Yesterday we began our national parks road trip and the adventures have already begun. After getting up at 3:30am, we got on the road bright and early to cover the many miles between the Minneapolis area and Fort Collins, Colorado.

We made a slight change in our route to save a little bit of time. Instead of heading down thru Iowa and then Nebraska, we headed West thru South Dakota and then cut thru the corner of Wyoming and dropped down into Colorado.

While the route did save some time, we did have to take more two-lane highways and go thru small towns with speed changes. Both were acceptable tradeoffs for cutting nearly an hour of driving off our trip.

However, the drive wasn’t completely without adventure. Having tried to stretch our fuel as far as we could go between refills to make better time, we nearly ran out of gas at one point. When you get to Eastern Wyoming, the fuel stops can be few and far between. It was a lesson that sometimes you need to just take fuel when you can get it, even if it means more stops.

The Day’s Itinerary

If you are interested in reading more about how I planned my national parks road trip or would like to see the details of our itinerary for today, I have linked to our day’s itinerary below for you to review.

Camping in Fort Collins

We rolled into Fort Collins just after 9pm last night and checked into the Fort Collins Lakeside KOA. We won’t be here very long as we have a reservation to enter Rocky Mountain National Park at 10am today, but the place looks very nice. In addition to the standard RV hookups, they offer cable TV, restrooms and showers, and have a nice pool.

I will check back in tomorrow after we explore Rocky Mountain National Park. Until then!

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