A Tour of the West

4 Weeks Worth of States...

We set out on this month long excursion with our first stop being in Springfield, Illinois at the Lincoln Presidential Library. We toured the museum and then headed on our way to St. Louis and toured the famous Gateway Arch. It was an exciting ride up in a washing machine sized car up to the top of the arch to see the tiny Mississippi River for the first time. We made our way onto Route 66 starting our day in Missouri and ended our day in Oklahoma. The highlight of our long day was seeing an eighty foot blue whale along the highway. That night our haven was that of a Wal-Mart parking lot. The next day we left Wal-Mart around 9:30 and drove through Texas as well as New Mexico. A detour took us into Colorado for the night and we stayed at Pueblo State Park. We drove through Denver as well as Vail the next day we made our way into Utah to Bryce Canyon National Park. Since we arrived so late we decided to explore the canyon the next day. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. The next day we explored the Grand Canyon but honestly I was more excited about Bryce Canyon.

Bryce Canyon

The next day we drove into Mesa, Arizona to visit with my great aunt as well as cousins. We found a nice campground that was half a retirement park for the retired. After a day and a half of driving we made our way to the Hoover Dam and took a “dam tour”. It was amazing to feel so small in such a huge area of concrete. 
We continued on driving our camper through Las Vegas towing our camper the whole way during a busy night. We spent the night camped out behind an old casino truck stop… very classy. The next morning we woke up to drive clear through Death Valley into Sequoia National Park. The giant Sequoias were absolutely breathtaking and unlike nothing I have ever seen. There was even a tree you could fit a truck through. We also took a trip through Yosemite National Park on our way to San Francisco. In San Francisco we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, toured Alcatraz, and made sure to take a trolley ride down the hills.

The Golden Gate Bridge

We drove straight up to Oregon and made a stop at the magnificent Crater Lake National Park with water bluer than anything I could compare it to. We made our way into Seattle, Washington. There we toured the Boeing Airplane Factory as well as explored the Space Needle. Our last major spots to see on this trip were at Little Big Horn and Mount Rushmore. After seeing these wonders we headed on home.

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." -Miriam Beard