EPIC RV ADVENTURE

In my last post I documented the story of my first RV experience in the early sixties with my grandparents in their truck camper.  In this post I will tell you the story of my next RV experience.  It was an epic journey.

It was June of 1972.  I had just finished my junior year of high school.  My sister was in the Navy and stationed in San Diego, California.  My parents to take a road trip and go visit my sister.  We did not have an RV so my parents asked my Aunt Grace to borrow her little tow behind trailer.  I do not remember the brand.  It was about eighteen feet long, white with aqua blue accents.  When you entered the little trailer to your right was the dinette which folded down and made a bed this was where I would sleep.  Above the dinette was a full-size bed, the trailer actually had about a two-foot bump-out of the front almost like a cab-over, this is where mom and dad would sleep. Aunt Grace went along with us and slept on a couch in the back of the trailer.  We pulled the trailer behind a car.

Mom kept a logbook of our journey so my account is fairly accurate.  We began our journey on June 3^rd.  We left Huntsville, Alabama quite early and drove to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where we parked at a KOA campground. We went into town and visited a hot spring.  From there we traveled to Omaha, Texas, a small town in the North-east part of the state, where we had relatives and we parked on one of their farms.  We headed our early the next morning and spent that night in a rest stop near Clarendon, Texas. The next day we traveled to Gallup, New Mexico.  I remember that the majority of the people we saw there were Native Americans.  We continued to travel west the next day. We went through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. We traveled on to the Grand Canyon. We were unable to get a site in the National Park but, just outside the park is a National Forest campground called 10X where we found a space to camp overnight.

The next morning we drove back into Grand Canyon National Park and got our first look at the Grand Canyon.  Here is how mom put it in here little logbook; “It was fantastic, great, unbelievable, and indescribable. It is beauty at it’s best.” Here’s what Aunt Grace said; “It’s right pretty.” It is something  that can’t be described with words or captured by  a photo.  It is something you must see for yourself.  I am looking forward to seeing it again and camping again in the Kaibab National Forest at the 10X campground.

We broke camp and headed southwest to Aquila, Arizona and camped that night is a desert campground. This was my first time in the desert. I decided to take a hike while we were there.  In the distance I could see a mountain the looked to be a few miles away.  When I learned it was about forty miles away I decided against it. While hiking through the desert I heard a sound I had never heard but instinctively know what it was. I stopped immediately and did not move until I could see the rattle snake which I could hear.  Once I spotted the snake coiled under a small bush I knew I could move away and avoid it.

The next day we drove on to San Diego to my sister’s.  We had traveled from Alabama to California in seven days.  We had seen many amazing things and experienced the vast beauty of the southern part of our country.  I remember having  the feeling that my eyes were just tired because we had seen so many new things.  It was an ambitious pace which I will probably not take when we begin our travels. But for a boy who had traveled very little it was quite the adventure.  But the best was yet to come.  Watch for part 2 in a few days.  Please like  my post and follow the blog.