Oh, the Places You’ll Go

We finally put our state stickers map on Destiny (our RV). We chose the front door as the location because it is a great conversation piece for visitors. It will also be a reminder of why we are traveling full-time: to see and experience places we have never been to! In just one month, we have traveled to six states. Interesting enough, there are many options of how to add states to the map. We decided we will stay overnight in the state before we add it to the map. Oh, the Places We Will Go!

People ask us where we stay when we are traveling to our destination. For this post, we thought it would be fun to share our overnight stays from our recent road trip from Minnesota to Arizona. We did a little bit of everything!

Iowa, the Hawkeye State

We traveled to Woodward, 30 miles northeast of Des Moines, to stay overnight on a corn/soybean farm. The farm is part of the Boondockers Welcome membership program ($30 per year) that allows members to stay overnight for free on private property. The farm even had 50 amp electric service! We witnessed a beautiful sunset and sunrise and left a tin of Christmas cookies with our wonderful hosts! This was a fantastic place to stop for our first Boondockers Welcome overnight stay.

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Nebraska, the Cornhusker State

We made it Kearney and stayed at the Kearney RV Park just off I-80. Because it was mid-December and cold, it looked like we were the only RVers that stayed the night. The park is open all-year around and they had some long-term RVers that were staying for the winter. We had full hookups (electric, water, sewer) and the rate was $45 plus tax. Since we are Good Sam members, we saved 10% off the price. We had 3 bars of AT&T LTE service and had access to many over-the-air TV channels. It looked like it would be a great place to stay in the summer because the Platte River bordered one of the park’s boundaries.

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Colorado, the Centennial State

Our daughter was getting her masters from Colorado State University so we chose Horsetooth Reservoir South Bay Campground outside of Fort Collins to stay for 6 nights. We had full hookups and the winter rate was $25 plus tax. There was also a $6 daily permit fee. We were in site #79 and had limited AT&T cell coverage with only 1-2 bars 4G/LTE. The visitor’s center was a good place to use the guest WiFi. This will definitely be a place we would stay again as it had beautiful scenery and the stars at night were amazing!

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When we left Fort Collins, we chose a route that took us south to keep Destiny in good weather. Trinidad Lake State Park outside Trinidad was a perfect place to stay overnight. We arrived after the visitor’s center had closed and saw there was only three of us in the park! We chose an electric-only site in a nice grove of spruce trees. The rate was $24 plus tax with an additional $7 daily permit fee. There were lots of hiking trails in the park, but they will have to wait for another time when we come back!

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New Mexico, Land of Enchantment

We made it to Albuquerque by midafternoon and thought we would try dry camping at Walmart. We went into Walmart and found out the Walmart did not accept overnight guests. I misread the AllStays App (a great app to use to look for free camping spots). When we double checked, it did show that all Walmarts in Albuquerque do not allow overnight camping. We did, however, find a Cracker Barrel just 1 mile away that allowed overnight camping. We parked at the back of the parking lot and were able to put out the driver-side slideouts. The parking lot was well lit and we even had a Class C RV join us at the end of the night! We shared the Grandma’s Sampler for dinner that evening! This was our first Cracker Barrel experience and we would highly recommend this as a free dry camping spot when you are traveling!

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Arizona, The Grand Canyon State

Just an hour into Arizona is the Petrified Forest National Park. We stopped at the visitor’s center and checked out the museum and gift shop. They even had their own post office that postmarked a few post cards for us. We made it to Williams about 4pm and checked into the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park. The park charges $48 plus tax for full hookups. We are members of Passport America ($44 per year) and you save 50% on Passport America RV Parks. The campground final cost was $24 for the night! Amenities included swimming pool, hot tub, WiFi and new shower facilities. We explored downtown Williams and it was like we went back in time seeing all the Route 66 signs!

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The last day of travel took us to Pirates Den RV Resort in Parker. We arrived just before sunset. Mark’s brothers are staying at this park until mid-April, so it was fun to be with them for a couple of weeks over the holidays. This RV park is located on the Colorado River and you see California across the river. This park has a daily rate of $35, $5 electric fee, and three different taxes (transient lodging, leasing fee and electric tax) which brought it to $45 per night. AT&T reception provided only 1-2 bars of 4G service. WiFi was sparse because all the RVers were trying to use it. The highlight was spending time with family during the holidays and seeing the beautiful sunsets every night!

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Where are we now?

For the past 9 days, we have been on Arizona Trust Land just north of Lake Havasu City. An Arizona Trust Land permit costs $20 and provides 14 days of use per calendar year. We had full bars of AT&T cell coverage and were close to all the events and activities in Lake Havasu City. Lucky for us, the annual Hot Air Balloon Festival happened when we were here! There were about a dozen RVs that were in the desert with us. We enjoyed taking several hikes into the desert. We would definitely stay here again and recommend it anyone that is looking to boondocks in the Lake Havasu City area.

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Slow Travel – the best way to experience the world

We now have seven states on our state stickers map. Since we like slow traveling, it will be awhile before we have them all filled in. We will take time to plug into the local culture instead of racing through a list of tourist attractions.

If you slow things down, you notice things that you had not seen before. Robert Wilson

Find Joy in the Journey – Heidi and Mark