Traveluminum: A journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single Airstream

We're off!

Our rockers, probably, but I digress already. And we just started. Our first stop was in Chickasaw national recreation area, near Sulphur, Oklahoma. We camped in rock creek campground, with no utilities, but it is a nice area, and only $14. I think it would be much different on a busy weekend, but with few campers, it is a great spot. We walked around Veterans lake, which was about a four mile hike. The lake has an 8 foot sidewalk all the way around it, and with perfect weather, it was a great way to start a vacation.

We built a campfire, and talked until about 9:30.

After leaving Chickasaw, and driving several hours, we started looking for a camping spot, and drove through several small towns, and down some back roads, but every spot had something wrong with it. We ended up staying in a roadside park, which opened up onto a nice green field. The traffic noise was constant, but tolerable, and it was free. The rv parks in the area were in the $40 range, which seems crazy for a spot to park overnight, when we don't need water or electricity. We took a walk down a country road, and enjoyed the evening.

The next day, we drove to Cedar Bluff state park in central Kansas, and got there early enough to unwind. The lake was way down, and everything was super dry. We just thought it was dry in Texas. It is a decent campground, but we wouldn't plan a vacation here. Camping is only $8, plus $11 for electricity, plus $3 administration fee, plus $4.50 vehicle fee, plus $.50 vehicle fee administration fee. Talk about nickel and diming someone.

We knew we would drive a long time today, and it ended up almost 9 hours. We were tired of the plains, and wanted to see trees and mountains, so we picked one of the best places to do that. Rocky Mountain National Park has to be one of my favorite places, although we had not planned on coming here on this trip. Somehow in Lyons, Colorado, we ended up on scenic hwy 7 going to Estes Park instead of our planned route of hwy 36. The scenery is spectacular, but the truck did not appreciate the mountain driving. We got one of the few spots long enough for our Airstream and paid for 3 nights. Time to slow down.

Shelly at our campsite!

Shelly and Sadie on the mountain

Sadie did not like the snow, but we thought it was funny

Me on a rock

Moose very near the trail

Fern lake trail is a great trail.

Shelly insisted on taking my picture

Shelly by the river

We weren't supposed to, but it was begging.

Our picnic spot by the pool. The trail to here is 1.7 miles

Somebody thought the rock needed eyes, nose and teeth.

A bull elk.

The pictures tell most of the story. It is beautiful here, I hiked in the morning, and visited with a wildlife biologist, who was volunteering in the park. We drove to the top of the mountain to see the snow. The road is still closed for the winter, but we got to 10,700 feet. The scenery is scectacular. We walked the Fern lake trail up to the pool, which is where most of the pictures were taken.

On Tuesday, we drove up to Bear lake, and hiked up to Nymph lake. Both were mostly frozen. From Nymph lake, we hiked up to Dream lake. It was only a half mile further, but much steeper. It was well worth the hike, as these pictures show!