Phase-3, Southwest — Recap

Finally getting to post the recap of our phase-3 trip (and not quite three weeks after our return).

First, the image from the Garmin BaseCamp application of the full route of our trip:

So how did the numbers look?

• 38 days
• 5575 miles (not counting “side trips” in the Smart Car)
  • 750 gallons of gas (got a little better than 7 miles per gallon)
• 11 states
  • North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi
• 8 national parks (one was a repeat)
  • Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee (the one repeat)
    • Visited first and in a “caravan” with our friends Angelo and Ardeth Devita, who rented a 31-foot class-C RV and were taking their maiden voyage
    • Hiked Clingman’s Dome and visited Dollywood theme park.
  • Big Bend, Texas
    • Our first “real desert” experience
    • Hiked Santa Elena Canyon and Emory Peak trails
  • Guadalupe Mountains, Texas
    • Stayed two nights in this park’s campground, and checked out the visitors center, but didn’t do any of the hikes (just used it as a base to visit Carlsbad Caverns)
  • Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
    • Took the Natural Entrance and Big Room self-guided tours
  • Saguaro, Arizona
    • Visited both the east and west portions of the park (separated by Tucson, Arizona)
  • Grand Canyon, Arizona
    • Our current favorite national park (after having visited 16 in total)!
    • Stayed a whole week here, but just at the south rim and we hiked to the bottom and back out, having spent a night at the bottom at Phantom Ranch
  • Petrified Forest, Arizona
    • Just a quick in-and-out and “driving tour” here
  • Hot Springs, Arkansas
    • Toured the hot springs facilities, but never even got in
    • Hiked the Hot Springs Mountain trail
• 3 national monuments
  • Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona
    • Cliff-side Pueblo ruins
  • Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Arizona
    • Alien landscape
  • El Morro National Monument, New Mexico
    • Our favorite hike of the trip…cool pueblo ruins and ancient petroglyphs and inscriptions
• 5 other “points of interest” besides the national parks/monuments
  • Barber Vintage Motorsport Museum, Alabama
    • Probably the most incredible motorcycle museum in the world
  • New Orleans, Louisiana
    • Just a party town, but we also went on a swamp tour
  • Waco, Texas
    • Home of HGTV’s Fixer Upper show’s Chip and Joanna Gaines and Magnolia Market
  • Titan Missile Museum, Arizona
    • Fascinating cold war relic
  • Sonora Desert Museum, Arizona
    • An “outdoor museum” that’s really more of a zoo than a museum
• 18 different campgrounds
  • Smoky Mountain Premier RV Resort, Cosby, Tennessee (3 nights, KOA campground)
    • Beautifully wooded campground
    • Camped on adjoining sites with Angelo and Ardeth Devita
  • Unicoi State Park, Helen, Georgia (1 night, not a member campground)
    • Another nicely wooded campground, and this one on a “buddy site” which we shared with Angelo and Ardeth
  • Lakeside Landing RV Resort, Cropwell, Alabama (1 night, Good Sam campground)
    • Camped next to some of the Indy Car racing teams
  • Pontchartrain Landing, New Orleans, Louisiana (3 nights, Passport campground)
    • Home base for visiting New Orleans
  • Midway Park Corp of Engineering Campground, Waco, Texas (2 nights, not a member campground)
    • Home base for visiting Waco
  • Rio Vista Resort RV Park, Kingsland, Texas (1 night, Good Sam campground)
    • Visited with my step-sister Debbie Halstead, who is a full-time RVer in this park
  • Marathon Motel and RV Park, Marathon, Texas (1 night, Passport campground)
    • Desert campground in the middle of nowhere
  • Big Bend Resort and Adventures RV Park, Terlingua, Texas (2 nights, Good Sam campground)
    • Very dry, windy, and dusty
  • Pine Springs Campground, Guadalupe Mountains, Texas (2 nights, national parks campground)
    • Our only “dry” campground with no hookups (no water, no electric, no sewer)
    • Super windy all night here, and most of the day
  • Rincon Country East RV Resort, Tucson, Arizona (4 nights, Passport campground)
    • One of our two favorite campgrounds on the trip, primarily due to the fact that they had tennis and pickleball courts, plus everything was just nicely manicured (being a park-model resort for many “snow birds”)
  • Krazy K RV Park, Camp Verde, Arizona (1 night, Passport campground)
    • Just a pass-thru place near the highway on the way to the Grand Canyon
  • Grand Canyon Railway RV Park, Williams, Arizona (7 nights, Passport campground)
    • The other of our two favorite campgrounds, this one because it was across the street from the Grand Canyon Brewery and because we met a good new friend, Steve Remender, singer, guitar player, Christian brother, and all-around nice guy
  • USA RV Park, Gallup, New Mexico (1 night, Good Sam campground)
    • Just another pass-thru place near the highway on the way back east
  • Route 66 RV Resort, Albuquerque, New Mexico (2 nights, Good Sam campground)
    • Enjoyed this one a lot because it was brand new with pickleball courts and a casino at which we ate great food and won $200
  • Double D RV Park, Texola, Oklahoma (1 night, Passport campground)
    • Just another pass-thru place near the highway on the way back east
    • Nothing more than a field with an “honor-system” box into which you put your money (but they did have hookups)
  • Treasure Isle RV Park, Hot Springs, Arkansas (2 nights, Passport campground)
    • Kind of run-down and trashy, and not very level
  • Elvis Presley Boulevard RV Park, Memphis, Tennessee (1 night, not a member campground)
    • Probably our least-favorite of the trip, but we only stayed here because they were booked up at the other park we tried to get in Mississippi
  • Stone Mountain Park Family Campground, Stone Mountain, Georgia (1 night, Passport campground)
    • Beautifully wooded and *huge* campground with lots of amenities and attractions…will need to come back here
• 1 night of “boondocking” in the street outside the house of our friends Doug and Carla Boehm

So that pretty much summarizes our phase-3 national parks trip.  We’ve now visited a total of 16 national parks over the course of our three trips, and we think that in general we’ve visited mostly the *worst* (least interesting) of the national parks.  But that just means that the best are yet to come!  Places like Yellowstone, and Glacier, and Zion, and so on.  So far there have been a few gems (Grand Canyon, Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains), and some duds (Congaree and Everglades), but we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the trips even when visiting some of the not-so-great parks.

I’m trying to keep a running list of every park we’ve visited in “rank” order, from the ones we’ve liked the best to those we’ve liked the least.  So based on just the 16 we’ve visited so far, this is our ordered list, from best/most-liked to worst/least-liked (number in parentheses after each park is the “time-order” in which we visited it):

1. Grand Canyon, Arizona (14)
2. Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee (9)
3. Acadia, Maine (6)
4. Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico (12)
5. Shenandoah, Virginia (5)
6. Dry Tortuga, Florida (3)
7. Big Bend, Texas (10)
8. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky (8)
9. Cuyahoga, Ohio (7)
10. Biscayne Bay, Florida (1)
11. Petrified Forest, Arizona (15)
12. Saguaro, Arizona (13)
13. Guadalupe Mountains, Texas (11)
14. Hot Springs, Arkansas (16)
15. Everglades, Florida (2)
16. Congaree, South Carolina (4)

My plan is to continue to update/re-order this list as we visit the rest of the 59 national parks in the system.

Thanks to all that “came along” with us on this ride via the blog/facebook, and for all of your encouraging and entertaining comments.  We hope you’ll join us again when we set out on “phase-4,” which we’re currently thinking might not be until May of next year (2018), and will involve following the “Lewis and Clark Trail” from St. Louis, Missouri all the way to Olympia, Washington.  Until then, God bless to all of you!

Tom + Linda