Reflections on 2016… The Last Part!

rom Idaho we moved into Washington state and stayed a total of 12 nights. Our reasons for a visit were to see an old college friend and to drink a little wine in the wine country.

Best Washington Memories – Urban hiking in Spokane, Gonzaga University and visiting friends.

Worst Washington Memory – Finding out our favorite park in the Tri-Cities area (Hood Park COE campground) closed after Labor Day.

 

The next state we entered, Oregon, is another of our favorite summer spots to visit but this time we visited in the fall. We would have normally stayed longer in this beautiful state but we were late in the season so we only spent 21 nights there.

Best Oregon Memories – Hiking the Columbia River Gorge, revisiting Crater Lake,urban hiking Portland with friends and enjoying a stay in Bend to visit more good friends.

Worst Oregon Memory – Seeing a tire bubble and waiting forever for it to be replaced. Chilly weather (mental note stay in the summer). Driving the RV at night in the mountains… YIKES!!! Never again!!!

  

Sadly we left Oregon and cut through the northeastern corner of California, knowing we would later return to the state to spend time in San Diego. We stayed only one night before moving into Nevada where we would stay eight nights.

Best Nevada Memories –  Casinos, hiking in Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and the Red Rocks.

Worst Nevada Memory – No bad memories here as the weather warmed up and things were looking up…

 

We loved our brief stay in Nevada but we had reservations in San Diego so we re-entered California and ended up staying for a total of 44 nights in California. This included a long stay at one of our favorite parks in San Diego – Mission Bay RV Park.

Best California Memories – Having our daughter and her boyfriend visit us, seeing the San Diego Chargers Football team, Thanksgiving with friends and family and hiking at China Date Ranch.

Worst California Memory – Having our side camera and surround sound receiver fail making for a costly month and of course more work for me…

 

After leaving San Diego we finished the year off in Arizona where we will have stayed 6 nights by the time January 1st, 2017 rolls around and will be here until the end of January. Since we  just arrived we won’t add a best and worst memory since… well, we haven’t left yet!

What a great year we had as we traveled through a total of 19 states this year but only stayed in 17 of them as we just briefly drove through both Mississippi and South Dakota. A total of 7556 Miles for this 2016 journey and we camped at 84 different locations including commercial parks, state parks, Corp of Engineer Parks, Casino Parks and Parking lots and even our first boondock at an overnight spot (in our case it was a Cabellas).

And so we are ready for the next year to come along. Bring on 2017!!!