Rob and Cheryl’s Gigantic North America RV Odyssey – April to June 2016

The Dream is Born

The current odyssey that we are on has it’s roots about ten years ago. Cheryl and I were cruising through the locks and lakes on the Trent Severn waterway with my brother Alan and wife Rosie. We were putting along in our rather modest, open on all sides, pontoon boat and had settled down at our camp site at Buckhorn lock when one of those triple decker, super duper luxury boats, the size of a small hotel, sporting a USA flag, pulled in and docked behind our little putt putt.

Once I got over my immediate feelings of inadequacy and sheer green envy I went over and introduced myself to the owner and asked him where he was going and where he had come from. He said he and his wife and another couple had been travelling for 15 months and were on their way home and would be done in another three months or so. It turns out there is a thing called the Great Loop which is a round trip which starts at the Great lakes, heads south through Lake Michigan to the Mississipi, down the river to Mobile Alabama, out into the Gulf of Mexico, hops across to Florida, through Florida to the Atlantic Intra coastal waterway up to New York into the Hudson River and into Lake Ontario and voila, the Great Loop is completed – in all, about 10,000 kms. It takes 12 to 18 months depending on how hard one works at it.

Before bidding him good night I asked if he and his wife and the other couple were still talking to each other after 15 months of being cooped up together. He laughed and said most of the time they are still talking. I left with my imagination stirred and my adventurous juices getting going. I imagined departing from the dock at our house on Lake Scugog and taking off for the great blue yonder to indulge my inner man. Fast forward a year or so and Cher and I went to a gathering of Great Loopers in Alabama to see what we could find out about it. It was very exciting to be with a group of other like-minded dreamers and we were very tempted to just drop it all, buy the boat and get going. Needless to say, reality began to sink in. We’d have to learn to crew a big boat, navigate it through all kinds of waters, and fix two big diesel engines when things went wrong. It was the engines that finished me off. I can hardly drill a hole in a wall, let alone strip an engine and rebuild it in working shape. We decided tempting as it was, we just couldn’t swing it and took the long drive home, disappointed and having decided not to do the Great Loop.

On the way home, Cher said, why don’t we just do RVing instead? We could still explore wherever we want to go, but at least we can call the fix it folks when something goes wrong with the mysterious inner workings of the mechanics. And so the dream was born – we would embark on Great RV Rambles instead of Great Looping it.

Moving On…

And so, in November 2012 Cher and I entered the brave new world of becoming RVers. We headed down to Buffalo, where all the deals are, and bought our Beautiful Baby for about one fifth of the price of the Great Loop type of boats. I asked the salesman if he could send someone to drive round the block and give me a few tips. He waved airily and said “if you can drive a car you can drive an RV. You’re on your own”. And so we headed home on the 401 with me doing my best to remember how long my new found love was when doing the lane changes. We made it and the rest is history. We’ve done three, 4-5 week sorties so far, but this is our first long trip. By the time we’re done it will be about 12,000 kilometres and we will have barely scratched the surface. The question is will we still be talking to each other by the end? This daily blow by blow blog will seek to answer that question, along with some of the highlights and fun things along the way.

So grab a coffee, snuggle down in front of a good fire and join us for the ride.

Getting Organised

By this stage we are pretty organised when it comes to prepping for our RV trips. We have our checklists handy and all our gear stored separately and in theory we just load up and go. Anyway the theory is yet to work out as planned. RVs are like boats. They’re expensive to run and there’s always stuff breaking down and needing repairs. Owasco in Oshawa are now solid shareholders in our kids inheritance, but we do appreciate their know how and ability to deal with our problems - for a price of course. I’m seriously thinking of getting my own back by buying shares in the company.

April suddenly realised that winter had forgotten to put in an appearance, so decided to exact some late payments resulting in multiple below average cold days and nights. For that reason we could only dewinterise the RV and fill up our tanks on the day we left. That entailed turning on our outside water in the garage early and wouldn’t you know it, the pipes in the garage had popped apart resulting in a frantic call to our local friendly, but of course expensive, plumber to come and fix things. So we finally got water to the RV about an hour before departure and we had time to get showered changed and set to launch.

Day One (April 14^th, 2016) – Port Perry to Cambridge, Ontario (100/100miles) Departing in Style.

Naturally every RV trip should start with something cultural and slightly up market. And so of course one should start on a long journey at the end of a day. And so it was that we headed down to Whitby, Ontario from Port Perry, parked in the Giant Tiger parking lot and walked on over to the Whitby Court House Theater to watch “Moon over Buffalo” a rather hectic farce which was fun. To avoid the awful cross Toronto traffic in the morning, we then strolled back to our Beautiful Baby and drove across Toronto on the 401 to an OnRoute stop in Cambridge.

We learnt a quick lesson in trucking protocol. Arrive early, as competition is fierce for sleeping spots – and if necessary park wherever you feel like. We finally found a corner and put our heads down at about 12.30pm. Not a bad way to launch our RV Odyssey. The dream was being realised. The fun was about to begin.

Day 2 (April 17^th) Cambridge, Ontario – Ottawa, Illinois (522/622 miles). Trucking along and Bang!

Our objective in our first three days was to cover the 1600 miles or so to Denver, Colorado as quickly as possible. We made an early start and drove from 6 am till 8 pm. 

The US Border guard was one of a rare breed – he owned a smile and knew how to use it. When we told him our planned route through the US he would have dropped his job and come with us if we’d invited him I think. Back on the road soon, we had a breakfast stop just over the US border in Port Huron, followed by a lunch break at a lovely sandy beach at St. Joseph on the shores on Lake Michigan.

This was our first time setting eyes on Lake Michigan.   We had a nice walk along the promenade.  Rob met a “young” guy and chatted to him briefly about local info and interest. Then a shopping break for Cher in New Buffalo, while Rob worked at securing the four bikes better on the bike rack.  We hit the Chicago area at exactly the wrong time – 5 pm Friday afternoon.  It was traffic like the GTA but worse.  We tried a route off of the freeway but that was too much stop and start and very slow. Tired, we dragged ourselves in and claimed the last spot at a truck stop in Ottawa, Illinois. Despite the rumble of trucks running their engines for warmth and light we had a bonus view of farm fields as far as the eye could see. We snuggled into bed by 9pm, really 10pm as we’d gone through a time zone change.

We had a frightening experience on the I-80. We were in the outside lane on the freeway and a truck next to us on the inside lane.  Suddenly there was a huge almost explosive noise and heard and felt a bang.  We got such a fright and got back across and pulled off – felt sure we had lost the 4 bikes!   But no they were still there!    We could not see any damage.  We saw the truck had also pulled off far back from us so Rob walked back to see him and he had had a burst tire and it must have flown up and hit our RV but no damage! What a relief!

Day 3 – April 16^th Ottawa Illinois – North Platte, Nebraska (665/1287 miles) Flat and Flatter

We were woken early by our alarm beeping because our house battery was failing. We made a mental note to do something about it and decided to get some miles under our belt so headed out at 5 am.  Just miles and miles straight West on I-80 through Illinois and Iowa, with non-stop farms and a mixture of flat prairies and rolling newly plowed fields.  After a few hours we did stop for a Macdonalds breakfast tea biscuit and coffee. Rob didn’t measure up too well against one of the locals, as you can see, so we decided to keep moving.

Next stop was in Council Bluffs on the border of Illinois and Nebraska.   We took a three hour break while Rob searched for a new house battery for RV. After a bit of a run around we ended up at good old Walmart who had almost what we needed and are now hoping it works.

We continued driving West on I-80. Things became even more straight and flat through Nebraska.  We hit some bad rain and wind about 5:30 pm but wanted to get a head start for the next day so kept going. Rain and snow was predicted heading into Denver so we drove an extra 100 miles on to a truck stop at North Platte on the banks of the South Platte river – in the middle of nowhere!   By 8:30 pm we were eating supper and ready to head for bed soon after. The wind and rain on the way in for the last hour or so had been really bad and as the evening went on the weather just got worse with the wind really buffeting our snug little home. The house battery seemed to work well, allowing us to read in bed and also it kept our furnace alive all night which was a plus.

Signs along the way today had reminded us that we were treading in history’s footprints –  such as Sioux City,  Buffalo Bill’s Ranch, The Pony Express first post etc. We seemed to be following the tracks of some of the original pioneer wagon trains. We drove through an amazing amount of geography in the last two days – incredible to think that they did it all on foot and in wagons way back in the day.

Day 4 – April 17^th North Platte, Nebraska – Denver, Colorado (294/1581 miles) Black cows to White Mountains

This has been an interesting day.  We started in North Platte, a railroad town in the middle of nowhere.  We got up early and for church for a 9 am service at Bethel Evangelical Free Church of America– a very nice service, where we met a couple of ladies who made us feel very welcome. Susan was from five generations of farmers and she and her husband had recently decided it was no longer viable, so had sold up. Also we were accosted by Victoria, a cheerful thirtyish or so YWAMer, in a wheelchair who insisted on knowing where our accent was from. We also met Randy and his son Holton, who told us that North Platte is the largest hub for railroads in North America. Suddenly, this rather seedy, mouldy little town rose up in our minds and will always be remembered for its people and railroad significance.

We had heard the weather in Denver had been very bad, with heavy snow and blowing white outs so we planned to arrive later in the day when it was projected to ease off.  We also decided not to travel on the I-80 interstate – we had had 2 days of it and were tired of duking it out with trucks!  There was a regular 2 lane road running parallel to the freeway which went through the small towns and was so interesting with no trucks and in fact being a Sunday, there was virtually no traffic.   As we headed due west in a straight line, we enjoyed miles of beautiful farm land and herds of black cows. We hardly saw a person all day. The little towns were by and large pretty seedy and run down, but all were the same in that they had a huge grain storage silo serviced by the railroad which followed the road all day.

We turned south west and entered Colorado and the scenery turned more undulating but became very desolate with occasional farmsteads here and there every few miles.   The altitude slowly rose and we began to see evidence of the snow the day before.  We never saw a flake of snow falling but on the ground it got thicker and thicker until we reached Denver and as you will see from the pictures – they had had lots of snow. It’s a pretty looking city, with the white mountains as it’s backdrop. We are so thankful to God for watching over the timing of our trip and finding us a perfect window through what has been awful weather in Denver.  One day earlier and we would not have made it in here. 

We are staying two nights at Cherry Creek State Park, a massive State Park in the middle of the city with full hookups which we are thankful for after three days of making do along the way. Connecting water, electrical & sewer in deep slushy snow was an experience! A herd of deer are wandering around the rather deserted campground. We can’t figure out why no one else is camping.  We had planned to walk a mile or so tomorrow morning to the nearest subway stop for some sightseeing, but the path is knee deep in snow, so we have joined the modern world and signed up with Uber. Tomorrow we will be Ubered (new word for us Yuppy types) downtown for a tour of the State Capitol and then on to some of the highlights of Denver.

Day 5 – April 18^th, Denver, Colorado – Ubernomics and More

 The day got going with an incredibly quick pick up by Misty, our Uber driver – no more than 5 minutes. Recently let go from her accounting job, this was her third day as an Uber drive and we were her thirty first ride. It was a bit unnerving as she drove the whole way through busy traffic with her cell phone in her hand whilst checking for directions. She dropped us off at the State Capitol building where we checked in with the 10 o’clock tour. Our tour guide was Riggs, a retired school teacher. He loves his volunteer job and did a great job of extolling the virtues of the Capitol building, Colorado and much more. He was very passionate.I got to see a picture of Kit Carson, one of my childhood heroes, who it turns out was a Coloradan.

We then set off on a long walk down the 16^th Street Shopping Mall to meet our 12.45pm tour. The Mall has no cars on it, only a free bus shuttle, but one had to watch out for traffic coming sideways on from the side streets.

Misty had warned us that Denver is known as the homeless capital of the USA and it turns out she was right. They were probably the singlest biggest demographic out on the street, which was too bad. We connected to our tour at the grand old Union Station which has now been fitted out with lovely furniture, wifi hubs and trendy restaurants etc. Quite impressive.

Our tour guide was Heath, sporting long blond hair halfway down his back along with a cool little goatee beard. He looked like he had stepped out of the sixties. Turns out he remembered everyone’s names on board, found out all of our home towns/States and before long had a great buzz of chatter going on with what had a few minutes earlier been a bunch of total strangers. Heath took us out of town to Golden, to the Coors brewery, the largest stand-alone brewery in the world.

As part of the tour they had a sampling opportunity and we met Matt from Birmingham Alabama. Turns out he is a Christian guy who has a passion for baseball, has patented a design for a training tool and is busy trying to make it a viable business proposition.

Heath then took us up a very steep winding road to Lookout Mountain where Buffalo Bill is buried. We took in BB’s museum. It turns out the Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock are two different people – another one of life’s great mysteries now solved.

From there we went to the highlight of our tour, the Red Rock Amphitheatre. This is a 10,000 seat amphitheatre built into the stunning rock formations. It was very impressive. What was fascinating was the large team of workers frantically clearing a couple of feet of snow from 10,000 seats. They were physically lifting shovels full and walking the snow off to the side. They made shovelling my driveway seem like a non-event.

Our day ended as it began, by catching an Uber ride back to our campsite. We had a thirty second wait for our ride and were picked up by Ken. Ken was very gregarious, 75 years old, been doing Uber for 7 months and loves it. We had a good chat on our way home, but were a bit shocked to discover that our fare was more than double what it was this morning. Grrr. We think we might have inadvertently signed up for the Deluxe service and then it was rush hour traffic so a longer ride. How quickly our illusions are put to rest. Nevertheless, we have seen the light – Uber rules.

Tomorrow is a big day. We are crossing the Rockies and there is scary talk of another snowstorm in the mountains. Anyway we are resolved to drive until it’s clear we shouldn’t and let the chips fall where they may. Watch this space….