The Long Road Home. Day. 14. Home.

Note;

You may be wondering why we took such a “long road home”. The biggest reason is that we don’t have AC in our van and the engine sits between the seats and produces an enormous amount of heat. We didn’t want to cross the Arizona or Nevada deserts with their triple digit temperatures.
The other reason was;
We had the time so why not? I am glad we did it that way, as we got to see a lot more of the rocky mountain states. It was a beautiful ride.

The Last Leg and it’s a Long One.

The Plan

The Plan for today was to go as far as the Bear River Casino in Fortuna, CA. We wanted to treat ourselves to one last night in a motel and a good supper.

Early Start.

I got up early and had my breakfast.
I checked to see if my hot spot would work and was surprised that it had a good strong signal. I published the latest post from there.
By 9:00 we were on 140 heading west.

A Change of Plans.

We thought that we might stop and visit with Dennis and Becky at the Valley of the Rogue State Park, where they are working for the summer. When we got close Patti called Dennis. Unfortunately Dennis was working today and Becky was off on an errand so we decided to pass them by.

US 199.

After driving around Rogue River for a while we eventually found Highway 99 and followed it to Grants Pass, OR.  At Grants Pass we got on US 199 heading west.
At Cave Junction we stopped for fuel and lunch then continued west along the Smith River.

It is a real pretty ride as the highway goes through Redwood forests.

US 101.

Eventually we got to US 101 and followed it south along the coast.

Bear River Casino.

Around 4:00 we arrived at the Bear River Casino.
We checked at the hotel and found that they were all booked up.
Okay so we can spend the night in the parking lot and still eat in the restaurant.
We found a spot at the far end of the parking lot and sat outside in the shad of the van.
I decided that I needed a nap so I climbed into my bunk for a snooze.

I Woke up Around 6:30.

By then the parking lot had filled up. There was a lot of activity all around us. With cars driving around and drunks arguing in the parking lot.
Just after I woke up Patti got a call from her daughter Dina. She said that the weather at home was extremely hot with temps over 100°.

I don’t like driving at night but I figured that it would take us about three hours to get home from here and it would be better to get home in the cool hours of the night than to get home during the heat of the day.
I was sufficiently rested up so we decided to head for home. We got gas at the casino gas station and hit the road.

It was a long drive, 14 hours from Klamath lake, but we were home by 11:00 pm, exhausted but home.

Taking it Easy.

I don’t plan to do anything much from the next few days so things will be kind of boring around here.

Stats.

Okay, here are a few stats on our trip.

Miles Traveled

From our front door to our front door we traveled 6,883 miles.

Fuel Burned.

At an average of 10 miles per gallon we used ~688+ gallons of gas.

Interstate Highways.

One of our criteria for this trip was to try and do the whole thing without driving on any Interstate Highways.
As it turned out, of the 6,883 miles, we drove only 217 miles on the Interstate’s.
Not bad!

States.

We drove through 9 states:
California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.
We drove through six of them twice except for Montana, Washington and Nevada.

It was an exceptional adventure six weeks of driving , exploring and camping.
Even so, it is nice to be home. I don’t plan to drive any where for a couple of days.