It's Now or Never - 1 year country tour

[ependydad]

Starting June 19th, my wife and I are taking our two kids on a trip around the country for a little over a year. The biggest unfortunate is that I'll be working full-time while we do it. This means that each stop is extremely limited in what we can go do or see (we'll move each Monday, I'll work Tuesday to Friday, and we'll site-see on the weekend). Because we do have a limited amount of time (even a year is WAY too short), I had to make hard choices of what to stop and see in each state. I'm missing some really great things- I know. 😞

We're largely ignoring the north-east and east coast as we currently live in Maryland. Meaning, these areas are all accessible as future summer trips.

Like everyone else, I'll be blogging about the adventure - Now Or Never

[spoon059]

MPond wrote:

4runnerguy wrote:
I've been almost everywhere you've got on your map, and I have to say you'll miss some of the most fantastic scenery in the country if you can't make time to visit SW Colorado (the San Juans, Salida/Buena Vista, Mesa Verde, etc.) and southern Utah (Bryce, Zion, Arches, Canyonlands). I'd gladly give up several of the weeks you have scheduled for Nebraska, Oklahoma, TX, and going to Pikes Peak 😛 to be able to take your kids to some of the most wonderful and magical places in the US. Places like Durango, Moab, Salida, and St. George will have the business facilities you might need on the road

...

I would pay serious attention to these comments from 4runnerguy. The SW Colorado (San Juans) and Southern Utah areas are absolutely breathtaking. We go back there every couple years, and never get tired of it. We're going again this year and are counting the days..

In the San Juans I'd highly recommend Ouray, CO and Silverton, CO, and in Utah I would never miss a chance to stop at Canyonlands NP (Island in the Sky region).

I'll third that notion. I had some great memories from our trip. The American Southwest are among the best.

Carlsbad Caverns was one of the coolest places I've ever been. Standing in the 4 corners was a fun experience. The Mesa Verde cliff dwellings were amazing. The landscape and colors of the desert out their were breathtaking. 20 years later, still very vivid memories.

[MPond]

4runnerguy wrote:
I've been almost everywhere you've got on your map, and I have to say you'll miss some of the most fantastic scenery in the country if you can't make time to visit SW Colorado (the San Juans, Salida/Buena Vista, Mesa Verde, etc.) and southern Utah (Bryce, Zion, Arches, Canyonlands). I'd gladly give up several of the weeks you have scheduled for Nebraska, Oklahoma, TX, and going to Pikes Peak 😛 to be able to take your kids to some of the most wonderful and magical places in the US. Places like Durango, Moab, Salida, and St. George will have the business facilities you might need on the road

...

I would pay serious attention to these comments from 4runnerguy. The SW Colorado (San Juans) and Southern Utah areas are absolutely breathtaking. We go back there every couple years, and never get tired of it. We're going again this year and are counting the days..

In the San Juans I'd highly recommend Ouray, CO and Silverton, CO, and in Utah I would never miss a chance to stop at Canyonlands NP (Island in the Sky region).

[OutdoorPhotogra]

That helped. Yes, you will be East of Sierras on second trip. You have a pin at Carson City. I expect you intended to make the side trek to Lake Tahoe but if not, you want to do that. You can drive around the lake in one day with stops at interesting places.

Your route through Louisiana puts you within 30 miles of my home town.

[ependydad]

OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
Early May is perfect for Yosemite. You do NOT want to be there after school gets out. After the dogwood bloom in May, it goes downhill and the park gets crowded. Don't get me wrong, there is no bad day in Yosemite but the crowds in the summer make it frustrating. Glacier Point Road will almost certainly be open. Tioga Road will depend on the winter. If Tioga Road is closed, the falls will be better so you get one or the other.

On the CA Coast, like someone said, you do not want to drive the Pacific Coast Highway towing a trailer but you must make the drive. I recomend leaving your camper in Monterey area and driving down to Cambria and then back to Monterey. You'll have to cross Pacheco Pass to get to I-5 from Monterey but that's doable. I couldn't tell your route for your second CA trip. It looked like you were doing Yosemite, then Tahoe, then heading south on the East side of the Sierra's to Death Valley. Is that accurate? If you had Sequoia on your list, you could go to Mariposa Grove in Yosemite to see a sequoia grove and skip Sequoia. I'm not saying Sequoia isn't great (though I prefer Kings Canyon - the adjacent NP), but if you are in a time crunch, it's a stop you could trade for something else.

Too much beauty, not enough time! My kids are now old enough to realize how blessed they are to see as much as they have being Navy brats but it just makes them want to travel more!

Sounds like I'm hitting Yosemite at a better time than I knew! 🙂 I really have no idea of my route in California- I figured I'd play it by ear and check for specific details as I get to those legs. But I'll keep this thread and the recommendations handy.

As for the second Califnornia visit- I'm not positive what all places that we are hitting. I was a little shocked how little geography that I knew of these Good Ole USA. See if zooming into this route helps your questions:
http://rvparky.com/trip/5811140770660352

My spring is going east to west from Florida to California before heading north to head east if that makes sense.

As for our driving days- my goal is to make as many as possible in just one day or one long day and a short day up to 500 miles or so.

[OutdoorPhotogra]

Oh yeah, two days full driving is about as much as you want to do to keep it from being a slog. We tried to be on the road by 8:30 but be set up by around 6pm so we could get dinner, have a little break and get to bed at a decent hour to be out by 8:30 the next day.

[OutdoorPhotogra]

Early May is perfect for Yosemite. You do NOT want to be there after school gets out. After the dogwood bloom in May, it goes downhill and the park gets crowded. Don't get me wrong, there is no bad day in Yosemite but the crowds in the summer make it frustrating. Glacier Point Road will almost certainly be open. Tioga Road will depend on the winter. If Tioga Road is closed, the falls will be better so you get one or the other.

On the CA Coast, like someone said, you do not want to drive the Pacific Coast Highway towing a trailer but you must make the drive. I recomend leaving your camper in Monterey area and driving down to Cambria and then back to Monterey. You'll have to cross Pacheco Pass to get to I-5 from Monterey but that's doable. I couldn't tell your route for your second CA trip. It looked like you were doing Yosemite, then Tahoe, then heading south on the East side of the Sierra's to Death Valley. Is that accurate? If you had Sequoia on your list, you could go to Mariposa Grove in Yosemite to see a sequoia grove and skip Sequoia. I'm not saying Sequoia isn't great (though I prefer Kings Canyon - the adjacent NP), but if you are in a time crunch, it's a stop you could trade for something else.

Too much beauty, not enough time! My kids are now old enough to realize how blessed they are to see as much as they have being Navy brats but it just makes them want to travel more!

[ependydad]

RVcrazy wrote:
I'm sure you will have a blast and have many happy memories! I do have a couple of suggestions... We are newly retired and have been on the road since last July. What we have found is that even with what we thought would be plenty of time in some spots, we planned too tightly. If I were you,, I would narrow your focus to maybe 1/2 of the US each of 2 separate years. That is what we decided to do, and we are still finding ourselves pushed for time (and we are not working or travelling with kids).

I hear you and definitely hope that come February when we're back in Clermont that we sit down and decide to extend the trip out by 3-4 times its length. But, that's a big *if* our family enjoys it. Until then, I don't know that I can plan for this being a 2 year engagement. I do hear you and know the pace is setup to be crazy.

RVcrazy wrote:
We have found that the weather is not as dependable as we would like and that winter lasts too long in some places! We are also Disney nuts with an annual pass 🙂 We spent February in Clermont for Disney and are moving back west to meet the kids/grandkids in Disneyland the end of June. Take a look at Weather underground & Accuweather for your specific time frame for each planned location. The loop you have planned will hit some pretty wintery weather!!! I would aim for a southern loop to California, then up the coast (avoiding hwy 1) to Washington & Oregon. Then, head back across Idaho & Montana to Yellowstone, down through the Tetons. Catch the Utah national parks and head back through Colorado and through the Midwest, going north from Kansas to hit the Black Hills. This should take you about 10 months & bring you home before things get snowed in & home for Christmas. I would leave Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota etc. for decent weather timing.

Thanks for the ideas. I have a spreadsheet where I've included the weather averages from Weather Underground for each area that we're going to:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12LffFtZMziTAa33l8OYDjTzMVXMPRC4mLkf8FpxlZ4A/edit?usp=sharing

I do have some colder stretches, but timing-wise, I'm hopefully avoiding the bulk of winter. We'll see how I do. 🙂

[RVcrazy]

I'm sure you will have a blast and have many happy memories! I do have a couple of suggestions... We are newly retired and have been on the road since last July. What we have found is that even with what we thought would be plenty of time in some spots, we planned too tightly. If I were you,, I would narrow your focus to maybe 1/2 of the US each of 2 separate years. That is what we decided to do, and we are still finding ourselves pushed for time (and we are not working or travelling with kids).

We have found that the weather is not as dependable as we would like and that winter lasts too long in some places! We are also Disney nuts with an annual pass 🙂 We spent February in Clermont for Disney and are moving back west to meet the kids/grandkids in Disneyland the end of June. Take a look at Weather underground & Accuweather for your specific time frame for each planned location. The loop you have planned will hit some pretty wintery weather!!! I would aim for a southern loop to California, then up the coast (avoiding hwy 1) to Washington & Oregon. Then, head back across Idaho & Montana to Yellowstone, down through the Tetons. Catch the Utah national parks and head back through Colorado and through the Midwest, going north from Kansas to hit the Black Hills. This should take you about 10 months & bring you home before things get snowed in & home for Christmas. I would leave Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota etc. for decent weather timing.

[ependydad]

kknowlton wrote:
SOunds wonderful! We had thought of this when we were younger, but work requirements (and probably inertia) set in. Never did do it, though we have seen quite a bit of the country, and hope to see a lot more!

I definitely approve of your plan to see the Henry Ford Museum (and of course Greenfield Village, attached) - worth an entire day and then some! And Glacier is stupendous - you'll spoil yourselves for mountain scenery after that. 🙂 I hope you plan to include Yellowstone - the kids will love the animals, geysers, etc. - keep a close rein on that little guy, though!!

Thanks for the kind words! Yellowstone is definitely on the list- looks like we hit there June 13-20. (I say that like this plan isn't going to screw the pooch shortly after shove off. 😄 )

OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
when will you be in Yosemite? In my opinion, only bad time to be there is Memorial Day to Labor Day. Falls have been hit or miss lately with the drought. Tioga Road and Glacier Point have been open early in recent years.

highly recommend Michael Frye's app on Photographing Yosemite. $10 well spent. Same content as his book but gets updated occasionally and uses phone GPS.

Yosemite is early May (9-16). I have a buddy who hiked the Half Dome a few years back. Poor guy got within a couple of hundred yards of the top and someone froze above him. No one could go up or down past the poor lady. With the clock ticking, he ran out of time.

Thanks for the app suggestion! I'll definitely buy it. I'm a crappy photographer with a great camera (Nikon D7000).

2gypsies wrote:
You are giving your children a great gift and one they will always remember. You're so lucky to be able to work your job in this manner. Your schedule is awesome! Enjoy!!!

Thank you for the kind words! The job is truly a blessing. The week-by-week schedule can be seen pretty nicely on the RV Parky link:
http://rvparky.com/trip/5811140770660352

loggenrock wrote:
Gotta ask... what occupation? A new locale every week? Interesting. Are your evenings open mid-week? When you already are "someplace" you don't need a lot of travel time to see local sites... ST

I'm a web developer building backend applications primarily. I'm a code monkey and not a designer. 🙂 I'm going to have to invest in WiFi + cellular boosters to make it work, though. I'm not sure about evenings just yet- I'll be working four 10-hour days; so we'll see. I once heard someone tell a pregnant woman who had all of these great "once my baby is born" plans, "Everything you think you know now is likely wrong. You'll find a groove, but you have to wait for it." I chuckle any time that I say, "here's our plan". We'll see how it shakes out!

spoon059 wrote:
Hope you enjoy your trip. When I was 13 or 14 we went on a 6 week cross country camping trip. There were some days that we would leave at 7am and drive until 7pm... then there were days on end that we would do that. Those days were horrible.

The trip was a lot of fun and encouraged me to keep camping with my wife and now the kids. One day we hope to take a leisurely cross country trip with the kids to give them the same experience. I am eligible to retire in 12 years at 46 years old. I might take a year off and travel while I am young and the kids are still with us.

Have fun, be sure to document the trip for us AND for you! Sounds like a real blast. I hope everything works out and you don't have any mechanical issues or any other unpleasant surprises.

Good luck from just down Rt 29 in Montgomery County!

It's been fun hearing about folks who have done similar trips. Lots of people say it was a great experience with some crappy days in it. Which is just about what we expect. 🙂 We have a few extremely long haul days getting from one point to another.

For documenting, I hope to continue my blog. And one of our big roadschool plans for my daughter is for her to start a blog. It'll be neat to see the two come together. With unexpected and unpleasant surprises- we're pretty good about rolling with stuff. We'll see, problems are inevitable.

Montgomery County... please share my rental listing with your family, friends, and coworkers! 😄
http://tinyurl.com/RentColumbia4bd3baSingleFamily

rockhillmanor wrote:
I posted this to another family RV'ing that wasn't aware of a franchise of CG's catering to family's.

Check out Yogi Bear Jellystone Park CG's along your route.

They are really great CG's if you have kids of all ages.

Thanks for the idea! I'll take a look at it. I know of Jellystones, but we've only stayed at one back when we had our pop-up.

Army11Bravo wrote:
We visited Montana 10 years ago on a family vacation. After five days, we returned home to the big city, sold our house, quit our jobs and we were back permanently in Montana within 6 weeks.

Northwest Montana is where God himself leaned down and kissed the earth.

I hope you enjoy your trip, especially here in "The Last Best Place."

Funny story- my cousin in Huntsville says the same about Monte Sano mountain. 🙂 I can't wait. We aren't decided if we are coming back to this area or moving. So this will give us a taste of places that we want to go. However, I want to run away from cold- I'm not sure that I could do Montana!

Crowe wrote:
Instead of looking at it from the standpoint of what you can't do, how about looking at it as a taste of what you want to do in the future? Each area will be a "taste test" to wet your appetite for a subsquent trip. It's a fantastic opportunity to "preview" what each area is like, rather than commit to one area for a week or two sight-unseen. Keep a separate journal of what you like/dislike in each area for future reference. Not spending time in the NE since it's easy access is also a smart idea. Go where you can't normally get to easily while you can.

This is the best thing I've read. I've had a lot of people stressing how we're missing a lot of the country and how there are things we can't miss (but yet can't fit into our schedule). Thanks for giving me a great perspective on this. Cheers.

Dog Folks wrote:
If your job allows it I would suggest working weekends and sightseeing during the week, between Tuesday and Thursday.

Attractions will be a LOT less crowed then, and you can enjoy it more.

Just my 2 cents and what we discovered when we retired.

I've had that exact thought and really wish it were possible. I'd love to travel on Tuesdays and sight-see on Wednesday and Thursdays. BUT- being a "normal" 9-5 job, I have to be able to interact with coworkers and clients. But, I have it so tough. (joking!)

4runnerguy wrote:
I've been almost everywhere you've got on your map, and I have to say you'll miss some of the most fantastic scenery in the country if you can't make time to visit SW Colorado (the San Juans, Salida/Buena Vista, Mesa Verde, etc.) and southern Utah (Bryce, Zion, Arches, Canyonlands). I'd gladly give up several of the weeks you have scheduled for Nebraska, Oklahoma, TX, and going to Pikes Peak 😛 to be able to take your kids to some of the most wonderful and magical places in the US. Places like Durango, Moab, Salida, and St. George will have the business facilities you might need on the road.

Consider carefully how much time you want to spend along the southern CA coast. Tough going for RV's and you'll find just your truck will seem very oversized in San Francisco.

Also, I would stick to the OR coast as much as possible rather than spending so many miles travelling I-5.

Just last night, my wife muttered the words that our trip may be 14-16 months. Which means we may be extending by 2 months and not worrying about being back by the time school starts for the 2016-17 school year. I was like, "YEAH, BABY!" And then she realized what she said and got quiet. If that's the case, then I can hit south-west Colorado. So, we'll see.

As for tough going in a dually- I've done a handful of beach towns and small cities so far. Key West and Rehoboth were both pretty cozy. I'm not overly stressed about it because I can't change that aspect of it. 🙂

Thanks for the OR coast recommendation. I don't really have route plans. RV Parky picks a single route, but as we get closer to each week- I'll map out routes.

sdianel wrote:
What great memories you will make! Can't wait to read the blog.

Thanks!

[sdianel_-acct_c]

What great memories you will make! Can't wait to read the blog.

[4runnerguy]

I've been almost everywhere you've got on your map, and I have to say you'll miss some of the most fantastic scenery in the country if you can't make time to visit SW Colorado (the San Juans, Salida/Buena Vista, Mesa Verde, etc.) and southern Utah (Bryce, Zion, Arches, Canyonlands). I'd gladly give up several of the weeks you have scheduled for Nebraska, Oklahoma, TX, and going to Pikes Peak 😛 to be able to take your kids to some of the most wonderful and magical places in the US. Places like Durango, Moab, Salida, and St. George will have the business facilities you might need on the road.

Consider carefully how much time you want to spend along the southern CA coast. Tough going for RV's and you'll find just your truck will seem very oversized in San Francisco.

Also, I would stick to the OR coast as much as possible rather than spending so many miles travelling I-5.

[Dog_Folks]

If your job allows it I would suggest working weekends and sightseeing during the week, between Tuesday and Thursday.

Attractions will be a LOT less crowed then, and you can enjoy it more.

Just my 2 cents and what we discovered when we retired.

[Crowe]

Instead of looking at it from the standpoint of what you can't do, how about looking at it as a taste of what you want to do in the future? Each area will be a "taste test" to wet your appetite for a subsquent trip. It's a fantastic opportunity to "preview" what each area is like, rather than commit to one area for a week or two sight-unseen. Keep a separate journal of what you like/dislike in each area for future reference. Not spending time in the NE since it's easy access is also a smart idea. Go where you can't normally get to easily while you can.

[Army11Bravo]

Army11Bravo wrote:

This sounds to be such a great adventure. My personal preference is pin N. You will love "The Crown of the Continent." Good luck and safe travels. I'll follow along on your blog.

Ahh, Glacier. I literally know nothing about that area other than hearing people say how beautiful it is! So, I'm all ears.

We visited Montana 10 years ago on a family vacation. After five days, we returned home to the big city, sold our house, quit our jobs and we were back permanently in Montana within 6 weeks.

Northwest Montana is where God himself leaned down and kissed the earth.

I hope you enjoy your trip, especially here in "The Last Best Place."

[rockhillmanor]

I posted this to another family RV'ing that wasn't aware of a franchise of CG's catering to family's.

Check out Yogi Bear Jellystone Park CG's along your route.

They are really great CG's if you have kids of all ages.

The kids will thank you, and you and your DW will get to relax while the kids play and have fun in a safe fun CG environment. They will get to meet a plethora of fellow campers their own age! Tons of daily planned activities just for them too!

No lines to stand in and more importantly YOU get to just hang out/relax by the RV while they are out having fun! :C

http://www.campjellystone.com/park-experience/

www.campjellystone.com

www.campjellystone.com/find-a-park/