1st Retirement RV Ramble 2024
3 weeks / >5000 miles - Part One
May 13, 2024
After much deliberation, we chose our route to head West to Colorado first, then up to Montana, over to Minnesota and back home. We realized quickly that most of our trip would be on the road driving, but that was unavoidable as our destinations were so far apart. Three weeks sounds like a long time to be gone from home, but we didn’t stay in one place for long! The goal was to drive about 8 hours per day. I identified the towns of any size along our route approximately 8 - 9 hours apart, and to my surprise was able to make camping reservations at the first campsites I chose. I guess the camping mania has slowed since the height of lockdown, but we were also traveling before Memorial Day so ahead of the busy season by just a hair. I got sites with full hookups every other stop so we didn’t have to worry about finding black tank dump stations. Every site we stayed had electric and water hookups, and shower facilities. Rick showers in the RV, I prefer more room if given the choice. I had anticipated all kinds of difficulty that just did not occur, we had a route and reservations and a plan. Time to hit the road!
Our first destination was near Fort Smith, Arkansas, the address of the campground was Barling, AR. Springhill Park is Core of Engineer property along the Arkansas river and manmade John Paul Hammerschmidt Lake. The drive was uneventful and soon we were setting up at lake’s edge for our first night of camping. The campsites were nicely spaced, a rarity at privately owned parks. There were lots of duck and geese. The boys had much room to exercise, and although we didn’t make use of the restroom/shower house it looked new and nice. Surprisingly, I slept well. We have found a mattress topper that works well for me, a 3” Tempurpedic. Getting enough sleep was one of my concerns but from first night to last I had no issues. I had made a pot roast with potatoes and carrots the day before we left, making a large batch of stew leftovers to carry us through the first couple days’ dinners. It is so nice not to cook yet have a taste of home after a long day of traveling. Here are some day one photos from our campsite.
May 14th, 2024
We got up and on the road early, our second day had us driving west on I40 across Oklahoma to Amarillo Texas. I amused myself shooting cell phone photos through the windows of the truck. The dogs settled into being road dawgs and slept most of the day, moving occassionally to get out of the direct sun in the back seat. This was the warmest day of our trip and we used the A/C in the camper to cool things down once we got to Amarillo. The RV park was called Fort Amarillo, it was on the west side of town so we didn’t have to worry about rush hour traffic in the morning. It was a really nice park with fenced dog run, water feature, laundry and showers and a small store. The sites themselves were like a parking lot with close neighbors, pretty much the norm for most RV parks but when it is only a night’s stay for rest, it was fine. However, Rick heard highway noise in the night as we were not far from the Amarillo bypass. I have no such issues, as without my hearing aids I hear little. Not much too interesting for road photos, I took ridiculous numbers of shots of wind farms, and deleted almost all but it passed the time. We did stop in Okemah, Oklahoma so I could see the Woody Guthrie mural. And there was another stately old building that caught my eye, which we later learned was about to be torn down??
With two days of serious traveling in the rearview, we were excited to have some stops and see some friends on day 3. New Mexico and Colorado would not disappoint. Stay tuned, further adventures just ahead in Part Two!
Have fun!