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We made it home to AZ. After fueling up, we rolled into our yard and you could see it had been ignored. It will take us a bit to catch up especially in the heat.

We purchased our 40' Class A RV in January of this year. I had a work trip in late January and then COVID hit so were not able to take it out and enjoy it.

I had another work trip to Wisconsin in June and August so we worked it out that we would live in our RV during those 6 weeks rather than me flying, renting a car and staying in hotels.

Additionally, I had vacation and 2 weeks of furlough so in between the June and August times I needed to be in Wisconsin we traveled out to Washington state and back to Wisconsin. 

Our first long trip came to an end on August 21. This trip has proved that we can do this on a more full-time basis. Check out the details of our trip...

• We were on the road 85 days.
• We we slept in 18 states.
• We visited 2 National Parks and 2 State Parks
• We stayed at 8 Harvest Hosts, 4 COE's (Army Core of Engineering Sites).
• We drove a total of 10,898 miles.

We met a lot of people and saw so many things. We enjoyed having our grandson with us for a total of 40 days. We loved seeing family we haven't seen in a while. This trip has definitely solidified we made a good decision to buy this RV and we know that we could do this full time. We are looking forward to our next trip whether it is a short trip or something longer.

One last picture of all the wines we purchased from the 8 different Winery Harvest Hosts. There would have been one more but we enjoyed it on our trip.

8-21-2020

Our drive home was uneventful. There were some really unique rock formations going through northern AZ on 191. 

Driving at a distance, it looked like there was a hole but you can see as we got the formation was separated.

This plateau was beautiful and then as we got closer the rock formations out to the side were amazing. 

Some rock formations just sitting out in the middle of nowhere.

We weren't sure what this is but had never seen anything like this before. If it is a grain silo, I'm not sure why they would make a special bridge to it to the other side. It didn't look like it went anywhere on the other side. 

Pretty cool rock formations.

San Francisco Peaks

And in AZ we will be wearing a mask.

Arches National Park

The drive to Arches National Park took us 2.5 hours out of our way due to the fires along Hwy 70 between Denver & Grand Junction. We decided to take the northern route and it was a beautiful drive up through Steam Boat Springs CO and then down to Grand Junction CO. Here are some random pictures from our drive.

Unusual bridges...

A sign advertising FM Light & Sons was placed every mile or so on the way to Steam Boat Springs.

We were grateful we got to drive on this side of the road that was finished.

Well, it wasn't totally finished. 😧

Strange looking rock formation.

The different structures to this mountain side, so cool!

We arrived at Arches National Park around 2:30pm. The campground we were staying at was 18 miles into the park. It was windy and many altitude climbs but we were finally settled an hour later. We decided to head out to see some arches. We hiked out to Tapestry Arch, Broken Arch, Sand Dunes and a couple of views of  Skyline Arch.

Here's the map.

Tapestry Arch

Broken Arch

We think the crack at the top is why it is called broken.

Entrance to Sand Dunes 

Front of Sand Dunes Arch

Back of Sand Dunes Arch

Front of Skyline Arch

Back of Skyline Arch we could see from our campsite.

We hiked back and then watched the sunset from the rocks behind our site. That would be me way out there. 😀

This morning we were up so we could hit more trails to more arches.

Our first look at Landscape Arch

A young man from Wisconsin took this picture for us. 

We wanted to get to Double O Arch and we made an attempt but there was scrambling and then we lost the trail so we decided to head back down.

The next Arch...Pine Tree Arch

Front side...

Looking up...

Back...

Next, Tunnel Arch

Next, we jumped in the jeep to find Window Arches

Check out this raven...LOL

North Window Arch

Turret Arch

Looking up at North Window Arch

South Window Arch

North and South Arch

 

I took a ton more pictures. I really believe that these pictures don't show the true beauty, definitely God's gift to us! 

Heaton Bay in White River National Park

 Today we drove to Heaton Bay in the White River National Forest west of Denver, CO.

Here are some pictures I took on the drive...

Denver from a distance

So, we knew about the wildfires on I-70. The news was saying they would be open in a few days and we were hoping by the time we got that far it would be open but we have to figure out our route for tomorrow since the news is saying it will most likely be closed until Sept.1. 

I guess this is a pretty good reason to buckle up!

Tunnel #1

Tunnel #2 was kind of freaky, you are literally driving through the mountain in a tunnel more than a minute. I took a video, stopped it at a minute however, I didn't start it until we were in it for a bit and we had a bit to go when I stopped the video.

A total of six miles of steep down hill. The transportation department has a sense of humor...

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose your brakes and have to take the runaway ramp. I sure pray nobody has ever made it to the top, that incline was insane.

Pictures from our 15.8 mile bike ride on an amazing trail around Dillon and Frisco and across the Dillon Dam.

In this picture you can see smoke behind the mountains. 🔥

Kind of a blurry picture. 🤷