We awoke late in the Walmart carpark, thankful we hadn’t been attacked in the night. We mucked around a bit this morning, both really tired from lack of sleep. We didn’t get away until just after 10.

It was another day of lots of driving, but at least the scenery is getting better. As we crossed into Kentucky, it became very green. Lots of green trees, large houses, and everything seemed to look so much cleaner.

I saw a place called “Land between the Lakes” coming up. I’d heard about it, and thought it might be a nice place to find a camp, as I’m getting sick of Walmart carparks. It was almost 4pm, so we turned off to have a look. It’s really beautiful with lots of little inlets. 

We found a spot to camp at Taylors campground, a primitive camp for only $5 a night. It’s gorgeous. When we arrived the lake was calm, and a deer stood out on a headland, perfectly reflected in a standoff with a crane. By the time I got my camera to take a photo it had gone. This is the perfect place to spend a few days and explore by kayak. After we’ve finished visiting family, we may come back.

It’s still hot, and since we got to Kentucky it is now humid. We sat outside and rehydrated with beer. Mike had zero Guinness and I had zero Corona with lime. Both taste like real beer, without the hangover. Mike cooked up some beef with honey, garlic, soy, noodles and vegetables for dinner outside. I think it’s our first meal we’ve cooked. We’ve just been settling for salad wraps in the evening as it’s easier. We were both so tired we were in bed by about 8pm.

We had a great sleep in the Walmart carpark, but black clouds loomed this morning. We checked the weather to make sure there were no tornados forecast (we are in Kansas after all). But no warnings so we heading on our way. 

We are staying off the interstates now, but the roads are still really busy. It was pouring with rain when we left and I was a bit worried about our wipers failing like they always do when it rains, but they hung in there.

After a while the rain stopped and we just drove and drove, along long straight boring roads. Mike drove, I read my book. And they we crossed into Missouri. The roads became slightly less boring with green grass, trees and the occasional corner in the road. But we’re on a mission now, to make it to Kentucky to see Mike’s sister. Hopefully we can have a rest when we get there.

We stopped at another Walmart in Mountain Grove for the night. I asked if it was ok, she said it was fine, just to park over by the service station. I’d read this wasn’t a very nice town and asked if they ever had problems. She said, “you’ll be fine… here.” So I asked, “as opposed to where?” She replied, “ten minutes in any direction”. So, this made me a bit nervous, but Mike had already driven 500 kms today and we needed to stop.

There were a few trucks parked up here, so we figured it was safe. Still didn’t stop me looking out the windows at regular intervals. There seemed to be a lot of noise around. Mike said he heard a rattly old car circle us a few times, and wondered what was up, but thankfully didn’t wake me to tell me, otherwise I would have freaked out. But we had an ok but restless night.

As we were leaving our campsite this morning, I saw the worst thing possible. Walking across the road was a giant tarantula! “Watch out” I yelled but it was too late. Mike had run over it. I’m sure I heard a thunk as the wheels hit, but it could have been my imagination. Anyway, now we have tarantula gunk all over our wheels.

Then I did a stupid thing. I googled it. “Tarantulas in Kansas.” Turns out they all come out this time of year looking for mates. Apparently you can can see hoards of them crossing the roads. Now this thought terrified me beyond the scariest thing I could imagine. I would rather drive through a 24 km tunnel than see that!

Next thing, I am seeing all these critters scurrying across the road. They weren’t tarantulas, but they were very big spiders. There was no way I was staying on the back roads. There were a couple of cool places nearby I had planned to explore, but nope, not happening. So we got on the interstate and drove as far away from that place as we could.

We kept on driving until we came to a small town called McPherson, not far from Witchita. We decided to camp in a Walmart parking lot, rather than anywhere in the wilderness. I think we are now fast tracking it to Kentucky. 

We woke up in the lovely state park overlooking the lake/resevoir. I thought about staying another day, just to catch up on laundry and videos. But as I stepped out of the van, I screamed. I’d nearly stepped on a snake. The creepy thing slithered under the van and I didn’t see it come out the other side. Now I’m worried its made itself at home in Rodger somewhere. That quickly made up my mind to get out of there, much quicker than we’d planned.

Today we just drove and drove and drove and kept on going until we got to Kansas. The roads were very straight and boring. We navigated to Scott city and found a nice state park overlooking a lake. I didn’t want to camp right next to the lakes due to snakes, so we parked up on a hill overlooking the lake.

And if I thought the snake was bad, what I saw the next day was even worse!

Yesterday we woke up in a stunning location, today we woke up in a carpark. It’s just the way it goes sometimes. And it was raining. So we headed to the historic town of Salida to have a look around, and hopefully find somewhere nice for a typical American breakfast.

We wandered the streets, and while it was a nice town with quirky shops, it was very damp and rainy. We tried to find somewhere for breakfast, but we failed. Then I saw a diner on the outskirts of town, and we thought, perfect!

We had a typical American breakfast of biscuits and gravy with a side of bacon, and a pot of coffee. All of it was delicious. It was still raining by the time we finished, so we had a little afternoon nap in the van. By the time we woke up, the rain had cleared and we moved on.

We drove through a gorgeous gorge on our way to canon city. There were a few nice spots to stop and camp beside the Arkansas river, but unfortunately they were also close to the busy road. So we kept on driving.

We struggled to find somewhere to camp, so we ended up at a state park overlooking the water. It was really nice, with power, flush toilets,  and showers, so we were able to have our first shower of the trip (since our hotel in Vegas).

Today we took a drive up to the north rim of the black canyon, and it was an amazing drive. We stopped at Hermits rest, which overlooked a deep green river way down below. We were going to continue to the north rim, but I realised I had left my jandals at Hermits rest, so we had to go back down to get them. Then we decided to keep on driving back down.

We stopped in Gunnison, a reasonable sized town, and got a few supplies. I saw there was an oil change place there, so we drove up and nobody was there. So Rodger got some new oil. We also managed to get a small powerstation to power our Starlink mini, so now we can have satellite internet where there is none (there are many places in the USA where there is no internet).

Then we went to the library, as I needed to get my video uploaded. By the time we’d finished it was time to find somewhere to sleep. There was nowhere decent in Gunnison,so we drove on, over a steep mountain pass over Monarch mountain.  It was 11300 feet at the peak where we stopped to take a photo.

We saw about 3 or 4 deer on the side of the road, but thankfully they stayed in their place. It was almost dark by the time we stopped at a visitor centre which allowed overnight parking. There were two other vans camping here, so we figured it was ok.

It was dark and late when we arrived at our camp so we had no idea where we were. I stepped out side this morning and was blown away by the view. We had parked overlooking the mountains and a beautiful lake. We were both pretty exhausted, the heat and altitude really taking it out of us, so we decided to stay another day. We had plenty to do as the van was a mess.

I mentioned yesterday we bought a safe to keep our laptops in, so that was Mike’s first task to bolt that down. Then he got the bikes off and gave them a good clean off. I made coffee and worked in a video. 

A man from Texas camping not far away, came over to chat. He asked if he could sit, and then he just chatted away. We were both a bit shocked by his forwardness, but Americans aren’t as reserved as us British/Kiwis. The other thing I find is that they always like to know what you did as a job, as if that somehow defines you. I think I’m gonna start making stuff up. Mike can be an architect and I’ll be a marine biologist. Anyway, he finally left. I’m just glad the conversation didn’t turn to politics.

There is lots to explore around this area, but neither of us had the energy. The mornings are cool, but the days are hot. We’ve been camping at close to 8000 feet, and I think it takes a week or more to acclimatise. My HR is still quite high, and I’ve had a slight headache at times even though I’ve been drinking heaps, but other than a bit of shortness of breath on hikes, we both feel normal. 

The rest of the day we just sat and admired the view, trying to keep out of the heat.  We got the car tidied up, put up some fairly lights, and had bacon and eggs for lunch and a chicken and salad wrap for dinner. 

Today we left our forest camp early to avoid the heat, but somehow still ended up driving in the heat. We crossed into Colorado and stopped at a town called Montrose, which had a Walmart. We needed supplies so did a big shop, enjoying the air-conditioning in the store.

We’d managed to find a park in the shade at Walmart, so as it was too hot to drive, we spent the afternoon there. It was about 5pm by the time we decided it was cool enough to leave, neither of us really wanting to stay the night in a Walmart carpark. 

We stopped at the hardware store, looking for an adaptor to be able to power our starlink as our powerstation here is too weak. We couldn’t find one but ended up buying a safe to keep our laptops in. We really like the safe we have in Bertie, and even though we probably don’t need it, it’s nice to have somewhere to store our laptops rather than having them lying around.

As we continued out of town, I was thinking how it had been a “nothing” day. And then I saw a sign turning off to the black canyon national park. I had never heard of this place, but we were just driving past, it would have seemed silly not to visit. It was 6.30pm by this stage and sun sets at 7.30pm. We don’t like to drive after dark in the fear of hitting deer, so we hoped we might find somewhere to camp in the park.

But when we got there, the campground had completely burned down. A fire had swept through the place leaving eerie looking black trees all over the place. We stopped at the first scenic view point and Wow! The canyon walls were sheer vertical drops down into the canyon. It was like nothing I had ever seen. And the entire drive was like this, it was incredible. 

And you would think we might have planned things like this, but we arrived at sunset point right on sunset. A pure fluke! So, of course, we had to stay and watch the sunset. And it was beautiful. Even driving back under the blood red sky was unreal. We stopped off at another viewpoint and took a walk under the moonlight. The colours at this time of night made everything look surreal, and reminded me a bit of the midnight sun.

Then came the task of finding somewhere to sleep for the night. It was only 15 minutes back to Montrose, so I suggested we backtrack and sleep in the Walmart carpark. Mike wanted to continue onwards. So in the dark we drove, narrowly missing one deer. 

There were a couple of boondocking sites along the way, but we weren’t keen to venture onto dirt roads in the dark with Rodgers poor lighting. It wasn’t until 10pm that we found a national forest campground on the edge of a lake.  We pulled in, absolutely exhausted, and fell asleep. It will be a surprise to see where we are in the morning.

We decided on a days rest in our secluded forest camp. It was just too hot to drive. I got stuck into my next Estonia video, which I had been struggling with, while Mike sat outside enjoying some naked time. 

Mike kept on spotting wildlife. First a skunk, some squirrels and wild turkeys which were huge. Woodpeckers tap tap tapped on the trees around us. Then he heard a moo. Of course his first thoughts were it was a moose. But no, just some common cows wandering around.

Then, a man with his dog drove in. “Mike,clothes, Mike clothes,” I yelled from inside the van. Thankfully he was sitting on a towel so just wrapped it around himself. But the man looked quite amused. He just came to tell us he was talking his dog for a walk, and drove further on down the track.

I then tried to unlock the doors to get something out, and rather than the normal “click” from the central locking, there was nothing. Complete silence. A sound I recognised from many times last year. I checked the isolator switch that needs to be switched down when we stop to prevent the battery from draining. It was up. Mike tried to start the car but it was dead-as. 

Thankfully we have a jump starter, which we’ve used before. It also was flat. Bugger. We are basically in the middle of nowhere, with a flat battery.  I saw man with dog driving back down the track. “Quick, put some clothes on and flag him down!” I threw a pair of shorts at Mike.

The man stopped and helped. He also had a fancy jump starter thing, but his failed to work as well. We figured the van was just too flat. Thankfully he had a very heavy duty set of jump starters. And this did the trick.

It was way too hot to drive, so we sat with the van idling, quietly polluting the pristine forest. Let’s just hope it starts tomorrow.

The rest of the day I got stuck into finally finishing my video that I started two weeks ago. Now I just need to find somewhere to upload it.

Today was hot! We drove through deserts of rocks for about 3 hours in the heat with nothing in between. It was a beautiful drive, but it was too hot to hike, and there was no shade. So we kept on driving.

It’s so weird being back in Rodger after Bertie. Bertie is so sleek, modern and smooth, whereas Rodger is rough, vintage, and bouncy. At night in Bertie, our blockout blinks snap to the windows with magnets. With Rodger, it’s an elaborate closing of blinds, snapping them onto the window with clips, and numerous pegs to close off the gaps.

But there are many things to love about Rodger too, He just looks so damn cool driving through the deserts of Utah. And I love the fact I can climb through to the back from the cab. I do this sometimes when we are driving even. And the fridge is so big, we can fit a weeks worth of food in there. The bed system is much easier too, and the composting toilet is a game changer.

We didn’t do much today other than drive, and we clocked up over 300km. We eventually found some trees in a national forest, and found a nice free little spot all to ourselves in the shade.