Road Trip – Our 3,200-Mile Adventure

Have you ever wanted to get in your car and just go on an epic road trip? I have. Somehow time, money, responsibilities and just life, in general, kept us from doing it…until this May. Stay tuned to the end…I do have a takeaway for you!

ROAD TRIP – THE MAKINGS

Here’s how it started: Glynn and a friend of his had been talking for weeks about the Forrest Fenn treasure and where they suspected it was hidden. I think it’s safe to say (since this location is a common consensus), they both suspected it was hidden in the mountains of Montana. Because of this, we had planned to spend the week following Memorial Day weekend in Montana treasure hunting with our friends.

Since we had a week-long vacation planned so far away from home, we kept camping plans to a minimum for early May, with the exception of one long weekend at Devil’s Den State Park in NW Arkansas. Innocent enough so far, right?

THE CALL

You know it’s just not that easy! Thursday, May 3rd arrived so we finished work and headed to our campground which is almost 3 hours from home. We stopped about halfway to our destination for groceries and as we got back in the car, we got “THE CALL!”  Our treasure-hunting friend called and said he couldn’t wait anymore. The snow was melting in Montana and he didn’t want anyone to find “his treasure.” He was already in his car with some of his family, and they were leaving their home in Louisiana and heading towards Montana.

At this point, we had a decision to make. We could spend a relaxing weekend in Arkansas or we could spend a long weekend in the car. Either one would be FANTASTIC, but neither of us had been to Montana and the decisions were racing through our minds.

I am not a planner by nature, but I am also not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants person. My nature falls somewhere in the middle. I like to have loose plans…not so structured I feel stifled or regimented, but no plans at all make me terribly nervous.

After we got off the phone and discussed all of the possibilities that were unsettling to us, we decided we had no reason not to go.

CHANGING PLANS

Our next course of action was to drop our camper off somewhere (couldn’t afford to take it to Montana and back). We decided on leaving it at Glynn’s dad’s house in Bentonville, AR. Once our plans were made, we called our OTHER friends and informed them of our change of plans and canceled our campsite for the weekend. The campgrounds had a one-night cancelation fee, which was a small price to pay for backing out last minute.

After unhooking our camper, we had to salvage whatever we could from a long weekend in 80-degree weather to gathering whatever was available for a long weekend of 60-degree weather. This road trip was already kicking our butts as we had definitely NOT planned on cool weather for our trip!

We still managed to find enough clothes to stay warm in the chilly weather and took our mattress pad out of our camper to convert the back of the Pathfinder into our make-shift camper for the weekend. Taking drinks and snacks out of the camper for the road trip also saved us money.

THE EXPERIENCE

I was nervous right up until the minute we left the camper. Once we left (at 10 p.m.), I got SUPER EXCITED! The farthest north I had ever been before this road trip was probably Cincinnati, Ohio. As mentioned earlier, we had never done anything like this before.

To just up and run off…drop all sensible plans and do something COMPLETELY unplanned and unexpected, that’s just not who we are!

It was so surreal to be in a position with our work, time, and money to be able to do this road trip. It was humbling and thrilling!

NEW EXPERIENCES

I’ve always heard Kansas is AWFUL to drive across. It’s flat and has high winds. To me though, Kansas was fascinating because I’ve NEVER SEEN GIANT WINDMILL FARMS! Glynn and I both geeked out on them as we drove by. I think we Googled for 30 minutes:

• Ok, Google. How much energy does a windmill generate?
• Ok, Google. How many households can one windmill provide energy for?
• Ok, Google. Where are windmill farms across the U.S. (then, the entire world)?

This went on until our curiosities were satisfied. I tried to take pictures, but since we were late meeting our friends, we couldn’t stop and take pics with the Canon. Now that I’m home and only have a few motion-blurred pictures of windmills on my phone, I wish we had stopped for the 10 minutes I’d need to get a good pic with the good camera.

After the windmill farms came the mountains of Colorado. Do you remember the feeling you got the first time you saw the ocean? I do. For me, it was a sense of awe and wonder. The depths, the energy, the wonder of what lies beneath…the ocean is AMAZING! This same sense of amazement overcame me as we approached the mountains near Denver. It was breathtaking!

Note to self: GO BACK TO DENVER AND EXPLORE!

The same overwhelming sense of awe overcame me as we entered Wyoming and Montana. I felt like a kid as we were driving into the mountains.

Was this real, were we really driving into the unknown with no plans and no idea what was around the corner?! If everyone wasn’t already convinced we’re crazy, we left no doubt for them at this point!

MEETING OUR FRIENDS

I’m getting ahead of my own story…from the very MOMENT we left, I was OVERJOYED with excitement! Glynn and I had switched off driving Thursday until about 3 a.m. We knew we were about 4 hours ahead of our friends, so we had some time to burn for sleeping. We pulled over in the middle of Kansas and slept at a rest stop for a few hours. Believing we were WAY far ahead of them, we went to an IHOP for breakfast Friday morning.

WRONG! After we finished eating, we called them and found out they were on track to beat us to Ft. Collins, Colorado…BY A WHOLE HOUR. However, they needed to go to a store for something which allowed us to catch up with them at a nearby gas station. Everyone was exhausted but exhilarated as we finished our first full day of the road trip and made it to Billings, Montana. We found a hotel and got a good night’s sleep.

THE TREASURE HUNT

We all woke up Saturday morning and hit the road to our destination (surely you didn’t think I was gonna tell you where we thought the treasure was?)! Our imaginations were all running wild with the possibilities! Glynn and his friend JUST KNEW that they were finding their treasure.

The journey included an hour or two drive into the heart of the mountains, driving up a winding dirt road, hiking down a mountain, crossing an icy cold creek in tennis shoes (SO COLD!!!), and hunting in nooks and crannies all over the place for treasure.

We walked around in wet shoes and wet pants up to our knees for half a day until they dried! 🙂

After the hunt, we ate our packed lunches, explored the forest, walked the dirt road and took pictures. We made a WHOLE DAY of our treasure hunt. I took lots of pictures that you can see on Facebook here (it should work even if you don’t have an account).

Ultimately, the water was moving too fast to find the treasure (at least where my guys suspected the treasure was hidden). We were disappointed about that, but we gained so much by way of life experiences that the road trip was priceless in my opinion…even without a treasure.

MOVING ONWARD

As the day came to an end, we all decided to redirect our road trip towards home since there was nothing we could do with the water so high and fast. Our friends had a teenager with them that had to be back to school by Monday morning too. Yes, we went from Arkansas to Montana and back again in one 5-day weekend! CRAZY!!!

When we headed out on our road trip, I told Glynn that I’d love to see Mount Rushmore on our way home, so we knew we weren’t going home the same way we came.

I used the Roadtrippers app to find some other points of interest in our path on Friday night. We learned Devil’s Tower and The Badlands National Park were both “on the way,” so we said goodbye to our friends and parted company.

We stayed around in the little picturesque town taking pictures and soaking up the scenery for an hour or so after our friends left. Somehow I didn’t get enough pictures!

We drove Saturday night until we couldn’t drive anymore which was around 1 a.m. Once again, we found a rest stop and cozied up in the back of our Pathfinder. Word of warning to any other #vanlife people reading this, Wyoming rest stops are lit up with lights that burn with the light of a thousand suns! It’s like DAYLIGHT…I’m not joking! If I’d had more time, I would’ve researched sleeping in your car more. Surely cardboard in the windows would’ve been a better idea!

SHOWERING ON THE ROAD

Again, we woke up truly EXCITED for our new day and the adventures we knew we were about to have. Since we slept in the car, we had to figure out how and where to get a shower. We learned that you can pay for a shower at a Flying J or similar gas station and that you can “team shower” with a teammate. Since we’ve been married since 1991, I’d say we’re a team, but the idea of showering in a gas station was still kind of creepy to me so we searched for an RV park.

The RV park we landed on charged $10 per person to shower. Cute story there…the ladies bathroom had no electrical outlets for my hairdryer. Glynn dried my hair outside of the bathrooms near a coke machine. An older dude walked by and said something to the effect of “that’s something you don’t see every day!” We told him Glynn was a hair stylist and we almost sold him a haircut. I wish we’d had shears with us…we could’ve made back our $20!

As it turns out, it would’ve been better to shower at the gas station. I’m not afraid to tell the world…I was wrong. I love you, honey! 😀

DEVIL’S TOWER

Our Sunday began in Wyoming. Devil’s Tower was first on our list of “must-see” locations. As we approached, we learned it was $20 per car to go into the park. Seeing as how we’d spent $20 on showers, we decided to save the exploring for another day. We snapped several pictures which you can see here in our South Dakota album, then did some shopping in the nearby shops.

*Important to mention for RVers, there’s a KOA at the base of the Tower. It looked like a really well-kept RV park. Also important to mention, there was literally NO TRAFFIC. This is apparently a BIG DEAL. It was the first week of May, so if you MUST go, do so before school lets out. They said it’s insane during the summer. The locals were super friendly!

AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND

As we finished fueling up for the next leg of the road trip ONE. MORE. TIME…SO EXPENSIVE…we pulled over on the side of the highway to look over our route. We were sitting there in our car looking at Google Maps and an officer came and knocked on our window and scared the crud out of us! He just wanted to check and make sure everything was ok.

Wanna know the funny part? Sure you do…HE WAS FROM ARKANSAS!!! When he asked what part of AR we were from, we told him we were from the suburbs of Little Rock (because, really, would a South Dakota sheriff know where in the world Bryant, Arkansas was?). The officer told us he was from Redfield (which is about 30-40 miles from our home). What are the odds?! Slim, I’d imagine.

Next stop: Crazy Horse Memorial…well…sort of. We’d read about the Crazy Horse Memorial near Mount Rushmore, but decided not to go in when we found out they charged $30 per car. If we had more time or money, we would DEFINITELY go see it. We snapped a couple of pics with our phones and went on to see the presidents.

I’d vote for this guy, wouldn’t you?

I must’ve taken 10,000 pictures at Mount Rushmore. It was $10 FOR THE YEAR! We stayed there for hours reading about the workers, the presidents, taking pictures, and even squeezed in a nap in the movie theater where they keep informational movies running! It’s an incredible feat of engineering that every American should go see at some point.

We left the company of the presidents and headed east on our adventurous road trip.

THE BADLANDS

All I knew of The Badlands came from my kids watching the cartoon “An American Tail: Feivel Goes West.” Needless to say, it was not much but Glynn told me they were in South Dakota and we decided to see them. It was $20 or $25 per car to get in, but we knew it would take several hours and felt it would be worth the price since we could tour at our own pace.

If you ever happen to be taking a road trip across South Dakota, DO NOT MISS The Badlands! It’s insane that you are driving through flat plains, then the plains give way to this mini Grand Canyon. The colors were unimaginably beautiful. We saw all kinds of birds, goats, deer, elk, and groundhogs.

I wanted to see buffalo, but that didn’t happen…so sad. As mid-day gave way to sunset, the colors literally seemed to come alive! Whites and yellows gave way to oranges and reds dancing across the mountain tops. Check out the album mentioned above in the Devil’s Tower section.

The Badlands National Park has an RV campsite right near their eastern entrance. We WILL go back and spend some more time there when we’re full-timers! I HIGHLY recommend visiting during a sunrise or sunset, and I can’t think of a better way to do that than camping!

EXHAUSTION SETS IN

If you haven’t already gathered this, Glynn and I aren’t spring chicks anymore. Sitting in the car and driving for multiple days in a row on a crazy and whimsical road trip is just not how we normally do things. We decided to get a hotel room to get some restful sleep and a decent shower before our final home stretch the next day.

I have no idea where we stayed except that we were somewhere in eastern South Dakota. *Side note: if you ever find yourself in South Dakota, you should buy some Dot’s Pretzels (if you’re not gluten intolerant)! So delish!!!

We woke up the next morning dreading the next leg of our road trip, but in utter disbelief of what all we had just experienced! We refueled AGAIN and headed south through Iowa. The wind was incredible there, that was unexpected! Another important note, Iowa rest stops have RV dumps. I thought this was rather generous of Iowa!

Iowa turned into Missouri, then Missouri to Arkansas. We picked up our camper from my father-in-law’s house and tried to make it home. After another hour of driving and almost nodding off, we decided to pull over at a rest stop for the night and boondock in the camper. Since I had a cousin camping in Little Rock in her tiny camper, we actually didn’t go home but to a local RV park on Tuesday morning.

THE TAKEAWAY

As I was writing this, I wondered what someone else could take away from our road trip? What is your benefit if you read this? So here it is: if it’s in your ability to do something you dream of doing, do it. If it’s not in your power, do EVERYTHING imaginable to make it happen! For us, this meant sleeping in our car 3 out of 5 nights, eating frugally, leaving the camper behind, not camping as much through May, etc. We had to tighten our budget and spend as little as possible both before and after the road trip.

We actually bought a car from a friend who just wanted to get rid of it because the water pump had gone out. Glynn paid her $500 for the car, had it fixed with the intent to flip it for a profit. My point with sharing this is that we felt we needed extra money and looked for an opportunity to make it. This car flip isn’t what we normally do, but the opportunity presented itself and we accepted. Once we sell the car, it will provide us enough money to have SEVERAL more adventures!

There was a time I would’ve had to take on a part-time job or do some odd job to make it happen. After experiencing this road trip, I regret not thinking this way when my kids were young. There’s a lot I could’ve done to take more road trips. Heck, I would’ve mowed grass (which I HATE…not to dys you if you’re a landscaper) to be able to do this…SURELY there were odd jobs available or part-time work I could’ve done for extra money!

The potential for side-income is why I started this blog. It will be nice when it REPLACES our income, but we will be happy when it just SUPPLEMENTS our income. If you’re interested in starting your own travel blog, or any other, check out my blogging resources page.

IT’S TOTALLY WORTH THE EXTRA WORK TO TRAVEL! If you know of a time travel machine, would you please go back and tell my younger self to travel AT ALL COSTS? I’d appreciate that, thanks! 🙂

If you want to keep up with our travels, catch us on Instagram and Facebook!