On June 30, we were still running away from the heat. We left our Boondockers Welcome location in Winslow, Arkansas, and headed for Colby, Kansas. When we rolled into Colby, self-described as “The Oasis on the Plains,” we were tired, hungry, and happy to land after a long day driving through the flat, featureless Kansas countryside. We cruised the Walmart we had decided to spend the night in and then continued into town to find a place to relax with a pizza and a beer. After a little searching, our best option seemed to be Pizza Hut. The beer options were limited. Greg drank a Budweiser. I drank water.
The skies were gloomy all during dinner, and the restaurant’s radio repeatedly warned of an impending tornado. No one seemed to be rushing to get home, though.
After we parked at Walmart, the weather started to get serious. We joked about where to hide in the van if a tornado hit. It was a noisy night of wind and rain. Periplo rocked back and forth, but she stood her ground. In the morning, we were still in Kansas.
The next day we continued on to Bennet, Colorado to another Boondockers Welcome location, just outside the heat dome. We parked in a large field in front of a stranger’s house for 4 days. We never met our hosts. A cool breeze blew through the van when we opened the doors. It was time to rest and work on some projects.
A few projects
Our shower lacked a way to hang a shower curtain. We decided to attach it to the ceiling with magnets. Greg screwed metal screws into the ceiling around the shower pan, and we attached strong magnets with eye hooks. I then cut two shower curtains to fit in the space.
After taking our Starlink off the roof while we were in Atlanta, we decided to add extra security to keep it from potential theft while we were in big cities. Greg secured one of the magnetic legs of our Starlink mount to one of the mounts for our solar panels with some metal banding.
Lastly, Greg started trying to figure out why our Velit heater stopped working shortly after we installed it. He had been putting this project off since it involved crawling under the van. After searching the company’s website and a few emails with their help desk, he got it going again. We were now more than ready for some cold weather.
The heat was catching up
After 4 days, we left and drove on into Denver. It was over 100 degrees in the city. We resupplied and headed to the mountains to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. Read more about that here.
Our route in July was not really planned. Comfort, chores, proximity, a random conversation, and friends shaped our path. And once the info-gathering internet sensed that we were in Colorado with our van, it started influencing our trajectory too. An ad popped up on my social media for an Adventure Van Expo that started in the nearby Winter Park the day we would leave Rocky Mountain National Park.
We had never been to a van expo like this before. Music and beer were mentioned on the expo’s website. And there was a DIY van competition. What a great way to show off Periplo! I thought it might be fun. We bought camping tickets for two days.
It ended up being a lot of work – that we had to pay for. We showed off the van for 5 hours on the first day of the expo. Most of the people we talked to came to this same expo every year. They were building a van or thinking about building a van. They knew all the hottest products and all about all the other expos out there. No one was building a van to travel the world. We felt a little out of place.
And the music and beer – that was at an adjacent festival in downtown Winter Park.
We left the next day and found a nice dispersed camping spot nearby in a national forest.
It was time to move on, but first we had to return to Denver to provision up, visit the library for some free internet, pick up an Amazon package, and get our windshield replaced. Sometime between New Orleans and Colorado, our windshield got cracked.
Off to South Dakota
Our next destination was South Dakota to register Periplo. South Dakota will allow you to register a vehicle in their state even if you don’t live there. The advantage for us in doing this is that once we leave the country, South Dakota will allow us to drop our insurance without it affecting our registration. It is possible to register a vehicle with South Dakota without even going there, but we wdidn’t want wait for our plates—especially since there was no way to directly mail them to us.
We broke the trip up into two days, stopping in the Pole Mountain area of the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest in Wyoming before heading on to Custer County in South Dakota.
The shower again and insurance
After signing up Periplo as a South Dakota citizen, we went back to Wyoming and camped in a couple of different spots in the Bighorn National Forest. There we found cooler weather, had some rest, and took care of a few chores.
Using magnets to hold the shower curtain up wasn’t working out. While we were still in Colorado, we ordered a track. A track might not look as good on our ceiling, but the benefit of being able to slide the curtain out of the way without it coming down outweighed that. Greg removed the screws and puttied over the holes. Then we installed the new track.
The other chore was to get new insurance. We registered Periplo as an RV in South Dakota, so we decided to change from regular car insurance to cheaper RV insurance. My insurance, USAA, doesn’t do RV insurance, but partners with Progressive, who does. I logged into my USAA account and clicked over to Progressive to fill out an online quote. But the form wouldn’t allow me to enter the vehicle’s location as South Dakota, but would take the location of our current mailing address with USAA. Since the vehicle was registered in South Dakota, I was afraid that not having South Dakota insurance might be a problem. I called Progressive to confirm.
What ensued was two days of over 3 hours of calls speaking with 9 or 10 people. No one ever answered my initial question about my concern with the different states. But they would sign me up for insurance using the zip code for the courthouse in Custer County, telling me that I could update my mailing address later. When I went to update our mailing address, they wanted to charge me more money. I hung up and called USAA. USAA told me that there was no issue with me having insurance in a different state than where the vehicle was registered. Despite the insurance being pricier, I stuck with them and canceled Progressive.
Off to meet Tina, Jimmy, and Molly
We weren’t sure where we were going to head next, but then my friend Tina sent me a note that she and her boyfriend were in Montana. It looked like we could get to the Pacific Northwest by passing their way, so we decided to meet them in Anaconda. I didn’t know anything about Anaconda and wasn’t too excited about the city (besides meeting up with my friends) until I talked to somebody in a parking lot we met on the way. He praised the Skalkaho Pass that connected Anaconda to the city of Hamilton, saying it was prettier than the Beartooth Highway, which the journalist Charles Kuralt once called “America’s most beautiful drive.” Now my interest was piqued!
We really enjoyed our time in Anaconda. We took a lovely tour and learned a lot about the city. This was our 5th time meeting up with Tina in 4 different states. We first met her 9 1/2 years ago at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Quartzite, Arizona. Since then, we’ve met her in Big Bend National Park in Texas, at a Gal Vanners meetup at a drive-in in Dayton, Ohio, and at Mittry Lake in Arizona.
Heading on across Skalkaho Pass
Next we headed into the mountains and camped for two nights at Piney Campground, a Forest Service campground on Georgetown Lake. From there we hopped on the Skalkaho Pass. It was nice, but unfortunately nothing compared to the Beartooth Highway.
It was boiling when we reached Harrison, so we kept driving. Around 3 pm we hit Missoula, Montana. It was 104°. We kept driving. We stopped once we hit Post Falls, Idaho, just across the border of Washington state.
Washington!
The next day, July 26, we finally made it to Washington. We started by exploring a few locations in the Washington Scablands: steep-walled canyons, towering cliffs, and dry waterfalls carved by Ice Age floods. Then we headed north to the North Cascade Highway into old-growth forest, in between towering peaks, and past startling blue waters. I’ll write more on all of this another time.
Fire everywhere
During our travels in Washington, we have had daily reminders that much of the land around us is on fire. A clear morning may suddenly turn smoky until the afternoon wind blows it away.
We finally escaped the heat
On the 31st, we arrived at a campground on Baker Lake way in the northwestern part of the continental United States. I’m not going to complain, but it is a bit chilly here.
Expenses
We did have another van build expense (the shower track for $18.57) in July. I will add this to my revised and final report to come out soon.
And although I’m not reporting on our daily expenses anymore, I’d like to mention one small expense that is saving us money: the Washington State Discover Pass. For $45, we have a year’s worth of access to Washington State parks. We have already visited 3. In addition, we have access to other state lands where we can camp for free. We have already used this benefit 3 times.
Lots of wildfires about where you are. Stay safe!