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Day1-The RV
The Road Beast Denver, CO - Cheyenne, WY - Rawlins, WY
What good road trip story wouldn’t be worthy of a quote from the good doctor (Hunter S. Thompson for the uninitiated)? But indeed, the fear and the loathing really was non-existent (at this point anyway) as we bunch were traveling in the road beast - a 2008 Coachmen Freelander. Outfitted with all the luxurious appointments one would expect of a fine, modern moterhome: 4 beds, shower, bathroom, kitchen, slide out living room, flat screen hi-def TV. Protected in an aluminum cocoon from the beastly elements that would confront an otherwise road-weary traveler: wild swings in temperature from hot to cold, deadly critters, other RV’ers, lions, tigers, oh yeah and the bears. Well we haven’t seen any of those yet, but I’m told they are in abundance at one of our next stops.
I am sure the pioneers who first traveled these rugged lands in rustic covered-wagons would look on in horror - or extreme jealousy - to see this odd road contraption.
So thus begins our grand 2000 mile, 11 day road trip through the hinter lands of Wyoming and South Dakota. The great unknown, the real wild west, adventures
Day1-Flying In
Our intrepid travelers on their way to Denver in the high plains of the great American frontier. This is the story of the 2 families - the Lynch’s and Stallard’s - as they endeavor to travel these roads as first-time RV’ers. So let me introduce you to our characters. The Stallard’s consist of myself, Mark, my wife Carolyn and our 9 year-old daughter, Chloe. The Lynch’s are Andy Sr., his wife (and Carolyn’s sister) Amy and their 9 year-old son Andy Jr. For those that don’t know, Chloe and Andy are 3 days apart in age and more like brother and sister than cousins. I like to call them our “twins-without-the-responsibility”.
Our journey begins at 5am as we meet up to drive to the BWI Airport in Baltimore. Carolyn and I have been up since 3am and each got maybe 4-5 hours sleep, Amy didn’t get much more, Andy Sr. says he didn’t get any sleep at all and the kids; well I’m sure they didn’t get much sleep either but they didn’t really complain too much. The anticipation was extremely high as we’ve been planning this trip for nearly a year and they day for departure had finally begun. Plus, I think we were all in
Day1-Over Denver
Flying into Denver... dire need of a vacation. I know I was!
We arrived at the airport the obligatory 2 hours in advance, quickly checked our bags, shoveled some greasy fast food breakfast down our gullets and before we knew it the plane was boarding for our 8:35am flight and we were on our way.
4 hours later we arrived in Denver, 11am local time. We quickly boarded a shuttle which took us to B&B RV. This is where we would pick up our rented land yacht. A quick video showing us what we were in for as first-time RV’ers, a bunch of paperwork, then a 1 hour walk-through/how-to of the RV. We leave the RV rental office, make a 1 hour strop to load up on groceries and we were finally on our way. It is now 4:20pm and everyone is thoroughly exhausted. Due the difference in time it is actually 6:20pm for all of us and we’ve all been up for over 14 hours!
I decided to take the helm of our beastly 31 foot “rental car” for the first leg of our trip. The main idea here is to take things nice and slow (it takes a
Day1-Over Denver
...almost there...but where's Denver? much longer time to get a vehicle of this size moving). All turns are much wider than one might be used to. My normal day-to-day vehicle is a little Saturn station wagon; this is going take some getting used to. Of course when we finally get on the road, it’s the beginning of Denver rush hour and I’ve got to steer this behemoth through bumper to bumper traffic for the first 30 or so miles until we can breach the confines of the city and reach wide open road.
****
Damn, this thing is slow! I never really manage to get the land beast over 50mph for at least the first 60 miles. But we’re really not in a hurry to get anywhere, right? Breaking that rush-rush mindset is really hard to do. Maybe it’s just from living on the east coast in a generally over-congested area of the country where no one has any patience. Or maybe it’s just that modern mid-set of instant gratification that our generation is so plagued with. OK, take a deep breath…it’s all good…we’re ON VACATION!
OK now I’m finally getting the hang of this thing. It’s a bit unwieldy
Day1-In The RV
The kids lay claim to the kitchen table in the RV at times, but as long as we keep our distance and keep moving at a safe speed, it’s all good.
In planning the trip, I mapped out a fairly tight itinerary so that we could get the most bang for the buck while we’re out here and see as many sights as possible. Unfortunately, our first stop, Grand Teton National Park, which is about 550 miles from Denver and I already have a campground booked for our second night. That means we have to get in as many miles as we possibly can the first day so that we at least have some time to view the sites in Grand Teton before we get to our second campground, Flagg Ranch.
After about 2 hours we enter Wyoming. Now the strange thing about driving in the western United States - this is my 4th road trip out west, but the first in this part - is how the terrain and landscape changes often as you drive through the western states. And yes, as we enter Wyoming the landscape is quite different than what we encountered in the outskirts of Denver.
My first impression of Wyoming is this is
Day1-In The RV
The kids lay claim to the kitchen table in the RV a vast expanse of nothing. The landscape of the southern portion of the state is nothing but flat planes covered in sagebrush. And every now and then peppered with the random oil derrick and truck stop. Most of the towns are not much more than a few mobile homes and a gas station...if your lucky.
Even the cities are desolate! The first “city” in Wyoming that we passed through is Cheyenne. Now I use term “city” loosely in this case as what we know of as a city doesn’t much qualify here. Cheyenne is the most populous city and also the state capitol of Wyoming but it appears as barely a blip. In fact, Andy Sr. had posed the question, “I wonder what the biggest city is in Wyoming?” - as were driving through desolate nothingness - and I said, “We just drove through it.” An interesting fact here: we are from Delaware, the 2nd smallest state in the union, and there are fewer people in this state than we have in ours - in fact, Wyoming is the least populous state in the union. You could probably fit about 50 Delawares in this state. It really makes you feel pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Yes kids, we are now officially in the middle of NOWHERE.
Somewhere in this vast expanse I decide to pass the helm of the road beast over to Andy so he can used to driving this sucker. Finally, after about 4 hours and 200 miles of driving we unanimously decide that we can not travel any further. Our first stop is at Western Hills campground in Rawlins, WY. We arrive at the campground at 8:30 and quickly purchase our site. Just in time, too! The office closed at 9pm and we would have been out of luck for the night. I had hoped to get a hundred miles further and stop in Rock Springs instead so that we would have more time tomorrow, but this will do…this will do just fine.
We get the beds setup, and everyone is finally settled in for the night. We all crash around 10:30, the exhaustion truly getting the best of us. Tomorrow will be our first full day of driving.
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John
non-member comment
Delaware warrior
Stallards. It is nice to read about your trip. I am from Delaware too. However, I have been living in Georgia for the last 15 years. My wife and I are reading your blog as we are planning a similiar trip fro GA to Yellowstone and back in a Silverado truck and a 26 ft pull behind. Any inof as to weather, elevations, rv camps, and amazing places to see(must-do's) in the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area would be great. We are planning to travel north through Sioux City then west to the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Rawlins, Rocky Mountain National Park then home through Kansas and Tennessee. Thanks John (Go Army!!)