Epic Road Trip - Getting Ready

Since I was a young girl, I've always had a restlessness about me, a sense of curiosity, and a need to explore. At age 3, while living in Elk City, Oklahoma, I told my parents I was going to go to the store and walked outside. Being 1969 in small town America, they were not concerned about me going outside to play alone. Little did they know I was about to go on my very first adventure. Hours later after frantically searching for me, they received a phone call from someone on the edge of town. I had been found wandering down old Route 66. Apparently, I really was going to the store. I had walked to downtown Elk City and was making my way out of town. Dad wanted to spank me so I wouldn't do something like that again. Mom was so happy to have me back safe that she didn't want me to get the spanking. Dad won. But clearly it didn't curb my need for exploration.

Years later, I still have that need to get out and see the world. When my daughter called me up and asked if I could help her and her soon-to-be-husband move up to Colorado Springs after the wedding, the wheels started turning. Since they both drove Mustangs, they needed a vehicle to tow a U-Haul. My 4-Runner would be perfect. What if I made a little road trip out of this? I was already going to be in Colorado. Maybe I could just do a little camping while I was there. Well, this little road trip turned into a 32 day, epic road trip in which I saw seven states and even ventured into Canada for the day.

Since I had decided to make this a camping trip that would take several weeks, I started taking inventory of my camping gear. My tent was a little 5' x 6' tent that I bought years ago. It was missing a rain fly and quite frankly a little too small. After trying to figure out a good way to rig a tarp as a rain fly, I decided I needed a new tent.

I would be traveling alone, so I needed a tent that would be easy for one person to set up, but I also wanted a tent that I could stand up in. After much research, I decided to order the Bushnell 6-man Dome Tent. When it finally arrived, I did a test run in the back room of my house to make sure I could handle setting it up on my own. Because the tent was so large, 11' x 9', it was a little cumbersome to set up because I didn't have much room for the poles to stretch out. But I did it. It seemed enormous compared to my little blue tent.

This is the ONLY time everything fit into the bag. 

Looking into the back room at the tent set up.

Here is an inside view of the tent.

Now I had the tent. What else would I need? I began looking at weather predictions for the places I planned on visiting. Temperatures would be ranging from the low 30's to the high 80's. I tend to pack too much stuff. I always want to be prepared. But I also knew I wanted to have good visibility while driving, so I didn't want to take so much crap I couldn't see out the back of my 4-Runner. I started to lay out clothes and figure out just how much I should take.

Next, I started getting all of my camping gear organized, making sure I had everything I would need for an extended trip. I have found that plastic totes are great for trips like this. They keep everything organized, they fit neatly into your vehicle and they stay relatively dry on the inside in case of rain. 

My original plan was to be very spontaneous, just go where the wind takes me. I started researching campsites in the areas I thought I might want to go and quickly realized that during the summer months, many of the campsites fill up very quickly. I was traveling alone and wanted to feel safe while camping, plus I really like having a shower every day. That meant I would need to make reservations. Trying to find a campsite with showers nearby was harder than I thought, but I finally did it. After hours and hours online, I came up with an itinerary that would take me from Colorado to Wyoming to Montana and finally to Idaho. Past that, I didn't know what I was going to do. I had run out of time to plan any more.

I was fully ready to go a week or so before my trip. The last day of school was May 26. I was headed to Oklahoma City on June 1 for the big wedding weekend. Caroline and Justin got married on June 3. I went back home on that Sunday to finalize some things at home, loaded up my 4-Runner and was back in Oklahoma City on June 6 to help Caroline and Justin load up the U-Haul.

The back seats of my 4-Runner fold down.

Loaded up and ready to go!

I drove up to Oklahoma City on Tuesday, June 6. We had to pick up the U-Haul on Wednesday morning. I was a little concerned that everything was going to fit in the U-Haul, but it did! 

Caroline and Justin would be following me in their Mustangs. Barrett, their Anatolian Shepherd would be riding with Caroline.

We left Wednesday afternoon and started making our way northwest. We stopped briefly in Mooreland to see my dad and then continued on towards Clayton, New Mexico where we would spend the night before driving on to Colorado Springs the next morning.

Thursday, June 8 we arrived at their new apartment in Colorado Springs. We spent the day unloading and organizing, getting the newlyweds settled in so they could begin their journey together. The following morning, I would leave and start my own journey.

794 miles and my trip is just beginning.