Home again, home again. Never did get to go up the "Going to the Sun" road in Glacier National Park but what sights we did see. This sign is always a very welcome sight no matter how short or long we have been away.
We ended our trip by stopping in MA to see FamilyTimes new Eagle Cap TC. Sweet! Maine is in the third week of rain and we miss that western sun and heat. Great trip and five weeks flew by way to quickly. We traveled 9,636 miles, averaged 11.2 miles per gallon of diesel not horrible considering most of our trip was in the mountains. Average price per gallon was $2.67 with the lowest being $2.29 in Michigan and highest $3.20 in CA. Worth it? You betcha especially since last year's trip $4.65 per gallon.
What parts of the trip will stick with us the longest? The drive over Tioga Pass, north of Yosemite National Park and all of Rocky Mountain National Park for me. Joe says his is Olympic National Park and the views from Hurricane Ridge and also Crater Lake. We would both like to go back to Washington State and spend a month or so wandering around. I'd like to sit on Rialto Beach and watch the sunset. Never did see the type of western sunset colors we had hoped for so we'll just have to go back.
The Host Rainier truck camper and Ford F-350 worked perfectly, all systems taking a lot of abuse on rough roads. The new Michelin tires got a workout on some pretty poor roads and proved to be a good choice for us. We were thankful for our TC friend Mike Tassianari who talked us through fixing the refrigerator after being at high altitude and the thermocouple sooting up. Minor problem overall and just lack of maintenance on our part.
We didn't follow in truck camper friends Wazoo and Farctic Ox's footsteps with extreme back country camping but we stayed in many national forest and state park campgrounds. Most of the time we were pretty much alone in those parks and the quiet and utter darkness at night was fascinating. Sure is a great feeling to drive into a national park, campground or Corp of Engineers facility and either pay nothing or half price. That America the Beautiful senior pass is one of the good things about getting older. Joe calls it his "Golden Geezer Pass".
Once again I'll put all our best photos to music and burn to a DVD to bore all our TC friends and relatives.
Thanks again for all you on RV.NET who gave suggestions on places to go and things to do. We followed many of your thoughts and enjoyed them thoroughly. Hopefully we can pass on to others some of these special places. What an incredible country we are lucky to live in.
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