May 17-19 Cloudland Canyon to Kansas City

850 total miles driven since leaving home
Temps overnight mid 40's & daytime highs averaging near 70

     We left Cloudland Canyon State Park in Georgia early Tuesday morning (17 May).....had to break down camper in between rain showers but managed to get it done without getting too wet. We left there with a goal of getting near (or past) St. Louis, Missouri which is a long travel day (475 miles) pulling an RV. We gained an hour as we crossed into central time zone and that helped. We traveled through five states that day - Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. Beautiful (but rainy) scenery in all states.

Walmart Camping Experience:
     We finally settled down for the evening in a Walmart (that's right) parking lot just west of St. Louis in a town called O'Fallon Missouri and walked to a nearby Applebee's for dinner. This was our first experience at Walmart camping and using our new generators with the rig. We went to sleep with only one other rig near us in the parking lot and woke up in the morning with three or four others camping near us. The price was right but it was a bit noisy.....luckily we were tired enough that we still slept ok. Lesson learned - find a better corner spot in the parking lot to avoid all night traffic and bright lights. We will do it again - need plenty of free camping to pay for the generators.

     After making coffee for our large cups and the thermos we got on the road again headed for the Kansas City/Independence Missouri area for a two night stop and some sight seeing. We used an app on the iPhone called "Oh, Ranger" to locate a county operated RV Park called Blue Springs in Lee's Summit, Missouri. Great park and a great place to operate from while in this area. We arrived early enough to get a visit in at the Truman Library and Museum that we really enjoyed. We had visited Truman's little white house in Key West earlier this year and love the history surrounding his presidency.
     Thursday (today) plans included lunch at a hole in the wall (but locally famous) Kansas City BBQ joint called LC's. Reminded me of something we might see on Drive-ins, Diners and Dives. The food was great and plentiful and I took photos both inside and outside to share with you.

After that we visited the #1 tourist activity in Kansas city (according to trip advisor) which is the World War I museum. It is a very nice museum with great exhibits and history of WWI....recommend it if you are in the Kansas City area. Photos below are the museum itself and a shot of the Kansas City skyline from the observation deck of the museum.

Resting up this evening with plans to depart for South Dakota in the morning (rain predicted again for our breaking camp time). Current plans are to drive to Sioux Falls for an overnight (maybe Walmart again) and continuing the next day to the Rapid City area where we will do some sight seeing.

Cloudland Canyon (May 15-17)

We departed on Sunday morning (May 15th) on schedule. We decided to spend the first couple of nights at Cloudland Canyon State Park....still in Georgia but the northwest corner not far from Chattanooga Tennessee.

This has been a great stop for us as we have talked about coming here for a couple years. We arrived early enough on Sunday to get a good hike in to the waterfalls in the park...they are not spectacular but still nice and the exercise was great. About 500 step (stairs) down to the bottom. I can still feel the burn from the return trip.

Today we hiked another of the trails here called west rim trail...it is about 5 miles long and travels along the rim of the canyon with beautiful views. (posting a few photos here) We enjoyed a picnic lunch at one of the overlooks with a great view.

Plan is to leave here tomorrow heading westward.....in the direction of Kansas City, Missouri although we will not make that in one travel day. We will overnight somewhere on the way and arrive there on Wednesday.

Two Days Out from Departure

Okay, we are now only two days out from our departure. I wanted to test loading an image (our home for the next several weeks) to the blog page to make sure it would load and work like I expected. This photo was taken at Mistletoe State Park in Georgia last spring.

Kathy and I plan to depart on Sunday (15 May) and take a our time getting to Yellowstone with some leisurely stops along the way. Ed and Kay plan to join us on our last night there and we will head north.

Trip Preparation - Less than 30 days out

Both us and the Culpeppers have been busy doing maintenance and repairs on vehicles and campers....in fact Ed and Kay are on a shakedown run with their camper/truck to Florida for the next several days.

We received several supplies in the mail over the last few days (thanks Amazon prime) that include many RV supplies (expecting more) and today we received our bear spray....sure hope we return home with those unused :-)

I am hopeful to see and photograph some bears but from a safe distance.

Camera equipment is being readied and extra storage space for the many photos we expect to take. Thinking about ordering a new lens that will assist with the distance part of those photographs. We hope to provide frequent posts to this blog documenting the trip, our experiences (good and bad) and photos of the highlights.

Generators (two Honda 2000i's) should arrive in the next few days.
All new tires on both campers.

Time is getting close and we are getting excited about the trip!

Introduction & Basic Plan

My wife, Kathy and I are planning a trip during the summer of 2016 with our good friends Ed and Kay Culpepper. We will be traveling by RV - both us and the Culpeppers  in 5th wheel campers. We plan to depart the Atlanta area separately in May..... Kathy and I will visit Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and Glacier National Park. Around the timeframe at Glacier we will rendezvous with the Culpeppers and make our way up thru Banff National Park/Lake Louise and the Jasper area of Canada and on North to Alaska.

We anticipate leaving the Atlanta area around the 3rd week in May and while we are remaining flexible with travel dates we anticipate being gone 3-4 months.

We plan to use this blog to document our trip and share experiences/photos with friends, family and other interested individuals.