My last, but not least, episode of my Travel Blog

So, to begin with, let me add a link to the story on my Substack page as this platform allows me to add more pictures for readers. The Village Oak Tree

As I mentioned in the beginning, we were at The Grand Canyon National Park so I started the article with the day we left the park. We made one stop on the way out to see the famous watchtower on the east end of the park opened in 1932. The view was spectacular so I took several photos, including the watchtower, which you see with the link above.

One of the things I said I was going to talk about in this last travel post, was my observations of the average American vacationer. The international tourists we encountered behaved as predicted, some doing a couple of stupid things but they behaved for the most part. The Americans on the other hand, not so much.

In the article, I described the rural communities we drove through and some of the shady people we encountered. I also offer an opinion about why I think a lot of Americans have brought on their economic woes just by simply not living within their means. From all of the bog boy toys we saw at some of the campgrounds to others forced to live in ramshackle RV's at campgrounds, Americans are in trouble, yet a lot of them don't realise it yet.

From the Grand Canyon, we travelled north into the state of Utah where there are three famous national parks. Our first stop along the way was Zion National Park but we were stopped by the insane amount of traffic trying to enter the park. Despite some minimal traffic control, it was too insane as we opted to turn around and leave before we got into trouble with our RV. I did stop long enough to take a handful of pictures of one of the mountains but the main attraction, not so much.

After Zion, we continued north to Bryce Canyon National Park where we stayed for a couple of nights. This park is relatively small, compared to others but unique in its own way. I took lots of pictures, some of which I shared in the Substack article linked above.

When we finally left Bryce Canyon, we continued north until we merged onto interstate 70 east, which was our official start for home on the east coast. Our last national park was The Arches in Moab, Utah.

We had quite the adventure there, with issues over a rental car, and visiting the national park after peak hours. Once again, we took lots of pictures, some of which I shared on the article liked above, and I also wrote about some of the characters we encountered as we drove around this seasonal tourist town.

Once our adventures at the Arches Park were over, we headed for home in earnest. Our first adventure involved climbing up and over the 11,580 ft. mountain summit just before we arrived in Denver, Colorado. It was cold and snowy that high up and a bit treacherous driving. Especially with the roads in such bad condition.

Once we arrived at our campground in Golden, CO. just west of Denver, we had even more adventures. I wrote about the biker bar across the street from the campground to the water leak we stopped to repair at the local Home Depot hardware store before actually getting on the interstate east.

Once we left Colorado, the roads improved dramatically and we had a quite overnight stay in a slightly rundown campground in the middle of the state of Kansas. After this stop, the adventures started in earnest.

I wrote about our misadventures at a KOA campground in East Kansas City, Missouri, some more observations about the people in Illinois we met, to the shady characters at the KOA campground on the border of Kentucky and West Virginia.

I wrap things up with our return home and the repairs we now have to make to our RV after our trip across the country on some very bad highways out west.

We're glad to be home and return to our normal life now. We must have slept for two days in order to catch up after all of our encounters. The clean up and laundry alone took up a couple of days.

As it stand now, the RV is in the repair shop and will likely be there for a couple of months while they fight with the insurance company, buy the needed parts and complete the repairs. That's okay as we've had enough travelling for a while.

I invite any readers who may find this blog to click the link at the top of this page to read more about our adventures and see the pictures. I will add some pictures at the bottom of this page for everyone to get a taste of what we saw in the parks.

Next week, I resume my normal programming with a podcast about the average people we encountered in the United States. They are a lot different from the ones you see on social media and the news feeds. Stay tuned and I will be back next week.

Sláinte