I returned from my trip last weekend. Since then, I have been sorting pictures and stitching panorama shots and then re-stitching them because I did them wrong the first time. I haven't finished going through the stuff from the GoPro, but the pictures from the big camera and my phone are all done. Just as a word of caution to those perusing the photos: I took borderline too many pictures, literally in the thousands, and that doesn't include the GoPro stuff. They aren't annotated/captioned yet, that will be in the near future as well.
I did the pictures from this trip slightly differently than I did the trip to South Dakota. The main difference was what got put in the albums. The South Dakota trip I pulled out all the pictures of the camper happenings and campgrounds into separate albums. Here they are intermingled with the pictures of the area they are associated. I did this to help keep them straight, since I had 5 different campsites on this trip, whereas in South Dakota there was only one campground. I also didn't break out every attraction into its own album (though that was mostly due to laziness), and just broke them down by day. That was partly due to laziness, and partly because of the sheer number of albums that would have created. The day I drove north of the Canyon would have ended up with a half dozen albums. Not sure I like the new format better. If you have a preference one way or the other, feel free to let me know.
Because of how long this is, I am not planning on putting sample pictures in from each album.
The drive to KY. This trip was kind of cursed by snow. It snowed in NH right before I left, I drove through a blizzard to get to KY, I bailed on TX a day early because of snow/sleet/tornadoes, It snowed in NM, and it snowed on me in AZ.
These are from the initial drive to Texas, the first stop.
The stop in Texas was Palo Duro Canyon. Despite paling in comparison to the Grand Canyon, this was a good way to whet my appetite for things to come. It was a nice scenic drive, though because of leaving Texas early, I didn't get to do any hikes. I took a video of the entire scenic loop with the GoPro that isn't posted yet. The GoPro footage is next on the list of things to do.
After that, it was off to NM. I stayed at Sunset Reef Campground, which is a free campground (first come first serve). I got there early enough in the day I got one of the official spots, though I didn't use the picnic table or anything that was there. They had toilets there, but they were on the other corner of the campgrounds, so I didn't use them either.
Because I left Texas early, I had an extra day in NM. The first day I explored the park and poked around White's City.
The second day was the main NM attractions. I had reservations at Carlsbad Caverns in the morning. They were gargantuan compared to the other cave systems I have looked at.
The afternoon was White Sands. Despite my GPS sending me into Alamogordo instead of the park, I still got to spend a good chunk of the afternoon there. The white sand is very different; it stiffens up, almost like clay.
The route I took to get to the White Sands was a rather dull very long drive south through Texas. The way back I drove through the Lincoln National Forest, which was a much prettier drive. I got to watch the sunset over Alamogordo too which was nice.
The next trip was to Arizona. In hindsight, I should have split the White Sands excursion out into its own destination, since it might have been closer to the campsite in Arizona (Rainbow Ranch) than the campsite in New Mexico. The campsite in Arizona was Rainbow Ranch. It is basically some guy who owns a field and had a few tents and an open spot for RVs. Everything was spaced out though, which is nice. It was the closest place I could find to the Petrified forest.
The next day was the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. While in terms of acreage the park is huge, the amount of stuff to do there was actually quite small. I had been worried when I planned the trip that a day wasn't enough, but I got back to the camper early afternoon. The painted desert wasn't bad, but the petrified forest pretty much had one trail worthwhile and that was it. The petrified wood is very pretty though.
My next stop was in the Prescott National Forest. I stayed at the 50's Diner, Motel and RV park. The place was perhaps a bit rough for accommodations, but was actually the only level RV spot I encountered on the whole trip.
This was the RV Park. I am not sure why I uploaded them separately. I might fix this and update the post.
My first excursion there was Montezuma Castle National Monument. It was a quick short thing I could after getting the camper set up. I had hoped that they would let you actually go inside, but they stopped doing that many years ago. Only rangers and authorized personnel are still allowed in.
I capped off that evening with a scenic drive that Mike recommended. I went up through Red Rock Canyon into Sedona and down to Jerome. Sedona is a gorgeous town. Jerome actually reminded me a lot of driving around in France. The town is built into the hillside and is basically a bunch of switchbacks.
The next day was Arcosanti. It is supposed to be an archology exhibit about urban development, but was disappointing at best. The tour guide didn't know much about architecture, and I was hoping to see either some innovative architecture or at least some interesting designs around issues like water, but it didn't have any of that.
After that disappointment, I had my sights set on Tip Top Ghost town. Unfortunately for me, I didn't do enough research, and while there is a trail to get there that for some reason Google thinks you can drive on, it isn't actually accessible by car. I would have had a blast with a 4-wheeler getting there, but I was constantly worried about breaking my truck since I was basically rock crawling. I turned around before I got there. On the way out, I did take GoPro footage, which will be posted later.
The next day I headed for the Grand Canyon. Since it was only a couple of hours away, I had planned to drop the camper and continue on to the Western Canyon and do the skywalk, but I got intercepted by a dust storm so thick I couldn't see the end of my hood at times and turned around pretty quickly once I realized that even if I made it through the dust storm unscathed, I lost so much time in it that I wouldn't have made it there before sunset.
The next day brought more destructive weather. I woke up to several inches of snow. But I drove all the way to the Grand Canyon, so I was going to see something. It is worth noting that weather ended up cancelling the western canyon as mentioned above, and this snow day ended up cancelling my Kaibab trail hike down into the canyon (which I was only questionably physically fit enough to do).
After some fun playing with the heat so the pipes didn't freeze, the next day was actually really nice. I hiked the rim trail. Well, most of it. The last few miles I used the shuttles because my feet started to hurt. This is where the bulk of the pictures of the Grand Canyon are.
The following day I did some other nearby excursions so I didn't get Grand Canyon'd out. I went north. I originally planned a scenic drive of the north rim, but I didn't do my research and the north rim doesn't open until May. Oops. I still got a bunch of other places though. The famous Horseshoe Bend, Glen Canyon Dam, Vermillion Cliffs National Monument and the (infamous?) Lake Powell. I also resupplied since Page had a Walmart.
Next up was the eastern portion of the canyon and Desert View scenic drive. The tower at the end wasn't open, which made me a little sad, but the walkway with the view was. That isn't a whole day though, so I also hit up a couple of other local excursions. These included Wupatki National Monument and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. It is surprising how quickly you can go from the reds of the painted desert to jet black volcanic. It provided some nice contrast.
The last day was a planned down day. The pictures of the Grand Canyon Railway RV park are in this album. I rode the steam locomotive into the canyon (it only very briefly went by the Grand Canyon, which was a bit disappointing). While it was a comfortable and relaxing way to end my vacation, I don't think it was worth the money (while first class, my ticket was $175). You only have a few hours in the Grand Canyon that way. I bought lunch and ate it just staring into the canyon.
Then came the trip back. I planned my route to go north instead of coming back across New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Instead, I went north, got to drive through Monument Valley. While it wasn't planned, it also took me through Moab, Utah and right next to Arches National Park. I didn't stop though. I picked up I70 in Utah, and headed east through Colorado and Kansas. Both routes went through Missouri and Illinois. Colorado is gorgeous to drive through, at least until Denver (whereupon it turns into plains). Kansas had apparently burned down right before I went through, there was still tons of smoke and orange glow from embers everywhere. I was rolling the entire time with the GoPro, which will be uploaded soonish. I stayed just outside of Denver the first night and just outside of Topeka Kansas the second night. I got back to Kentucky late Wednesday. I was working half-ish days from the camper.
And the final drive back to New Hampshire.
All in all, the drive was 8,325 miles. The route I take from New Hampshire to Kentucky is 950 miles each way so 1,900 of those 8,325 miles are just the trip to KY from NH and back. One of the things that greatly contributed to this was the fact that I stayed in Williams for the Grand Canyon portion, but Williams is about 75 miles from the Grand Canyon Park. This was mostly because of availability: I originally wanted to stay in the park but didn't make my reservations early enough. There aren't a lot of towns nearby either. I didn't find any availability in Tusayan which is near the park either, and Williams is the next nearest town. So every day in the Grand Canyon (5 days) was 150 miles of driving just to get to and from the park. Better planning could have cut probably 1,000 miles out of that total.
Due to the current gas prices (I paid over $5 a gallon on several occasions), I also have gone back and looked at the cost of the trip, which was higher than originally anticipated (not a good thing with a looming truck and house purchase). Here are the highlights:
- Total: $5908
- Gas: $3147 and I drove a total of 8325 miles
- Food (quick foods at gas stations and the like): $190
- Restaurants: $101
- Lodging: $635 of which $400 was the resort at the Grand Canyon
Given the gas prices, I also did some quick math on what it would have cost if I hadn't taken the trailer and just slept in the truck (put a cot, toilet and kitchenette in the back of the truck). I paid $635 for the various RV parks. Staying in hotels came in at $878, and I didn't just pick the cheapest hotel in each area either (I did a quick first pass and picked the hotel I would have started with). The gas savings not towing the trailer were estimated to be $1047. All this is in the spreadsheet that can be found at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eBM_-sIyDB_gvvagUgAS7QvrY1ycu-Aq0DfOmEbSqq4/edit?usp=sharing. Something to consider as I go to buy a new truck though, since towing the camper is the main driver for getting the biggest engine. The camper is a very nice luxury to have and opens a lot of doors, but it isn't a cheap one it appears.
One other note on gas: in most states, 87 octane is "regular". I noticed when I got to Texas that "regular" was only 86 octane. This problem continued to get worse when I was in Utah where I even saw "regular" as 84 octane. While octane and gas mileage aren't directly related (octane rates the stability of the gas, not the energy density which is the same across all grades) lower octane can, if it burns poorly enough, result in lower gas mileage, so in Utah and Colorado I ran mid-grade gasoline which was 87 octane. So while gas in Utah looks cheap (their "regular" was among the cheapest on the trip) I ended up using mid grade which made it pretty average in terms of gas costs.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/octane-in-depth.php outlines what I am talking about.
So Oklahoma gets a bad rap as far as driving through it, and while its scenery was probably the most dull, I would have to say New Mexico was the worst state as far as driving goes. The roads in NM are atrocious, gas stations can be hard to find, there is seemingly always a 50mph headwind, and the scenery is only a small step above Oklahoma. Texas and Kansas were both pretty bad as well, but at least Kansas and Oklahoma had good roads. I also didn't have wind problems in Oklahoma, but most of my driving through Oklahoma was at night, so that may not be fair.
