The Road To Visit Our First Grandchild

Our first Long Haul (and that took us over 25,000 total) came in April this year. Leaving Seattle, we headed out to Denver to see our very first grandchild, our oldest son and his wife had just delivered a baby girl. Linda could hardly stand the wait to see her. We made the trip in 3 days with a short stop in Salt Lake to see an old college buddy I hadn’t seen in 30 years. What made this trip a full long haul was the logistics of grand-parenting and who comes first on visitation rights. Of course, our daughter-in-law’s parents get first dibs on the visit – so we only stopped for two days for our first hellos to our new granddaughter. We then took off for two weeks until it was our turn to come back and her parents had left.

We had recently decided to try and visit all 61 of the national parks in the US, so this was a perfect opportunity to add to the list. We headed south out of Denver to Great Sand Dunes NP in southern Colorado – amazing place to had dunes like the Sahara right next to snow topped peaks. From there we headed south to visit some National monuments that were recommended by our friends. Bandelier and Canyon de Chelly – both spots where you can still see the ruins of the ancient peoples who lived here for 10,000 years and then disappeared in the 1500. Both spots you spend your time in the bottom of canyons looking up at impressive walls of sandstone and tuff.

Our second NP was Petrified Forest and that was mostly a drive through as we had a long drive ahead of us. Very interesting short hikes into spots that looked a lot like the Bad Lands of South Dakota. One stop was to view remnants of route 66 – just a line of telephone poles in a desert landscape – no signs of a road anywhere. Later that day as we drove through Snowflake and Show Low, AZ we encountered a heavy snowstorm (appropriate name – but it was April in AZ for goodness sake). Final destination was Peppersauce campground – out a one lane dirt road into a small canyon – campground was full of locals tent camping or small trailers – perfect for a CI.

Next park was Saguaro NP outside of Tucson – it is literally right outskirts of town. Cactus are flowering – its beautiful. Park is a 14-mile one way loop with several hiking trails… its hot outside but worth the effort to see so many types of cacti flowering. End point today is Tombstone, AZ as Tombstone the movie (Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Kurt Russell) is my favorite. For this night we used the Tombstone RV park just outside town – very clean and they had a free shuttle into town. Town is a bit like Disney Land – but it’s the real thing and for very short while was the largest city between St Louis and San Francisco.

Onto Big Bend NP on the Rio Grande. Spent 4 nights here – very big spot – first two nights were in Rio Grande village where we hiked to the river and visited Boquillas canyon and saw some wild mules and horses. Sunsets were amazing as were the temperatures (100). We also did a bit of 4 wheeling in the Subaru – lots of gravel roads in the desert to explore – just remember your water. Second two nights were at Chisos Basin, totally different mountain environment and cooler. We were both surprised by Big Bend and would love to go back – special place and preserving the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico, southern Texas, and New Mexico.

Leaving Big Bend behind we head north and visit two more parks before heading back for time with our granddaughter. Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains are close together and because we had been camping for a week with no access to showers, we decided to grab a motel for a break from the CI sponge baths. Carlsbad was so much bigger than I had imagined – we did the tour where you walk in from the top down into the depths… it really gives you a feel for the enormity of the cave and the various rooms. Guadalupe is really a hikers NP and the campground was full so we did a drive in and hike. The McKittrick Canyon trail to the historic Pratt family summer cabin was a treat and we lucked out and had an excellent ranger give us the history of the home once we hiked out there.

After a wonderful week back in Denver, we had back home to Seattle. One highlight of the return was a new route we tried. After crossing through Wyoming on route 80 (in need of repair BTW) we took US 30 on our way to Pocatello. This route follows the route of the Oregon Trail. Lots of historical markers along the way. Beautiful valleys, grazing range, farms, the Snake river, Shoshone country. There is a spot where the trail splits and the 49ers took off to California. Next time we need to spend a bit more time here.

Well that’s it – our first Long Haul and enough to get us to 25,000 total miles in our CI 550 #524. 6 National Parks and 6200 miles and 10 total days with our first grandchild.