The Parker Travels

Our drive was fairly short today, we are only going from Las Vegas to Orange County. But still, we got up really early so we would have some time to relax once we made it to my parents. The official sign that you have finally made it to California! We had a little traffic crossing the border from Nevada to California. Since we still have Maryland plates on our car, we were stopped for inspection. I was so nervous that they were going to take my plants away, they have made it this far! But she said they were ok and we were on our way. Of course, the first stop we made across the border was In-N-Out in Barstow. It was a quiet moment, savoring our favorite meal, knowing that we have finally made it through this crazy journey together. We made it to my parents house around noon, with plenty of time in the day to relax and share stories from our trip. Toby made himself right at home on Grandma and Grandpas couch! We were able to see everyone we have been waiting...

- Leaving the trailer at the RV repair shop - The auto repair shop we dropped the trailer off at last night didn't open until 8:00 AM. We decided that if we didn't hear from them by 9:00 AM we would give them a call. When Kyle finally heard from them, the mechanic told him honestly that he thought we should take the trailer to an RV repair shop because we need a new axle on top of everything else. We looked around and found an RV repair shop nearby. Kyle called USAA because last night they said that they could cover 1 tow and now we need them to tow the trailer from the auto shop to the RV repair shop. He then went down to the RV repair shop to talk to them in person about our situation. Kyle came back with good news and bad news. The good news is that they can fix the trailer. The bad news is that it will take 3-4 weeks for the axle to come in. Since Kyle has to be in Lemoore by Monday for work, we can’t stay here for 3-4 weeks. These last 24 hours we have been working i...

Growing up camping, I’ve had plenty of break downs and long days that never seem to end. The famous Backus Road in the middle of the Mojave is still talked about today! Well, Kyle and I had our first “Backus Road” experience today. We started the day cleaning up camp in Loveland, an hour outside of Denver. We were on the road by noon and made it about 15 minutes down the highway before we were flagged down by a neighbor driver. We pulled off to the side of the road to find our trailer wheel smoking and what looked like melted metal splattered all over. We called our roadside assistance and were quickly denied. We were also denied by all the RV repair shops nearby. Apparently they are all booked up for months! After a few more phone calls we found a small auto repair shop nearby wiling to take us. They were only 4 miles away, but with the wheel smoking those were very slow 4 miles. We stayed in the shoulder and drove as slow as possible and stopped every so often to let the wheel cool o...

Trip Details Campground: Boyd Lake State Park. 3720 N.County Rd. 11-C, Loveland, CO 80538 Site:  006 [Pull-Through, 50amp Electric only] Dates: August 26th - August 29th, 2017 Overview:  The sunsets were probably the only good thing about this campground. Unless you are big into water sports, they have plenty of places for that. The campground is in the middle of 2 lakes, Boyd Lake and Horseshoe lake. You drive through a residential neighborhood to get to the campground which was a little odd. The campground itself is about an hour north of Denver but is right in the middle of the town, not very secluded. There is a daily entrance fee of $8/day you have to pay on top of your campsite fee. We were able to get the summer Military pass that they do every August, which waives the entrance fee. All the sites are pull through in the Cottonwood Campground.  The levelness of each site varied but at least you were on an asphalt pad. We had to move the trailer around our s...

Kim and Dave both had to work during the day so we took our time this morning and slept in. After we ate breakfast we headed into Denver with Toby. The campground we were staying at was about an hour North of Denver. We decided to stop at a brewery in town called The Denver Beer Company since they had an outdoor patio that was dog friendly. It was super hot out today so luckily we found a spot in the shade. They also had some misters going outside which helped.  They had games at the brewery and Kyle quickly found one of his favorites for us to play. After a few rounds of Battleship we headed to Kim and Dave's apartment. Either he is just really exhausted from the heat and excitement, or we gave him too many treats... Poor Toby. We think he is getting exhausted from the trip, he has been sleep sitting a lot lately. Just a few more days puppy and we will be back in California! We met Kim at their apartment and dropped Toby off to hang out with Maver...

There is not much to say about the Rocky Mountain National Park other than it is breathtaking every way you look! Since we had Toby with us we decided to just drive to the Alpine Visitors Center at the top. We realized shortly after we had entered the park that we were low on gas. Oops! The drive to the top is about an hour long depending on traffic. It was about 40 miles round trip from the park entrance to the top, so we didn’t take many detours to make sure we didn’t get stuck in the middle of the Rockies without gas. The Elevation at the gate was 8,200 ft! That was just the beginning. We climbed up to around 12,000 ft. once we were near the top. The drive was pretty demanding so we made a few stops at overlooks along the way. Also it gave Toby a chance to get out of the car and run around as well It was a hot mid 80s down at the bottom of the mountain. But it dropped down to a cool 54 once we were at the top! There was still snow up there too. T...