campground. There is not a lot else to the tram area other than the parking lot and a boardwalk that leads to the river. Tubing on the river is pleasant as the entire Rainbow River is an idle zone for power boats, so there is not a lot of worrying about getting run over.

The campground is located along the Rainbow River between the head springs and the tubing area. It is at most a quarter mile walk from the campground to the river bank. At the river bank, there is a marked off area for swimming and a tube/canoe/kayak launch point. The tram from the tubing area drops folks off close to the river bank, so there are not a lot non-campers wandering around the campground. The campsites are full hookup with 30 and 50 amp, water and sewer. There are two or three pull-thru sites and most sites wide and of good length. There is very (VERY) little shade in this campground, and on hot days you can hear every single air conditioning unit running all day long as the rigs sit in the sun. The bathhouses are fairly new and clean and comfortable. There is a store/office, a game room and a small pool that are available at the campground. You can also rent canoes, kayaks and tubes from a concessionaire located by the river bank.

We had a great weekend at Rainbow Springs. We tubed the river on Saturday morning, a trip that took about two or two and a half hours. The rest of the time we relaxed and enjoyed the company of our fellow Florida Pop Up Camper club folks that showed up. We did take some time to head up the head spring and enjoy the gardens and the spring water for a couple of hours. We also found it very refreshing and relaxing to just sit in the river near the campground and enjoy the cool water. Pictures, as always, are in our Flickr account.

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June 16, 2010 by steve.

Well, almost 60 days and we are all still here and blessed to have had a great family experience traveling around the country. Today was a day to enjoy the Cloudland Canyon State Park in north-west Georgia. We visited this park back in September 2007, during one of the worst droughts in modern times. Of course what is Cloudland Canyon known for? Its waterfalls. And what do waterfalls need to survive? Rain.

We started the day with a visit to both the falls, which are creatively named Waterfall #1 and Waterfall #2 on the hiking map. The waterfalls are at the end of about a half-mile trail, straight down. I’m not sure why they post a distance on the trail, the distance is not important. What is key to surviving the trail is the fact that there are more than 400 stairs on the trail. They are both very pretty sights, and worth the stair climbing. One nice thing about this trip is that both waterfalls were active. On our last trip they were little more than drips. Once we get the pictures posted, I’ll post some comparisons in the blog.

Following the waterfall hike, we headed back to the RV for lunch and a nap (at least CurbCrusher napped, Lady and Little CurbCrusher played on the computer and sat outside and read.). The nap was important as we needed to be rested for our trip to the Canyon Grill located a couple of miles from the park. Truth be known, this is the real reason for our stop in Cloudland Canyon. On our last trip we discovered the Canyon Grill, and had such a great meal, we knew we wanted to come back some day.

The Canyon Grill opens at five in the afternoon Wednesday through Sunday, so we showed up at the door around five-fifteen so that we wouldn’t look too eager. Once again we had a great meal, Little CurbCrusher enjoyed the chicken strip appetizer and a sweet potato, Lady CurbCrusher ordered the ground fillet, and I had the pork tenderloin. As with our first trip, I can’t say enough good about the food, the portions, the value and the service that you get at the Canyon Grill. We sampled the deserts, Lady CurbCrusher had the short cake with strawberries and pecans, while I had the amaretto brownie sundae and Little CurbCrusher went for the vanilla bean ice cream. Everything is homemade, and Little CurbCrusher said the ice cream was better than Blue Bell (our gold standard (actually homemade ice cream of the kind cranked out on Aunt Pansy’s porch at family holidays is the gold standard, but sadly that doesn’t happen anymore and I’ve replaced that with Blue Bell)). I was not thrilled with the amaretto brownie, but that’s because I really don’t like the taste of amaretto, however it was the only chocolate option on the desert list. But if you put enough ice cream on the brownie before eating it, it kills the amaretto taste, and you just get the two best taste: homemade vanilla ice cream and chocolate.

Back at the campsite, we sat around fat and happy. We started a small fire in the ring to complete our last night of “real” camping. If we stop tomorrow night, it will be more of a place to sleep, not camp. This is the second time we’ve been to Cloudland Canyon, and I hope it’s not our last. This is a great park and a great place to be. I took one last walk around the camping loop after dusk, and the fireflies light the sides of the road like beacons, and it is just a peaceful, easy feeling (hmmm. That sounds familiar for some reason :-)). The only negative thing about this park is that it is so far from home, and that you pretty much have to drive through Atlanta on I-75 to get here. I think we may try running down US-27 and then over to Tifton tomorrow to see if that drive is any better.

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June 16, 2010 by steve.

Well Lady CurbCrusher tired of writing every day, and we’re only a couple of days from home. So it looks like I’ll have to take over the day to day blog for the last couple of days of the trip. We’re still on a limited bandwidth wi-fi, so no pictures until we get back home.

We woke up in Jellystone Mammoth Cave, not only the worst RV parking (yes even worse than the Walmart parking lot back in Winslow) on this trip, but the most over-priced and overrated also. Imagine if you’re going to build an RV park, so you find a nice steep hill. Then when placing the RV sites you have a choice, you could put them parallel to slope of the hill, so that one side would be up and the other low, or you could put them perpendicular to the slope of the hill so that the front would be lower than the back. Or, you do what the Jellystone people did and put them on about a 45 degree angle to the slope of the hill so that there is no way in Hades that anyone will be able to level their RV. Then you have a choice where to put the sewer outlet, you could put it on the downhill side, since stuff flows downhill, or like our site geniuses at Jellystone have done you put it on the uphill side. The site was so unlevel, that even after moving the RV around on the site, we could not dump gray water from the tank, because the site tilted the motorhome away from the dump valve. I guess this is what happens when you let a cartoon bear design an RV park. All in all I was terribly disappointed in Jellystone. I’ve seen Jellystone campgrounds next to the roads I’ve traveled on for a long time, and always thought the concept was a great one, leveraging the most famous cartoon bear and his cartoon National Park with a campground. So I was really happy to be staying in a Jellystone campground, even a the premium price that Jellystone Mammoth Cave charged. As noted the sites were awful, there is no other way to describe it, and the atmosphere and environment were not much better. The campground was dirty, the sites close together. Our advice to you echos what we kept hearing in Yosemite and Yellowstone on this trip: STAY AWAY FROM THE BEARS. Yogi just can’t pull off a campground.

Once we got out of the campground, we headed south on I-65. We recovered some ground, the 35 miles from Bowling Green to Cave City, and then headed out of the state of Kentucky. We looped around Nashville on TN-155 and changed over to I-24 headed toward Chattanooga. Somewhere along the way we stopped to fill up and eat lunch. There are some hills to climb in this area, but I pulled up the elevation on the GPS and it seems that highest we got was about 2000 feet. Of course that’s nothing now that we’ve crossed the Big Horns at 9666 feet and the Continental Divide a couple of times at 8000+ feet. Just outside of Chattanooga, we headed south on I-59 for a few miles. We exited at Trenton and headed up GA-136 to the Cloudland Canyon State Park. We visited this park back in September of 2007, enjoyed our stay here and thought this would be a good last stop for our GART.

So here we are a little over 6000 miles and some 55 days into our Great American Road Trip. We’re about 600 miles from home and haven’t decided if that’s a one or a two day trip. When we leave Thursday morning we may very well get about six hours into the trip and decide that it’s time go ahead and get home, or we may just stretch it out one more night. We are one day ahead of our original schedule.

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May 13, 2010 by steve.

Time for the final leg on the first part of our trip. We have to leave Yosemite and head to Salt Lake City. I had been worried about the drive into and out of Yosemite for some time. I’d posted on irv2.com and canvased everyone in the campground about how to leave. The general consensus was that we should go down CA-140 and the to CA-99 and to I-80 to head to Salt Lake City. I ended up choosing to go down CA-120 to exit Yosemite, and had no problems. I actually found driving CA-120 out of Yosemite easier than driving CA-41 into the park. There was a good sized climb to Crane Flats as your leave the park, but the motorhome handled it with no problems. There was a bunch of downhill driving, but the grade brake did the job and kept us in control. The nice part was that CA-120 was wider and had more room on the sides (even a bit of a shoulder) that CA-41 did. The “worst” part, the one that everyone warned me about was Priest Grade just west of Groveland. This grade is steep, and has a number of switch backs, but there seem to be good straights between the switchbacks, so it doesn’t feel as right-left-right-left as CA-41 did on the way in. As we exited Groveland, I let the grade brake work until about half way down the grade. I had a couple of people that had built up behind me, so I pulled into a pull-out and let them pass. Then I manually shifted to 2nd and finished going down the grade.

The mistake I made was at the split of CA-120 and CA-49. I had considered continuing up CA-49 to US-50 to cross the Sierras, but I choose to follow CA-120 to CA-99 then go north to Sacramento to catch I-80 and go over Donner Pass. I think my time to Reno would have been about the same, maybe even a little better if I’d just gone up CA-49. Instead I had the “pleasure” of dealing with city traffic around Sacramento, which was a pain. Much less fun than driving in and out of Yosemite.

We pushed on for a twelve hour day and ended in Elko, Nevada for the night. We stayed at the Double Dice RV Park (our pics), which is a big gravel parking lot with hookups. We were there about 14 hours, so no complaints, we got what we wanted: electricity and water.

We spent another four hours on Mother’s Day driving from Elko to Salt Lake City. There are 410 miles of I-80 in Nevada, and they are a lot of nothing. We came up with two new state “nicknames” for Nevada based on our I-80 experiences: The Bush State and The Prison State. Lady CurbCrusher noted that there are no trees along the interstate, just a lot of bushes. The other thing that is prevalent along I-80 are signs that read “Enter Prison area. Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers. Emergency Stopping Only.” It seemed like about every 60 miles you would see one of these signs. I never realized that Nevada had so many prisons.

We reached the goal of the Pony Express RV Resort (our pics) in Salt Lake City on Mother’s Day afternoon. Lady CurbCrusher had to ride for a while, but we were early enough to go out had have a dinner and relax for a while. That completes about 3700 miles of our Great American Road Trip. Just over half of the 6600 miles that we think we are going to travel. We are also headed back to the east. We spent so much time headed west, that I tried to get on I-80 west in Sacramento. Lady CurbCrusher pointed out that I wanted I-80 EAST, and I wanted to argue until I realized that as usual, she was right.

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May 2, 2010 by steve.

We woke early and headed to the Petrified Forest National Park. A great park that you drive through with lots of stops. It wanders through part of the Painted Desert, which has some beautiful views. The park is about 20 miles east of the Holbrook KOA.

After visiting the park we headed to Holbrook to hook up and head west, to the Grand Canyon, about 180 miles away. We got back to Holbrook, hooked up the car, unhoooked the utilities and headed out. We hit the road about 10:30am on Wednesday. We planned a shopping stop in Winslow, Az which has a Walmart that is easily accessible from I-40.

We arrived in Winslow about 11:30am and hit the Walmart. We got an ice-cream cake for Little CurbCrusher’s birthday which was the following day, and she was planning on waking up on her birthday in the Grand Canyon. We headed back out on the frontage road and found that I-40 was closed due to high-winds and limited visibility. There are apparently no alternate routes from Winslow to Flagstaff, so we headed to a nearby Texaco and filled up with petrol, the parked in the northwest corner of the Walmart parking lot. And there we would stay
until 6:40 am the next morning. The winds blew all night long and the dust was thick. The parking lot filled up with 18 wheelers, other RV’s and cars just looking for a place to park. By nightfall, just about all the flat areas around the exit were packed with semis.

After a night of being buffeted by winds that were reported at 35 - 50 mph, with gust to 70, we woke to the sound of trucks pulling out of the parking lot. We ate breakfast, had Little CurbCrusher open her gifts, and then hit the road. After making about 15 miles west on I-40 traffic came to a complete standstill. We sat still for about an hour to an hour and a half until the traffic started moving again. It is times like these that it is nice to be travelling in a motorhome. At least we had all our facilities with us. The winds were still blowing at around 30 mph, so the 50 some odd miles that we had to drive on I-40 were tiring.

We exited I-40 at MM 201 and headed up US-89. We did this for two reasons, one was to approach the Grand Canyon from the east entrance, and the other was to stop and visit the Wupatki National Monument. If we had been smart, and not following the GPS we would have driven by the Sunset Crater NP also. As you head up US-89 (a very nice road to drive by the way), you get to a sign that says turn right to go to Sunset Crater NP and Waptuki. If you look at a map, it shows that this road is a loop (approx 35 miles) and it appears that Wupatki is
right next to the north end of the loop. Actually, Wupatki is 13 miles in from the North end of the loop, which means that if you follow the sign (and not the GPS) you get two parks for the price of one.

We toured and photographed Wupatki and finally departed and headed up US-89 to AZ-64 and turned west. As soon as we did this, we encountered snow. I checked the outside temperature and it was 30 degrees F. We had not expected this. The snow was intermittent, and after a while we came to the NP entrance station. We continued the drive along the south rim until we reached the Grand Canyon Village and it’s full hook up RV park, Trailer Village. We checked in and pulled into our site around 12:30. Our 180 mile trip from Holbrook had taken approximately 14 hours. If we keep this rate of speed up we may never finish this trip.

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April 27, 2010 by steve.

Well, no entry for a day or two from me, too much driving. It turned out the trains near the campground in Vicksburg did not bother me, so I awoke refreshed and we headed out of Vicksburg on Monday morning with a goal of making it to the Grand Canyon by Wednesday. That’s over 1400 miles and we seem to have been averaging about 50 mph on the road, so that’s 28 hours of driving. Yay!

In breaking this up, I decided that I wanted to try and get to Amarillo, Tx on Monday night, that would get about 700 miles out of the way. So we headed across I-20 through Louisiana and into Texas. Lady CurbCrusher was adamant about wanting to skip the stacked freeways in Dallas, so we headed up US-69 around Tyler to Greenville, then across US-380 to Decatur where we caught US-287 and headed up to Amarillo. The worst part of this drive was from Greenville to Decatur. It was a lot of stop lights, and some of the worst drivers I’ve had to drive amongst in a long time. I wish we weren’t on such a tight schedule though. There was a jet-way graveyard along US-69 that I would have liked to stop and photograph, and along US-380 there was a WWII POW Camp sign that I would have liked to follow. Once we turned onto US-287 the ride was nice. There is little traffic and it is a four lane road. There are also a number of picnic areas, some are just that but two or three are really nice rest stops that rival any state welcome station. The only thing is that there are signs “Beware of rattlesnakes.”

We arrived at the Amarillo West RV Park around 11 pm. This is mostly an overnight kind of place. The roads are dirt and the sites are gravel with water, electric and sewer. There appeared to be cable, but we didn’t hook it up. If you show up after closing you look for an empty spot and park, which is what we did.

We woke up and visited the Cadillac Ranch, which is only a mile down the road. Came back, hooked up and went on our way.

Day two of the push was to try and get to Holbrook, Az. This puts us in a spot to go visit the Petrified Forest National Park in the morning before heading over to the Grand Canyon. We made it in about 9 hours and covered approximately 500 miles from Amarillo. The drive across New Mexico is fairly desolate, but it the hills and mountains are beautiful to look at while driving.

We’ve ended up at the Holbrook KOA. A large gravel parking lot with campsites marked out. Some trees, and full hookup, so no complaints there. Wireless is a bonus. There is a pool and playground although it is a bit cold for the pool right now. Little CurbCrusher had a good half hour or so on the playground, which was probably a relief for her after being cooped up in the RV the past two days.

That sums up the trip to date. We’ve done about 2000 of the 6600 miles we plan for the trip.

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