New Rig For Trip-- Portland, OR To Denver

[Larry196]

We just bought a new car, a new tow dolly, sold our house, best of all a 2006 Holiday Rambler 40 foot DP.

Wife said first trip will be to Denver to see our son, before he heads to Alaska, she plans on leaving from the dealers lot after we sign the papers (I think shes in a rush.)

Anyway the purpose of this post is to find out if there is anything interesting between Portland, OR and Denver?

We made this trip once before on a tight time schedule and only saw the back of a lot of Diesels. Now we have the rest of our lives.

I'm not to keen on Wyoming and the winds, last trip we lost our awning and a mirror.

[dalltop]

Wow, sounds exiting but I would try to run local loop for a week. My dad sold units for years and they would check them over for predelivery but no matter what they did, after the units left the lot, the owner would often have some issues that needed to be resolved. I would run it on a few short trips, setup and brake camp for a few days before heading to far from the dealership.

[RVerOnTheMove]

If you must take the shortest route the one stopover I would recommend is Salt Lake City. Very interesting city history, things to tour and Mormons to learn about.

If you can detour a bit S. out of SLC you will be able to take I-70 to Denver instead of I-80. It only adds about 100 miles to the trip but the places to go and things to see skyrockets. Moab, Arches and Canyonland, and my personal "never miss this stopover" Glenwood Springs. The drive itself is beautiful and stops are astounding. Hope you get to add this into your trip.

[wlrudolph]

There are several beautiful National Parks in UT. Zion, Arches, Brice, Canyonlands (North loop by the Arches), and small fairly new National Park near Ceder City is Ceder Breaks

The West side of CO has the million dollar high, ( would drive the car and leave the coach in Montrose, Back canyon, Royal Gourge, And several places in Co Spgs like 7 falls, Garden of the Gods, Pikes Peak Near Denver are severl places, Red Rock theatre, and lots of beautiful scenery near the sky ares.

[vsheetz]

Surely there will be some initial issues that need to be resolved. Would rethink the plan to hit the road and be away from the dealer right away.

[tbutler]

So is your dealer in Portland? I agree with those above, stay close to home for a week or two and give the rig a run through so you can find any things that need fixing and get back to the dealer with a list while your money is still warm in their pockets! You dealer is going to offer the best response to your needs. Getting repairs and further instruction on operation of your rig will be harder to come by once you are on the road. As said above, move from campground to campground several times, set up, take down. Boondock overnight to see how the inverter/batteries/generator work. Do some mountain driving to test the acceleration and the braking including the engine braking. Get a feel for the handling and operation. Fill the fuel tank, empty the waste tanks, try the on-air TV antenna and your satellite dish if you have one. Give the plumbing a run, wash a load of laundry or two in the washer if you have one. You get the idea. There are lots of things to test before you really leave home.

I just re-read your post and you are in Vancouver, WA. Duh! You already know all this but anyway here is what I was saying... Just east of Portland is a wonderland of waterfalls. All along the southern edge of the Columbia River Gorge are waterfalls coming off the northern slope of Mount Hood. You can see them driving your toad along the old highway. You will be stopping every 5 to 10 miles and driving through some great scenery as well. If you are so inclined, several of the dams in the gorge offer tours. Mount Hood itself is worthy of a day or two of exploration. This time of year you can drive up to the ski lodge and even take the ski lift and play in the snow for a while. We camped at Dallesport on the Washington side of the river but I can't find a reference for the park. There is a state park there which accommodates big rigs. There are other locations in the vicinity where you could stay.

Further east in Washington we love the area around Grand Coulee Dam and Coulee City, WA. We also recently explored Yakima, WA and found some interesting stops there. All these are within driving distance of Portland so you could make a run at these locations and then stop back at the dealership with your list of fixes. You could also call them as the list is taking shape and make an appointment so you could get in and out with dispatch. In the long run you may save yourself a lot of time.

Here are other options for close to home travel. You could come up north where we have been for the past month, spend some time poking around the Olympic Peninsula then head back to Portland. We also love the area around Mt. Ranier and Mt. St. Helens. On south into Oregon Crater Lake is fun to explore.

On down the road, once you are comfortable leaving the dealership... Here is one route with several stops to explore. Start in S central Idaho, Carters of the Moon National Monument, Yellowstone Natonal Park, The Grand Tetons in Wyoming, drive the east side of Flaming Gorge Reservoir to Vernal Utah - Dinosaur National Park. We loved the drive from Vernal into Denver on old Hwy 40. You will have two choices for mountain driving into Denver. You can jump south to I-70 and take that run into Denver or you can stay with 40 and take a more scenic route but it has some switchbacks before you finally join I-70 for the final descent. By far the easiest way to Denver from the west and over the Rockies is I-80 in Wyoming to I-25 but the other routes are much more interesting. Of course by this time you are coming to the season when you have to begin to think carefully and watch the weather report when it comes to mountain driving.