Here are a few from our two week cross country trip we did at the end of July into August. Roughly 6500 miles, the wife, our 13yr old, her parents, and two little dogs.

Knoxville TN to...
Painted Desert/Petrified Forrest
Meteor Crater
Grand Canyon
Hoover Dam
Death Valley
Sequoia
San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge
Redwood
Yellowstone
Grand Teton
...back to home

Truck did good. A little DEF fluid scare coming into Death Valley but no biggie. Gauge wouldn't reset after putting some in and I was afraid the truck would go into limp mode or shut down literally in the middle of no where, but it finally did. Truck got hot in the same area, but that was my fault, it was 115* outside and I was pushing it hard to get somewhere, didn't reaalize how much I was going uphill. I eased up, it cooled off and we were fine.

We have over 5000 pictures from the trip, most with the "good" camera. These are just from my Galaxy S4.







My favorite (truck related)
















Golden Gate thru the sunroof



















The difference between 9000' elevation
3:30pm in the afternoon

10:00pm at night


The family



I skipped a few and probably missed a bunch, but theres some for y'all. Fun times!!!!

Ken

 

Very Nice! Looks like you had a great time. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!!

 

Whoa, that's quite the trip. Thanks for sharing the pics!

 

Nice pics!... been to a few of those places.. need to do it again!

 

Great pics, looks like a grand vacation.

 

Very nice pictures and it's always great when the vehicle does well. There are some amazing places to visit/explore in our great country.

 

Great pictures and thank you for sharing. What a great trip!!! Lifetime of memories here.

I've seen and touched Sequoia trees twice in my life. One of those things that pictures never seem to capture the feeling of being in a grove of Sequoia trees. Anyone that has an interest in the outdoors should see and touch one, once in their life.

The closest Sequoia grove to my house is several thousand miles away. Always visited them via airplane and not with the big Ford truck.

bruce...

 

The trees and the Grand Canyon, no picture or video can give you an idea of how big they are until you see them in person. It is truly amazing. My wife is a teacher and had been to the Grand Canyon once before with a school trip, and told me I would be amazed. That was an understatement. It will take your breath away. And the trees, you just have to stand under one and look up for yourself, their size, no words for it. Gigantic, doesn't do them justice.

We did the trip mainly for her mother and father, he is a forester, has been all his life, and his wife has worked with him most of that time. They had never seen the big trees. It was their Christmas present last year. Everything else was just to make the trip across the country more worthwhile for everyone else, I didn't thing "big trees" could be that impressive. I was wrong.

I found out several things on this vacation. One, two week vacations fly by just as fast as one week vacations. Two, as pretty as it is around my neck of the woods (Smoky Mountains in my back yard) the other side of this country is incredible. Three, humidity, I disliked it before, after being over there, I really hate it. I could live in Death Valley. Death Valley is awesome.

The truck did do great. We got it in May I think. It's not a daily driver, just for pulling the rv and other trips, the wife's car is too small for any road trip and I have a beater to get back and forth to work. Amazingly it's already got 10,000miles on it. 6500 miles in two weeks was a big dent but it seems every time we drive it, it gets another 800-1000 miles on it. My brother and I took the rv down to Oxford last weekend for the Ole Miss vs Tennessee game (we're actually Ole Miss fans living in UT land), next weekend she'll be at it again taking the rv to our cabin in Newton Mississippi for 5 days of fishing, drinking, eating, shooting anything that doesn't move, and relaxing (we hang out in the cabin but sleep in the rv). It's amazing how fast the miles add up even when it's just sitting in the driveway most of the time. I've rambled enough...

Ken

 

Great trip! I love Death Valley. Did you camp at Furnace Creek?

 

Looks like a great trip, also glad the truck did good. Thanks for sharing!!

 

Yes, we were only at Furnace Creek one night tho, that picture of the GPS where it's 110* at 10:00pm is from there when we pulled up. There was no moon that night, no clouds and of course no humidity, so we dropped the rv and headed down the road to a spot I can't remember the name of to look at the stars. It was awesome. We had a telescope but forgot the stupid lenses, but just with binoculars or the naked eye, the number of stars you could see was insane. We took our time leaving the next day taking lots of pictures. But that was it for Death Valley. I was the only one in the family wanting to stop there. Everyone else was terrified all our tires would blow out from the heat and we'd end up a real life version of "The Hills Have Eyes" movie. It was nothing like that. Lots of people there, beauty everywhere to see and all our tires survived just fine LOL I'd go back in a heartbeat!

Ken

 

Great pictures Ken. I can't wait to make another trip west.

 

Great pictures. I've been to all of those spots and it never gets old.

Last summer we were in Yellowstone, stayed at Fishing Bridge, and really enjoyed the Grand Prismatic springs.

Thanks for sharing. You have a beautiful family and are doing what more families these days should be doing. Great job.

 

Ken, thanks for sharing your trip with us Excellent !

 

Thank you for sharing those fantastic pics!! I want to go so bad!!