As promised, here are our trip highlights (both best and worst). For more info, you can click the underlined links to jump directly to the related posts
Most enjoyed National Park: Yellowstone. There was so much to do and see there: geysers, mineral terraces, hot springs, fumaroles and bubbling mud pots… (8/29-9/1)
Most enjoyed hiking trail: The Alta Vista trail in the Paradise area of the Mount Rainier National Park (8/1)
Tie/Close second: The Hurricane Ridge trail at Olympic National Park (7/29)
Most impressive waterfall: Multnomah falls, near Portland, OR at 620 ft! (8/4)
Best wildlife sighting: We saw a herd of bison crossing the road around us during our surface drive inside Wind Cave National Park (9/14)
Best stop for drinks AND best dinner spot at Yellowstone National Park
We had a drink overlooking Yellowstone Lake from inside the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, and later that day, dinner in the dining room of historic at Old Faithful Inn. (8/31)
We added 11 states visited to our map, completing the 48 contiguous states
Scariest drive during this trip: At first we were toying between the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park (7/23, 7/23) and the Needles Highway in Custer State Park, in South Dakota (9/8) to finally decide that these two were truck-only local driving. By far, the scariest was the Teton Pass (8/24), on our way to Grand Teton National Park, as we were then pulling the RV when we had to maneuver a sustained 11 mile downhill drive, sometimes as steep as a 10% grade.
Best museum visited this trip: Museum of the Plains Indian (aka as the Buffalo Bill Historical Center) in Cody, Wyoming. Its 4 different museums in one building (9/3)
Most impressive unplanned event: In Duluth, Minnesota, the arrival into port of the huge iron ore ship American Century measuring 1000 ft in length and 105 ft in width.
Least favorited planned stop: Effigy Mounds National Monument near McGregor, Iowa (9/29)- Basically a trail along shapeless small bumps on the ground with mowed vegetation…
best campground – The Point RV campground at Emigrant Lake in Ashland, OR (8/12-8/14). This was a wonderful, quiet campground with a lakefront view right outside our door
worst campground – Kamp Komfort RV Park & Campground in Carlock IL (10/1-10/2). Notes from my campground review state: “From my site, I could see I-76 traffic speeding by at less than 100 feet away, so it was noisy throughout the day and night and we could feel ground vibration as tractor-trailers drove by”
Best use of technology – when we had a mechanical breakdown with the truck in the high desert. The truck would not start, very few vehicles passing by, zero homes, or businesses in sight, and zero cell phone reception. As I noted in this blog post, I pulled out our Starlink dish, plugged it on the RV inverter which runs off our battery bank, and now we had the ability to search the internet for “towing service near me”, and make calls from our cell phones, via wifi calling.
Overall, it was a great trip with many memorable experiences.