Sad to Say Goodbye

~Wednesday, April 6, 2022~

Day 661

Oh, the pain! Woke up to sore calves, sore quads and a sore butt which is actually a “good pain” if that makes sense; wakening those muscle groups that need more use. The 9-½ hour rare night of sleep did me good. But, I’m not sure I’m quite ready for the next trail just yet.

Had a relaxed, yet accomplished day, one of which included revisiting our budget, which required making a few minor adjustments. With the skyrocketing prices of food and gas lately, things needed a little tweaking. It will be really interesting to see how things shake out in the end, since we’re traveling fewer miles this year (even with Alaska) and less on lodging (doing mostly boondocking). Who knows, maybe it will be a wash, comparing the two travel years. As you may recall, our route in the first year was insane as we got a delayed start due to our transmission debacle, then later trying to align our route with the weather, then returning to California for Jeff’s brother’s wedding. Our route was like a corkscrew of overlapping circles back tracking on eachother (check out our year 1 map….it’s insane!) https://www.footprintsonwheels.com/our-footprint-chart (scroll down the page for Year 1). This year is a more linear path, which really cuts down on the miles, hence costing less. The other difference is that we’re spending a lot more time in the Western portion of the U.S. where parks are less expensive than in the East, and boondocking choices are not in short supply. Stay tuned on this one!

Since our road family moved on from the Grand Canyon a few days ago, we’ve been trying to coordinate our next meet up spot with them ever since. But plans do change, as it looks like they are headed to “Viva Las Vegas”, and a first visit at that. Their route takes them west anyway, so we understood. Though it was quite tempting for us to cave and meet up there, we had to decline as it would have set us back a total of 700 miles to get back on course (northeast) and back on our timeframe. We’re hoping that things will align next winter/spring where we can all meet up in Florida.

Though the evenings have been chilly at the Canyon’s 7,000 foot elevation (the upper 20’s), we’ve thoroughly enjoyed

the daytime temps either at our campsite or sightseeing. Saying goodbye to the Grand Canyon tomorrow will not be easy, especially not knowing when our next visit will be.