Help with Planning the BIG Trip....The Quince SoJourney, 

North to Alaska, that’s the climax of the trip.  Get the Lance to the Southwest States for the next winter season in 2020 and then head north as the hemisphere warms in 2021.  I see it as a multi-season trip starting from the East Coast.  I would love to get some feedback from those with experience doing some or all of this kind of trip.  Since almost all my RV/camping experience has been east of the Mississippi River, doing the Desert Southwest, Pacific Shoreline, Rocky Mountains and the Alaskan Frontiers are sure to challenge these old brain cells.  What do we need to be thinking about?

The last Epic Road Trip we planned and then cancelled was about 15 years ago when my mom died.  I had an Excel spreadsheet all laid out with the Western National Park Lodges as destination points.  The PBS series and the companion book were our inspiration.   I’d bought and equipped my Lance 1030 on new a one ton diesel 4x4 SRW.  We had booked a night at each of a dozen of these great old lodges from those in and near Glacier’s “going to the sun road”, to Old Faithful of Yellowstone, El Tovar in the Canyon, Crater Lake & Ahwahnee in Yosemite, etc.  (see my LOA post on the NP Lodge books)  I thought we might be able to sneak a free TC night in the parking lots if we had paid a room for the night!

I had booked a long leave of absence from work giving us some months to enjoy this big trip.  But as often happens to the best laid plans, we are thrown a curve ball.  My mother had visited the Continent to see her three sons here (Michigan, Ontario & British Columbia) and on her last stop in BC, she turned yellow and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer!  So, just two weeks Stateside saying goodbye and we escorted her home to Spain to say goodbye to her youngest son and where she died two weeks later in her own bed during the annual fireworks display.  That trip was quite an experience and certainly not what we had planned for our big sojourn!

So, we still have a lot of these National Park Lodges we want to see!  We have done Old Faithful at Yellowstone and El Tovar of the Grand Canyon.  We are now planning another western trip with the 1172!  What other major structures or monuments do you think are worthy of a destination trip or even a stop along the way?  What are some of the don’t miss campgrounds, particularly State and National Forest/COE types, the National Parks and anything free!  Basically anything in the western states that you think is special and would be of interest.  Thanks!  ( I mean, just the 4 corner States offer tons of NF campgrounds! ). Waterfalls?

I’m feeling somewhat lucky being alive 15 years later, now retired with more time and still hoping to get another good decade of wear and tear in!  And we may well stretch the Quince SoJourney out taking breaks along the way.

15,000 miles? in 15 months? by the fifteens!

Hope to see you along the way LOA

Jim & Vaughn

Quince!

Life is like a box of chocolates.......

Thanks!