Our long planning process continues with the first half of the trip finalized. We will head out on May 23 traveling south along I-81 to pick up I-40 West in Tennessee. Our first destination is the Cedars of Lebanon State Park east of Nashville. To keep our travel days within our objective of 6 hours driving time, we'll stop en route to Cedars of Lebanon in Blountville, TN just past Bristol which is on the border between Virginia and Tennessee. Drive time is just shy of 6 hours. From there, we continue west to the state park where we'll meet our friends Ay and Em. We made reservations at the state park several months ago because we wanted to guarantee a site. Our friends are attending a wedding there over the Memorial Day weekend. Drive time from Blountville is a little over 4 hours.
While in Lebanon, we'll do some exploring in the park as well as in the city of Nashville. We have tickets for the Grand Ole Opry for Friday night.Neither of us are taking along a toad (dinghy) so we'll be renting a car while in Lebanon. Enterprise will pick us up.
On May 31, we continue our trek west along I-40 - destination Grand Canyon National Park. We will take 5 days with stops at campgrounds near Little Rock, AR, Yukon, OK, Tucumcari, NM and Gallup, NM. Most of these are either Good Sam or KOA parks just off the Interstate. The exception is in Little Rock where we'll camp at a Corps of Engineers property called Maumelle Park. Along the way, we'll make stops at points of interest to be determined - we'll be looking for the "brown signs" indicating an attraction or point of interest. We might even stop at a casino to see if we can win enough to pay for some gas.
About 40 miles past Tuscon, we'll head north on US 64 which takes us into the Grand Canyon National Park. Total distance from Cedars of Lebanon to Grand Canyon Village is 1,689 miles estimated to take 28 plus hours of driving.
We wanted badly to stay at the RV Village within the park so this was another reservation made months in advance. While we are not at the peak of the travel season, we are arriving during a holiday week; so playing it safe, we reserved a spot way back in September. Our plan was to rent a car while in GCNP. But, alas, there are no rental car companies in or near the park. However, the park service operates a fleet of buses that provide transportation throughout the park, so not having a car there should not be a problem.
We'll be in GCNP for 7 nights and then will continue north and west around the canyon to Hurricane, UT. Drive time will be approximately 4 and one-half hours. This will be our base camp for 5 nights while we visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon as well as Zion and Bryce National Parks and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. We'll be renting a car in Hurricane. For GSENM, we've booked a 3 hour tour to the Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon. I hope our Hummer will not be named "Minnow".
I'll pause for a moment to explain why we are not camping exclusively in the National Parks. Most do not accept reservations (GC is an exception) and most have either water only hook ups, or no hook ups at all. For us, creature comforts are important so we are choosing full hook up sites when we can and accepting Electric/Water hookups elsewhere. Availability of cable and WiFi is not mandatory; but will be nice when provided. [Note: we're not expecting much from the commercial-site WiFi; indications are that WiFi is slow and unreliable in many locations.]
Utah has 5 National Parks!! We decided to see them all. So, after leaving Hurricane, we will head north on I-15 for the 234 mile drive to Capitol Reef National Park. This park is said to have a beautiful campground but it operates on a first-come-first-served basis. We called the park and they said we should arrive there first thing in the morning and grab a site as others check out. They advised us to arrive by 9:00 AM meaning a 4 AM departure from Hurricane. NOT!!! This is vacation. So, our plan for Capitol Reef is to to visit the park, then backtrack a bit to a commercial Good Sam park in Torrey, UT. We'll be there on June 16.
Our friends will head for their home near Boulder, CO from there while Em and I continue to explore the parks of Utah. From Torrey, we'll move on to Moab, UT to explore Canyonlands and Arches National Parks as well as some of the other public lands in that area. We have a car reserved in Moab. This marks the half-way point of our trip. There is more to come as we continue to plan out our routes and stops.
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