Molly Wiley

Texas to Oregon: Round Trip Road Trip

Molly Wiley
Texas to Oregon: Round Trip Road Trip

Like many others, we had a ton of trips planned for the beginning of this year. Weddings, anniversaries, bachelorette parties… you name it. Now, we’re sitting on a crap ton of flight credit and really needed some time outside of Austin. We really didn’t think we would make another driving trip out to California so soon (we just did it for the 2019 holidays), but we wanted to see family and take some PTO.

We changed our route both on the way to CA and on the way home so that we wouldn’t be doing the same drives, and to take advantage of the work from anywhere possibilities right now. Check out the map of our crazy loop to and from Austin, along with the breakdowns of where we stayed along the way!

A note on Covid: During this trip, we were extremely cautious with friends, family, and the places we visited. We only enjoyed a few outdoor dining spots & breweries, but otherwise enjoyed our alone time in the mountains.

Total Mileage: Approx 4,806 miles

Covid Road Trip

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Trip Part 1:

Austin, TX - Davis Mountains State Park, TX, 430 miles, 6 hours 30 minutes

We’ve been to Davis Mountains State Park before and knew it was a solid spot to stay for the night as we made our way out of Texas. There’s not much along that stretch of West Texas that’s easily accessible off the freeway. And for being in a campsite for less than 10 hours, it’s always nice to go somewhere you’ve been before.

Davis Mountains State Park, TX - Roper Lake State Park, AZ, 453 miles, 6 hours 45 minutes

We started our Saturday morning early by driving the long haul to Roper Lake State Park, which is east of Tucson. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the best experience here, but that’s mostly because it was mid-July and brutally hot. The state park itself is fine, has all the amenities you would need. We sat by the lake for a while and then made our way to camp to set up. Unfortunately, we didn’t have an electric site, so we were unable to use the fan we brought along. Whoops. We did a small trail walk in the morning but headed out quickly to make our way to Scottsdale.

Roper Lake State Park, AZ - Carefree, AZ, 190 miles, 3 hours 30 minutes

Since we’re taking advantage of the ‘work from anywhere’ lifestyle at the moment, we spent a week in Scottsdale at a family friend’s house. It was a great way to break up the drive and not have to long haul it to CA in a few days. And since AZ was pretty locked down due to Covid, it was great to have a house (with a pool) to quarantine at.

While in the Scottsdale area, we took a few evenings to explore surrounding areas including the Tonto National Forest, the Superstitious Mountains, and a ghost town.

Carefree, AZ - McWilliams Campground: Las Vegas, NV, 337 miles, 5 hours 20 minutes

After spending our working week in Scottsdale, we got back on the road and drove to McWilliams Campground, right outside of Las Vegas, and WOW what a pleasant surprise. For being 40 minutes outside of Vegas, you go up 8000 feet into the mountains. The temperature is about 20 degrees cooler than at the base. The campground was super clean and well maintained. Coming from Texas and some brutal heat in Arizona, words cannot explain how excited we were to put on our Patagonia jackets once the sun went down.

In the morning, we explored the area and did a great hike starting at the Upper Bristlecone Trail Head. The elevation did get to us a bit — going from 300 feet to 9000 over night was a bit rough. But the hike was beautiful, challenging, and a great way to start the day.

McWilliams Campground: Las Vegas, NV - Mammoth Lakes, CA, 297 miles, 5 hours

Continuing our journey west, we made our way to Mammoth Lakes, which are about an hour north of Yosemite. Our good friends have a cabin on Lake Mary, so we were grateful to spend the weekend in their cabin enjoying the pontoon boat, fire pit, and some Mammoth Brewing IPA’s. We did a great long hike that took us up to a few different lakes, and each view just got better and better.

Mammoth Lakes, CA - Sacramento, CA, 241 miles, 4 hours 30 minutes

And for our last leg of the trip, we drove into Sacramento, CA to stay with family for a few weeks. Breaking up the drive to Sacramento over the 11 days was amazing. Being able to take our time and see some new places (and friends), was a great way to tackle the long haul.

While in Sacramento, we were also able to take a few weekend trips to Napa, Tahoe, and the Bay Area. Definitely not taking that accessibility for granted!

Trip Part 2:

Sacramento, CA - Diamond Lake Campground, OR, 391 miles, 6 hours 30 minutes

When we left Sacramento after a few glorious weeks, our plan was to head up to Crater Lake National Park for a few hikes, and then continue on to Diamond Lake Campground for the night. Biggest lesson we learned on the trip: keep track of your National Park Pass… they have no records of them, so if you lose it or it’s stolen: womp womp. As we were driving into Crater Lake, we realized our pass was nowhere to be found. So we had to pay the $30 entry fee into the park only to have it completely smoked in due to the wildfires happening. It was an unfortunate turn out all around, but we hung out for about an hour walking the trails we could and taking a few photos.

We drove the short 30 minutes to our campground at Diamond Lake which was such a pleasant surprise. Large campground, clean, and had the friendliest camp host ever! Ironically, there was no fire ban at the time, so we bought some firewood from the host and enjoyed our evening at our lakeside campground. In the morning, we went on a walk and then rode our bikes on the lake trail which is 11 miles in total. Would definitely recommend Diamond Lake if you’re in the area or visiting Crater Lake and need a place outside of the park!

Diamond Lake Campground, OR - Bend, OR, 98 miles, 1 hour 45 minutes

Easy drive from Diamond Lake into Bend. We’ve been to Bend once before and really loved our weekend there. This trip was no different. Every day we’d walk around saying, “damn, how can we move here.” Between the great breweries, food, outdoor activities, and scenery, it’s a truly awesome gem. Also, their extremely low Covid count was a breath of fresh air coming from Austin. A few places we would recommend in Bend:

Bend, OR - Boise, ID, 318 miles, 5 hours 15 minutes

After four days in Bend exploring the town and working remotely, we took some much needed PTO and headed to Boise, ID. We dropped our stuff off at our AirBnb and went to meet Molly’s manager at a little surf bar (weird for Boise, we know). But there’s a wave you can surf right on the Boise River which lead to a little surf bar to be built next door. We did takeout dinner that night and enjoyed our last evening in a home before we camped our way home!

Note to self: never book a basement unit AirBnb ever again. It was loud and horrible.

Boise, ID - Bull Trout Campground: Lowman, ID, 111 miles, 2 hours 30 minutes

After a short time in Boise, we headed into the Sawtooth Mountains and made our way to Bull Trout Campground, which came recommended to us. We didn’t have a reservation, as a lot of places are first come first serve. Luckily, we got the last spot at Bull Trout (that you can pay for. There is dispersed camping on the dirt roads on the way in), and it was definitely one of the most beautiful sites we’ve ever stayed at. The campsite was huge (#4 on the lake), private, and had the most beautiful view. Truly the best way to start our vacation.

As we headed up towards Stanley, Idaho the next day, we were hit with our first (of many times feeling this way) “wow we wish we had more time”. We got a real look at the Sawtooth Mountains and we were blown away. Although our campsite at Bull Trout was great, maybe we should have driven 30 more minutes to have a bit more of a mountainous view.

We stopped at Iron Creek Trailhead and did an awesome 8 mile hike to Alpine Lake. The weather was perfect, which was lucky considering the smoke we were constantly escaping. The trailhead had a ton of different routes you could take. We’d recommend getting there early to ensure a parking spot!

Bull Trout Campground: Lowman, ID - Lake Cleveland Campground: Burley, ID, 233 miles, 4 hours 30 minutes

Reluctantly, we left the Sawtooth National Forest and made our way south to another first come first serve site at Lake Cleveland Campground. We tried to stay high in elevation the whole trip to maintain cooler weather. Tucked away in the mountains just south of Twin Falls, there were a few campgrounds in the area. We luckily (again) got the last available site. We were surprised by a little thunder storm for about 30 minutes, but had a lovely evening around the campfire.

For the first time in a while we had some cell service. I started researching our next campsite (Spruces Campground in Utah) that we had a reservation for the next day. And somehow I missed that it wasn’t pet friendly. In all our years of camping, we’ve never really came across a not pet friendly campsite… so this was a shock. We had to do some last minute research and found Salamander Flats, a dispersed campground, outside of Provo, UT. It meant we wouldn’t stop in Park City, because we needed to make our way to scope Salamander Flats. A lot of valuable lessons learned on this trip…

Lake Cleveland Campground: Burley, ID - Salamander Flat: Provo, UT, 216 miles, 3 hours 45 minutes

Tucked away in Wasatch Mountains, Salamander Flats was a dispersed campground we found on iOverlander. It was pretty hot when we arrived, and there wasn’t a ton of shade at the campground. There were a few sites that had designated fire rings, and luckily, we snagged one. If you’re looking for more of an established campground, you could check out the Timpooneke Campground down the road, but it was fully booked the weekend we were there.

Overall, the campground was just okay. While the views off of the many nearby trailheads were amazing, the campground itself didn’t have too much of a view. It was pretty dusty, and you could tell people used it as an equestrian site since there was a lot of horse poop and flies. But for how busy we heard it could get, we were lucky that we had a pretty quiet night there.

We spent the day just down the road hanging out on the river drinking some local beer (pro tip: for anything higher than a 5% ABV beer, you need to go to a liquor store), had a nice sunset, and some great mountain biking / trail running in the morning.

Salamander Flat: Provo, UT - Warner Lake Campground: Moab, UT, 245 miles, 4 hours 45 minutes

Even though we had our dog with us, we really wanted to head into Arches National Park and at least drive around for a bit. We’ll have to make a national park road trip plan one day where we don’t have our pup with us so we can actually do some hiking. We ended up buying a new National Park Pass (we’ll try not to lose this one), and spent about two hours driving around Arches, pulling off the main road, and running around as quickly as we could.

We decided to camp a bit outside of Moab (our site was one hour from Arches), and it maybe took the cake for the prettiest campground… ever. Majority of the drive is up a curvy gravel road, and we didn’t really know what to expect. But driving through the tunnels of quaking aspen trees took our breath away. Warner Lake Campground was gorgeous and quiet. We ended up staying two nights because we couldn’t really see a reason to leave. Would highly recommend this campground if you’re open to being outside of the national park a bit.

While the name isn’t misleading (there is in fact a lake), it’s a bit more of a large pond. Some people were fishing in it, but it mostly just set the scene for a beautiful campground. A lot of solid mountain biking and hiking in the area as well — just be ready for lots of cattle!

Warner Lake Campground: Moab, UT - Sunshine Campground: Telluride, CO, 141 miles, 3 hours 10 minutes

Just when we thought we had seen some of the prettiest places on our trip, Telluride happens. We got there early to be able to enjoy the day, and make sure we found a campsite. We got a spot at Sunshine Campground, just about 10 minutes outside of downtown Telluride, and it was great! It filled up quickly, so we’re lucky we got there when we did.

After setting up a little bit, we headed into town for lunch and a little taste of civilization after being in the mountains for a few days. And yet, another city we could have stayed in for a week. The weather was great (somehow 60 degrees in CO feels like 80), and we did a nice little hike up to Bridal Veil Falls.

A few places we would recommend in Telluride:

Sunshine Campground: Telluride, CO - BLM Land outside Pagosa Springs, CO, 184 miles, 3 hours 30 minutes

Since getting out of Telluride can take a while (due to slow curvy roads), we wanted to try and make our way south a bit to shorten the drive to Santa Fe. We drove about 45 minutes outside of Pagosa Springs, to some BLM land that was recommended to us. We turned off of Hwy 84 onto Fr 663 and drove up the mountain about 20 minutes on a gravel road. It was definitely pretty busy (apparently it was the first day of hunting season), and there were quite a few RV’s and tents set up along the way with ATV’s in tow.

We found an isolated top at the spot with a pretty good sunset view and lots of cow pies! We got there right before sunset, which was nice to scope out where were going to sleep for the night.

BLM Land outside Pagosa Springs, CO - Santa Fe, NM, 133 miles, 2 hours 30 minutes

A nice short drive to Santa Fe in the morning! We had an AirBnb for the night, which was awesome because we desperately needed a shower. Unfortunately, a lot of things weren’t open in Santa Fe, and most restaurants aren’t allowing dogs on their patios due to Covid. So we had a pretty chill day exploring the town and then just enjoyed some downtime at the AirBnb. It felt pretty nice to have a home base for the night, and Rye was very happy to be back on a couch :)

Santa Fe, NM - Palo Duro Canyon State Park: Canyon, TX, 300 miles, 4 hours 38 minutes

It was the perfect opportunity for us to finally check out Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Did you know it’s the second largest canyon in North America!? We stayed at site #30 in the Hackberry loop. We arrived around 5:00pm, so we set up camp and Chris went on a quick mountain bike ride. Palo Duro is super mountain bike friendly and has some awesome hike and bike trails.

We would recommend starting your hikes early in the warmer months. We did the Lighthouse Trail (which is 6 miles roundtrip) and started it at 8am. We couldn’t imagine starting it any later than that. The trail offers little to no shade, and that sun gets hot quickly.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park: Canyon, TX - Austin, TX, 488 miles, 7 hours 30 minutes

We had the full intention of doing one more night camping at Lake Brownwood State Park, but after a few hours in the car, we decided to just hightail it home. A long last stretch, but we were excited to get back to our bed.

We feel so blessed to have had the time off to do such an amazing trip and see some beautiful remote places. Our biggest take away would be we just wish we had more time!