Oh, it's MOFO time - the 4th MOFO
The yellow ones streaking from Canada and thru Utah is month four.
Where oh where does the time go? How are we 140-ish days into this grand adventure of a YOFO? Our heads are spinning and we're going to try to give you a glimpse into why with some stats. They don't quite capture the chaos or adventure or the mental snapshots or images or smells or sights, but hopefully this'll give you a smattering of the feels. And as a disclaimer, the stats add an extra ten days because we're too lazy to subtract out those days. Maths, while fun, isn't the point.
surrounded by beauty in every direction.
Big numbers first - we've driven over 17,000 miles, 11,000+ of which are towing miles from campground to campground. The rest are in-and-around miles. We've visited 17 unique states and 4 provinces, although we've been to Colorado and Wyoming twice and Utah three times. We've slept or camped in all of them, with the exception of British Columbia which we drove through. That's taken about 1636 gallons of diesel (about $4500 worth) and 36 gallons of DEF. We've replaced all four tires on the trailer and all six tires on the truck - ouch.
The heavy lifter. Our rack gets a surprising number of comments. And yes, we have fun talking about our rack...
We've visited 19 National Parks and another 8 National Lakeshore/Monument/Rec Area type places plus three Canadian National Parks and four Canadian Provincial Parks (sorry - forgot to count State Parks and State Rec Areas, but it's over five and prob closer to ten). We're equal opportunity campers having squatted on county and state lands, BLM lands, Forest Service lands, National Park Service lands, military installations (Air Force and Army so far), and out in front of a friend's house on the street.
Carrying the bags to the room for the night.
Activity time - egads - over 280 hours of physical movement covering over 870 miles of water and turf in every one of the states we've visited. The trip started out weighted toward kayaking and running on trails, but hiking is dominating the stats right now. Hiking - 185 hours, 400 miles, and 80k plus of altitude; mountain biking - 28 hours, 134 miles (1 epic wreck); kayaking - 33 hours, 76 miles; running (trail and road) - 22 hours, 102 miles; road cycling - 14 hours, 159 miles.
Trav had fun with one of our kayaking pics
Those miles are fueled "cheaply" - granola bars and pb&js (36 and counting) make up the bulk of our "active day" lunches, although we eat salads almost every night and eat lots of veggies and eggs. We have a "stable" of 6-7 gallon jugs that we refill and use on the go to stay hydrated and replenish the Camelbaks. We've gone through five grill canisters of propane and have refilled a 40-gallon tank three times (we have two and have never run out).
Seemed like a good idea at the time
The cheapest places we've stayed were free (lots of $5 and under places also). The most we've payed for a campsite is about $50/night. We prefer the cheaper sites and not just for the monetary reasons - most of the developed places are very nice and clean, but they tend to pack trailers in like sardines and that's just not our vibe.
Get up, get out, breathe deep.
A quick rundown of our wildlife sightings - and we do wish we were better at bird and small critter (amphibians, snakes, reptiles, etc) identification. Bears and coyotes. Buffalo. Moose, elk, deer (white tailed, black tailed, and mule). Pronghorn antelope, big horn sheep, wild horses and donkeys, mountain goats. Beaver, otter, marmot, pika, squirrels (at least five types), chipmunks (at least three types?), mice, voles. Bats. Bald eagles, golden eagles, northern harriers, red tailed hawks, prairie falcons, ospreys, kestrels, and more predatory birds. Great horned owls. Ravens, crows, Stellars jays, Clarks Nutcrackers, scrub jays, piñon jays. Great blue herons, trumpeter swans, pelicans. Loons, cormorants, lots and lots of ducks and geese. Sapsuckers and red pileated woodpeckers and others. Ptarmigans, ruffed grouse, pheasants and other ground birds. Lots of small birds in forests and meadows and hummingbirds. Turtles, snakes, frogs, toads, salamanders, lizards, slugs. Mosquitos, gnats, black flies, deer flies, horse flies, wasps, this demon thing that looked like a red and orange wasp, ants, spiders, grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas.