Planning our June 2026 Trek

 

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Daily temperatures begin at 80F and then peak at 100F each day.  Occasional monsoon rains but generally sunny.  Time to leave the Southwest and go to cooler northern weather.  Our destination has had some violent storms, but daily low is about 65F and the high reaches 75-89F!   The dew point at the destination is 60-65F! It will be humid.  Our daily dew point here is in the range 18 to 35F.  That's a significant difference.  We will be leaving a relatively bug-free environment, no or few mosquitos, etc.

The planned driving route has daily driving times of 3 hours 15 minutes to 5 hours, 45 minutes.  Daily distance will range from 221 to 389 miles. Total distance about 1877 miles. 5 nights in various locations. No AI was used to plan this trek.

As usual we have made reservations at campgrounds for each night. We prefer to travel with reservations. Camping costs will average $61.68 per night, total $308.42. Gasoline will probably be about $493.00. There will be a few tolls. 

Each day we'll eat a meal sampling local fare. Yes, some breakfasts will be "fast food".  We strike a balance of time spent actually travelling to time spent eating and stretching.  We prefer to arrive at a time sufficiently early that we can go to a local restaurant and check-in while the campground is open.  Arrival time is determined by traffic, how early in the day we hit the road, and the duration of rest or meal stops. Because we are travelling in an easterly direction we will lose one hour on the clock three days.  

For planning purposes I use a 9:00am departure time. On days where we lose an hour due to time zone changes, we'll probably depart at 8:00am. Add an hour meal stop and we'll arrive at our destination before 3:30pm each day. I combine a meal stop with gasoline fill-up.  I do stop for gasoline about every 200 or 250 miles. Comfort is a factor.

(c) N. Retzke 2026