My wife & I just returned from a 2 wk trip to the Northwest. Prior to this trip, I had pulled our li'l camper 30 mi to the Hoosier Spring Gathering and back, so I was a little nervous about the 4,000 + mile trip that awaited us. I guess the main conserns I had were wheel bearings & transmission.
I don't know why I was worried, the bearings were new, packed, & adjusted, I was only 3-400 lbs over the max tow weight for OD? Everytime we stopped for fuel I put my thumb on the hubs and my hand on the tires; barely warm everytime. 
To start out, we left little 'ol Crothersville, IN on Friday morning Sept 14 (took an extra day off before vacation started). The first leg of our journey was a 30 hr drive to Glacier NP in Montana with a stop by Audubon NWR in ND. I got to see a lot of this as we traveled to our first destination.
Trailer towed great, even up to the max speed as claimed by my GPS of 85 mph (must've been down hill, oops
)Our li'l camper tucks in nicely behind our Equinox, therefore not hendering our milage too bad, only lost about 3-4 mpg.
The first night we "camped with the big dogs" at a reststop on the other side of Wisconsin Dells
Night number 2 found us well into North Dakota facing a beatiful sunset before camping on Lake Audubon just North of the Wildlife Refuge. The Sun showed us it's beauty once again the next morning.
We explored the NWR the best we could on our limited time schedule and jumped up Ringneck Pheasants along with other birds, then it was off to our first major distination: Glacier NP in Montana and our first "official" campsite, not bad for $10 a night
(Oh ya, might I mention, no electric, pit toilets, and they turned the water off the morning we got there. Wife was NOT happy with the pit toilet thing 
)(she took her chances in the bushes with the bears. I dare a bear to cold nose her in the middle of the nite 
)For those of you that have not been there (yet), it is one of the most impressive NP in the Country! Now mind you S. IN ain't but about 8-900 ft above sea level, so when this flat lander got up to 12,000 ft,..... shewwweeee, I got winded real easy.
And she expected me to hike where? This trail takes you back to Hidden Lake (I know, it's not hidden, you can see it
) Just a short 3 mi hike.After that casual stroll
she wanted to take another hike to Virginia Falls 
..... yes dear. The hike and the falls turned out to be nice (just another 3 mi up hill) Oh ya, after those 2 hikes (around 7 mi) my wife, still looking for pics of mountain goats, asked if anyone had seen them. On person stated that they had just come off the Hidden Lake trail and they were up there. So, you guessed it, we went back to HL trail and, in a hurried pace, went back up to the top to find the goats still next to the trail. Do I need to remind you about how easily winded us flat landers are? She liked to kill me!
In Glacier we encounter Grizzly bear, Big Horn Sheep, Mountain Goats, Bull Moose, Black Bear, and a Grizzly with 2 cubs.
On our way out of Galcier we encounter the elusive "free range black tailed bovine"
After spending 3 days at Glacier it was off too.....Yellowstone NP!
In YNP we were surrounded by
But got to see Black Bear, Elk, Coyote, Mule Deer, and a Bald Eagle (up close). On our way out, we stopped through the Tetons. Not any luck on wildlife and the landscape shots where a wash with the smoke hanging in the air from the wildfires in Idaho (I feel for those folks). Even made breathing difficult. Could barely see the Mountains.
Next leg of our journey finds us traveling to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado!
Along the way we picked up some shots of the Wind River
Late Sunday evening we arrived at our last destination: RMNP, in the dark up a windy, hilly, twisted road.
With only one malfunction of the camper (thanks to the bumpy roads)
We restrained ourselves to just short hikes and got many, many pics of wildlife and landscape. Mainly Elk because they were in rut (mood for love). Even had one wake us up at 4 am, bugling next to our camper. Opened the door around 5 am and could have reached out and touched 2 cows.
The birds and chipmunks were very friendly
Even found Elk running around in town by the golf course (Estes Park)
One morning we ventured across the mountain to look for Moose, and sure enough....
Found a bull, cow, and calf.
When we started back over the mountain that afternoon we encountered a slight "problem"
(this is another fine mess she's got me in)Oh, but when we got to the other side.....
Tuesday night we got rained on all night long and woke up to....
We packed it up early Thursday and headed for home with blue skies in front of us and rain clouds behind.
In 5000 miles of driving, did not see not one TD or TTT in all my travels. The only exception was Yellowstone. One couple from S. Cal came in with their home built TD fresh in from Prudhoe Bay who had never heard of the website (I quickly educated them) and caught a glimpse of the rear of a TD one day. Other than that, zilch, zero, nada. (out of 14696 users?)
Arrived home late Friday night to a purring cat who hasn't left our side since.
(like within a couple of feet from the seat)(visualize THAT)
