10/06/2026
🏕️ 16 Days. 15 Nights. 6 Camps. And we’re HOME! 🏕️
We pulled into the driveway right around 5:00 this evening, and I’m pretty sure no one was happier to see us than Tee! 😂❤️
What an incredible two weeks.
We left home September 20th with the Jeep, camper and a general idea of where we wanted to go, but plenty of room to change plans along the way. That’s exactly how we like to travel.
Our camps took us from Valley of the Gods, Utah, back into Colorado for Mesa Verde, Hesperus, the San Juan National Forest outside Pagosa Springs, South Fork and Creede.
Along the way we traveled through Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, explored national forest and national park lands, drove countless miles of mountain and backcountry roads, and crossed a whole bunch of mountain passes.
And those passes deserve their own mention! We crossed Wolf Creek, Spring Creek, Slumgullion, Monarch, Trout Creek and of course Red Hill — and I’m pretty sure there are a few more we need to add once we retrace the entire route!
We explored ancient ruins and cliff dwellings, drove through Monument Valley and the Navajo Nation, stood at Four Corners, wandered through Mesa Verde, took the Jeep down some fantastic 4x4 roads, drove the Bachelor Loop outside Creede, stopped at the Last Chance Mine, rode rail bikes in South Fork, soaked in the hot springs, chased waterfalls, hiked, explored little mountain towns and saw some of the most incredible fall colors we could have timed almost perfectly.
We cooked a LOT of food over the campfire — hobo pies definitely became a theme 😂 — found some fantastic restaurants and breweries along the way, drank more than a few margaritas, and somehow managed to eat extremely well for people living out of a camper for more than two weeks.
We had warm sunny days, cold mornings, rain, some pretty serious downpours, double rainbows and everything in between. We also learned that when a Colorado weather app says there’s a 1% chance of precipitation, that absolutely does NOT mean zero. 😂
There were beautiful campsites, quiet nights around the fire, ridiculous scenery, wrong turns that turned into unexpected stops, equipment that decided to quit working and had to be fixed on the fly, and plenty of moments that never made it onto Facebook.
And that’s exactly how it should be.
We’re tired, dirty, have a mountain of laundry to deal with, and are very happy to be home.
But would we do it all again?
Absolutely.
In fact, we’re already making plans for next year’s big trip. Apparently, we’re not very good at staying home for long! 😂
Thanks to everyone who followed along on our adventure! We have a ridiculous number of pictures between our phones and the drone, so once we recover and get everything sorted out, we’ll do a big photo dump later this week.
For tonight, though, we’re home, Tee is happy, and I think we’re officially done adventuring for the day. 😂
