Oh hey. We’re still here. Still rolling.

We’ve had a pretty impressive run of s**t-tastic WiFi and cell service, so we haven’t been able to do much online at all. But we just pulled into our site here in Montana and have found a decent connection for uploading pictures and scribing my musings.

TO THE RECAP!

Mesa Verde National Park, Mancos, CO (7/20 – 7/22)

We left Bluff, UT and finally headed east into Colorado. We stayed at a park literally across the highway from Mesa Verde called Ancient Cedars RV Park, and since we’ve already seen the park before we decided to relax the first couple of days and head in on Wednesday to explore some parts we didn’t get to last time. Laundry was done, oil was changed, shopping was… shopped. Real exciting stuff.

However, when we woke up Wednesday morning we both felt like absolute hot messes. We’ve woken up feeling like crap after a night of s**t sleep plenty of times, but the fact that we both had screaming headaches sent up the alarms. Trying not to panic, we set out into the park. Within about 15 minutes I knew I wasn’t going to make it another hour, nonetheless a whole day. My head was raging, I had zero energy to hike, I was breaking out sweating way more than the temperature would have dictated, and the thought of dealing with people on the trails just got me super anxious. No coughing or fever, but we only got a few overlooks in before I called it and we headed back to the camper to relax the rest of the day.

So Mesa Verde was a bit of a bust, and at this point we were wondering if the rest of the trip was in danger. We sure as f**k made sure we always had our masks on, I can tell you that.

Alamosa, CO (7/23)

We woke up Thursday morning feeling better, so some of the alarms were turned off. Cautiously optimistic at this point.

We drove out to Alamosa for just a one-night stop so we didn’t have to drive more than 3-4 hour per day. We pulled into Cool Sunshine RV Park in Alamosa, CO. It’s a new-ish campground so the sites are f**king massive, and the WiFi was blaaaazing. (Had I known it would be the last one in over a week I would have posted some stuff) It was also Opening Day to the s**tshow that will be the 2020 MLB season, and life was good. In the words of Crime In Sports… GRACE.

We ran out to the drugstore to buy some supplies, including some better masks, a new thermometer, and an oximeter… just because I wanted one basically. When we got back to the camper, we were able to officially confirm all vitals were looking good and we probably just had a rough morning the day before. And now we could keep track of them as we go.

Now I wish I could say Alamosa was completely uneventful as a quick overnight on our way to Denver. But that would be a lie.

As I sat basking in the joy of drinking a beer and watching ACTUAL BASEBALL… Yankees baseball nonetheless… I hear a train off in the distance. I pay it no mind until it’s getting louder… and louder… and LOUDER… AND…

A freight train is literally rolling by about three feet from the back window of the camper. We’re backed up to a fence, and the train tracks are literally right on the other side. So I turned to Jenny and prophetically said, “well, that could get pretty interesting.”

Spoiler alert… it did.

My Cousin Vinny is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. There’s a scene where they’re staying in this s**t motel in this s**t town, and in the middle of the night a freight train rolls through and the entire room shakes with stuff falling off shelves… the whole mess. And Marisa Tomei just kinda looks around and laughs at the ridiculousness of it all.

We lived that scene in real life. At 3:45am we wake up to the entire camper shaking like it was a f**king earthquake. And it was a freight train, so it was rolling by at, what… 5mph? It took a half f**king hour to get by. We sat there lying in a shaking RV for a half hour. 30 MINUTES. Just amazed at how ridiculous this situation was. It was so crazy our cat Fred started growling at s**t for no reason, he was just hating his life too and didn’t know what to do about it.

Have you ever heard a cat growl? Me neither, until a f**king freight train ruined his life. Right there with you, pal.

So once that fun was over, we managed to get whatever sleep we had left and peace out the next morning.

Denver, CO (7/24 – 7/28)

FYI if you look at the map of our travels over the last few months, you might be questioning our path selection. And my answer to you would be that COVID f**ked our plans up real good. REAL GOOD. However, that loop down through Utah, across Colorado, and then back up through Wyoming was always the original plan. Why? Because July 28^th we were supposed to be sitting at Hella Mega Tour at Dick’s Sporting Goods Arena watching Fall Out Boy, Weezer, and Green Day rock our faces off. Once that got cancelled, it didn’t make any sense to reschedule half the trip, so our funky path remained.

That being said, we were super psyched to be back in Denver and see as many people as we could squeeze in. Lots of emotions flowing being back there after everything we’ve been through the last five months or so. Also, it was a complete mindf**k realizing it’s only been that long… I was driving around feeling like it had been years. I was even doing that pointing at new buildings going “oh, that’s new!” thing you do when you drive through your old town WAY after you’ve left. Ridiculous.

But yeah, not much to talk about here, just personal stuff. Dinner and drinks with some of the people we love. And almost no pictures… we lived there for 6 years, what exactly are we taking pictures of? We did, however, get what is probably my favorite picture of all time of me and Jenny. We were trying to pose for a nice picture to send to her family, and obviously I had to be a jerk and keep messing it up. Thanks Sarah.

Douglas, WY (7/29 – 7/30)

Next we headed north and stopped for a few days in beautiful Douglas, WY… where the WiFi is s**t and the roads are s**ttier.

Since there’s f**k-all in Douglas, WY, we drove out to Laramie Peak Trail which is about an hour and half out and 75% complete s**t unpaved country road. Acceptable when you know it’s coming and plan on it, and still better than our road from Yellowstone to Idaho. This time we did meet some friends on the way though.

This was probably one of the harder trails we’ve done this trip, a little under 10 miles round trip distance, but a 2,600-foot elevation gain. And most of that is in the last two miles up to the peak. Oh, and those last two are through piles of rock as well. I’m sure that’s nothing for real hikers, but for us that was pretty grueling. Excellent payoff, however.

Oh, and this motherf**ker who thought he was going to win a game of chicken against a Ford F-250 Super Duty. Cows these days…

Lovell, WY (7/31 – 8/3)

Next was Horseshoe Bend Campground in Lovell, WY. We had 50-amp electricity and water here, which was bonkers since most places this far off the beaten path don’t have either. We were backed up facing the lake, so just looking out the window was just about the nicest view we’ve had sitting in an air-conditioned camper.

Then at night, since we were facing south, we had a shot of the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn. (Jupiter and Saturn are the two to the left of the moon)

Saturday morning we fulfilled one of Jenny’s goals for a while and went stand up paddle boarding. This girl stood up on that thing and motored around the lake like she’s been doing it for years.

Me? I immediately got nauseous, tried standing up with shaky knees like a wobbly newborn deer, and instantly gave up and went back to shore. Not for me. At all. But that’s okay. Jenny can paddle board and I’ll fish and drink beer. It works for us.

Speaking of which, we bought two cheap fishing poles meant for an 8-year-old and finally did some fishing on the lake Saturday night. First time on this entire trip. (Sorry Mike!) And it would have been pretty great except for a group of girls celebrating one of their 34^th birthdays. They were in the lake in just their underwear, the water felt really good, and it was the greatest moment of her life. How do I know that? Because one of them had to have been drunk or high or tripping f**king balls because she screamed… non-stop… for about the entire hour we were out there.

“IT’S YOUR F**KING BIRTHDAY!!! WOOOOO 34 YEARS OLD WOOOOO!!!”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE IN THE WATER IN JUST OUR BRA AND UNDERWEAR OH MY GOOOOOOOD!!!!”

“OH MY GOD THE WATER FEELS SO F**KING GOOD!!! THIS IS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE!!!”

I was waiting for something way out there like “THE MOON TASTES LIKE THE COLOR GREEN!!!” Just so I could confirm they took some mushrooms or something and aren’t just complete lunatics. Never happened, so I guess they’re just f**king nuts.

Yesterday we took a hike up to Sykes Mountain. Not quite Moab hot, but still f**king hot. Great little hike with awesome views.

And congrats, you’re all caught up! We’ll see how the rest of Montana treats us. We’ve been here an hour and I’ve already had two people come up within three feet of me to talk without masks, so… we’re not in… I dunno, let’s just say Trump 2020 flags per capita has increased steadily over the past week or so. I’ll leave it there.

Once we left Moab, we drove down to a little town in southeast Utah called Bluff. There is not much there, only one gas station and no stop lights, but we used it as a jumping point for a few days to explore the desert.

Our first stop was for breakfast at a place called Twin Rocks Cafe. We ordered their version of Eggs Benedict, and went on a quest to figure out why the restaurant was named what it is…

The food came and we started eating and… oh… OH!… so good. I got about halfway through the meal when I noticed Jenny giving me a quizzical look.

“Aren’t there supposed to be eggs in here?”

My “Eggs Benedict” tasted so f**king good I didn’t even realize they forgot the eggs. There was a pile of beef on there, so it wasn’t like I was just eating bread and hollandaise sauce… but yeah. It was so good I didn’t care… until I realized how beautiful some runny egg yolk would have wrapped the whole thing together, and then I got mad at Jenny for ruining my ignorant bliss.

After brunch we drove out into the desert in the direction of Monument Valley. It’s part of the Navajo Nation, and the website already told us it was closed, which is completely understandable given current conditions. So I figured a drive out to the entrance would be a) safe for everyone and b) a beautiful drive. SPOILER ALERT: it was both.

First stop was Mexican Hat Rock, which is literally called that because this rock KINDA looks like a sombrero. Not only that, but there’s a little town down the road called Mexican Hat too. I mean… okay… do your thing I guess.

Further down the road is Forrest Gump Hill. Yes, it’s a thing. Yes, it’s where Forrest Gump decides to stop running in the movie. Yes, people risk their lives jumping out into / running down / lying down on an active Utah highway. Yes, I walked out into the road for a shot, but super quick, and when absolutely no cars were coming.

The highway keeps going into and around those mountains until you pop out on the other side and you’re almost in Arizona.

At this point you’re about 10 minutes away from the entrance to Monument Valley. There’s a slight left turn right before you get into the little town there… where this happened.

As expected the entrance was all closed off, so we just turned around and got a quick shot of one of the ranges there.

Next we drove back down Highway 163, back past Forrest Gump Hill where people were still risking their lives for a photo op, until we got to the entrance for Valley of the Gods. It’s a 17 mile loop on a beat up dirt road through just awesome views. From what I’ve read, it’s Monument Valley’s lesser known brother… kinda like Steph… oh wait, already did that bit. Dammit.

Once we got through that, we headed back to the camper for some food and rest. We ultimately came to the decision of getting some takeout food from one of the two restaurants in town and drive back out to Valley of the Gods for sunset and stars. I was still on my quest to see the Neowise comet, and minus the threatening clouds I figured out in the middle of the desert was about as good a shot as any.

Grabbed our meal from Comb Ridge Eat and Drink and headed out. I had a burger that easily cracks top 10 list of best burgers I’ve had on this trip, and we settled into our temporary campsite for the evening.

We had read that to locate the comet you need to follow the handle of the Big Dipper down towards the horizon. When we did that, we saw three stars forming a triangle, but none of them had the tail we were expecting. So we spent about 20 minutes going, “Is that it? I think that’s it. That’s gotta be it, right? No way, that’s definitely it. I think I see the tail. Maybe? I’m probably just imagining it. Yeah, that’s not it.”

Finally I took my phone out and did an exposure, and sure enough… exactly where I had convinced myself I was imagining a tail… there it was.

Once it got super dark the tail was impossible to not see, but absolutely impossible to photograph. Then a big ass cloud rolled in and that was it for the night. I was able to get another good Milky Way shot… well, as good as an iPhone is gonna get me I guess…

I finally bought a telescope that I’ll be picking up next Monday back in Denver. A couple of weeks late I suppose, but we’ll see what happens. We’ll be heading back into Wyoming and into Montana after Denver, so hopefully I can put it to good use.

The next day we took another drive out into the desert, this time pointed east. We ended up at Hovenweep National Monument, which is a group of prehistoric villages built into canyon walls. Hovenweep means “Deserted Valley” in Paiute / Ute, and was named that in 1874 a bit after it was discovered. We did an easy two mile hike around the canyon and got to see everything. I’d go into the stories on each structure, but that’s Jenny’s domain.

Also, I don’t remember.

We also saw what we thought was a coyote… or a fox… crawling out of the canyon and out into the wilderness. I was not quick enough with my phone, however. My bad.

We left Bluff this morning and are now out in Mesa Verde National Park to see even more prehistoric villages built into rocks! We came out here in summer of 2018, and I’ve wanted to come back ever since. Not sure how many activities will be open with everything going on, but just being in the park is enough for me.

Canyonlands is a weird place.

I’d assume when most people think of Moab, they think of Arches. And I think rightfully so. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I actually came into Moab scared that I was building it up so much in my head that I was ultimately going to be let down. That there was no way it could possibly deliver to the expectation level I had created.

And I was completely wrong. It delivered, and was more than I could have imagined.

Then you turn around and there’s Canyonlands National Park. And it’s like Arches’ lesser known brother. The Stephen Baldwin of the Moab family, if you will.

And you would think it’d be a step down from Arches, and I can tell you… it is definitely not. To keep the analogy going, it’s watching “The Usual Suspects” and being like “oh shit, that’s Stephen Baldwin isn’t it? He’s awesome!” But you have to just stop right there and pretend “Biodome” and that Flintstones movie never happened. Canylonlands is 1995 Stephen Baldwin I guess is the point.

It’s also a weird contrast with Arches as well. When we went to Arches it was a sunny, bright day… Canyonlands was overcast and gloomy. Arches is a bunch of vibrant colors… Canyonlands is a more muted, brown/grey desert setting. Arches has one road that goes through with a bunch of turnoffs for various points of interest… Canyonlands is a bunch of districts that aren’t even connected by roads. You pick one, and if you want to go to another one you have to exit the park and drive all the f**k away around to get to whatever side you’re going to. It’s just plain weird.

That being said, we chose to drive out to the Needles District. Jenny found a bunch of interesting stops that didn’t require a lot of hiking… and coming off our strenuous Arches outing, that sounded just fine.

In our loop we hit: Roadside Ruin, Pothole Point, Cave Spring, Slickrock Trail, Big Spring Canyon Overlook, Wooden Shoe Arch Overlook, and Elephant Hill. I think that’s all of them. Most definitely not the right order, but it’ll do for our purposes here.

The two big letdowns that I will need to rectify at some point in my life:

1. There’s a 10-ish mile out and back trail from Big Spring Canyon Overlook that heads west, down into this crazy valley and ends at the Colorado River. Just looking at the trailhead was awesome, and had we not killed ourselves in Arches (which I do not regret) we would definitely have gone for it.
2. We didn’t really have a good shot of the Needles, so the drive out to Elephant Hill was trying to rectify that. We got as far down south the dirt road as we could before a heavier duty 4×4 was required. Then I looked at a map of the park and realized how much more there is to explore when you have a proper 4×4, so I’m coming back with one. Some day.

Long story short, there’s just so much in that park… I feel even more than Arches… and best part, there was barely anyone there. So when Moab trip #2 rolls around… you know where to find us.

Also, I once again have absolutely no idea what picture is of what, so this is just another chronological dump.

After we got back from the park, we realized we needed some proper food, we needed to go food shopping, and I needed to fill up the gas tank for our move the next morning.

We’re sitting around in the camper, procrastinating, when there’s a knock on the door.

Now, even in a regular house, when someone unexpectedly knocks on the door it’s like a fire alarm just went off for me.

“WHAT THE F**K?!?! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!? IS SOMEONE TRYING TO KILL US?!?!”

In a camper it’s even worse. There have been times I’ve needed to contact a neighbor to tell or ask them something, and you realize there’s absolutely no polite way to just walk up to someone’s camper without feeling like a f**king creep. And forget knocking on the door. Imagine walking onto someone’s campsite and trying to knock on their tent without freaking them the f**k out. These campers with paper thin walls are not much of a step up.

I gingerly open the door, and I’m greeted by a family. Two parents and two adorable little girls. Okay… probably not about to be murdered.

Turns out, this family was driving through Arches a few days before. They were looking out at all the beautiful scenery and drove the damn pickup truck right into a ditch. Destroyed the front axle, total loss.

So now this family is sitting at the campsite in their fifth wheel, no tow vehicle, and the campground is not letting them stay past their departure date. Which is understandable to me, it’s a KOA 15 minutes down the road from Arches… safe to say they’re booked full.

Would I be able to tow your fifth wheel down to the auto shop a few miles down the road? Of course I would. No problem. We were about to leave for town anyways, glad I can help out.

So we towed this nice family’s camper down the road. We had to back it into the spot at the auto shop, and not only did we do it horribly (because we’re STILL not good at it) but we kept scraping their back stabilizing jacks on the concrete. I’m almost positive we did no permanent damage. Almost.

But that was our good deed for the day. They offered to give us money… we refused, so they gave us a real deal carabiner. Holds 5,000 pounds. We’ll absolutely never have a use for it, but we definitely appreciate the gesture. Hopefully they’ll pay it forward one day, and hopefully someone will be that kind to us when we hit some real s**t.

I think the world needs some unnecessary and unprovoked kindness these days. S**t’s f**king crazy out there.

We finally made it to Moab!

We got here Monday afternoon, and were greeted by 103 degrees and a windstorm that covered the truck and camper in a fine layer of red dust. Because of that, we just hung out and decided to leave SUPER early the next morning to go to Arches.

By SUPER early, I mean SUPER EARLY. We left the camper at 3:30am to get to the Delicate Arch Trailhead for sunrise, and we were the first ones there. Literally… greeted by an empty parking lot. By the time we actually started hiking a few more cars had arrived, and since I’m a fat f**k and not at all physically fit, they all caught up and passed us pretty quickly. So we didn’t get to say we were the first ones to the top, but whatever. We still win.

Next we found a comfy spot to watch the sunrise.

Once we were done there, we headed back down to the truck to head over to Devil’s Garden for our day hike. It’s about 3 mile roundtrip to Delicate Arch, and the loop around Devil’s Garden is 7.8 miles when you do all the sidetracks to see the various arches. Oh, and it was going to be 100 degrees by 11am. So we had our work cut out for us.

This is the part where I should continue walking you through our hike and describing all the pictures, but honestly I don’t even remember what’s what. It was four hours of me and Jenny going, “holy s**t that’s f**king amazing!” and then getting out my phone to take a picture. Just make a mental image of us wandering around a desert, wildly flailing the camera around and screaming some arch’s name. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but not completely inaccurate. And I can say these are in chronological order, but past that, it’s just a dump of everything past 7am. Enjoy looking at my dump. Ya sickos.

The last two hours of the hike are pretty light on photos because by that point it was getting past 11am and the heat was starting to get to us. We did pretty well staying hydrated, but four hours in the sun and 100 degree heat started taking its toll for sure.

When we got back to the truck we assessed the damage… my knees and ankles were toast, and Jenny had some heat rash around her ankles, but other than that… we survived! Obviously we drove home and passed THE F**K out. Eventually made ourselves grab dinner, beer, and gelato at Moab Brewery and called it a day.

Tomorrow we’re doing some lower key hikes at Canyonlands, and possibly stargazing and comet tracking at Dead Horse Point State Park, another dark sky site. Then Friday morning we leave for even hotter and more middle of nowhere Utah because… we crazy.

Managed to get a shot of the Milky Way with my iPhone 11. Not even the Pro. Simply ridiculous. Posted to Instagram, but wanted a high-res photo to show off.

Also, the big kinda smudged dot on the left is Jupiter. Next step is finding a telescope somewhere.

This is the first time in about three weeks we’ve had solid, badass WiFi and OMG NORMAL LIFE WHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!… 65 down, 25 up…

Okay…

So after Yellowstone, we drove out to Idaho for a few days before heading down to Utah. We had zero service leaving, so we basically had to drive into Yellowstone to grab some service and punch in the destination. We’ve been using a truck navigation app where I’ve put in the specs of the trailer and it sends us an appropriate way. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get that app working so we had to rely solely on Google Maps. I trust Google Maps pretty much implicitly in a normal situation, but there are times we find ourselves on roads that make us go, “damn, thank goodness we don’t have the trailer right now.”

So we pull up Google Maps and go, “eh, how bad could it be?”

Bad. Really bad.

Instead of just sending us out the west entrance of Yellowstone and taking Highway 20 down, we went out the southern entrance down Highway 191. Once we were out of Yellowstone, the next direction was a right turn on “Grassy Lakes Rd.” In my gut I knew that sounded like a terrible idea… sticking to roads with numbers as names is usually the better bet. But against my better judgement, we made the right turn and started down.

Within 30 seconds I knew we made a huge mistake and had no way to turn around. One lane dirt road with huge potholes, construction vehicles and oncoming traffic to somehow work around… treelines right next to the road, branches 10 feet up reaching out… a complete f**king nightmare.

No biggie, we couldn’t have been on it for too long, right? WRONG. 40 miles. And it took us 4 hours to get it done. 40 miles in 4 hours. 10mph average. Ridiculous. Fortunately the only lasting injury was sideswiping a tree branch that ripped off the cover of one of our awning arms. The awning still works at the moment, but the electronics are all exposed, so I’m sure one rainstorm will short something out and f**k it completely.

Once we finally got to Idaho and drank copious amounts of alcohol to calm down after four hours of white knuckle driving, we eventually made it to Grand Teton National Park, specifically, a place called Jenny Lake!

About halfway through the hike we passed the visitor center and turned to the other side of the lake. Along the way we passed this fella!

On the way to the park I noticed a sign for Grand Teton Brewing Company while still in Idaho, and even though it was 8am I made a mental note for later. We left the park about 2pm and drove through Jackson Hole, WY to stop for food and beer on the way home. It would have been awesome except for the throngs of tourists wandering the streets, so we decided to pass and head to the brewery.

With a brewery in middle of nowhere Idaho, I had no doubt we’d have an interesting time dealing with non-mask wearers and people not giving a crap about social distancing. We were absolutely thrilled when we walked into a brewery where everyone was outside, wearing masks, keeping the f**k away from each other… little sections chalked out on the grass so the individual groups could hang out an acceptable distance away from everyone else. They even had a clean/used sign that you flipped to “used” when you sat down, so the people at the bar knew to disinfect before someone else sat down.

Good on you guys! Not only responsible, but great beer and great merch! I added another trucker hat to the collection, and Jenny bought a new shirt.

After that, we needed some gas so we pulled into just a random gas station in Swan Valley, ID… total population of 231. The place was called Rainey Creek.

As I was pumping we both simultaneously noticed a sign on the door of the shop with the words “TRY A SQUARE ICE CREAM CONE.” F**king… what? Clearly we need to investigate this further. So once I was done pumping I went in and bought one.

It’s literally just a square ice cream scoop and they put it in a cone. It was very good ice cream. And a very good waffle cone. But I spent the next 15 minutes of the drive with sooooo many questions… Is this an Idaho thing? Do a bunch of places do this? Is it just that gas station specifically, and we literally just stumbled upon it by chance? Is this a big thing in the area?

So we Googled “square ice cream” and found this site. First result for us.

In case you don’t want to click the link, we’ll just tell you this site claims that this extremely plain gas station gets “thousands of people in a single day” and “on the 4th of July, the shop usually expects crowds of over 15,000 people.”

It’s a town of 231 people, as previously mentioned. It’s an hour and a half to Grand Teton National Park… two hours to Yellowstone… how the f**k do “thousands of people” make their way to some very ordinary gas station out in the sticks of Idaho? What radius of miles would you need to go out before you include enough towns to get to “thousands” of people? The population of this town quintuples every day? Just from people buying ice cream?

And the town population grows 6400% on 4th of July? Get the f**k out of here. The logistics of this is just ridiculous.

NO… we’re not done here…

Okay… assume it’s open 24 hours a day on Fourth of July, and 15,000 people is an accurate number. That means 625 people are walking in every hour? 10-11 people a minute. A person walking in every 5.76 seconds. Consistently over 24 hours. That’s f**king absurd. And you’d have to assume it’s really only about 12 hours of business, say 12pm to 12am… so double those numbers.

1,250 people every hour. 21 people a minute. A person every 2.88 seconds. Consistently. Over 12 hours. THINK ABOUT THAT… to get all those people through in that time, someone says the ice cream they want, the employee grabs the cup/cone, grabs the scoop, scoops x number of scoops, hands it to the person, rings up the total, runs the credit card / grabs the cash, gives the receipt / change, and moves on to the next person…

…in under 3 seconds. Okay, say there’s three people working… under 9 seconds. Except there was only two registers… so you’d almost always have someone waiting for a free register. Maybe you get an assembly line thing going, but if maximum efficiency has a person doing each phase of the transaction, I think you have so many people back there you smother it anyways. Long story short, I don’t think you’re cracking 3 seconds per order.

I wish I had the square footage of the store, I’d calculate how many people are in that store at any given moment consistently for 12 hours a day and show how impossible it would be. Also, how much f**king ice cream would they have to have stocked to supply all those people? How much square footage of freezer space would you need to store all of it? Are they including the cost of electricity to keep all that ice cream frozen in their prices for that day? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!

So… no way. And I’ve probably wasted way too much time in my head over this. As well as this blog. Easiest answer is… that website is full of s**t… moving on…

On Thursday we moved down to just outside of Salt Lake City. I had booked this site super early in the process, and clearly didn’t know what I was doing yet at that point. First off, I booked a site made for a camper half our size. On top of that, it’s right next to an… wait for it… amusement park. Why did I do that? No f**king idea. It was probably 6 months ago. Jenny and I both somewhat dislike theme parks and there was zero chance we’d go in there, even without, you know, an ongoing pandemic. I must have been high or something.

So we spent two days listening to roller coasters for ten hours a day, surrounded by little kids running around like maniacs hopped up on cotton candy and fried oreos, and trying not to run them over when we pulled out with the truck.

Also, Utah is f**ked. One day we drove by a massive crowd squished on a sidewalk waiting for a shuttle from the park… maybe 1-2% wearing masks. Just so out-of-this-reality incredible to us and, at this point, I don’t even know what to say about it anymore.

We did manage to make it over to Antelope Island State Park, a designated dark sky area. I was super excited as I’ve been wanting to see some stars and the Milky Way, and I thought this was the perfect chance. We got there right around sunset and made a quick hike up to Buffalo Point.

Unfortunately the skyline lights of Salt Lake City and Ogden took over too much of the sky and I gave up after a few hours. Today we drove further out into the sticks on our way to Moab, so we’ll have a couple of nights here to see my stars. To be honest, we’re in the middle of nowhere Utah and Colorado until the end of the month, so I think I’ll have my chances.

After this we finally get to Moab where it will be 105 degrees during the day… NBFD. Between that and tourists (of which I’ve grown to severely hate and completely, unironically do NOT consider ourselves) we’ll be heading out crazy early. Basically, like we did with Yellowstone. Hopefully we’re headed home when the crowds and heat roll in.

We left Buffalo, WY on Friday and made a quick drive over to Yellowstone to begin our weekend boondocking in the woods with our friends Jack and Sarah. We actually stayed just outside Yellowstone’s eastern entrance. About 3 miles outside at a campground called… wait, for it… Threemile Campground.

We spent Friday grilling some dinner and planning out the weekend. We decided to just hang out Saturday for the 4^th, then head into Yellowstone Sunday.

Our site was backed up against the Shoshone River, so we made sure to get their doggos some play.

Sunday morning we hit the road at just about dawn and started our loop around Yellowstone.

First official stop was West Thumb Geyser Basin:

Next was Old Faithful (obviously):

Next we found the parking lot for the Great Prismatic Lake. From there we did a quick mile-ish hike up to the overlook:

Continuing on our clockwise loop around the park, we started the drive out to Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We had been seeing buffalo and elk and bears all morning, but we hadn’t really caught a herd. We saw a small road with a bunch of cars stopped, the tell-tale sign of animals hanging out, so we took a small detour to check it out.

Okay, now here’s the story from my perspective:

We see a couple of buffalo:

At this point, Jack wanted to get out and walk over for a closer look. No problem, been pretty much doing it all day. Jenny and I were going to stay in the car, but Jack asks for Jenny to come and take a picture of him and Sarah in front of the buffalo. At that point, I don’t feel like sitting in the car alone, so we all trek out across the field.

We get as close to the buffalo as you’re supposed to, and Jenny starts to take their picture. At that moment I realize I left the windows open and my wallet was sitting on the center console in the truck. So I take a moment to turn away from everyone and make sure no one is walking by or hovering around the truck. And WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT… I turn back around and I see…

“WHAT THE F*CK JUST HAPPENED?!?”

Seriously, that’s my gracious and poetic declaration in this beautiful moment. Don’t believe me?

I’m a jerk. Sorry all. But Jack gave us absolutely no heads up and that was my genuine reaction. It’s his fault is what I’m saying.

Jack and Sarah, we love you guys and we’re so f**king happy for you both. We were there for your first “I love you” and now we were there for the beginning of your next chapter. We’re so proud to call you both friends.

Once everyone’s shock wore off, we got to the canyon and started the hike out to an overlook point. Unfortunately, I picked the lower deck which took us waaaay down this winding path… not a problem until we had to turn around and hike all the way back up. Kinda brutal, but some nice shots.

After a long day of driving and excitement, we headed back to the campsite, drank some celebratory champagne, ate some dinner, planned every detail of the wedding OBVIOUSLY, and called it a weekend.

The newly engaged couple had little to no service all weekend but were able to shoot out a quick Instagram post when we hit a hotspot in the park. We took an over/under bet of 50 for how many text messages would pop up on each of their phones once they returned to civilization. I took the under… and lost. 70 and 72 messages each from what I was told.

We are now sitting in bumblef**k Idaho, and just the drive out here deserves its own post.

(Spoiler alert: it was the worst drive we’ve had this entire trip… possibly ever in my entire driving career. Never trust Google Maps with a 40-foot, 9-ton rig.)

To be continued…

So we left South Dakota and drove across the border to Wyoming. I don’t know how the border between the two states was decided (I’m sure I could Google it), but there’s a weird transformation right around that moment. While you’re driving through western South Dakota you see mostly rolling grassy hills with some trees and bushes. Then within a few miles after the border you’re suddenly surrounded by red rocks and cliffs and all sorts of goodness. Then you start seeing big boy mountains in the distance, and you realize you’re not in… well, South Dakota… anymore. It feels like they somehow did it on purpose.

In other words… MAN does it feel good to be back out West.

We landed in Buffalo, WY on Monday afternoon, and very quickly realized we were back home. We both grew up in New York and lived most of our lives in the Northeast. But getting back in the mountains just felt… right. We even have Denver local news. Not to mention Jenny was thrilled to be out of the humidity. Something about her hair, I dunno… I buzz cut my hair like two months ago and stopped worrying about it.

We’re an hour outside of Bighorn National Forest, so yesterday we decided on a 12-ish mile out-and-back hike to test this 36 year old’s busted knees. We started at a place called West Tensleep Lake, and started out towards Mirror Lake.

The lake is about 3-4 miles in, but it’s off the trail and very easy to miss. We would have stopped and enjoyed it longer, but within 0.2 seconds of sitting down by the shore a bug bit Jenny pretty good, and we were OUT.

The trail continues on after that as you work your way to what’s called Lost Twin Lakes, an appropriately named pair of lakes that live up in the mountains.

And then… payoff. We only went to one of the lakes because to get to the other one required another uphill climb. By this time it was late afternoon, we were absolutely exhausted and still had a good 5-6 mile hike back to the truck. No regrets here. I think every hike Jenny and I do for the rest of this trip will have to have a lake at the end of it.

Then you turn around and realize you have a whole new set of ridiculous views on the way back.

After about three hours of hiking and another hour drive, we got back to the camper and decided on stuffing our faces with cheap, greasy, s**tty McDonald’s Big Macs and McNuggets and fries and… hey, does McDonald’s still sell apple pies? We wanted them but had no idea if they still sell them. FYI the McDonald’s in Buffalo, WY is operating with a limited menu, so couldn’t get a clear answer on that. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Today was chores day, and tomorrow we set out for more boondocking out in Yellowstone. Fourth of July weekend probably won’t be too bad there, right? Like, not many tourists? Right?

::looks around::

RIGHT?!?

There are things in this world that, metaphorically, are impossible to take home with you. Things you look with your eyeballs and go “holy s**t!” and then you try to capture it with your camera and you’re disappointed and shocked that your stupid iPhone couldn’t translate it properly. Then you show the picture to your friends and you have to be that person going “aww man, you really had to be there, the pictures just don’t do it justice!”

The Grand Canyon is the clear leader that I’ve seen so far. Acadia was a close second. And hopefully Jenny and I are about to see a bunch more.

Then there are things that are the exact opposite. Things you can look at a picture of and confidently say, “yeah, I get it.”

Mount Rushmore is in that second category.

I had never seen Niagara Falls before, so when we were in western New York, we made sure we made the trip out. Another check off the general bucket list of American life. And it was awesome. Definitely did not fall into the second category, there’s no way to understand the scope and scale of the whole thing until you get there.

Since we were out in Black Hills of South Dakota* we had another similar objective: Mount Rushmore. I’ve had no real desire to go there at any particular point in my life, but we were in the area, and it’d feel slightly unpatriotic not paying the $10 to park, walk up, take a picture, and leave.

Soooo… that’s what we did. Literally. We parked, walked as close as we could (there was construction that stopped us from walking all the way up), took exactly one picture, turned around and left to go find dinner. I was so uninterested that Jenny had to remind me to stop and actually look at it for a second.

I mean… it’s exactly the picture we’ve all seen a billion times. Why do people go there? Asks the guy who just went there.

The sickest part of the whole thing is that they’ve built this giant f**king tourist trap around it. On top of the usual gift shops and $20 sodas and audio tours inside the actual park, we drove through Keystone, SD on the way there and back and… I literally don’t have the words to describe this town. Think Clark Griswold’s wet dream. Think a Subway shop unironically decorated inside and out to look like an old western saloon. Think places created for the sole purpose of putting on fake miner hats and “digging” for fake crystals.

Think of every kitschy stupid tourist thing a five-year-old would see and cry all the way home if their parents didn’t let them do after shelling out $50 for a cheap piece of plastic souvenir the kid is going to lose in 5 minutes anyways.

That was this town. And I’m sure there are a few more like it surrounding the monument. Capitalism is alive and well in western South Dakota, folks.

But I digress… to use my previous phrase, another check off the general bucket list of American life.

Outside of that, we successfully boondocked off Sheridan Lake out in the Blacks Hills of South Dakota* without dying or major bodily harm.

It was our first time living in the trailer without any hookups, and quite honestly… there’s no point to it. Okay, hear me out, here’s the thing…

Imagine your home. Now imagine your home on wheels. You have your TV, your A/C, your Wifi, your cell service… all of it, and you can go anywhere now. There are a bunch of places you go that are gorgeous and tons of activities and things to do, AND you still have your home. And all of your things. Now picture you go to a place just as gorgeous and activity filled… but you don’t have your TV, your A/C, your wifi, your cell service… why do that? You could do the same thing with your s**t! Are you a masochist?!?

The more important point, though… if it’s super hot and sunny this camper can become a f**king oven. Without A/C we could be putting the kitties in a not-so-great situation. Cats don’t handle hot weather that well. We’d like to not kill our cats is what I’m saying.

So we realized we can just as well book a campsite with hookups to avoid that situation, pack the truck with the tent and sleeping bags and camping gear, drive out into whatever wilderness we had decided to explore, and experience it all just the same. I only have a few weekends booked with no hookups, so there won’t be much to change. And… you know… no dead kitties this way.

Other than that, I finally got my wish to drink cheap beer out on a boat in the middle of a lake. We rented a canoe for a few hours, bought a 12 pack of Miller Lite and enjoyed the morning.

We got out there at 8am and the lake was smooth as glass. You could see maybe one other boat out there and it was nice and peaceful. By 11am, all the f**khead weekenders with motor boats and jetskis were all over the place, zooming by at top speed and leaving their crazy ass wake for us to deal with, so that was our cue to head back in. Most excellent morning though.

We are now outside Bighorn National Park for the week, where we are watching Denver local news and feeling nostalgic. We head out Friday for some more boondocking in Yellowstone for 4^th of July weekend where we’ll be meeting up with Jack and Sarah… and (possibly) more importantly, their puppies! It shouldn’t be too hot there this weekend, so we’re looking okay for the kitties. And after that we head into Utah. Super pumped for that.

* WARNING: Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles is never to be played around Jenny ever again. For perpetuity. If I sing the opening lines one more time, she’s going to divorce me.

As we slowly move our way back west, we are finally reaching those parts of the country where you look around and say, “Damn, there is f**k all out here, isn’t there?” Then Jenny nods in agreement, falls back asleep in the passenger seat, and I sing along to Rush as we drive along.

…oooooooOOOOOOOF SALESMEN!!!

-Me, very loudly in my truck

The only one I like more is AC/DC…

…neckties… contracts… HIGH VOLTAGE!!!

Me, even louder and higher pitched

But I digress…

We left our campsite in northern Michigan and drove through the Upper Peninsula out to our site in northwest Wisconsin. I’m an Excel fanatic, and I love me some spreadsheets. In planning this whole trip, I have an extremely elaborate one that tells me any possible information I could need handy for every and any part of this trip.

The most important part are the little columns that indicate electricity, water, and sewer. I can look ahead and make sure we’re prepared. I also mark if it’s a pull-through or a back-in. If it’s a back-in I have to prepare Jenny for the inevitable argument that will ensue. (Yes, we’re still terrible at backing up the trailer.)

We pulled into the site at Totogatic Park in Minong, WI, and very quickly realized I had screwed up pretty good. First we were looking at the wrong site, which was about half the size of the camper and had no hookups. After a minor coronary we realized we were actually the next site over. Then we realized the correct site still only had electricity. No water and no sewer.

Now, I dump and rinse out the black tank (where our peepee and poopoo goes) right before leaving. I also give it another rinse when we set up at a site because a) we take number 1’s in there while we’re on the road, and b) for some reason there’s always left over… stuff… and it’s like it gets loosened up on the drive. Probably more info than you needed… point is, I use water to keep the black tank clean.

So no water for that. But the bigger issue was that I didn’t fill the fresh water tank because the spreadsheet told me it was electricity and water. So after a few minutes of me saying a lot of words that start with “F” we decided to just set up camp and figure it out.

Funny part is, had we stopped right at that moment and just taken a moment to calculate properly we could have driven the camper about 100 yards over to a potable water station, filled the fresh tank and been perfectly okay. But we didn’t do that. We figuratively crawled under the blankets into a fetal position and told ourselves everything would be okay… sucking our thumb… and… I dunno, whatever else you want to add to the metaphor to say… we basically threw our hands up and gave up.

So we spent a couple of days walking over to the water and filling water bottles for basic necessities. We experienced campground showers for the first time, and whether or not they were a good representation of most campground showers… they were surprisingly pleasant. Nice and big, water was super hot… 25 cents for 3 minutes, WHAT A DEAL!!!

We also tried to use the restrooms for our numbers 2’s. And… well… yeah, not as enjoyable.

It was like we were actually camping or something. And you know what, it was a fun break. Up until this point has been mostly KOA’s with cable and wifi and full hookups and croissants when you show up. (CITATION NEEDED) So some relative “roughing it” was fun. Also our site was ass end up against a lake, so the views were pretty great.

By some chance of fate my dad was up in Wisconsin the same time we were there, so we were able to meet up and grab some food. Jenny and I were in middle of nowhere WI and he was down in Madison, so we met in Eau Claire… which if you haven’t been to is AMAZING… ly ordinary. Nothing against it, a perfectly acceptable midwest town full of hardworking Americans I’m sure. Just one of those towns you pull into, ask what there is to do, and a local will point at like one building. “That f**king place. Right there. That’s it.”

We planned to have some dinner at a fancy restaurant that, honestly, scared the crap out of me and Jenny.

“Eating? INDOORS? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US?!?!?”

But we accepted the risk… got our masks prepped… drove the two hours down… and it was closed. So we did the next best thing… and went to Culver’s. Jenny and I had never been to one. We ended up being able sit outside on their patio pretty much by ourselves, eating great burgers, cheese curds, and custards, and talking about this crazy world we live in. Awesome evening.

The next day we decided to lay low and enjoy our camping experience a little bit. We remembered we had a chess board that Jenny brought back from New York, so I taught her how to play sitting out at the picnic table drinking our coffees.

Who won? Nobody. As we were playing, a storm passed through and we had to pick up and move inside. As I was carrying the chess board in…

(No, not what the obvious thing would be at this exact moment. I carried it all the way to the trailer without pieces flying everywhere, thank you very much.)

…I looked down and realized I was in check. Which, okay, not great for me obviously. The bigger problem, though, was realizing that the pieces involved meant I had been in check for like 5 or 6 moves and neither of us realized it. When we got back into the camper, we tried to reverse engineer it but it was DOA. We shook hands like gentlemen and proceeded to start day drinking. Like gentlemen.

Later that night we built only our second campfire of the season after we decided to cheat and use firestarter bricks to finally have a reasonable chance of keeping the fire going. Grilled some hot dogs and hamburgers and most importantly… drank local beer and S’mores! Oh, and shots of vodka… because… ::shrugs:: why the f**k not?

When we were back in western NY, we watched as our buddy Sarah put together a S’more, wrap it in tinfoil, and proceed to bake it around the fire like a baked potato. We obviously went, “huh?” at which point she explained how traditional methods do not allow for melted chocolate and toasty warm graham cracker. This way lets you achieve that so long as you a) don’t burn it and b) break the graham crackers removing it from the aluminum foil. At which point I felt bad for making fun of it, and even more bad for not immediately seeing the logic of it.

So we compared methods and… yeah, obviously, melted chocolate and toasty graham cracker S’mores for the win. Damn you and your lawyer logic!

Woke up about 5:30am the next morning to pack up and move to the next site. I hadn’t figured out our orientation in the world until I rolled up the window shade and realized the sunrise was out over the lake. I’ve gone from no sunrises to two now #crushingit

Our next spot was in Bismarck, ND. We’ve both never been there before, so we weren’t sure what to expect. We crossed over the state line from Minnesota and stopped in Fargo for some food and gas. After filling up, we were deciding between McDonald’s and Subway. We were a little hungover from the day before (see above) so a greasy shitty horrible-for-you Big Mac sounded amazing. Jenny knows what I order at McDonald’s so she would have been able to go in and take care of it while I stuck with the rig.

HOWEVER, McDonald’s looked like it was drive-thru only so she may need to go over to Subway since we were clearly not trying to go through a McDonald’s drive-thru with a 30′ trailer, truck stop or no truck stop. And I wasn’t going to try and have Jenny memorize all the moves for my Subway sandwich, so I told her see if McDonalds was open for take out, and if not, call me and I’ll head into Subway with you.

Now mind you, we’ve been in North Dakota for a grand total of about 15 minutes. McDonald’s is a no-go, so Jenny finds a spot out of the way to call me to let me know to come in. Some… ughhhh… watching my words… some… piece of s**t who just has to… just HAS TO… at a truck stop gas station… F**KING HAS TO say something about it, walks by Jenny as she’s got the mask hanging off her face as she’s on the phone and goes, “so you have to wear your mask to make a phone call, huh?” Jenny, to her credit, just went, “yeah” and that was it.

Listen f**ker… we’re wearing these to protect your bumblef**k asses more than our own. Just let us walk around looking silly, it zero f**king percent affects your life in any way at all. And if it’s not zero, it’s only positive. Like we’re walking through Fargo, ND deciding to make a political statement and trying to shame everyone. I should start wearing a MAGA face mask and just watch that guy’s head explode.

So yeah… our fantastic welcome to North Dakota.

Anyways…

We’re at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park just for a day on the way to Black Hills National Forest tomorrow. There’s a reconstructed military fort that Custer commanded back in the 1870’s until they left to go fight in the Battle of the Little Bighorn where… yeah, didn’t go too well. There’s also a replica Mandan tribe village with earth lodges and a bunch of history on their time in the area. Pretty neat.

So we’re staying in our nice air conditioned camper for the rest of the evening. Dinner will consist of Jenny’s homemade spiced plum custard cake and red wine. We had S’mores and beer for dinner back in Wisconsin, so we feel this is just that next logical evolution forward.

This weekend will be our first time full out boondocking (no electricity, water, or sewer) so we’re clearly interested to see how we fare. Then we’re onto Wyoming where hopefully we still like each other. Wish us luck.