Florida to Colorado, a 5,000 mile tour of the country

[prerunner221]

I couldn't get a spot for the FJSummit so I decided to take the trip anyway and try to see some of the country. My wife couldn't get enough time off so I ended up flying her out and back and driving solo to and from Orlando to Colorado. This was the day I left, June 23rd.

I made the drive in two days, stopping mid way in Illinois at the Shawnee National Forest. Nice little campground but I wasn't expecting it to be so hot. Pour planning on my part. I showed up and it was in the high 90's. By 10 it was still in the mid 80's. Wonderful woman running the place stopped by to inquire about the roof top tent and upon finding out I hadn't brought a fan, she brought one over for me to borrow for the night.

Day 2 was a long one, traveling from the campground all the way to Denver Colorado, about 950 miles. The original plan was to do the drive in three days but I actually felt pretty decent the second day and got an early jump so I decided to just drive through and get to Denver. The only thing interesting driving through Kansas was the wind farms. These things are huge. I'd seen them on TV but you can't appreciate the scale of these things until you get up close.

The drive was pretty uneventful until I hit Colorado and ran into a huge storm. Made for some great views though.

I got into Denver and ended up staying at a hotel by the airport because I couldn't find a camp ground anywhere close.

I had an extra day before the wife got in so I spent it checking out REI and then doing a little exploring Nederland, just north of Boulder. I got to check the place out about a week before the entire area went up in flames. Incredible how remote some folks live. I would drive for an hour and a house would be up there all by itself. Nederland itself was pretty wild. Looks like one side of the lake wasn't doing to well economically and looked a bit run down, but the other side had huge log mansions.

I also met my parents when I got back to Boulder. They made the trip in from Pennsylvania and we joined up for the week trip through Colorado. It was nice having travel partners and I don't get to see my folks enough living on opposite ends of the country, so it was great having them join in.

 

[prerunner221]

My wife made the flight out and we immediately headed out to meet my parents in Estes State Park. It was a pretty cool drive getting out there. I've lived in Florida for the last 17 years so driving through the mountains was exactly what I was looking for. The sites were amazing coming in to Estes and we were not disappointed when we got to the camp ground. The camp sites were nice a clean and well set up. Only issue we ran into was tree cover over the camp site interfering with the roof top tent but we got that figured out. While setting up for dinner we had a momma dear and her 2 little ones prancing around in a field right behind the Cruiser which was pretty neat. Woke up to an amazing view and we were ready to start exploring.

From there we traveled the Trail Ridge Road where we found some amazing views.

Drove the TRR and made our way down to Colorado Springs. Felt like we drove forever that day but had some great views and found ourselves a nice campground. As we were driving up the sky started to turn and it was a race to beat the rain to get into camp and get set up.

We pulled up right as it started to rain and the wife and I got everything set up in record time. My parents hadn't really had a chance to check out the set up but they were digging it when it started pouring. We managed to get the tent and awning set up with the table under it in under 10 minutes. Dad thought the whole thing was pretty cool.

 

[prerunner221]

The next day we traveled up to Garden of the Gods. It was a nice place to get out of the truck and walk around.

From there we went to some caves near by and did the tour. It was neat walking through and the views outside were incredible.

From there we drove over to Pikes Peak. We knew this would take a while, but it was a must do for my father and I. We've been watching the race for a long time and I wanted to drive it. Watching them race the road it looks incredibly fast and exposed, but you don't get the scale of what the racers are up against until you drive it. The fastest racers do it in under ten minutes. It took us about an hour if I recall. Once at the top we experience some pretty cool weather changes. It was nice, if not a little chilly when we reached the summit. Soon though, nice weather turned to rain, which turned to snow, which turned to hail. I thought it was cool but my wife wasn't feeling it lol. While we were out taking pictures something kinda cool, kind of interesting happened. As the cloud came through there was a pretty good amount of electricity flowing. The batteries in my cell phone and DSLR both starting making sizzling noises. While we were taking pictures I was holding up the cell phone doing a "selfie" and we got shocked pretty good, flowing from my raised hand, through me, and into the wife. That was enough for her and she beat feet right into the building. For any of you country folks it felt like when you and your friends used to all hold hands and the last person in line grabbed an electric fence. It was a pretty good shock, but we got a good photo and didn't die, so I thought it was worth it.

After a lot of driving we found a KOA in a college town that I can't for the life of remember the name of. During this trip we stayed in mostly KOA's, and I never had a bad experience. The state parks we stayed in were nice, but the KOA's seemed better maintained and cleaner. And it was hard to beat the views we woke up to every morning.

 

[prerunner221]

Up next was Ouray, which was where I really wanted to go. I really enjoyed the rest of Colorado but I was looking forward to getting up there and doing some wheeling. Ouray didn't disappoint. The KOA in Ouray was nice with great amenities. My folks and I managed to get spots next to each other and set up camp. With camps set up we loaded up in their car and hit the town. We got some touristy shopping done had to find somewhere nice to eat. After eating off the camp grill for a week it was nice to find a good restaurant. We decided on Bon Ton and were not disappointed. The building itself was really cool, the service was great and the food was outstanding.

We got up the next morning and unloaded the FJ in order to load up my parents and go explore. The idea was to go out and hit some trails, do off off roading and go see some sites. During the day we toured the million dollar highway and hit some trails along the way. We started at Yankee Boy Basin and worked our way to the top. The weather shifted on us from really nice at the bottom to an absolute downpour with some snow/sleet/hail mixed in at the top. This made the trip down interesting. The wheeling wasn't hard, but where had not been water on the way up, there was a ton on the way down. I had really wanted to hit Imogene Pass, but with the wife and family in the car, driving solo through all of it, and the pouring rain, we decided against it. We even hit a little bit of a landslide, water crossing on the way out that had trees flowing through it. We were going to park up, throw a movie on and just wait it out but after watching a Jeep cruise through went through as well. I had also wanted to get the famous picture driving through the creek, bypassing the bridge to get onto Imogene Pass, but it was flowing way too string for me to be comfortable and we skipped that as well. The family did humor me and we drove up the first couple hundred feet, but then came back down to continue on with our day.

I got to touch the tires into the snow, just for a second, just to see what it felt like.

During the day we toured the area and went through sections of Corkscrew Pass, Animas Forks and Hurricane Pass. Very cool day with some off roading and lots of sight seeing. Some of the Milliion dollar highway was slow going as because we had to wait for crews to clear a couple land slides from the road from all of the rain. At one point we stopped where some water was rolling off the side of the mountain making a little water fall. We sat there while everyone got photos until we started hearing small rocks hitting the roof and hood and then got the heck out of dodge. Whoops. That's how dumb tourists turn into statistics.

At one point things got a little sketchy when we got to a section that looked very muddy after a good sized drop. One side of the drop had a decent slope, and we would have ended up sliding into the hole anyway, the other side had a downed tree stump, so the only option was to go straight off the ledge. I had the wife spot as I drove (we NEED to go to a driving/spotting course somewhere in the future) and while she did her best we ended up not lined up correctly and dropped off right into the hole and getting temporarily stuck. After getting out and assessing the situation I ended up just turning the wheel and letting the drivers side tires grab the downed tree and pull us right out. In 4-LO the truck came right out of the hole. I did manage to slam the rear bumper as I slid into the hole though, and knocked off some plastic trim. Pushed it back in after seeing it and it hasn't been a problem since.

[video]https://www.facebook.com/christardif/videos/10154318309464494/[/video]

 

[wsswesty]

Thanks for the pics and stories. I plan on doing basically the same thing in September.

 

[prerunner221]

With Ouray done it was unfortunately time to head home. I had to drive from Ouray to Denver to drop the wife back off at the airport and then drive back to Orlando. The drive took three days and the weather did not cooperate on the return trip. On the first night it was raining so hard that when I called the KOA to make my reservation she told me I could have a spot, but it was under about 5 inches of water. I told her that was fine and booked it, much to her amazement. The RTT earned it's keep. Byt this point in the trip I had set-up and break down to a science and had it set up in no time, even in the pouring rain. When I got up I was surrounded by ground tent campers who were all looking at me like I had three eyes when they saw me climb from the roof to the ground all dry. When I just flipped the tent up onto the truck and loaded up to leave I had a few come over to ask questions. Every time I set up camp during this trip I got questions. The RTT was a great conversation starter, and I only saw one other person using one the entire time on the road.

I was a little worried getting a Smittybilt RTT for a trip like this but it was well worth the money and did a great job. I don't travel like this on a monthly basis, maybe getting out a coupe times a year, and for someone like me this tent was an amazing value. I got rained on for almost all of my 2 week trip and never got wet. By the end of the trip things were getting a little moist inside, but not what I would consider damp or wet, just not entirely dry. I was climbing up into the tent every night with wet clothes and jackets and it was still raining when the tent got put away in the morning. I was very impressed with how dry everything stayed, especially with a tent I've been told time and time again wouldn't be all that great. If you're thinking of getting a RTT and don't want to spend a ton of money I have no problem recommending this one.

Thanks for checking this out. I'm obviously not a professional writer or photographer so hopefully this post did my trip justice. Doing this really makes me appreciate the time and effort a good travel blog takes. I can't imagine the effort it takes to do something like Expedition Overland.

This was also my wife's first camping trip. She had a great time and I think the tent and KOA's made all of the difference. The memory foam mattress and availability of bathrooms and showers made it something she would do again. We had a great time exploring and it was really nice to spend this much time with my parents.

ETA:
I've been asked a lot by folks since posting this if I thought the roof top tent and awning were worth the money, so here are my thoughts on the topic:

After 2 weeks using the tent and awning they paid for themselves. It costs between 8-20 bucks a night to stay in a campground. The couple nights I stayed in Denver at a hotel cost me $185 a night. The tent, awning and mounts cost around $1200 all together. If I slept in hotels for 14 nights for $150 a night it ends up costing $2100.

So they definitely paid for themselves on the first trip, and the entire point of the trip was to get out and see what the mid-west had to offer. Camping reset me mentally if you know what I mean. It was a great chance for my wife and I to bond in ways we wouldn't have staying in hotels. Instead of throwing the TV on and watching a movie, like we could at home, we sat outside and talked all night. Shared stories, planned future trips and talked about our future.

To me at least, I definitely see the value in the tent and awning.

 

[prerunner221]

Thanks for the pics and stories. I plan on doing basically the same thing in September.

I was also looking at September but was told the chance for snow it too high and the weather can be very hard to plan for during that time of year. Our weather was decent for the trip, 70's during the day and high 40's, low 50's at night, which I thought was prefect. One thing I did mess up on was not checking when trails would open. A lot of the trails I wanted to hit weren't open until about a week after I left due to the huge snowfall they had earlier this year. Have fun during your trip. I think I could go to Colorado for a couple weeks a year and not see everything I would want to in ten years.

 

[unkamonkey]

I'm happy you enjoyed your visit to the state I have called home my entire life. There's lots of places here that I haven't seen yet either. I seem to be spending more time in the Eastern part of the state anymore, It's just different and many less people out there.

 

[mikekey]

What a great trip. Reminds me of my first big trip my wife and I took together in our first rig. We too left from Flordia (St. Petersburg) and drove out to Colorado and Utah. Keep adventuring!

 

[Stitebunny]

Great trip! And report!
Thanks for taking the time to put it together!

 

[JPShooter]

Awesome thread!!! Thanks

 

[Land_Shark]

Outstanding job! I enjoyed reading about your trip and look forward to taking our own. It can be tough to imagine what you need to be prepared for, thanks again for taking the time to write and post pics.

 

[DaJudge]

Awesome trip! I did almost this same trip in 2002 in my Ranger. I was living in Lakeland, FL. Two years later I was living in New Mexico! After a trip in 2001 and the one in 2002 I HAD to move!

Thanks for the trip report!

 

[Skennedy]

Great Trip report and pictures CO is on my must do list.

 

[prerunner221]

Thanks guys, It was a really fun trip. I see why a I've had a few friends move out there over the last couple years. If you're into the outdoors, that place is one big amusement park. I didn't want to leave.