Week 3 of our Epic trip across the U.S. and back

Published by Terrance Ó Dhomnaill in Blog Article · Thursday 05 Jun 2025 · 28:15
Tags: Crann, na, beatha, blog, Week, 3, epic, trip, U.S., travel, adventure, road, trip, experiences, journey

I'm posting this from Bryce Canyon National Park but I actually wrote this most of this offline at the Grand Canyon National Park on June 2nd, as there was no internet although I did have cell phone service, go figure. My iPhone hotspot wasn't getting it done though. It's been a long two weeks with minimal to no internet access everywhere we've stayed. Either no internet at all in the national parks or crappy WIFI service at the KOA's we've stayed at so far. This campground I’m in tonight is a perfect example. I’m having a lot of trouble attaching pictures due to crappy WIFI.

So let me start with what happened after we left Grand Teton National Park on May 24th.

The day after I posted my last travel update, we headed down the mountains to Salt Lake City, Utah. The road down wasn't too bad considering it was pretty twisty, curvy until we left the park altogether and made into the first town. The scenery was absolutely stunning though. Here are a couple of examples to entice readers to visit sometime. If you can handle the cold and snow, I advise going in early to mid-May or you may not get in at all. I will talk about this phenomena at the end of this article so stay tuned.

(One of the photos I took as we left the park. I will add in a couple more at the end)

Once we found the KOA in Salt Lake City, with a grocery stop along the way, we discovered that it's located right downtown Salt lake City. Just a couple short miles from their famous Temple Square and the state capitol building. Since we had two nights and a day to kill, we decided to get an Uber to the most iconic thing Salt Lake City has to offer. The seat of Mormon power, Temple Square. Believe me, this and the capitol building is all there is to look at in Salt Lake City, which we found out later in the day.

The Church of Latter Day Saints or Mormons, as some call themselves, is quite a big to do there. The day we were there, they were having a free concert being given by the famous Mormon choir that afternoon. My wife, ever the voice music lover, couldn't resist sitting in on the mornings rehearsal for a few minutes. She lasted about twenty minutes and came back outside where I was sitting with the dog, telling me how she loved the music but I could tell she didn't like something else but she never told me what it was or didn't know how to tell me. I still don't know over a week later nor do I think she will tell me as she has likely forgotten it by now.

We continued our tour of the square with all of its historical buildings, of which the main temple was undergoing remodelling so all I could do was take a picture from the next block over. Being a non-Christian, I wasn't impressed by all of the Mormons running around with fake smiles, dressed in their long dresses or dark pants, with white shirts and ties. Almost like uniforms of some kind. Everyone had a name tag on like it was a merit badge or something. It all gave me the chills but it didn't stop me from taking pictures of some of the interesting historical statues and buildings though. The state capitol building was more pleasant to walk through and only a couple of blocks up from Temple Square so we went up there for more pictures. Here are some pictures from Temple Square and the state capitol building.

(First Mormon Church building with high rise in the background a block over)

(Utah state capitol building, Salt Lake City, UT)

After Salt Lake City, it was on to Reno, Nevada. Another two day stay because I screwed up my agenda calendar when I was setting up the reservations a couple of months ago. Yeah, I kind of screwed things up a little bit, causing some not so nice words about my mental health from my wife.

As we travelled west out of Salt Lake City, we just had to stop by the Great Salt Lake and take some photos. Here is one for everyone.

(Great Salt Lake, west of Salt Lake City, UT)

There is absolutely nothing to do in Reno, Nevada unless you like going to casinos. Which we don't. Plus, they don't allow dogs of any kind inside, period. So the highlight of our stay was a couple of nice evening walks around the campground, and a trip to a local Safeway grocery store. Needless to say, my wife was mad at me for having to layover in a do nothing campground because I screwed up the schedule. It wouldn't be the last time but I don't want to get ahead of the story. The other bad part about this place was, once again, the campground is located right next to a train track and the internet service sucked. It wasn't too bad but as it wasn't time for another travel blog, I suffered with internet loss and just read my book. My wife on the other hand, was chomping at the bit without reliable internet to watch her YouTube videos. We were very glad to leave Reno behind.

The Reno KOA campground is only four miles from the eastern California border so we hopped on interstate 80 west and crossed over the famous Donner Pass. As we were climbing through the high mountains, I gave my wife a brief history lesson about what happened in Donner Pass and why it is somewhat famous. She was incredulous that people would do that and disgusted too.

Then we found highway 49 south towards Yosemite National Park. Another narrow, windy mountain road that took us south to the park. It was another long day of slow going in our RV around tight curvy roads with me having to pull off every few minutes to let people pass us. There are quite a few small towns along the way, most of them famous because of the gold rush of 1849. Yep, their still hanging on to that famous history all of these years later after the gold is long gone. I guess they have to make their money anyway they can these days. Farming up in those mountains isn't getting them too far down the road of success. That and the wildfires of late. We have seen evidence all over the western states we traveled through of burnt forests everywhere. Some were fairly recent and some long past but it's a real stark reminder of the damage that's been done out there from wildfires.

We drove down highway 49 south to just past Sonora, CA to pick up highway 120 east to Yosemite. We had a reservation for the Hodgdon campground just inside the park. Another national park campground with no internet service. It's one of those primitive campgrounds with no hookups for an RV. Mostly made for tent campers but they allow RV's in on a limited basis, depending on size. I just fit. It was the only campground reservation I could get at the time and I made the reservation a year ago. We made the best of it and headed down to the main part of the park the next morning.

The road was once again, narrow and curvy. I was told that if you wanted to see the natural attractions down in that part of the park, you had to arrive early as this park swells to overfull by noontime during peak season. Which for anything in the U.S., is between the middle of May to September. In other words, when the nations kids get out of school for the summer.

Boy were they wrong. The park was overflowing by eight o'clock in the morning. We arrived at the main area where El Capitan mountain and the magnificent water falls are, and it was wall to wall people all jostling to get a place to park so they could take pictures of everything. I needed to get to a special camp site to empty my waste tanks on our RV that morning and it was an absolute zoo trying to find the dump site and take care of business.

Then it was even more of a stressful nightmare trying to maneuver around the sheer volumes of people in order to park and take some of our own pictures. We did get some fantastic photos but it was hard to get around with all of the cars and people all trying to do the same. Most people had cars but there were quite a few RV's as well. Here are a couple of examples of what you might see if you have a chance to visit. Just be aware that this park is always overcrowded every day they're open.

A side note. One thing we discovered the hard way about all of these national parks we visited and I'm pretty sure this applies to every national park across the country this time of year. The sheer volume of tourists trying to get into these parks anyway they can. By car, bus, RV, tourist busses, bicycles, and some are just hiking in. If you don't have a reservation a year in advance (sometimes longer), you aren't going to get a camp site anywhere near one of these parks during the peak season when America's children are on summer break. You will be lucky to even find a parking space anywhere in the park just for a day trip to take pictures. Zion NP parking was full when we arrived this afternoon. I have been shocked at the huge amount of people in these parks with the rangers stuffing them in as best as they can. There have been thousands and thousands of people visiting the parks we've been to and I feel for the short staffed rangers having to deal with all of these people from everywhere around the world. I will be talking about all of this more at length in my final travel article about this epic trip around the country. I've made lots of notes on the human behaviour I've observed when they're in vacation mode and nationality has little to do with the crazy, entitled, bad behaviour I've witnessed on this trip. It definitely was an eye opener.

Here are a couple of photos from Yosemite National Park.

(Lower falls in Yosemite National Park)

(El Capitan Mountain in Yosemite National Park)

After spending the morning fighting the crowds at Yosemite, we set out for our next stop. Sequoia National Park. Which I also had a reservation for in one of their primitive campgrounds. Little did I know the trouble I would run into with that a year after I made the reservation. There is nothing on their reservation website about the road restrictions in this park.

We drove a few hours down another narrow, curvy, windy mountain road south out of Yosemite park, on highway 41 south, to Fresno, California to pick up highway 180 east to Sequoia National Park, or so we thought. We got to within forty miles of the park entrance when I saw this large bright yellow sign saying that vehicles longer than 22 ft. were advised not to drive down highway 198 south to Sequoia National Park from inside the park. I thought about that all the way to the east entrance to Kings Canyon National Park, which is in the northern half of the Sequoia National Park system. The ranger at the Kings Canyon National Park entrance took my information and I asked about the sign I had seen. He confirmed the advisement. As my reserved campground was in the southern part of Sequoia National Park, with no way to get there from Kings Canyon, it seemed, through the parks, we went to the visitors centre in Kings Canyon to seek alternatives.

By this time, my wife was scared to death of the roads and having none of this. When the young rangers at the visitors centre told us that the only safe way for us to get to our campground was to exit Kings Canyon National Park, drive back down the mountain to a south bound road to find highway 198 east to our reserved a year in advance primitive campground, my wife came unglued. And for me to say that here, that's something. She usually has a very reserved attitude on things but she had, had enough of curvy, narrow mountain roads for a day and ordered me to find another campground that didn't involve climbing any more steep mountains to get there. These narrow mountain roads literally scared her near to death.

Once we were far enough down the mountain where I could get a cell signal, we pulled over on the side of the road the ranger told us to take, in order to make a reservation for a KOA in Visalia, California. They happened to have several openings and thankfully set us up for the night. By the time we arrived, my wife finally had released her death grip (figuratively speaking) on the dashboard and finally settled down a little bit. Needless to say, I lost my deposit for the campsite in Sequoia National Park for that night. A minor issue compared to my wife's well being.

Visalia is a nothing town in central California, unless you're into serious agriculture because that's all we could see in every direction we looked as we headed for the campground. That and the train that kept us awake that night (we're starting to see a pattern here regarding KOA campground locations). And the internet that was weak to begin with, going out altogether at 10:30 that night as I was trying to get a little work done. This was the start of my delays in getting this post out last week. We found out the next morning as we were leaving that the WIFI for the campground had indeed gone out completely as the manager was on a ladder investigating as we drove out.

As I already had an advance reservation for the KOA in Bakersfield, California, the next morning we set off for Bakersfield. With It only being about an hour and half away from Visalia, we decided, since we were a little ahead of schedule, to find a Costco and a branch of the RV repair shop we always use in Virginia, in Bakersfield, to try and take care of some needed minor repairs and stock up for the trip to the Grand Canyon.

One of the things we commented on during our trip across central California, was how dry everything looks. All of the grass is a wheat coloured dry, looking colour as if all it would take is one tiny little spark to set it all off. I didn't have to wonder why there are so many wildfires in California after seeing all of that.

We spent a little more time than we wanted at the RV repair shop that afternoon but it turned out okay, as the KOA we were going to be staying at was just down the street. Another in town KOA with a dry, dusty demeanour and, you guessed it, a train running nearby all the time. The people were nice so we relaxed and did our laundry that evening, something that was sorely needed after staying at those national parks. The next day, we were off to Arizona. And that is where everything that could go wrong did, just like it says in Murphy's Law.

Along the way that morning, my wife made the discovery that I didn't have a campground reservation for May 31st. Apparently in my efforts to secure reservations ahead of time, I had failed to realise that there are thirty one days in May. It's no wonder my wife thinks I'm having too many senior moments lately. So I had to stop at a rest area and find one nearby to the Grand Canyon National Park. After finally taking care of that issue, we kept going with the assurance of having a place to stay for the night. I am grateful to the KOA franchises for being there in our time of need on this trip.

Before I get into our nightmare day, I want to add in a bit of politics here. One of the things that certain states across the country have all said in public, is how well they're maintaining their state infrastructure, despite Trump. That's a lie. Take it from this cross country traveller. One of the biggest topics in the media has been the roads in their states and I can testify that they are not being taken care of, unless it's in high profile areas of the states, like the largest cities for instance. But they have always been under construction so this is nothing new.

The two-lane state highways and interstate highways that run through the back country areas of their states, are terrible. At least in Nevada, California and Arizona, so far. I say so far, as I haven't had the chance to check out Colorado, Kansas, Missouri or the other states we’ll be travelling through on our way home next week via interstates 70 and 64 east. I’ll let you know in my last instalment of this travel blog at the end of week four.

Why I mention all of this, has a direct impact on the nightmare day we had on May 31st. It all started out fine. We packed up early and left Bakersfield by way of California state highway 58 east. This highway eventually intersects with interstates 15 and 40 in Barstow, California. I-15 goes north and south. You can either go south to Los Angeles, or north to Las Vegas, Nevada on I-15. I-40 is east and west. Once you start out on it just east of Barstow, there is a cute government sign that states that I-40 terminates in Wilmington, NC in about 2554 miles.

For us, this is the interstate that would take us to the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. As bad as the western highways were in California (think of pavement full of so many patches and potholes it makes you feel like your vehicle is running over a washboard), Arizona is actually worse as far as the amount of potholes and rough spots in it. It is was so bad, all of the bouncing around caused a strip of ceiling trim to come loose from a ceiling joint above our bed.

Something else I will also mention here, as it pertains to our accident that occurred at mile marker 86, or thereabouts. The interstates in the United States are right full of commercial trucks. So many, it seems, that there are more of them than cars these days on the freeways. What makes this particularly dangerous for everyone, is that they're all travelling at different rates of speed. Their speed is dependent on whether the engine is restricted to a 68 mph. speed limit, how heavy their loads are and a number of other factors.

The other issue with America's commercial trucks, is that they are privately owned. Whether it's by independent contractors (owner-operators), or by big trucking corporations, these factors have a large bearing on the speed of the trucks and their ability to go up and over mountain grades. Add into that mix, is the issue of there being so many of them competing on the interstates for the ability to go faster than everyone else. The faster they can move freight, the more they can move in a given amount of time, so time is money for them. Especially the independents who are competing against the corporate trucking companies.

For all of the rest of us, we're at their mercy. Most of the drivers are professionals who don't want any accidents as this could cost them their livelihoods. Then there are the others. Those who work for small companies or drive a truck that operates on the margins. Margins being of the criminal variety. Not that they're necessarily carrying illegal freight, but the trucks barely, or not, meet D.O.T. standards for safety and the drivers may be convicted criminals or don't have any sense of professionalism. In other words, they don't care about anyone else on the roads except getting their loads to the customers on time in order to get paid. These are the drivers that everyone has to watch out for but you don't really know who they are until they do something dangerous.

Which is what happened to us in the late afternoon of May 31st.

Let me set the scene for you. Picture interstate 40 east on an uphill mountain grade, we're in the right hand lane (the slow vehicle lane) and I'm doing my best to maintain a decent speed. The posted speed limit on I-40 in Arizona is 75 mph. I had set my cruise control for 69 mph all during our trip across the country to avoid any local law enforcement issues. As we were travelling up the mountain grade, my speed had dropped to about 65 mph. It was at this point that we found ourselves surrounded by a huge group of large commercial semi-trucks all trying to get up the mountain with us. Some were slower due to the reasons I detailed before, and some were faster, doing all they could to get around the slower vehicles that were blocking their way.

I'm sure for anyone who has ever travelled the U.S. interstate system, they know exactly what this looks like. You're driving your own personal vehicle, whether it's a small car, SUV or pickup truck and you find yourself surrounded by commercial trucks of all sizes, shapes and colours all vying with one another for their special part of the highway real estate that will enable them to get ahead of their competition. You feel a bit apprehensive or even outright fear of these huge machines because you know that if one of them hits you, you'll likely be killed or at a minimum, severely hurt, likely disabling you for the rest of your life. As you find yourself surrounded by all of these massive trucks, this thought is flashing across your mind. What if one of these trucks hits me?

I was no different when I found myself surrounded by this large group of trucks on I-40 east all trying to get up the mountain. Then, at somewhere near mile marker 86, the unthinkable happened. A large truck, with a 53 ft. trailer, decided to move from the left passing lane into the space on the freeway that I was currently occupying with my nearly all white, 25 ft. motor home. There was a truck in front of me, and another behind me. I had nowhere to go but the shoulder. At first, I thought this driver was just having a momentary issue and he would correct himself. But no. As I watched in horror, he kept coming at me from my left side, the driver's side. Mind you, this was all taking place in a split second of time. Once I realised that he was actually going move into my space, with me in it, I quickly wrenched the steering wheel to move my motor home onto the shoulder (I am very thankful that there was one) to get out of his way. As I quickly hit the shoulder and slowed down, we heard a large bang from our motor home as I watched the truck move into the space between the other two trucks that I had been occupying just moments before.

As I sat there on the shoulder wondering what just happened, I checked to see if everyone was alright. Everyone, including our dog, was shaken up pretty badly but okay physically. Then my first thought was to call the Arizona state police to file a police report. The worst part of this, was that the truck that nearly hit us was largely unmarked. I was so busy trying to avoid being directly hit (which would likely have killed us), I didn't have much of a chance to get a good look at the truck so the police could identify it. All I saw was a white coloured semi with a Gray/silver 53 ft. trailer with little to no markings on it. There were so many other trucks around it, I couldn't see the license plate either and he was long gone by the time I made the call.

Once all of the other trucks in this group passed us, I got out to assess the damage. I was so afraid that we had suffered a direct hit and that I would have to call a tow truck. As it turned out, I was very lucky. I had managed to avoid a direct hit with my quick reflexes but we did suffer some damage.

My motor home has two slide outs on the driver's side. One for the dining area and the other for the master bedroom area. The largest one is the front dining area. Each of these slide outs have a canvas awning that protects them from the elements to a degree and these awnings are on spring mounted rollers much like a retracting window shade. They unroll and roll up whenever the slide outs are moved in or out.

The long front one was completely destroyed by the wind shear from the truck coming so close to my left side (within inches), with the remnants having been flipped up onto my rooftop. I didn't see any other damage right away so I called 911 and the dispatcher let me talk to a state policeman, who instructed me on how to file a report on their website as long as the estimated damage would likely be less than $2000, and that I was still mobile.

I also called my insurance company to file a claim. Once that was done, we made an attempt to move further up the highway to see if there might be other damage I couldn’t see. Luck was still with me. All we had was awning damage and a driver's side mirror that I was able to fix myself (I brought a complete small tool bag with me on this trip).

I quickly discovered that the remnants of that front awning were flopping around in the wind on the roof and probably causing more damage so I had to slow down to about 25 mph. while we travelled to the nearest exit ramp to try and call for roadside assistance. Another insurance I'm paying for. Do you see a pattern here for drivers in the U.S.? Nothing is free in this country. Absolutely nothing.

As it turns out, even though I am paying an annual insurance premium for roadside assistance, if you need something and you're out in the boonies, there's no help coming. I spent nearly three hours, either on the shoulder alongside the freeway or on an exit ramp waiting for my roadside assistance insurance company to send some help, to no avail eventually. While we were waiting I told my wife that this would probably be the likely scenario. I said to her, "It's late on a Saturday evening. No one is working or willing to work on a Saturday evening in any rural area of the U.S. these days."

I was right. Once we learned that there was no help coming, we slowly made our way up the interstate, in the pitch dark, with the hazard lights flashing to the next town headed east on I-40, which was this little town called Seligman, Arizona. About 20 or so miles east of the accident site.

Once we found a safe place to pull over, as it happens, a Chevron station, I asked a tired looking cashier, who was standing outside smoking, if she knew anyone with a tall ladder I could use to remove that pile of wreckage from my rooftop. She looked at me as if I were a bit crazy, then told me that she didn't know of anyone that might have a ladder, but there were some ledges around the back of the store I could stand on that might help.

I drove around back and parked as close as I could to one of the stone walls she mentioned. I then climbed up precariously onto the wall and with my wife's help, where we cut away the canvas still hanging off the side of the RV and managed to remove the metal roller from the rooftop. We stuffed it all inside and made our way back to the freeway without further incident.

At this point, with everything removed, we were able to travel at the speed limit to our KOA campsite for the night in Williams, AZ, albeit a little late. The next morning, I further assessed the RV for any more damage and took some pictures for the insurance claim. With the police report filled out and accepted by the Arizona police, all I need to do now is work with the adjuster to get the repairs completed. Maybe once we finally return to Virginia in a couple of weeks?

The next morning we headed up to our RV campsite at the Grand Canyon south rim park where we stayed for a couple of days. I will tantalise readers with a couple of photos I took at the grand Canyon during our stay. I was going to save them for my last post but seeing as how I am in Utah now, I'll show you a couple tonight.

(Photos taken from Mather's Point on the South Rim of The Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona)

My next and last episode will have pictures of the wonderful natural attractions from Southern Utah, such as Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon NP, and The Arches NP. We'll be staying just outside of Denver for a night before heading over the mountains through Denver, CO towards our home in Virginia. I will also talk about what mid-America looks like in today's new world as we travel across Kansas, Missouri, the central part of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. I also want to tell everyone about the poverty we've seen, the observations of the land and people we've run into and maybe even some smoke and ash from the Canadian wildfires I have been hearing about. Stay tuned and I'll post something again in another week or so. Sláinte

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