After deciding to retire last fall we started to make plans for our first road trip out west with our Casita. It started when I nabbed a spot at Catalina State Park in the Tucson, Arizona area for 6 nights last November. Southern Arizona is like Florida in the winter, the RV spots fill up the moment the reservation window opens up so finding 6 nights was super lucky. Most likely, someone had just cancelled & I was lucky enough to be on the website at the right time. With this site booked, we built a 5 week trip around the stay. The only other campgrounds I booked before leaving home was Gulpha Gorge in Hot Springs, Arkansas and Mather Campground in the Grand Canyon. Everything else was going to be a mix of Harvest Hosts, KOA's, Recreation.gov & other random RV campgrounds booked once we were on the road.
 |
| Catalina State Park Sunrise |
We knew we would be on the road for about 5 weeks & it would be a good trial to determine if we wanted to do more of this in the future or just stick to shorter trips. We called this a trial as the longest RV trip we have done is our 2 week summer vacations. They always ended wanting more but we didn't know if we would really like being on the road for so long. Spoiler alert, we did! The 5 weeks went so fast & it's hard to believe we are home already.
I will break out the 5 weeks with a few posts, this one starting as a high level of where we stayed over the five weeks. We left Lexington on February 20th and returned home on March 25th. Our goal was to not drive more than 5 to 6 hours everyday to allow for some flexibility.
- Day 1: Lexington to Brownsville, TN. West Tennessee Delta Museum Center / Tina Turner Museum Harvest Host - 1 night
- Day 2: Brownsville, TN to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Gulpha Gorge Campground - 2 nights
- Day 4: Hot Springs, Arkansas to Ennis, TX. High View Campground - 1 night
- Day 5: Ennis TX, to Sweetwater, TX. Avenger Field - National WASP WWII Museum - 1 night
- Day 6: Sweetwater, TX to Carlsbad, NM. Whites City RV Park - 2 nights
- Day 8: Carlsbad, NM to Alamogordo, NM - White Sands KOA - 2 nights
- Day 10: Alamogordo, NM to Oro Valley, AZ - Catalina State Park - 6 nights
- Day 16: Oro Valley, AZ to Flagstaff, AZ - Flagstaff KOA - 1 night
- Day 17: Flagstaff, AZ to Grand Canyon South Rim - Mather Campground - 5 nights
- Day 22: Grand Canyon South Rim to Flagstaff, AZ - Flagstaff KOA - 2 nights
- Day 24: Flagstaff, AZ to Winslow, AZ - Homolovi State Park Campground - 3 nights
- Day 27: Winslow, AZ to Holbrook, AZ - Holbrook KOA - 1 night
- Day 28: Holbrook, AZ to Cochiti Lake, NM - Cochiti Lake Campground - 2 nights
- Day 30: Cochiti Lake, NM to McLean, TX - Cactus Inn Harvest Host - 1 night
- Day 31: McLean, TX to Sallisaw, OK - Sallisaw KOA - 1 night
- Day 32: Sallisaw, OK to Scott, AR - Willow Beach Campground - 1night
- Day 33: Scott, AR to Hohenwald, TN - Oliver Travel Trailer Campground - 1 night
- Day 34: Hohenwald, TN to HOME!
One thing I learned pretty quickly was multiple days in a row on the road is too much. Even though we took 10 days to get to Catalina, it still felt too fast. The days we spent 2 nights in a site, the day off from driving was still so full with seeing the sites that we didn't get to relax much. It was a big relief to stay in one place for almost a week. I have seen folks with a rule of 3/3/3 which essentially means 300 miles, arrive by 3PM & stay 3 nights before hitting the road again. Not having a lot booked on the way out gave us some flexibility as there places that we didn't want to stay an extra night. In retrospect, I would have stayed an extra night in Hot Springs, 2 to 3 extra nights in Carlsbad, NM, maybe even up to a week. The way home was different since once we know we are headed home, we just want to get home so 5 days straight of driving didn't feel as tiring at the ride out.
Overall, the trip was fantastic & we really enjoyed traveling out west. So much so, that we already have 3 weeks booked at Arizona State Parks for next March. In future posts, I'll share the drive out, Arizona & the drive home with more details on where we stayed including lots of photos.
 |
| The Grand Canyon |
Happy Travels!
No comments:
Post a Comment