kohldad wrote:
A few things I've learned from my travels out west.
1) Don't let the mountains scare you. Folks will cry how much worse they are than our Appalachians. True they are higher and the climbs are longer. But what they call switchbacks are just turns to me. While their grades are longer, I usually found them not as steep as our, not saying they don't have steep grades, but you usually won't find things as bad as say 321 going into Boone from the east.
2) The main roads, such as you find in red in the Atlas, are more like our interstates. While they may be single lane, they usually have wide shoulders and huge right of ways. A lot of the small towns have been bypassed, so make sure you take the business route if you want to get a glimpse of the real west. Unless I'm really hooving it, I try to avoid the interstates west of the Mississippi.
3) Lots of the smaller towns will have fair grounds or other type lots you can park for a small charge or free. These are usually limited hookups if any, but some may surprise you. Just ask around the towns as you travel through them. The city office or police station is a good place to ask too.
4) Reservations are over rated and can be a real pain. You just get to a spot you thought you would drive through only to realize you want to stay a day or two or three. But darn, you can't because you have reservations. That is why I just about always travel reservation free. Exception is popular places or holiday weekends. For holiday weekends I try to be in the middle of no where without any attractions. For the popular places, I make reservations only a stop or two out. But then I always have an emergency backup plan of boondocking or going someplace else. This is also influenced by your rig size, the larger the more advance planning you may want to do. But I did this type of travel with a 35' FW and 30' TT. But now with my TC, I just need a parking space.
5) Don't overplan. The most enjoyable things I've seen as I travel are the ones that are unexpected. The biggest disappointments were the ones I really researched and everyone else enjoyed and said they were the must sees. Good example is we loved 5 days in Kings Canyon which we only stopped at because we had to kill 5 days before our reservations at Yosemite. We enjoyed it so much because we had to explore to find the gems and the place was almost deserted we did one of the more popular 2 mile loop trails and only saw one couple the entire hike. We had 4 nights reserved at Yosemite but left after only two nights because we were so disappointed because of the extreme crowds which we tightened into an even smaller than usual area because of late snows.
6) For long trips, we select a few major sites and wing it between them. Even with a 35' FW, we would often come to a cross road and look down each road to decide which way to go. We've also found some rough road and turned off of it to find a smoother road. Adds miles, but adds to the excitement too. Only thing that mattered was it was more or less heading in the right direction. We never would have picked Ft Robinson in Nebraska if our wild selection of roads to Custer, SD hadn't put us in the area. We stopped early enough to explore the fort, take a stage coach ride, swim in the enclosed pool, and enjoyed a morning horseback ride before continueing our adventure. That was over eleven years ago when our kids were just over 10, but the stagecoach ride is one of the strongest camping memories we have.
Remember just take your time and make the most of what you see.
This is a really good set of POINTS to REMEMBER.
Only thing I'll add is Good WEATHER and good Company will add a lot to most adventures.
Good Advice.
