Brian Massa

Custer State Park

Located in the southeastern section of the Black Hills sits Custer State Park, South Dakota’s first and largest State Park covering 71,000 acres.

I have seen pictures of Monument Valley on Social Media, and the photos are always stunning. When I began planning our 2021 cross-country RV trip, I had to figure out a way to visit this area so I could see this landscape for myself.

Petrified National Forest, AZ

We visited the Petrified Forest National Park after visiting Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. I will admit it was great knowing we would see all the major sites in this National Park in half a day. An additional benefit would be not feeling exhausted at the end of our day.

Sedona, AZ

Sedona is one of those magical places in the Coconino National Forest known as Red Rock Country. Coconino National Forest is home to the largest stand of Ponderosa Pine trees in the world. This is evident as you drive north of Sedona on 89A. Along this road, you will find several hiking trails, swimming holes, and picnic areas shaded by the Ponderosa Pines.

Yosemite National Park

A visit to Yosemite National Park would be one of the greatest highlights of our three-month cross-country RV trip. It would also come with several challenges as we would have to navigate 2021 COVID restrictions. In this blog, I’ll provide highlights along with my favorite things.

Sequoia National Park

If you plan to visit Sequoia National Park, consider the desired entrance. There are two options, CA 198 through Three Rivers, where we stayed, or CA 180 via Squaw Valley. The drive time on CA 180 from the Big Stump Entrance to General Shermans Tree parking is about 30 miles and will take an hour. The advantage of this drive is you will not have to deal with the twists and turns and steep drop-offs provided on CA 198. Your nerves will thank you.

Death Valley National Park

Using Lone Pine, CA, and the Boulder Creek RV Resort as our home base for the week, we would take a day trip to Death Valley National Park. It would take two hours to reach our first destination within the park, but it would be worth it. The drive to Death Valley from Lone Pine was insane. Highway 190 would take us through the most remote parts of the US we had seen.

Lone Pine, CA

I heard about Lone Pine from various blogs and YouTube channels. I figured if we were going this far west, we should add Lone Pine to our list of destinations. As we were coming up to Memorial Day weekend, I had booked the Boulder Creek RV Resort for six nights.

Joshua Tree National Park

raveled through the Mojave Desert, stopping one night in Barstow, CA, before arriving in Twentynine Palms. From here, we would spend the next day and a half exploring Joshua Tree National Park.

RV Travel Days – Zion to Joshua Tree

I debated if I should write a blog about our travel days, but as we were traveling cross-country over three months, many of our travel days provided interesting sites and crazy landscapes. Over the next two travel days, we would be traveling through the Mojave Desert, and the sights are worth noting.