We hadn’t been out west since 2021!

I mean, we did get to Wisconsin last year, but that’s not really that far west in the grand scheme of things.  This time we were headed to Colorado to see the Rocky Mountains!

Once we got to Harpers Ferry, I knew that was the start of our trek out west to the Rockies and I was so excited!

I loved getting back to Harpers Ferry again.  It’s a really cool place, but boy was it a lot hotter than when we were there in March.  Once it cooled down in the evenings, me and mommy and daddy would go for some nice hikes.  We still weren’t going as far I like to, but we did get a little 2-mile and then a 3-1/2-mile hike in while we were there.

When we left Harpers Ferry, we were headed to Coopers Rock State Forest.  That was one of my favorite stops on our way out west.  It was a beautiful place and me and mommy and daddy hiked over five miles to the Coopers Rock lookout and back.  Once we got there, we were in awe of how beautiful it was.  You could see for miles and miles!  West Virginia sure was green!

After we left Coopers Rock, we headed to the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.  That was pretty amazing as well.  Our first day there, we saw the New River Gorge Bridge.  I walked mommy and daddy for just a couple of miles, but part of our walk was down and back up a bunch of stairs.  Mommy and daddy were really huffing and puffing, but I wasn’t.  I was practically pulling daddy up the stairs on our way up!  He needs to get into better shape!

The next day, we got up really early and went to two other really cool spots in the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.  The first was Sandstone Falls.  It wasn’t like Niagara Falls by any means, but was still really pretty.  There was a nice board walk that we took out to see the falls and then we walked a nice trail called the Island Loop Trail on the way back.  It was so pretty.  We saw some deer and a nice guy that we met gave me lots of pets.  It was great!

Mommy and daddy made a quick stop at the Visitor Center while I hung out in the RV on our way to our next hike, which was at Grandview.  We saw more deer there before we even got the RV parked.  Mommy walked up to the one and took a picture of him.  It was almost like he was just waiting there for mommy to come and take his picture.

Our hike at Grandview may have been my favorite because I got more pets there than I think anywhere else in West Virginia.  One nice lady even gave me a piece of her apple because she said I was so cute and sat like such a good boy.

After we left Grandview, mommy and daddy stopped for lunch and then we drove all the way to Elizabethtown, Kentucky!  We drove through some really bad rain on the way there.  I would sleep through most of the rain because I knew that daddy had things under control at the wheel.  He was driving slow and safe.

We stayed at the Cracker Barrel in Elizabethtown that night and sure enough, I got some bacon the next morning.  Once we got to Elizabethtown, it really started to get hot.  And when I say hot, I mean crazy hot!  Mid-90’s and humid – yuck!

After breakfast, we went to the Elizabethtown Sports Complex where daddy met some friends and watched some games in the Baseball for All Nationals.  Me and mommy stayed in the RV in the air conditioning because it was so hot.  I had no complaints about that, that’s for sure.

After the baseball tournament, we drove to Evansville, Indiana to another Cracker Barrel.  This time mommy and daddy ate dinner at the Cracker Barrel, so I didn’t get any bacon.  There was a nice lake next to the Cracker Barrel that had a walking path, so me and mommy and daddy walked around the path after dinner.  I got a lot of pets on that walk, too.  Plus, one lady told me how handsome I was.  She wasn’t wrong.

Traveling west, we were back into the weird thing of crossing timelines, so when my belly was telling me that it was 8 o’clock treat time, mommy and daddy were telling me that it was only 7:00 PM.  I said, my belly knows it’s 8:00 PM!  They gave in and gave me my bedtime treat around 7:30 PM, but I still thought that it was late.

It was daddy’s birthday next day and we drove to St. Louis.  The place we stayed at was the DraftKings Casino RV Park.  We could see the Arch right from the house on wheels, which was pretty neat.  Mommy and daddy took an Uber to the Arch and ended up getting free tickets to go up in it.  I thought that was a pretty neat birthday present for daddy!

We were in St. Louis until Monday and then went just a few miles to a KOA off of Historic Route 66, just west of St. Louis for few days.  Daddy had to record some podcasts and he and mommy went into the pool a lot while we were there because it was still so hot.

All throughout our trip west, we were in late walk mode when it would finally cool down a little, but even in the evening it was pretty hot!

Just when I didn’t think that it could get any hotter, we went to Branson, that was like an oven because it was in the 90’s with 90% humidity!  What was that all about?  Even with the heat, mommy and daddy had fun in Branson.  They did a mountain alpine roller coaster, a lake showboat, and visited a really cool college.  I was happy staying in the air conditioning, but we did get some late walks in, so that wasn’t too bad.

The morning that we left the campground, they took me for a walk at the lake where they went on the showboat before we started to head to Kansas City.  It was pretty walk and it was early in the morning, so it wasn’t too hot yet.

Once we got to Kansas City, mommy and daddy went to the Negro League Baseball Museum and then ate some Kansas City BBQ before we headed off to stay at a Cracker Barrel in Topeka, Kansas for the night.

Just when I thought that we were going to be out of the hot weather, things started to really heat up!

I thought that Branson was like an oven, well then Kansas was like the surface of the sun while we were there.  Every day was in the high 90’s or over 100 degrees.  Daddy kept telling me that it was a “dry heat.”  I don’t know what that meant because it was HOT, HOT, HOT!  Dry or not, 100 degrees is HOT!

Even with the heat, Kansas had some pretty neat stuff that we saw.  We stayed in Ellis Lakeside Campground for a night and I got to meet three really neat guys on our evening walk.  We talked to them until the mosquitos started to eat mommy, then we had to hightail back to the house on wheels.

Then we stopped in Oakley to see a big Buffalo Bill statue and I got to charm the lady inside the visitor’s center.

We also got to see the World’s Biggest Easel in Goodland which had a 24’ x 36’ replica of Van Gogh’s Sunflower painting on it and then finally after driving on about 30 miles of dirt roads, we got to see Mt. Sunflower, which is the highest point in Kansas.

After Kansas, it was off to Colorado to see the Rocky Mountains.  I was so excited because this was the first time that me, mommy or daddy were going to see the Rockies!

I’ll tell you all about that in my next blog, so be on the lookout for that one soon!