Starting our Journey to the West Coast

If you’ve been following along this year, you know we have already traveled from Florida to Vermont, back to Florida, and back up to Virginia so far this year. I know, it seems crazy, but with doctor and orthodontist appointments, install jobs, and plans with friends and family, it just kind of worked out that way. Life still has to happen, even when you are a most-time traveler!

Now, the only things on our calendar for the rest of this year so far is a job in California in August and a trip to the Keys in December. So we have the second half of the year planned to head West through the Midwest then loop back via the Southwest. In mid-July, we started our journey.

We checked off another state in our RV journey with a Harvest Host Farm in Kentucky. It was peaceful, and had electric hookups for the AC to get through humid nights after those hot days (our solar set up doesn’t run our ACs). They had a large covered patio with tables and rocking chairs, which was great for dinner and relaxing, but stressful for parking our large rig and leveling next to. We got close enough to touch and ended up not being able to put one slide completely out!

If you don’t have Harvest Hosts membership, check out our savings page for a referral link here (and lots of other great deals)! We find it’s a good fit for our budget, even if we only use it for overnights for a total of a week or two out of the year.

Our journey took us through St. Louis again this year, so we decided to stay at the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) Campground we discovered last year. With our veteran discount, $10 a night for electric and water is a deal, and they have walking trails, dump station and nice bath houses, plus they are less than an hour from downtown St. Louis. You can book it through Recreation.gov, or use the direct link below.

We had visited the Gateway Arch in St. Louis last year and loved it, but there is so much to see in the city, so a return trip was a must. With our new membership for the GPSMyCity app, we were able to take advantage of their walking tour with stops and narrations and learn a lot more of the history. Check out our blog on this app for more details, or grab your own membership at the link below.

We also decided to tuck some blessing bags in the mom purse to hand out. We had someone ask us about them when we handed one out and she loved the idea so much more than just giving out money.

From Illinois, we crossed into Missouri and stopped for an overnight. We needed to catch up on laundry, so made it a short travel day and stopped at the Great Escape RV Park and Campground in Higginsville. It was pricy at $65 a night, but it was an easy pull through with room for runs and walks while we got laundry done for the week. Yes, we could have stopped at a laundromat, but with the heat wave, we needed electric hook ups, so with the price for a quick stop and the laundromat, we just got full hookups and did laundry in the RV.

While we were there, we also got our RV Leveling system from Beech Lane installed on the rig. We are partnering with them to try it out on our rig! We will share a blog out on that soon and let you know what we think!

Next we headed into Iowa–another new state to check off of our list. While checking weather for the area, we learned about corn sweat! Apparently in July, the corn sweat makes the heat and humidity increase as the corn grows. How crazy is that?

We heard from both a friend and family that the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha was a great one. Their annual passes were pretty reasonable compared to other zoos we’ve visited, and our Zoo passes had expired, so we went ahead and got theirs. That meant we could split our visit into 2 days, and get 50% off (or more) at other zoos and aquariums in our travels over the next year.

I loved that they also had it super easy to add your zoo pass to your apple wallet–a simple thing, I know, but one less thing to have to keep track of! It was a pretty great zoo and we enjoyed our time there–most of the exhibits are indoors and are very well done habitats. We highly recommend them if you are in the area. I’ve got them linked below.

We found a great little campground 20 minutes from the zoo and just over the Iowa border for $25 a night (cash) and includes full hook ups, bathhouse, playground and picnic area. While not fancy, it was peaceful and plenty of room for our large rig, and we loved it being friendly on our budget. It was super easy to book with Sandy via the phone and everyone we chatted with there was super nice. I’ve got it linked blow, if you’re looking for a stop in the area.

The downside of the week was breaking the tooth repair I just got fixed before we left Florida. It is a cosmetic bonding from a tooth I broke rollerblading 26 years ago, so I will try to live with it until we get home later in the year, unless I find someone along the way for a good price.

This week, we continue our journey west. We’ve been researching places to stay and things we want to do, especially with a couple weeks until we need to be in California. We would like to head up to southern Idaho and see some places we missed out on last year, so we will have to see if the weather cooperates with us. Since we are playing it by ear, we have made no reservations for the week! Tuesday we are going to try and get into a Cabela’s campground in Nebraska that is first come, first serve. Then we will see how far we get in Wyoming and just find a BLM spot. Who knows from there!

Be sure to check back next week to see how we did with winging it and where we end up.

Between the blogs, you’ll find us on Facebook and Instagram, so follow along and say hi! If you missed our YouTube video last Friday, be sure to check that out for the hikes we found in Vermont, and subscribe so you can catch those every other week!

Check out the links below for our camping spots this week as well as the Zoo and the GPSMyCity app we used in St. Louis!

Camping:
Harvest Hosts Membership
Dam East – McNair Campground, Carlyle, IL (ACE)
Great Escape RV Park & Campground, Higginsville, MO
I29 Hwy34 Campground-Pacific Junction, Iowa (next to Omaha, NE)

Exploring:
GPSMyCity (you can also download the app and subscribe from there)
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo

Check out our RESOURCES
Our Travel Planner an easy to carry resource for all your RV needs
Free Printables Page helpful tools and resources for travel and organization
Our Savings Page referral links to savings with brands we love (our links get us referral credit)
Our Travel Map links to blogs for places to see and stay
The Essential Guide to RV Life to prepare, live and transition through RV life (digital and print options)
About Us Our Story, our WHY, and where to find us

Thanks for being here, we’ll see you out there!