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This trip started on August 21, 1999 and went through September 18, 1999.
This journal was kept on a day to day basis along with photos.

8-21-99 Saturday (day 1) Well here it is, the first day of our big trip. After three months of planning, Elaine and I are finally taking off. I have been on four different RV groups on the internet and this has let me talk with many people all across the country. By doing this I have been able to gather much information on scenic routes to see and places that we should visit while in their part of the country.  Thank you to all these people, some of whom I have arranged to meet with while on this trip. Trip planning tools such as Rand McNally’s Trip Maker, AAA Map and Go and Microsoft’s Streets ‘98 were also a big help. I spent the last few days printing out all this information along with some maps which I put into a small notebook to carry with us. Our plan was to take off at 6:00 AM this morning..... BUT we got to bed rather late last night and didn't awaken till 6:15 this morning... so much for that plan... on to plan “B”. We get last minute things together and head out at 7:15 AM. Stop at our neighbor's house to top off the water tank in the camper, due to the fact that our well water is high in iron and his county water is not. Make a quick stop at the corner store for a couple of breakfast sandwiches and we're on the road at 7:45 AM under a rather heavy cloud cover and the temperature at 63 degrees. Head south on I-95 to Baltimore, MD then take the I-695 beltway around the west side of town where we finally pick up I-70 west which will be our main route from here to Denver, CO except for routes I-68 and I-79. A light rain starts to fall as we leave Baltimore. At Hancock, MD we pick up route I-68 west which is rather scenic for an interstate as it winds through the hills of western MD. Our first stop is at the Sideling Mountain visitor center where we make a quick pit stop. Sideling Mountain is an interesting massive cut that was made through the mountain for route I-68. The views you see as you drive down the west side of the mountain are really beautiful. We make it to Cumberland, MD where we stop for fuel and get 22.7 gallons at $1.24 per gallon. This figures out to be about 10 MPG which seems to be about average for this Dodge V-10 when hauling the pick-up camper. The rain has stopped and the sun is trying to peek out from behind the clouds so we get to enjoy some of the mountain scenery. Our next stop is in Kirby, PA at a rest stop off of I-79 for a bite of lunch at 1:00 PM. We fix a quick ham and cheese on rye along with a few chips and a drink of juice. This lasts us till 4:00 PM when we have to stop again for fuel near Buckeye Lake, OH. We fill up with 26.7 gallons at $1.15 per gallon. We use this opportunity to make pit stops and grab a snack as we have planned a late dinner tonight with some friends in the Dayton, OH area.  Pick up route I-70 again and head west through Columbus, OH. Pass another Bigfoot truck camper headed the other direction which is unusual as they are built in western Canada and you don't see many of them around the east coast. The weather has changed to 82 degrees and sunny as we leave I-70 to head south and visit with Alanna and Gordon. This is a couple whom I met through one of the RV online groups. Gordon is still at work but Alanna meets us as we pull into their driveway at 6:00 PM. We show her through our camper and then take a tour of their fifth wheel trailer and visit with Alanna till Gordon gets home. I take a few pictures of them in front of their RV and truck with my new Sony Mavica digital camera and give them copies to use for their future website. We all head over to a nearby Olive Garden, have a great dinner, return to their home around 10:30 PM and visit till midnight. We say our good-byes tonight as we want to get up early in the morning and get on the road. Head back to the camper to get some sleep. We drove 557 miles of interstate today.

8-22-99 Sunday (day 2) Awake at 5:30 AM after a good but short night's sleep. Being a little excited about getting on the road, we decide to get up and get moving. We can always catch a nap at lunch time if we get too tired. Get washed, dressed, ready to go by 6:15 AM and head out under partly cloudy skies and 57 degrees. The good part about getting started this early is that we get to enjoy the sunrise and this morning it is really beautiful with shades of pink and purple. Heading west we leave Ohio and enter Indiana where we stop for a pit stop and a chance to stretch our legs. Driving through Ohio and Indiana is not very exciting as it is all flat land and very boring, but is necessary to get us out west where we can really enjoy the scenery. Make a stop in Cloverdale. IN at 9:20 AM to grab a bite of breakfast and fuel up the truck with 28 gallons at $1.24 per gallon. Get back on the road by 10:00 AM. This happens every time, two miles down the road we pass two stations that are selling gas for $1.06. It never fails! By 10:40 AM we cross the Illinois state line. Pass through numerous road construction areas but due to the light Sunday morning traffic have no delays. Pull in for a rest stop just east of Effingham, IL and notice that it is not very clean compared to the rest stops in Ohio which had been very clean and well kept. Continue west on I-70 till to about 20 miles this side of St. Louis where we pull in at 1:00 PM for some lunch and a break. Elaine fixes some sandwiches and drinks for us while I type up some of this journal. We each grab a nice refreshing hot shower which we didn't have time for this morning. It sure is nice carrying your house around with you! By 2:45 PM we're back on the road and at 3:10 PM we cross the mighty Mississippi River into Missouri. Pick up the I-270 bypass around St. Louis which is heavy with traffic this afternoon. The traffic doesn't thin out until we are 16 miles west of St. Louis. We cross a time zone as we come into Missouri, so we turn the clocks back one hour. Our stop for tonight is about 60 miles east of Kansas City to visit with some more new RV friends that I met online. Stop once for fuel at Warrenton, MO and get 24.2 gallons at $1.13 per gallon. Make it to Debbie and Ed's place by 5:30 PM and enjoy a delicious cookout that they prepare for us. Take a picture of them in front of their camper (even though Debbie protests) with our digital camera and then visit till 9:30 PM their time which is 10:30 PM our east coast time. Elaine went right to sleep as she was really tired and I finish typing up today's entry into the journal. We drove 546 miles on interstates today. Goodnight everyone!

8-23-99 Monday (day3) Awake at 7:30 AM after a very restful night’s sleep to partly cloudy skies and a comfortable 73 degrees outside. Wash up, dress and go out to visit with Debbie and Ed over a morning cup of hot coffee on their back porch. I hook up to their phone line so I can update our website and send out some e-mail. Our visit with them is very relaxing and we really enjoy getting to meet some more of our internet friends. By 9:30 AM we decide we had better get on the road, so we say our good-byes and head  back to I-70 west. The stretch of I-70 east of Kansas City, MO is very rough blacktop. By the time we reach KC the sun has come out, the temperature is up to 79 degrees and it looks as though it might be a nice day after all. The traffic was rather heavy coming into KC and there were a few crazies that looked like accidents waiting to happen but after getting onto the I-670 by-pass around KC it thins out considerably. The roads around KC are like a maze with roads 3 and 4 levels high. After KC we pick up the Kansas Turnpike which takes us to Topeka where we get back onto I-70 west. I-70 west has lots of major construction going on but the traffic is light so it is moving rather smoothly. Make a stop in Bonner Springs, KS for fuel and get 24.2 gallons at $1.18. Our next stop is 1:15 PM at a rest stop 20 miles shy of Abilene, KS for a quick lunch break. Back on the road by 1:45 PM we continue west on I-70 to Hays, KS where we stop for fuel again.... 25 gallons at $1.23 per gallon. Another 45 miles west we get off  I-70 onto route #147 south and drive 13 miles to Cedar Bluff State Park which sits on the shore of Cedar Bluff Reservoir. Get a nice level campsite with water and electric hook-ups for $11.00. Get hooked up to the utilities and take a nice one hour walk around the park. Get back to the camper and fix some dinner. After dinner, I work on the journal while Elaine does dishes, gets a shower and gets herself ready for bed. I finish today's journal quickly as there is not much to say about traveling through Kansas. I then get my shower and get myself ready for bed. We drove 370 boring miles of interstate today. One more day of this and then we get into the scenic mountains of Colorado so stay tuned for the good part of this story. Good night!

8-24-99 Tuesday (day4) Wake up at 6:00 AM, shower, dress and stick my head out of the camper to check the weather. The sky looks fairly clear and it’s 57 degrees out, but they are calling for a high of 90 degrees today. The sleeping was great here last night as it was very quiet and cooled down to a comfortable 66 degrees in the camper. I actually closed the windows and pulled the covers up over me early this morning. Felt great! This is a nice park which wraps around the reservoir and the loop that we're in is called “Butterfield Camping Area”. This loop has 16 sites, 10 with full hook-ups which go for $12 and 6 with just water and electric which are $11. We were one of only three campers in this area last night. Fix a good breakfast of scrambled eggs with cottage cheese and canadian bacon in them, along with some hot herbal tea and a piece of fruit. The sun is up now and it looks like another beautiful day as we pack up and get things ready to go. Take a photo of the camper with the lake in the background. Have been having some problems with the floppy discs in the new digital camera and think it may have something to do with the brand or type of disc that we bought. Dump the holding tanks and check out the bathhouse which is nothing to brag about. There are some open air showers with warm water but they are not very clean at all. There is a pay phone at the ranger station but didn’t see any way to hook up a modem, of course we didn’t ask the ranger as the station was closed when we came in. We head back towards I-70. The back roads in Kansas are in good shape and are straight as an arrow, there is only one turn in 13 miles. The speed limit is 65 MPH on this back road, but you can see 2 or 3 miles ahead of you. Pass by many small oil wells that are pumping away in the fields. Reach I-70 at 8:45 AM and head west towards Denver. The speed limit is 70 MPH on the interstate here in Kansas. The temperature is up to 71 degrees outside by 10:12 AM as we cross over into mountain time and we set the clocks back another hour to 9:12 AM. Have driven 100 miles since 8:45 AM and it is now only 9:12 AM. WOW! ....we’re really making good time. We pass many huge fields of sunflowers and try to take a photo of them but the camera gives me an error message that the disc is bad. I just lost all the pictures that I had on that disc. We definitely need to stop and get some other discs. Cross over the Colorado state line at 9:53 AM and see a sign that reads 174 miles to Denver. Stop for fuel in Burlington, CO and have to pay $1.28 per gallon for 25 gallons ..... the other station in town was charging $1.30. Stop at a Colorado visitor center and grab a fist full of literature on things to see and do in the state. Back on the road, I start getting a little sleepy so we pull off at exit #371 in some small town to get a bite of lunch. We see a sign that says business district which points down a dirt road and know right away that we are not going to find much here. Pull into an abandoned gas station and fix some lunch in the camper then take a little break before heading out again. Back on the road 45 minutes later and I'm feeling much more awake. Quite a few stretches of highway where we have to share one side of the road as they are doing  a lot of construction out here. The sky is bright blue with a few big puffy clouds up there today and the temperature is up to 91 degrees this afternoon. One beautiful day! The speed limit on the interstates here in Colorado is 75 MPH. Pull into a rest area about 30 miles out of Denver for a pit stop and a little walk to stretch the legs. As we come up on Denver, we start to get a good view of the Rocky Mountains. Exit from I-70 at Denver and drive to the closest Wal Mart to grab some new floppy discs for the camera then head on over to Elaine’s brother’s house. We have to park the camper in front of his neighbor’s as that appears to be the only level spot on the street. Of course we get the neighbor's permission first. We visit with her brother and his wife for a while then they take us out for a great dinner at a local restaurant. We go back to their house where Elaine visits with her brother and family while I upload our website once again. End up having to do it on his computer with his cable modem connection as I can not get through on the phone line with our  laptop. Drive over to visit with Elaine’s nephew and his family and we take some photos. The digital camera seems to work fine with the new floppies. We head  back to Elaine's brother’s, where they talk till after 11:00 PM. We then head out to the camper to rest up for tomorrow’s adventures in the Rockies.  Yay, after 333 miles today we are done with the interstates for a while. Goodnight all!

Our next stop is at Rainbow Curve overlook to take some photos in which you can see the road we came up. Elaine takes some panoramic pictures with our 35mm camera of some glaciers clinging to the mountainsides. Cross a short stretch of road where it drops off on both sides straight down to the valley floor far below. The temperature is down to 63 degrees up here.

Onward to Forest Canyon overlook for more photos. Everywhere you look up here are photos just waiting to be taken. We drive upward to Rock Cut where we come to a stop as they're doing construction and only have one lane open to traffic. While sitting there waiting to get through, I take another photo out the window of the truck in which you can see a mountain lake. We pass quite a few bicyclists, their bikes loaded with camping gear struggling to get up the hill. You really have to be tough to bike these hills! Stop at Falls River Pass near the Alpine Visitor Center which is at 11,796 foot elevation. Fix us some lunch and take a break. Temperature up here is 56 degrees and the wind is really blowing. Get to talking with a few people in the parking lot and give out a few of our cards that have our website and email address on them.

Head on down the mountain through Medicine Bow Curve, through Fairview Curve and exit the park. Use low gear all the way down as it's very steep with many sharp turns and you can't go over 25 or 30 MPH.  Get some rain as we come down off the mountain but it doesn’t amount to much. Drive by Shadow Mountain Lake and then Granby lake where we stop for a one hour break and enjoy the view. Back on the road at 5:00 PM, we head down routes #34 and #40 through scenic Byers Canyon where I take more photos. In Kremmling, we stop at Red Mountain RV Park which just happens to be the only campground around. This turns out to be a nice little park where we get a site that has water, electric, sewer, and cable for $17. They have a phone line that you can use to get email or upload a website if you're quick about it and don’t tie up their line. Speak for a while with the people that run the campground and they suggest that we take an alternate route through to Gunnison and tell us of some things to see in the area. Go back to the camper where we fix a dinner of soup, cheese and crackers and drink. After dinner Elaine takes a long hot shower as we have full hook-ups and gets herself ready for bed as I type up today's journal entry. Now I’m ready to get my shower so we can get some sleep. It's raining tonight, so we should sleep well as we both love the sound of rain on the roof. We only covered 98 miles today but it was by far the most scenic drive so far on this trip. Goodnight!