My Wild West Trip Report

I’ve been talking a lot about my recent trip out west, but most of that conversation centered on the comics I purchased. I thought I’d do a quick rundown on the trip itself in the hopes of encouraging you to take your own cross-country jaunt.

Day 1- We flew out of our home port in Myrtle Beach. US Airways managed to screw up a prepaid flight and we ended up missing the first leg of the trip. I’m working patiently with them to rectify the whole thing but their customer service is very typical of a large corporation and isn’t really much help at all. If they don’t help me soon, you can count on an entire post about it. Instead of having all day in Nevada, we had time to get there, get a car, and start driving. Air mileage- 3225 miles. Driving mileage- 120.

Day 2- Spent the whole day with family in St. George UT in the Powers mansion. Lincoln and Tiffany Powers were awesome hosts and treated us super awesome. After picking up the moving truck, we spent half the day loading comics and resting. Driving mileage- 15.

Day 3- Lincoln and Tiffany drove us up to Zion National Park UT, which is only about an hour from their house. Zion is one of my favorite parks. I can’t wait to get back with my boys and hike the Narrows Trail. Driving mileage- 90.

Day 4- We set out from St. George and drove across Utah. We visited Moab UT for supper and checked out Arches National Park UT. We stopped for the night in Grand Junction CO. At just about every little town or city on the trip, we found plenty of neat new coffeeshops. Driving mileage- 279.

Day 5- We’d spent most of our time on the Interstate, but departed today to cross the Rockies near Breckinridge CO at Hoosier Pass Summit at 11,556′ elevation. The truck almost didn’t make it over, dropping to 10mph, and heating up pretty good. We stopped for lunch at the Cowboy Pizza Station in Frisco, which I would definitely recommend. We stopped for the night in Woodland Park CO. Driving mileage- 285.

Day 6- We started out the morning at the Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park. I love dinosaur-centric event stops! We also stopped in at the Cliff Dweller Museum in Manitou Springs CO. This place was pretty cool. We stopped for the night in Burlington CO so we could start fresh looking for the Kansas highpoint. Driving mileage- 181.

Day 7- First thing we headed across 60 miles of dirt roads in the cornfields looking for Mt. Sunflower, the highpoint of Kansas. Later on we stopped in Oakley KS at the Buffalo Bill Monument. We stopped for the night in Oak Grove MO. Driving mileage- 550.

Day 8- Our big event stop and my favorite of the whole trip was in Metropolis IL where we got pics at the Superman statue and toured the Superman museum. We stopped in Murfreesboro TN for the night. Driving mileage- 576.

Day 9- Murfreesboro TN was close enough to home that we decided to make the final push on our longest travel day and make it all the way home. Driving mileage- 587.

We arrived home about 2100 hours.

Recap-

• Highest Gas- $3.99 in CO
• Lowest Gas- $3.48 in GA
• Air Mileage- 3225 miles
• Driving Mileage- 2458 miles
• States Visited (some twice)- South Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina
• Hotel- never paid over $65 a night
• Fuel Cost- $928.76