However, after only two days off the ship, we are tired of the hotel and food search each day and night. Plus our daughter has told us that our Grandson’s National Honor Society New Member Induction Service has been scheduled for Wednesday Oct. 10.
It is Thursday, Oct 5, time to head home! We want to be there and can be if we head straight home. We are some 2,400 miles away, or about 400 miles a day.
So, after a big Denny’s breakfast, we go to the Poplar Grove Cheesery and pick up 4,950 grams, 10.91 pounds, of Tiger Blue cheese! Mission accomplished, we point the car south! It is cool and clear...nice driving weather.
Crossing the border without a wait or incident, we drive down by Grand Coulee Dam again. We stop at Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park to explore the awesome geological area. It looks like just a deep canyon now. But 13,000 years ago during the last flood, it was a water fall that was four times the size of Niagara Falls at 400 feet high and 3.5 miles wide. From there we drive on to The Dalles on the Columbia River Gorge. We stop here for the night. This is an area we planned to explore in the original trip plan and Carolyn really wants to see it. We won’t discuss this night’s lodging and dinner...it is the worst of the trip! The motel is so old it still has metal room keys!
Friday, Oct. 6 turns out to be another cool, cloudless day. We drive west on the Washington state side of the Columbia River for most of the Gorge and have some great views of Mt. Hood. Then we cross the river and pick up I-84 and retrace our path along the Oregon state side of the river, heading east and then south on I-84. Twin Falls, Idaho is the stop for the night at one of the motel chains.
Saturday, Oct. 7, finds us on I-84 driving though Salt Lake City, Utah and along the Great Salt Lake before cutting the corner over to I-70 East just north of the Canyon Lands. It is still clear and cool, but the weather is supposed to go south with a rain and snow mix in the next day or so. We need to get out of the high plains and mountains before the change. Tonight the goal is Grand Junction, Colorado and another chain motel. Dinner is a disaster tonight. It is Saturday, so we go early, 5:30PM, but after four restaurants with 45 minutes to an hour waits at each place, we stop at a grocery deli and pick up a salad and twice baked potatoes. A stiff drink improves the meal.
The wind starts blowing hard during the night, but Sunday, Oct. 8 is still mostly clear skies, though the snow storm is supposed to hit the area later in the evening. The goal for tonight is the Fairfield Inn in Amarillo, Texas where we started four weeks ago. We elect to across the Rockies at Monarch Pass and cut the corner down to Waldsenburg, CO on I-25. The Denver I-25 corridor is so congested it is best avoided. The drive is beautiful as the leaves are at their peak. We get to Amarillo about 7PM and neither of us feel well, maybe from last nights dinner. Dick finds a grocery store and gets some crackers and packaged Jell-O. Carolyn is really sick and goes to bed. Dick is not far behind.
Monday, Oct. 9 we wake to overcast skies and high winds, but we are almost home. The snow storm left several inches of snow where we were yesterday; so glad we avoided that. The scenery has been interesting and loaded with fall colors down through Colorado. Now we are driving though Texas cotton fields and rolling pasture land on the last 500 plus mile trek to Home. We get an early start and get home about 4PM. Nothing ever looked so good!
What a trip, 6,040 miles on the second attempt plus the1,500 mile practice run. Definitely not the longest road trip, but the longest one without the benefit of our RV! We did not realize how much we hated finding a hotel and dinner every night! Nearly 10 years traveling in a RV with all the comforts of home has really spoiled us!!!!
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