My 4 Years Of Slowly Planning Road Trip!

Hey guys! I finally went on the road trip that iv'e been planning since I graduated high school. It went something like this...

#1-Buy a Tacoma
#2-Build it up to be a mild build
#3-Take it out west and see a bunch of national parks, off roading, camping, biking, hiking, and exploring!

I did just that!

I had been saving up leave days for a long time and finally had enough that I could take a whole month off work and travel!

 

Day 1-

I got the truck all ready to go (maintenance, equipment, etc..) and headed west. Left Charleston and headed through South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and stayed the night in Mississippi. The first night I stayed at the Chewalla Lake campground in Holly Springs National Forest, just south of Memphis. It just happened to be a good place to stop along the way. I got to the gate and it said $4 for tent camping for the night but I only had a $20. So, I found a forest ranger and asked if he had change but he did not. Then I told him that I planned on camping there for the night and he said that camping was free since people keep stealing the money box at the gate. Cool for me but unfortunate for the campground. There were only a few people staying in the campground so I got a good spot. It was beautiful and quiet out there but terribly hot at night.

 

Day 2-

Woke up early to leave Mississippi and headed to Oklahoma City to visit an old friend. Nothing to exciting to see along the drive through Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Made it to OKC and got there before my friend got off work so I decided to go see Tinker AFB and look around. Tinker is HUGE compared to little Charleston AFB! It was cool driving around the base and seeing what all different kind of aircraft they have there. Eventually I made it to my friends house and caught up after years of not seeing each other. Had a great time!

 

Take tons of pictures! We're planning a trip next summer out that way!

 

Day 3-

Stayed up until 3 a.m. drinking with my friend, then woke up at 7:30 to drove 9 hours west. Drove through the panhandle of Oklahoma and have to say there is literally nothing out there! I went at least 150 miles without even seeing a town. Once I made it through OK I went through New Mexico very briefly and made it to Colorado!



The first stop in Colorado was The Great Sand Dunes National Park! The park was beautiful with the huge sand dunes right at the base of the mountains!











Once I climbed to the top of the sand dunes I was ready to head to camp and find a spot. Went over to the park campground since it was too late to get a back country pass. Found a spot, opened my tailgate and a guy in a stupid nice 80's Land Cruiser stops at the front of my truck and asks if I want to go off roading with him! Obviously I said yes! We went up "The Point of No Return". It was just some sand, we aired down and had no issues. Went almost all the way up the pass but decided to turn around since it was going to get dark. Have to say it was nice having my aftermarket lights!











Got back to the campground and someone took my spot! Fortunately, the guy I was wheeling with had some extra room on his spot and let me camp there with him for the night! We made a fire, had some food and had a great time!

 

So bad ass, hard work really pays off. Congrats brother

 

Subd! I'd love to do this one day

 

Nice! Looking forward to the pics and story! Reminds me of the trip we took last year:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1-year-planning-1-tacoma-pregnant-wife-8-states-done.438665/

 

Day 4-

Left The Great Sand Dunes National Park and headed to Colorado Springs! First stop there was to see Peterson AFB! Stopped at the Museum they had on base there. It was interesting to see the older planes they had on display there and compare them to what I work on now (Hydraulics/FCC on the C17).



After Peterson AFB, I headed to Garden of the Gods! GOTGs was awesome but had a lot of tourists there, even on a Thursday. Had a great time wandering around there regardless!











Then I headed on over to the Air Force Academy! I saw the famous chapel and all the other stuff which was awesome!







Once I got done at the Air Force Academy, I was going to go up to Pikes Peak. Only issue was that rain was in the forecast for the rest of the day/night. So, I could either set up camp, sleep in the rain and maybe get a clear day to go in the morning, or just drive 2 hours northwest and stay with my aunt and uncle in Breckenridge. I had already been up to Pikes Peak before so I decided to go to to Breck.

 

That's awesome. Sounds familiar too, I'm also working on planning a trip I've been thinking about since high school. Actually, it's just about the same exact thing haha. Good stuff!

How'd you go about planning?

 

Thanks man! It was 110% worth it. Just give me a little time and i'll have the whole trip uploaded!

 

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Good stuff man! Pretty much I had a lot of time when I was deployed so I just went on the computer and looked up "things to see in (enter state)" and I looked that up for every state. Chose what I wanted to see and tried to see how I could connect every stop!

 

Nice, man. Enjoy your trip.

My wife and I did a 6000+ mile road trip in June. We hit Colorado as well. Beautiful state. The furthest we got was Oregon. Moab was beautiful also.

We will be doing another one next summer. It will be focused on either Colorado or Moab.

 

Again, that sounds really familiar...already have a lengthy Google doc for places/things I want to see. Anything you saw or stopped to look at that wasn't worth the time?

 

Day 5-

Woke up to a absolutely beautiful view from my aunt and uncles house!


Got some food in my system and headed over to Georgia Pass, which happened to be right down the road! Nothing to crazy but a good trail up to the top of the pass!





After doing a little trail riding I went back to the house and went mountain biking! We started right by the house and did a fun loop! Then we packed the bikes up and went to my aunts old house that was right next to Boreas Pass. We rode up Boreas Pass to Bakers Tank and then rode all the way to the bottom through the Aspens! Such awesome biking, I loved it!




Riding up Boreas Pass


Some old buildings up on the trails.

 

That's basically what I did, just focus mainly on Colorado and Utah. Right now i'm a little over 6,000 miles and still have probably another thousand.

 

I would say that everything I saw was worth it, butttttt when I was in Utah seeing all the national parks, they sort of started blending together and thought it got old after a few days. That might just be me though.

 

Subd

 

Definitely going to keep an eye on this one.

Living my dream!