Traveler III
This was today on the Needles Highway in the Black Hills of South Dakota. What a beautiful area!
Steve & Deb's Cross-Country Adventure
- Thread starter Steve
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Traveler III
Pathfinder II
Influencer II
Influencer II
Looks like you guys are having a blast! Keep the pics coming. How long to you plan on traveling?
Traveler III
Thanks guys! I didn't post this one, but I like its it looks like the elk is smiling. :)
@jordanbrooks We are now in Wisconsin, and should be home Friday afternoon, on the 43rd day of our trip. Deb is about done living out of a suitcase, and changing hotels every night or two. We've talked about the pros/cons of van/motorhome/trailer options for future trips, although that really limits off the grid exploring. Can't quite swing a Unimog style unit. :)
@jordanbrooks We are now in Wisconsin, and should be home Friday afternoon, on the 43rd day of our trip. Deb is about done living out of a suitcase, and changing hotels every night or two. We've talked about the pros/cons of van/motorhome/trailer options for future trips, although that really limits off the grid exploring. Can't quite swing a Unimog style unit. :)
Traveler III
Just uploaded 78 more photos, mostly from Badlands National Park. There are many similar photos, as I was playing with lighting and depth of field. With the fog and overcast, it was very hard to get something I liked. You guys get to see the pre-sorted mess. :)
This was in Blue Earth, Minnesota today. I didn't realize that he was standing on the ARB awning!
Oh, and it snowed on us as we were driving through eastern North Dakota and Minnesota...
This was in Blue Earth, Minnesota today. I didn't realize that he was standing on the ARB awning!
Oh, and it snowed on us as we were driving through eastern North Dakota and Minnesota...
Influencer II
Traveler III
Mile 7758: After 43 days and 2 hours, we are home. We have gone 5209 miles after leaving our daughter at Seattle Pacific University back on September 25th. We averaged 18.3 MPG on the way out, 21.0 on the way back, and 20.1 overall. The 7786 shown is the GPS. I used the odometer for this running log. Only a 0.36% difference isn't bad at all for non-stock size tires.
All in all, we had an amazing time, and I'm ready to leave again! We saw and experienced wonderful places, had great food, met interesting people, and enjoyed each other's company the entire trip. The weather couldn't have been nicer, with only 3-4 days with any rain at all, and a tiny bit of snow.
Thanks to everyone for following along with us! I'll have some follow-up posts with things we hauled all over and didn't use. Plus I have a ton of photos from my dSLR camera to go through. So don't unfollow us! We will be taking a trip south sometime in January or February that you can take with us, and I'm sure there will be outings here and there to post, too.
Thanks again!
Steve and Deb
All in all, we had an amazing time, and I'm ready to leave again! We saw and experienced wonderful places, had great food, met interesting people, and enjoyed each other's company the entire trip. The weather couldn't have been nicer, with only 3-4 days with any rain at all, and a tiny bit of snow.
Thanks to everyone for following along with us! I'll have some follow-up posts with things we hauled all over and didn't use. Plus I have a ton of photos from my dSLR camera to go through. So don't unfollow us! We will be taking a trip south sometime in January or February that you can take with us, and I'm sure there will be outings here and there to post, too.
Thanks again!
Steve and Deb
Pathfinder II
Traveler III
Traveler III
Fog seemed to be the theme in several photographs. Our day in the Badlands started so foggy that we couldn't see the walkway to the overlook from the parking lot. It cleared during the day, but the Badlands was very hard to photograph in low contrast lighting due to the low contrast views. Fog in Yellowstone was sometimes indistinguishable from the steam from the various thermal features.
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Traveler III
And we saw a wide variety of critters, as well. bison, grizzly bear, moose, elk, white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, mule deer, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, coyote, red fox, prairie dog, river otter, sea otter, seals, sea lions, gray whale, bald eagle, golden eagle, and any number of birds and small animals.
Notable in what we did not see, are wolves, which I didn't expect to see, but I sure hoped. Didn't see any black bear, marmot, or pika, which are all pretty common in the areas we travelled.
Notable in what we did not see, are wolves, which I didn't expect to see, but I sure hoped. Didn't see any black bear, marmot, or pika, which are all pretty common in the areas we travelled.
Traveler III
We took this with us on our trip to use in photos to tag with #overlandbound. We just found it while putting stuff away... We took so much a) stuff we didn't use, or b) stuff we wanted and couldn't find. We need a much better organization method!
Clothes I took but didn't wear. Mostly warm weather clothes, Gore-Tex, pants, workout shoes &shorts (like I was really going to take advantage of the motel workout equipment...)
More stuff we had with us that we didn't use. If I knew where the Kestrel was I'd have checked the wind chill a couple of cold days! Thankfully no need for any emergency stuff or the portal
Here is the pile of larger items we took with us and didn't use. Again, fortunately no need for the tools, spares, or fire extinguisher. I was looking for the monopod one day but didn't find it.
Pathfinder II
Are you planning another trip in the spring to pick up your daughter? That would be a good time to hit the northern route. Glacier in Montanta is amazing in the spring. Teddy Roosevelt in ND is also worth driving through. I know you're from Ohio, but coming through the UP of Michigan and down the Lake Michigan shoreline is also a nice route back to O-H-I-O. So much to see between Ohio and Washington. There's also the Canadian Rockies...
Traveler III
@pl626 We are not sure of our plans for spring yet. If we do, I'd like to start early so Deb and I do some of the exploring before picking her up. Not so much stuff in the Outback that way, nor complaints of taking too long to get home to her friends.
22 years ago I stopped briefly at Teddy Roosevelt on my way out to Washington on a backpacking trip around Mt Rainier. It was beautiful, but like this last outbound trip, we were in a hurry. The next time I go there, I want to spend quite a bit of time exploring and hiking the area. Glacier in the spring sounds fantastic, but I'd have to get there *after* the roads are all open. That's a year to year thing, so we'd play it by ear.
We definitely want to get to the Canadian Rockies. 34 years ago, we considered Banff, and specifically the lodge at Lake Louise for our honeymoon. It ended up being cheaper going to Bermuda for two weeks. Who'dathunk.
This trip was originally supposed to end with us going up through Duluth and across the north side of Lake Michigan, coming back along the west side of lower Michigan. We love Sleeping Bear and the surrounding areas in the fall. But *somebody* decided she wanted to get home, hence our rapid progress on the last three days. That too will be a future trip. We've explored along the southern coast of the UP once when we did a "circle Lake Michigan" trip. (Oshkosh, Door peninsula, Green Bay, etc.) but want to explore the more rugged north coast, too.
Lots of places to go!
Steve
22 years ago I stopped briefly at Teddy Roosevelt on my way out to Washington on a backpacking trip around Mt Rainier. It was beautiful, but like this last outbound trip, we were in a hurry. The next time I go there, I want to spend quite a bit of time exploring and hiking the area. Glacier in the spring sounds fantastic, but I'd have to get there *after* the roads are all open. That's a year to year thing, so we'd play it by ear.
We definitely want to get to the Canadian Rockies. 34 years ago, we considered Banff, and specifically the lodge at Lake Louise for our honeymoon. It ended up being cheaper going to Bermuda for two weeks. Who'dathunk.
This trip was originally supposed to end with us going up through Duluth and across the north side of Lake Michigan, coming back along the west side of lower Michigan. We love Sleeping Bear and the surrounding areas in the fall. But *somebody* decided she wanted to get home, hence our rapid progress on the last three days. That too will be a future trip. We've explored along the southern coast of the UP once when we did a "circle Lake Michigan" trip. (Oshkosh, Door peninsula, Green Bay, etc.) but want to explore the more rugged north coast, too.
Lots of places to go!
Steve
Pathfinder II
Hey, when the boss says it's time to go home, you have to obey...
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Pathfinder III
So...... you had a wonderful trip, I really envy you about it, but the most important question is......................... When are you leaving again?
Greetings from Robert
Greetings from Robert
