Lots of miles and lots of memories to catch you up on.
But first, we’ve actually been back in Benson, AZ and the bus just over a month now.
And before time gets away from us, I wanted to at least recap the trip getting here. Our last extensive travelogue left us just leaving New England – and that seems like years ago by now.
And I just don’t see where we’ll find the time to get there rest of the trip documented in much detail before the end of the year.
We did however document most every stop in more real time on Instagram for anyone wanting details, and I am working through a backlog of campground reviews.
Likely no produced video to go along with this one, but we did go live last weekend on YouTube recapping the trip, our arrival back to the bus and what’s ahead (basically, what I’m going to summarize here):
New England to Illinois
September was spent moving from New England to Chris’ folks place in the St. Louis area.
We had a few weeks to play with and opted to make some stops that would be new to us. We also optimized our multi-night stays for places that had direct access to biking trails which allowed us to put a lot of miles on the eBikes.
Some of the highlights included:
- St. Johnsville, NY
- Exploring the Finger Lakes area
- Letchworth State Park
- Niagara Falls (I had never been!)
- River Trail Crossing in Butler, OH
- Hawthorne Campground in Terre Haute, IN
- Dam West Campground along Lake Carlyle in Illinois
There were several other overnights at a few Harvest Hosts locations, and we even scored a primo free overnight along Lake Erie at a town dock.
Here’s some highlighted photos from this segment:
Waterloo, IL
The reason for a timeline is because we wanted to catch Chris’ parents before they started their own migration to their winter home base in Florida.
We arrived to their home in the St. Louis area in time to overlap about a week and enjoyed lots of great time with them.
They have a beautiful home with a built out basement guest suite that we’re able to take over – with our own bedroom, living room and bath. It’s quite fabulous.
And then after they left, we stayed for a couple more weeks to enjoy being spread out, catch up on work and wait out the peak of hurricane season before deciding it was safe enough to continue heading west (after all, we had left Y-Not in Florida and were still in easy range if we needed to high tail it back ourselves.)
We also got Kiki’s post treatment for hyperthyroidism re-check done – and she’s now considered cured! Hooray!
Early October came and went, the tropics remained calm and we felt called to continue westward to reunite with Zephyr. So we spent some time getting Blooper cleaned and packed back up, and headed on after winterizing the house.
Illinois to Arizona
We set off westward, and decided to make a pass through Colorado on the way – as it has been over a decade since we had last been. We also have a bunch of friends who have settled in the area that we wanted to catch up with.
We spent a few long driving days making our way across Missouri and Kansas, with at least one notable 3-night spot at Venango Campground along Lake Kanopolis. This is an Army Corp of Engineer campground that is officially closed at the end of September, but allows free dry camping the rest of the year. We scored a sweet waterfront site with excellent cell signal to get some filming and work in (this is where our Travato Accessories video was filmed, along with some mobile internet videos: The Major US Cellular Carriers and Optimizing Cellular Data Performance).
First friend stop was Colorado Springs to finally meet Andy & Suzy – we brought Andy onto our team over at the Mobile Internet Resource Center over 4 years ago and Suzy recently joined too, but had never met in person. We had a great time parked in their driveway, working together on several projects together and lots of time getting to know each other.
Next was a dash over to Salida to visit with Andrew & Theresa. Andrew was Chris’ college roommate and they had settled in Salida nearly 15 years ago, which was also the site of our second date. We had returned a couple times in our years on the road, and have always loved Salida which has become quite the destination since our first visit. It was great to catch up with these two!
And then is was off to the western slope to meet up with Marc & Julie of RVLove, who had settled in the area over the pandemic. It was awesome to catch up and see what drew them to this lovely area – including an epic winery run by a couple who completed the Great Loop! But the real reason for the visit was meet their new puppy, Sunny!
We have so many other friends who have settled in Colorado and wished we had left more time to catch up with everyone – but with a snow storm coming in, we decided it was time to get to Arizona.
After all we have a bus anxiously awaiting us!
So southward we turned the wheels for an amazing drive on the Million Dollar Highway, hot spring soaking in Durango, an amazing overnight at the Bisti Badlands (with no reported cell signal, we actually were able to get enough bandwidth to host a webinar!) and a stop at Cosmic Campground for inspiring stargazing.
Back to Zephyr in Benson, AZ – At Last!
And then… we pulled into our SKP Saguaro RV Co-Op in Benson, AZ where we had left Zephyr behind in storage nearly 2 years ago. When we left, we had no idea it would be this long before we felt safe to make the miles to return.
But a pandemic will do that to you.
First stop was to the storage lot to see Zephyr – our 1961 GM 4106 vintage bus conversion. Yup, she just turned 60! And she was a site to behold.
We thoroughly inspected everything we could, cleaned out a bunch of nesting & nuts stored by local packrats and crossed our fingers there was no damage. She fired right up and held air.. so whew, the packrats just nested here and didn’t do any apparent damage.
We moved her over to our lot, and started doing some nesting of our own.
Real Time Catch Up
We arrived back to Benson in late October and life has been busy ever since. Lots of making our casita more of a home, socializing, local exploring and tending to some big work transitions ahead.
We’ll catch you up with what we’ve been up to in a bit (some of it covered in the video above).
We’re intending to stay here through the end of the year before we pack up and head back east to Y-Not.
As a gentle reminder as more head south for the winter and might be contemplating stopping by SKP Saguaro. We do love making new friends. But do kindly request that if you would like to meet up, that you reach out first and introduce yourself. Please no drop-by visitors – we prefer to make time for visits (we’re often on calls, filming or in the middle projects), and well – be dressed. Thanks!
Wow – you really did do a lot. A great trip – thanks for sharing.. Nice to be able to travel again! We haven’t been around groups of people either for going on 2 years and not sure if and when that will feel comfortable. The hermit in me has been given power – so there’s that too.
Benson is a great place – almost made it our home base. We are a bit farther north, making Cornville AZ (near Sedona) our base. Hasn’t the weather been delicious! It is a few degrees cooler here but just wonderful. Take care and happy holidays.
Susan and John
Thanks for the updates and info! We sure appreciate the tips (especially the one on ATT ending their unlimited plus plans with hotspot). Love to say hello someday, we are moving to Prescott AZ (former Arizonans) in a year or so and will be in AZ after you have left probably. We got married in Tucson Feb 1980.
Wow what a tour! You both look so very happy. It’s so nice to see you in the travel groove again, and pics of all the amazing places you’ve been. Lots of heart strings being tugged here! And of the course the best news is that Kiki was cured. Love you all!
Nina
So glad you made it to Carlyle Lake. That is our ”local” place to camp and we feel very lucky. We usually stay at Hazlet State Park or on the other side of the lake, at Cades Cove (a COE campground.) Just some options if you are in the area again!
Hey Guys,
I don’t know you had a base in Benson. I’ve been there a few times…a really unique small little town and I love it. I also go to Tombstone when I can.
Have you been to Wild Dogs? Love their food!
Love reading your posts.
Ken