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Wow, what an adventure we have begun… the beginning of road tripping across the United States!! A bit later than what we were hoping, but hey, it’s a road trip, that’s expected right?
Our original plan was to leave Friday afternoon – we quickly realized that was an extremely unrealistic goal with how much we had to pack and whom we still needed to say goodbye to. So, we changed our plan to be leaving Saturday morning between 8:00 and 10:00 and again reality kicked in and we didn’t actually get on the road till midnight – again the fun side of traveling.. nothing is as expected.
{Traveler’s Tip… When planning a road trip, don’t plan too much and be open to a flexible schedule. AND… hit the road no matter how “late” you end up actually going.. just go!!}
FINDING FREE CAMPING
So technically, our trip didn’t actually begin until Sunday early, early morning. We drove, well Jason drove and I slept on and off for three hours, and ended up camping at Hat Creek Overlook on California Highway 44. People get this.. it’s a free, yes free campsite. For those of you who like to camp check out freecampsites.net, it has free campsites everywhere!!
READ MORE | 4 Ways to camp for free in the United States
We only paid for sleeping twice over our two months road tripping across the states, and wrote a whole post for you about it!
Now it’s a free campsite, so you can’t expect much, especially when you arrive after 3:00 am. We drove around the parking lot to try and find the 6-15 campsites that were supposed to be there, thought that maybe we just needed to get out and walk around to try and find them, and then got tired of doing that, so we pitched a tent in the parking lot. The stars were amazing, and the cement was quite comfy with our sleeping pads.
We slept like babies…
Literally.. you know when you have a newborn and they only sleep for short periods of time. Yes, that was us. We went to bed after 4:00am and ended up waking up at 6:30 from the first car that stopped at this gorgeous lookout.
When we say gorgeous that’s exactly what we mean. Again we got there while it was pitch black, so we couldn’t see anything outside of our flashlight’s range. So waking up was a true treat. God’s beauty was shining through the devastation of the fire there in 2009. The valley was so pretty and the huge mountainous backdrop was to die for. The bathrooms and picnic tables to eat breakfast on were just added bonuses.
{Traveler’s Tip… If you do decide to stay at Hat Creek Overlook, there is an actual free campground there. We were just too tired and it was too dark for us to find it! Honestly, if you’re okay with waking up early, the parking lot works just fine!}
DAY TWO PLAN OF ROAD TRIPPING THE UNITED STATES
We hit the road again around 8:00 am, with hopes of reaching Great Basin National Park by nightfall. The plan is to camp there for a night, hike through the caves in the morning and then hit the road again heading for Zion National Park in Utah.
…PRAYER REQUESTS…
*Praise Him for safe travels so far, and prayer for continued safe travels
*Praise Him that Jason’s Crohn’s disease is in complete remission and that he continues to be healed from Crohn’s
*Pray that we would see where the Lord is guiding us on this trip
