Maiden Voyage - Ruby Road Trip 2019
Originally posted Oct 13th, 2019
Ruby, Ruby, Ruby - our precious Ruby. Before I forget all of the details of our amazing road trip West (because I have a terrible mem), I best get them in writing! It's been ~1 month since we've gotten back already which is crazy & let's be honest, I probs forgot 50% already; proper nouns just don't stick with me.
Featured below - Ruby at a rest stop; pants down because the breezier, the better ;)
First off, let's get the ROUTE on paper: I always love recording our route, especially now since we have a BUS and we travel at like 0.2 mph and get passed by all of your mini vans and gran-papis - looking at the big picture just feels rewarding! It went a lil' something like this -
A glorious big loop around the upper mid-west of the US of A - a whole 2,216 miles of the golden country (max speed of 58mph for all 2,216 of those...). Even putting aside the part about making lifelong commitments to each other, it was all a glaring success! My favorite part was definitely our time in the Montana area - started with a few days of bff wedding in Red Lodge, MT and then moved into the Yellowstone area. The best part about that section of the trip was how close amazing things are to each other! We spent ~5 days bouncing around different parts of Yellowstone (Yellowstone Lake --> Mammoth Springs --> geysir area) and into the Tetons!! Tetons were everything I hoped for and more. For a long time now, I've had my eye on the Tetons. They are SO SO majestic. Definitely one of those mountain ranges you could just stare at for days - hammocks are a must-have when visiting these bad boys. No words.
Jakers also put a ring on it (aka MY finger) in the Tetons which was just another reason to love the them even more! We were at Lake Solitude - ~9 mile hike in from Jenny Lake (not counting the 9 mile hike back...). Absolutely gorgeous backdrop; I couldn't have imagined any better or more fitting way for us to step into the next adventure - completely exhausted, but determined to make it back because of my new bling. We also saw FIVE moose on this hike which was incredible!!! If any of you know me, you know every time I'm in the wild, I'm on a moose hunt. Hi Moosies, I'm getting married.
All of the Tetons were incredible & we hit some luck on both the weather and campsites. We didn't really book anything in advance which was sometimes a little stressful, but worked out for us. Both Yellowstone and Tetons leave a lot of FCFS (first come first serve) campgrounds and sites, so as long as you get your booty moving, we were able to snag spots. Where we stayed (post-Red Lodge):
Night 1: Yellowstone, Beaver Bay (east side)
Night 2: Yellowstone, Mammoth Campground (north side)
Night 3: Grand Tetons, Colter Bay
Night 4: Jackson, WY, city streets
Night 5: Grand Tetons, Colter Bay
Night 6: rest stop
Night 7: Custer State Park (SD)
Things that came in CLUTCH:
Bikes - although these were annoying as heck since we don't yet have a bike rack, they were great to have! Sometimes just biking down to a hiking trail or general store or the showers...makes so much more sense that beefing up Rubes.
Grill - obviously & we don't yet have a stove, so this was huge!
Camp Stove - this was also HUGE for cooking food. Especially when we ran into some rainy days. We warmed up water for our French Press everyday in a stove that can fit into your pocket!
Speaker - we ripped out all of the speakers in the bus, so have a blue tooth for jamming was huge.
Love sac - great temporary cozy spot until we get a couch, definitely clutch when suspension went out and we were driving through construction zones
The trip definitely had some unforeseen challenges - our suspension went out when we were close to MT. Luckily for Jake's handy skills and the tractor shop in town, we were able to get a part shipped in! Ruby also was a little moody with elevation - there really is no way to know how a bus will handle climbing mountains until you climb mountains...we learned that if elevation challenges are coming, we need to get going early in the AM, factor in lots of stops for "views", and play "THE CLIMB" by Miley for that extra get-up.
All in all, she's a beaut. Not a perfect beaut, but a beaut that we wouldn't trade for 'nothing! Now we need to get the next trip on the calendar, so we have some motivation to continue with Ruby's upgrades!!
Peace, love, & get after Something More,
~Fiance Jen
S/O to Jakers, Cleo, and Ruby for living this best life as a team.
