Well, it’s been 18 days so far since we left California, and so far the road trip has been great fun! We’ve been through 14 states in those 18 days. Some of them have been dead sprints, while others we’ve meandered through. Colorado and Utah were awesome, and we could spend much more time there. We have mostly been staying in cheap hotels, since camping in November kinda sucks. It’s dark by 5pm, and it’s cold! We did camp in a couple of really great places, and we plan to camp in the Keys. We had a chance to stop in Santa Fe, NM to see Jess, Franklin, N.C. to see Charlie and Linda, Raleigh, N.C. to see Ani, Pedro, Courtney, Greg, Addison, Braden and Peyton. We’ll spend the next week in Florida before heading to Beaufort, S.C. to have Turkey with the in-laws.

More photos can be seen at: my Facebook page!

Yesterday we finished up with everything in Fort Collins and headed for the Denver Airport to drop off mom-in-law. From there, we stopped in downtown Denver, where Erin had lunch with some environmental folks. After lunch, we headed for Veil and Minturn, where a friend from Alaska is living. We had a great pizza dinner in “downtown” Minturn, and then the real adventure began. We pulled out of Minturn after dark and decided to head over Cottonwood Pass as a “shortcut” to Aspen so that we might find some good camping. Without a real map, we did not find the road we were looking for, but instead wandered 22 miles down muddy, snowy roads into the middle of nowhere. The Element handled everything pretty good, but was definitely struggling with the mud. At some point we realized the road was getting smaller and covered with more snow, and decided to turn around. It was about 10pm by the time we rolled into Glenwood Springs and decided to splurge on a dive hotel for the night.

Well, we’re in Fort Collins, our stuff is in storage, and we’re heading off tomorrow for the next adventure. We decided last week to sell the VW. It was definitely the best travel vehicle, but we needed something that would be good in the snow and would also be a good everyday car in Colorado. The Honda Element has been on our radar for quite awhile, so we bought a 2003 AWD model with low mileage and so far we’re really happy. Erin and Judy drove it 1250 miles from the Bay Area to Fort Collins and had great things to say about the comfort.
We’ll try to keep up with regular updates, either here or on Facebook.

In preparation for our 2 month road trip across the US in our Westy, I decided to add Yakima roof racks and our SpaceBooster box for added storage. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of “stuff” we have inside the camper, so that there will be room for the two people and two dogs.
Here’s a shot of the new racks from the rear. I was able to get the towers on ebay for a good deal, and I already had the bars. The only really costly parts were the pads that mount to the camper roof:

Here’s a closeup:

This is the box and racks viewed from the front:

And here are some closeups of the mounts on the fiberglass camper shell. It measured twice, drilled once:

This year we decided to stick closer to home for Labor Day, and headed up to Rafi’s cabin near Bear Valley for a long weekend with the in-laws. Judy, Joe and Javier joined us Friday night through Sunday afternoon. We ate some really good food, spent a windy day at Lake Alpine and Ebbetts pass on Saturday, and had a great bush-whacking hike up behind the cabin on Sunday. We spent a lot of time sitting around outside talking and relaxing. Unfortunately the Sierra’s are very dry, and we didn’t want to risk a campfire. But, we did manage to make Erin’s yummy banana smores over the gas grill. Here are some pictures of the weekend:

This past weekend we traveled to Sonora, CA for the wedding of Erin’s cousin Jenelle to Mike. The wedding and reception were at the Sierra Glen Ranch in the hills above Sonora. The weather was great, and there were close to 200 people in attendance. Congratulations to both!

No man is truly married until he understands every word his wife doesn’t say — Ken Davis, September 27, 2009