RV ALASKA - Working Our Way West, One Mile at a Time

Life on the road.  I don’t want to say that you love it or hate it.  I think it’s more that you take to it – or you don’t.  Alan and I must be kindred spirits; we’ve been roadtripping together forever.  There’s a certain rhythm to life on the road, with responsibilities and routines falling into place.  Because we don’t camp at all from late fall until spring, the first outing of the year always involves a little bit of discombobulation – for me, anyway.  Inevitably, I make rookie mistakes – turning the water heater on LP gas when we’re plugged into electric.  Failing to get the black tank chemicals and two gallons of water we add to it after we dump prepped before we need them – nothing serious, just annoying.  Then, we fall into the rhythm of the road, and all is well.  I love life on the road.

Yogi Was Right - "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" (National Parks Trip #1)

This post represents the final installment in the series detailing the first of our three cross country National Parks camping trips with travel trailer in tow.

As our family pulled out of the Riverview RV Park in Loveland, Colorado, early one August morning in 2007, we could look back at our itinerary and take great satisfaction knowing that we had achieved our goal of visiting one National Memorial (Mount Rushmore), one National Monument (Devil’s Tower), and five National Parks (Badlands, Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and Rocky Mountain) on our first cross country trip as a family of four.  Alan and I pretty much re-created our honeymoon of more than 25 years prior, the only differences being that a travel trailer had replaced our two person mountain tent and there were now two kids in the previously empty back seat.  The trip had been full of many “firsts” and tons of fun but, initially, we had been extremely disappointed that we would miss a visit with our friends Mary and Dave who live in Colorado.

If you remember me mentioning our close friends Peg and Bill who live in Virginia, you may be interested to know that Mary is Peg’s sister.  Since Peg and I have been friends since first grade, it follows that Mary and I have known each other for quite some time, as well.  Although Mary is younger by several years, she and her husband Dave had children before Alan and I did.  And I have to say that we have looked upon these two incredibly warm and caring people as role models while tripping our way through the landmines of parenthood.