It's gotta be a record - 3,692 mile road trip in a Smart Car!

When we started our trip in early May in big ole’ Rose, we had no idea we would finish our trip in little Rosebud! It’s one of those times in life when it is probably better you just don’t know.... We’re guessing it’s the first (and probably only) cross country trip for a Smart Car – a total of 3,692 miles! Most certainly our first and last cross country trip in Rosebud and we think she’s as glad as we are! She needs a long rest and so do we!

Safely back home! What a wonderful ending to our last big road trip!

All of our stuff we shipped is back home too!

 
On the road in 

Rosebud……

We set our expectations so low that we were pleasantly surprised at how “roomy” Rosebud was – we actually had a couple of inches of space to spare so that’s where we stuffed the dirty clothes every day and put some of the heavy tools that were in Rose. What a tough little car Rosebud has proven to be -  7 -8 hours of driving each day at 70 miles an hour in heat as high as 110 degrees plus she kept the three of us cool and comfortable!

A secret compartment in the tailgate was stuffed with tools!

Rosebud had a boo boo. The "S" in smart car was about to fall off so Gary taped it until we get home!

Getting ready for our last of 12 days on the road !

Questions/comments we got from fellow travelers.....

“Did you drive all the way from Tennessee in that little car?”  

"Do you have to stay in a hotel at night?"

"You must have to pack very carefully."

"What kind of gas mileage do you get?"

"How did you fit all of your stuff in that little thing?" 

We hadn't stayed in a hotel in 4 years and suddenly we had to find pet friendly hotels for the trip home.......

A big challenge was finding pet friendly hotels that were clean and reasonably priced! Molly had a great time as a "pet freindly tester". She gives La Quinta Inns a 2 paws up - they were her favorites!

  
We must have stopped at a least 25 McDonalds along the way. They had a special on their large drinks - just $1! So we loaded up the cup with ice and a drink each time we stopped for a break.

At one of our MANY stops at McDonalds

Highlights of the national parks we visited on the way home.....

Lassen Volcanic National Park 

Lassen Peak - the southern most volcano in the Cascade mountain range

Lassen has a very active hydrothermal area

Hot springs

Hot springs and steam vents

Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks

General Sherman  Sequoia - largest living thing in the world - 41 feet in diameter, 275 feet tall and 2,700 years old! 

Rosebud driving through the Sequoia tree tunnel

Indian pictographs

The indians ground their corn here in the "community kitchen"

Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Parks

Huge petrified tree trunks!

Check out this lizard's toes!

Petrified Forest has the largest concentration of petrified wood in the world

Petroglyphs from 900 AD

Pueblo ruins from 1250 AD

Painted Desert - beautiful colors!

Amazing array of colors in the petrified wood

Four years of memories…priceless

It was a long time dream of ours to someday travel throughout the North American continent to visit the national parks that preserve the very special natural and historical national treasures in the US and Canada. Over the last four years we did just that! It’s hard to believe it’s already over!  We traveled over 80,000 miles throughout the US and Canada, visited 172 national parks and 100’s of state parks and national forests.  Each park preserves something unique – beautiful landscapes, incredible wildlife, fascinating human history and special geological features. We took the time to really explore each park and gained a true understanding of what makes each park so special. How wonderful that these special places have been preserved for all of us to enjoy and for future generations to come!

What’s next…..

Now what? – well, there are no more planned cross country road trips in our future. The longest trip we plan to take any time soon is to see our little granddaughters in Atlanta – we have missed them so much!

Lyla and Emmy

A surprising change of plans.....

Since this trip is our last planned trip in Rose, we decided to post an RV for sale ad on the internet while we were traveling to “test the waters”.  Rose’s unique design and features have attracted a lot of interest from potential buyers. In fact, while on our travels on the way to Washington state, one of the calls we got was from a family that was very interested in her but they preferred not to drive all the way to Tennessee to see her. Coincidentally, our planned travel route took us very close to where they live so they stopped by to check her out and decided she was exactly what they were looking for in an RV. They are a very active couple with two great kids. They plan to use Rose for ski trips, hauling dirt bikes for motor cross races, transporting their ATVs to the sand dunes for some off roading, hauling their ski/fishing boat and who knows what other sport they may get into! We are delighted to have found Rose such a good home ( she even has her own bedroom!) – she will have very exciting travels with them!

Andrew, Shane, Jen, Amy and their dogs Ju Ju and Kit

Amy on one of the ATVs that will travel in Rose's garage

Rose in her new bedroom with the dirt bikes!

Rose in her new home

There is one problem we have now….. 

Rose will be staying in Washington State and we are going back home, so we now have to drive over 3,200 miles across the country in Scooter – no cruise control; no big, plush, overstuffed seats for Molly and I to share so she has to sit in my lap; no kitchen stocked with food; no bathroom; no comfy bed of our own …you get the picture! It’s going to be a challenge but we’re up for that and excited about getting back home a little earlier than planned so we can enjoy the rest of summer on the lake!  

Needless to say, all of our “stuff” won’t fit in Scooter ( aka “Rosebud” now that she is filling in for Rose as our cross country transportation)) so we plan to ship most everything home and take only the essentials with us. It was a shock to find out how expensive it is to ship stuff across the country! Now we are trying to figure out what we really, really want to keep and what can be left behind….tough decisions for such frugal people!

Will all of this fit in little Rosebud?

All of our stuff that wouldn't fit in Rosebud is packed and  ready to go to the UPS store - it will be home before we will!

So what are the plans for the trek home….

Fortunately , we have been able to go to all of the places we had planned to visit in Washington and Oregon while we were still travelling in Rose so we just have a  few more stops that we’ll do in Rosebud (aka Scooter) on our way back home - no doubt we'll be ready for a break!

So here are the highlights from the last of our stops in Washington and Oregon – a nature lover’s paradise!

Redwood  National Park

Giant Redwood - 21.5' in diameter and 1500 years old!

Amazing 150' tall fern covered canyon walls

On a hike in Fern Canyon

Herd of Roosevelt elk - a bull elk with his harem

Crater Lake National Park

Crater lake with 700' high cinder cone inside of it

Soaking up the incredible view!

View from the cliffs above - visibility is 120' deep - the cleanest, clearest lake in the world!

Another view of the beautiful lake - the crater is 6 miles across and 1,932 feet deep!

Columbia River Gorge

Mt Hood on a clear,  sunny day

Multonomah Falls - 634' high

100's of people wind sailing on the Hood River

Mt St Helens

Mt St Helens with the new dome forming in the crater

This was an old growth forest area before the eruption 33 years ago

The ash and mud from the eruption filled up the valley 600' deep

Oregon Trail

Old wagon chute. The mountain was so steep the pioneers had to lower their wagons down the mountain by tying ropes to trees.

Toll gate on the old Oregon Trail. This road was used by the pioneers to get to Oregon City where they settled. They paid 25 cents per covered wagon to use the road.

We’re off …. the three of us. Stuffed into Rosebud for the next 12 days – what an adventure!

The Oregon coastline is sooo cool!

We visited the Oregon coast very briefly about 15 years ago and loved it. Ever since then we have wanted to go back and see it again at a more leisurely pace-  we’re so glad we did!  

The Oregon coast is so cool in so many ways…….Refreshing cool temps and ocean breezes…….94 public parks and campgrounds dotting the entire coastline  - so many that you have to pick and choose the ones you stop at……Beautiful scenery - rugged cliffs, old growth forests, sea stacks, sand dunes and sandy beaches……. Lots of marine wildlife – gray whales, stellar sea lions, harbor seals,  many varieties of sea birds- murres, puffins, pelicans, guillemots, peregrine falcons, eagles, and loons………tide pools teaming with sea stars, anemones , crabs and fish……… human history  dating back 12,000 years ago! 


It has rained quite a bit the last few weeks and we have learned some of the weather forecasters adjectives for the rainy, cool weather in June - "June gloom" and "Juneuary". Very fitting we think! Everyone here can't wait for summer to finally arrive - any day now would be just fine!

One of those "June gloom" rainy days - we're so wet we might as well have been swimming!

Oregon coast highlights:

The views from the capes, coves and dunes along the coast.....

Cape Perpetua on one of those special sunny days!

Thunder Rock Cove

Natural Bridges

Oregon Dunes National Park

Sea caves and a waterfall at low tide

Exploring the best tide pools along the coast...

Sea stars and anemones

Purple sea urchins the water is so clear you can't tell these sea urchins were completley submersed

Sea slug - underwater in a tide pool

Seeing the very large dock that washed up on the shore from the tsunami in Japan...

65 foot dock from Japan washed up on the beach in Newport

Japanese dock on the beach at low tide

Lots of marine wildlife.....

Harbor seals - disguised as logs

Stellar sea lions

Click on the arrow to see the noisy sea lions

Fishing for dungeness crab - an easy catch, there are lots of them!

Commom Murre rookery

Lewis and Clark National Park....

Replica of Fort Clatsop 1805 in Astoria

Clatsop indian dugout canoe

Watching a gray whale blowing bubbles. They use the bubbles as a net to catch fish. Gray whales move quite slow and don't have a big dorsal fin so they don't put on  as much of a"show" as the Orcas and Humpbacks do.

Click on the arrow to see the gray whale

 

Lighthouses and shipwrecks along the coast....

Yaquina Head Lighthouse and tide pool area

Shipwreck of the Peter Iredale from 1906

Yaquina Bay Lighthouse - the only wooden lighthouse on the coast

Tillamook Lighthouse

We're planning to stay a little while longer in the Pacific NW - it's such a beautiful part of our country - especially in the summer! Plus, we still have a few more national parks we want to explore -  Redwood National Park, Crater Lake National Park , Columbia River Gorge, Mt Hood and Mt St Helens National Park!