General Category > Trip Reports

TADMO BL Road Trip Late Spring 2019

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T Hock:
So the wife and I put the TADMO BL thru it's longest road trip to date,
26 days, 5051 miles, 17 National Parks/Monuments in the west.

We both had a great time despite having to deal with the hoards of tourons that  flock like lemmings to the
popular parks this time of year.

The wife had never visited these NP's before and my last time was in 77 while on a motorcycle trip with a buddy, so we were due.

I'm 62 so I purchased the Federal Lands Senior Lifetime Pass ($80) for free admission and 1/2 price camping, it pais for itself after the 3rd NP. :)
 
I purposely avoided camping in the NP CG's by boondocking (our favorites for privacy and scenery) or using NF or BLM CG's adjacent to the NP's .

We only stayed in motels 3 times for the purposes of showering, doing laundry and filling the cooler with their ice. ;)

I also avoided interstates as much as possible and took scenic byways instead.

The van and conversion systems worked flawlessly the whole trip including at elevations over 10K.

On day 1 we headed south from Redding and instead of taking I-5 went down the eastside of the Sierra on Hwy. 395 and stayed in Tuff CG just south of Mammoth Lakes the first night.

Dinner is ready, to be continued...

 

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T Hock:
Day 2 we continued down the E-side and passed thru Bishop just before the Mule Days parade was going to start, didn't stay for it though.

We stopped at Manzanar and checked it out, Whitney wasn't visible due to clouds but the rest of the range looked great draped in snow. :)

Continued down 395 into the urban sprawl of SoCal and spent 2 days with brother Chad in Oceanside and
2 days with bro Ned in Riverside to attend his daughters HS Graduation.

After the Bro time in SoCal we headed east on I-40 and boondocked for the night on NF land 10 miles before
Grand Canyon NP South Rim entrance.

Got up early and spent the next morning/afternoon at GC South Rim visitors center, viewpoint trails and 
gift shops. (I hate em, but do it fer Mo)

Mo was actually moved to tears when seeing the GC for the first time. :)

We then headed towards Jacob Lake where we got a CG for the night before hitting the North Rim the next morning.

 





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RonAnderson:
Cool trip Tad!

RussWalling (has/been/hxm/Scots-Anglx):
Lookin good Tad

T Hock:
Thanks Ron n Russ,
back to the trip...

TR's gunna be way too wordy so I'm gunna cut back on the jabber and just post up pics of where and what we saw.

After a day each a both rims of the GC we next headed to Zion NP.
We wanted to hike The Narrows but it was still closed due to high water runoff.
I spotted a couple of climbers on Moonlight Buttress, zoom in on the 3rd pic down, bottom 3rd of the buttress.

Fuk, guess I can't post pics taken vertical.
 I flipped them in my album before posting here but they load here in landscape mode,
and yeah I'm an idiot so there's that. :)

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