Home - Mile 7295 - Route 89 - Mile 1394

You might be wondering what happened since our last blog. We'll explain. . . . . . .

Las Vegas - Mile 4381 - Route 89 - Mile 1394

On Saturday, September 13th we left Las Vegas for Lake Havasu City to visit Chuck and Marie.


This is the beautiful back yard of Mary Jo and Lon's home. You can see the mountains in the background.


This is Lon and Mary Joe just before we all left for Lake Havasu City.

Lake Havasu City - Mile 4596 - Route 89 Mile 1394


Chuck and Marie were wonderful hosts. As a part of their greeting are the "Chuckeritas" you see here.

Here's a picture of the desert sunset at Chuck and Marie's house Saturday night. The temperature was cooling down from 110 degrees earlier in the afternoon to around 95 degrees at this time.

Here's the pool we enjoyed twice before we went to bed.

Another Chuck specialty is Cherries Jubilee.

About 4:30 a.m. Sunday we received a phone call that a a very special uncle, Orielle, had passed away unexpectedly. After numerous phone calls and a quick breakfast, Sue and I decided we needed to go back to Minnesota. This is a picture of Chuck and Marie just before we left. We were sorry we had to leave so early but we promised we would visit them again.

We travelled west all Sunday and at Albuquerque, we headed north towards Denver. We spent five hours at a Super 8 near Fort Morgan and we continued on to Minnesota. We arrived at home about 10:30 Monday night. We got up early Tuesday to head towards Sue's parents in northwestern Minnesota. We attended the visitation Thursday evening and the funeral Friday morning. We arrived home Friday night.

So what were our "takeaways" from this trip?

• We traveled a total of 7295 miles; 1394 were on Highway 89.
• We wished everyone could have seen and enjoyed what we saw.
• The lifetime $10 "Senior Pass" for the national parks is a great deal!
• The (free) shuttle busses for three of the national parks were awesome.
• Route 89 was a wonderful road. It didn't seem very busy. You seemed much closer to nature. Seemed like much of it was along rivers. We will finish Route 89 through Arizona another time.
• If you plan to stay within a national park, book your room at least 6 months before you leave.
• We really enjoyed have a GPS navigation system. We used a "Tom-Tom". It wasn't always perfect, but is was really good.
• For the most part, we stayed in Super 8s. They were generally reasonable, clean, included breakfast and wireless internet. If you stay in Jackson Hole, be prepared to pay significantly more than most/all other locations.
• We really think it's important to enjoy things when you can; you can't take it with you (you don't need pockets in your last pair of pants), etc.
• The call of an unexpected death of a person dear to us is a reminder of how every day is precious; like time it needs to be spent wisely.
• For those of you who followed this trip, we are flattered. We took tons of pictures but only posted a few. If you want to see more, please let us know, we would be happy to show you. We have a spectacular country and we just saw a very small part.

We haven't planned out next trip but when we do, we'll let you know.

Bob & Sue