After almost three weeks on the road, it was time for us to head back home. We needed to get home for the high school graduation of our eldest granddaughter, Haley.
It happened once again. We got up early to close up the trailer and get on the road only to find that for the first day in Grand Teton National Park, the sky was clear and bright. There were very few clouds or mist on the mountains, almost no wind, and it was a crisp 37 degrees. So, after packing up, we drove back over to the restaurant for a “quick” breakfast that turned into a 75 minute marathon. Before leaving, I walked down to take a few pictures of the brightly lit mountains.
Once finally on the road, we planned to drive down to Moran and then head southeast towards Fort Collins, CO and find us a place to stop for the night. Well, as soon as we had driven just a couple of miles, we came across a pretty good sized group of folks standing along the road with these HUGE telephoto lenses and cameras on tripods. The park rangers were blocking off parts of the road to keep people back. As we slowly slipped through the area, we saw that there were three bears, apparently grizzly, just off the road. I was able to grab my camera and snap one single shot before being instructed to move along.
We turned east at Moran and started through the pass towards Dubois. I must say that I have NEVER seen so much snow in one place. It was an amazing winter wonderland, and at the end of May. It was hard to find a place to pull off and take any pictures, but I did my best. The snow was several feet deep everywhere except the road. But, the drive through the pass was made with ease. There we actually people up in that area riding snowmobiles.
We made our way across Wyoming towards Cheyenne through a brutal crosswind, but we pressed on. As we drove south of Cheyenne towards Ft. Collins, CO, storms began to spring up and we passed through several hail storms. Luckily, we didn’t have any damage, but we later heard that some other Grand Design owners that we just an hour or two behind us had major damage to their truck and trailer. So, with the weather looking like it might be better farther to the south, we pushed on and tried to outrun them. We were making pretty good time until we reached Denver where the traffic was truly horrible, especially for a Sunday afternoon, and it took us nearly two hours to clear town. We finally got through the all bad weather and spent the night “dry camping” at the Cracker Barrel in Pueblo, CO. Never again do I want to spend a full twelve hours driving well over 600 miles while pulling a 32′ fifth wheel trailer through wind, hail, and traffic!
Our next morning was pretty uneventful. Our destination was the Big Texan RV Resort (aka Amarillo RV Ranch) in Amarillo, TX. It was a pretty basic park and did its job of providing us a place to stay that had full hookups so that we could do a very thorough tank flushing on our last night. We were told that if we wanted the park to make the reservations for us, they’d drive us over to the Big Texan Steakhouse in a limousine, complete with a huge set of long horns on the grill. We passed and just took it easy.
Our final push home was from Amarillo, through Lubbock (where Haley will be going to school next year) and Abilene. We did stop just outside of Abilene to go through a truck wash and clean up both the trailer and our truck. It was much easier than doing it ourselves in the limited time we have available before leaving on our next trip. Arriving home, I took a quick look at the final numbers from our trip. In 22 days, we drove a total of 4,582 miles (not all of it towing) and spent $1,408 on diesel fuel, for just under $.31 per mile. I can probably use that number for future trip budgeting.
We had a great time on this trip and even though we saw many, many amazing things, there are plenty of reasons to go back to each of these places. I hope you found my tales interesting. If so, please feel free to comment below. Our next travel trailer trip begins next month and will include New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and of course, Texas, so stay tuned.
LyndDebTravel 