1- Geneva, Ohio at Kenisee’s Grand River Camp --375 miles
2- Cloverdale, Indiana at the Cloverdale RV Park Cloverdale RV Park --400 miles
3- Higgensville, Missouri at the Interstate RV Park --400 miles
4- Oakley, Kansas at High Plains Camping --400 miles
From Oakley to Monument is only 240-250 miles. We should be rolling into Lake of the Rockies RV Park in Monument by 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon.
On our last trip we determined that 400 miles is about our daily limit, especially since I do all the driving when the truck and trailer come in to play. It isn’t much when traveling by car (or truck), in fact we have done almost twice that on some recent trips to Idaho and once, in our wilder and crazier youth, we drove from Colorado to NJ non-stop. Of course, Terry helps with some of the driving as long as the Silverado is not involved. (Our son had to do even more: Moscow, Idaho to NJ non-stop and alone. He says he will never do that again. The dancing hippos in their pink tutus began to appear around the Ohio/PA border and kept him company for the next 6 hours.) Anyway, hauling a 27-foot trailer behind a nearly 18-foot truck doesn’t allow you to hit the 75 mph you see the cars and even the 18-wheelers doing. Just can’t be done. Cruising speed will be around 60-65 tops, which means 6 to 7 hours of driving when you figure in gas stops. Potty stops and such are extra. That means about 8 hours to go 400 miles. That’s enough.
Since we are traveling from Monday through Friday, I made no reservations with any of the campgrounds/RV parks except for Lake of the Rockies where we will be staying the week of July 1-8. We will do as we did last trip, when we are about 100 miles from our proposed destination, we will call them on our cell phone to see if they have a parking space for the night. I don’t remember anyplace that was fully booked the last time we traveled west. If any are (or if we don’t like the looks of the place), we can look up another campsite in our 2005 Trailer Life Directory and move on down the road.
Actually, not liking the place occurred only once when we stopped at a state run facility. Not that the campground was bad, just overcrowded. There were people at sites selling crafts and foods. Sites were so close that you could almost open your car door into the camper next to you. We moved on from that one.
All four places I listed above are members of the Good Sam’s Club and have their campgrounds rated in the Directory. We have been to the first two and they are beautiful places worthy of extended stays. The other two look interesting and might well be as nice.
We’ll be up and on the road by 8 AM Monday morning. I’ll try to keep you posted on our progress but do not know if the campgrounds will have internet access available. I’m sure that I will be able to get access in Monument or Colorado Springs, however, so I will be able to let you know what we are up to. We intend to see/do the following: the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, The Flying W Ranch, Monument’s 4th of July Parade, Pike’s Peak, Garden of the Gods, hot air ballooning in South Park (just over the pass to the west of Pike’s Peak), Old Town (east of Colorado Springs), and who knows what else.
Oh, by the way, here is a picture of our home for the next three weeks.
Mark, my upstate neighbor, likes to call this our “3rd home” and he’s right, though we don’t spend as much time in it as we would like. I have a feeling that is about to change, however.
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