Hey friends!
My gf and I are working out details for a month-long trip. 7/14 to 8/18 and thought I'd run this through the group here on suggestions or potential offshoots.
We're taking the first two weeks off then will have to be working remote and driving evenings/weekends the second half.
We figured we would camp maybe half of the time and split Airbnb and friends places the other half.
I attached some route photos and the rig.
Mostly we will find designated camping spots but I still need to dive into the apps to find some light off-road spots we could get to. The truck so far is still stock wheels, tires, suspension. So can't do anything crazy yet. Would love to hear from anyone on places we could offshoot to for some good forest service spots to camp.
Has anyone done anything like this and have any suggestions or just good general advice?
Again, not really an off-road trip more of a parks and beaches kind of trip.
Thanks ahead for any input
Technically Omaha, Nebraska before and after but Google only allows 10 stops.
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Hey man - having been to
all those places on various adventures over the years (except Niobrara/RockyFord), and many of them more than once, I have to say
go for it!
Though be
completely prepared to adjust, accommodate, and eliminate more than one destination while en route. Seriously. Figure your top three to five destinations and work around those. I agree with
@socal66 that it is an ambitious trip to undertake for the time allotted.
My biggest piece of advice to adventurers when you have a whole wonderful time like five weeks (way more than most do when exploring the USA), is not about where to go, but about how to do it:
BE FLEXIBLE: Accept opportunities as they arise, both in personal interest and to meet locals and go to hidden spots "only locals" go to. Swimming holes, hiking trails, cliff dwellings, off-the-beaten-path food joints, etc. Dawdle where you find cool, interesting things to explore, and to hell with itinerary. Local museums of history, art and culture; regional foods, and again, chat up the locals.
What are you interested in learning and experiencing?
For me, that's what adventuring is about. It makes it a real adventure
; not just a tourist outing. It will be far more memorable and with longer-lasting friendships than you can imagine.
===============================================================
The TLDR; version is above. The background why I advise what I have is below.
I have a habit lately--especially during the Big Pause of 20-21--of going on at length on adventure forums about wandering a continent. I miss it.
I've done a miner's ton of adventuring. I'm usually more on the road than not in any given year; going back literally decades.
Though I grew up camping and adventuring all over Europe as a kid with family, my first time doing something on my own like you're undertaking across a continent was in a VW bug in the early 70s. Me and a good pal were gone nine weeks. He just reminded me recently when he said: "You know our trip out west was
fifty years ago?"
We left the Ohio River Valley with no real plan other than to explore the USA.
We slept on the banks of the Mississippi with tug boats chugging on one side and train horns on the other, all night. I felt like I was Carl Sandburg or Mark Twain, experiencing America for the first time. We worked at the North Rim Lodge at the Grand Canyon a couple weeks as they closed for the season and were given a cabin on the canyon edge to stay in. Then we hiked all the way down and across the Colorado River and and up the other side of the GC when we were done, to the South Rim.
We spent the night on Stinson Beach north of San Fran when we got to California. We camped on Iowa prairies where, for the first time, I sensed the curvature of the earth as sunsets completely circled us in a 360º cantaloupe horizon which deepened into an overhead dome of ever-darkening inky colors and a spectacular sky full of more stars than we'd ever seen. So vast and so round; we were encircled by it all. We visited historic Native American sites across America and urban parks in happening cities in the best music age in America, and
SO much more.
We met tons of folks along the way who realized we were long-term travelers, not tourists; so pointed us to an amazing wealth of locals-only knowledge. They invited us into their homes for overnights and cookouts and next day hikes. We heard stories about how they'd made ladders on site back-country of Pinyon Pine to explore cliff-dwellings and found Maize and grain in hand-woven baskets never before seen by a white man.
I could easily go on at length about all points in between.
Every adventure I've undertaken since then, based first on my experiences as a kid exploring and car camping with fam--camping in the willy-wacks along wild streams and in deep forests all over Europe with a two-room canvas tent strapped to the top of our Chevy wagon, then solo-hitch-hiking in my early teens and extended trips with a buddy across the USA as described above and canoe trips into Canada, has formed my preferred mode of adventuring ever since.
It's evolved further over extended adventures to
slowing down,
appreciating where I am, and knowing it will
all still be out there when I get out adventuring again.
Going on extended adventures is not normal life for most folks. I used to say to my girlfriend--who went up to Nova Scotia and PEI with me on a long trip--about my '69 Chevy Carryall we were traveling in: "It's not a house, it's a
home!"
The other big piece of advice for adventurers, especially if you haven't done a long trip before is:
Scaling down from a house to a home in a vehicle will have it's ups and downs. You can count on it.
There will be--trust me--a two-week thing that happens after embarking on your adventure, and at different times for each of you. You'll wonder "What the holy fuck were we thinking? This weather sucks. I miss my bed. We have no cell coverage! Can we go into town, my folks are gonna be worried! I'm tired of having to look for things. Why does setting up/tearing down take so long? We need to re-arrange everything. Where the hell is the _______? Honey please, can you just____?"
The solution on long adventures? In my experience, it is to stick it out and get past it. I know folks who've bagged it at two weeks. Know that the homesick blues are bound to happen in varying degrees, and that they
will pass.
You'll wake up the morning after a day--or days--bitching at each other or yourself about this or that and go "Holy shit, this is frikkin' amazing! Did you see that? I have never seen anything like this!" and you will find a new embrace for adventuring and be glad you stuck it out.
Slow down; embrace the adventure; and know you're making memories that will last the rest of your life.
It's easy, really, if you let it happen.
I look forward to your trip reports and all you've seen and understood. I'm envious that you both get to experience the places you're going to for the first time.
~ Road
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