The Long Way Home — Wineries, Weird Stops & the RV That Quit

Heading home didn’t mean the adventure was winding down.

If anything, the trip was just changing. We still had no idea how much.

The tournament was over, but we weren’t ready to point the RV straight toward home. We still had places we wanted to see, wineries to explore, museums to wander through, and plenty of road ahead of us.

The road home was never going to be a straight line — and honestly, we like it that way.

Slow Days on the Way East

We spent the night of June 19th at Ana Reservoir RV Park in Summer Lake, Oregon — the kind of quiet, unremarkable stop that RV trips are full of. A game of horseshoes, a good view, nothing more required.

The next stop turned out to be anything but unremarkable.

Cold Spring Winery

We pulled into Cold Spring Winery, our next Harvest Hosts stop, and met another couple doing the same thing — full-time travelers working out of a Sprinter van.

The owner was one of those people who made a place feel like more than just a stop. He wasn’t just pouring wine — he was sharing the experience. The winery was closing for the day soon, and rather than let the open bottles go to waste, he just set them out on the counter and told us to help ourselves. He’d even set up a chocolate flight to go alongside the wine, pairing each pour with something sweet.

He took us in back and showed us the casks, tapping a few so we could sample straight from the barrel. Meanwhile, Bandit and the owner’s dogs had already decided they were old friends.

We made our way to Y Knot Winery nearby for one more flight before calling it a day — and stayed on for dinner.

A Potato Museum and an Airplane Hangar

From there, the stops got a little stranger — in the best way.

We toured the Idaho Potato Museum, because apparently that’s a real place with real exhibits, and somehow it was genuinely interesting. We even tried the potato ice cream — because when would we ever get another chance?

That night’s Harvest Hosts stop was the Legacy Flight Museum — which meant we got to wander through vintage aircraft and take a walk through the park nearby.

The Grand Tetons — The View I Came For

After days of wineries, museums, and wandering from one stop to the next, we finally reached the place I’d been dreaming about.

We found a boondocking spot overlooking the Tetons, and it might have been the best view of the entire trip.

Buffalo wandered through, seemingly unbothered by us. Deer showed up at all different times of day. At night, a full moon lit up the whole valley.

We spent one of the days hiking right there in the Tetons, taking in views that stretched out in every direction.

There’s one moment from this stop I keep coming back to. We were all sitting up front, feet on the dash, looking out at the mountains in front of us.

It wasn’t a big moment. No big accomplishment. No checklist item crossed off.

Just one of those quiet moments where you realize, “This is why I love traveling this way.”

Yellowstone

While we were boondocking at the Grand Tetons, we made the drive into Yellowstone for a day of exploring. Old Faithful, boiling geothermal features, and we even hiked up to Grandview — one more incredible view to add to a trip that already had no shortage of them.

We spent a second night boondocked at our spot overlooking the Tetons, with no idea it would be our last easy night of the trip.

The next morning, we were headed east, inching closer to home.

The Breakdown

The plan was simple: two more nights on the road, with a stop in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, before making it home.

We were on our way back east when the RV started making noises. Then it lost power, and I had to pull over.

We sat on the side of the road for six and a half hours before a tow truck finally arrived.

It was a long wait, but at least we had our “home” to wait in — we could eat, drink, and use the bathroom while everything got sorted out. A highway patrol officer stopped to check on us at one point. Good Sam Roadside worked on finding a shop that could actually take the RV, and a mechanic called to talk through what had happened, just to make sure we got towed to the right place.

They towed us about twenty minutes into Douglas, Wyoming. There wasn’t much anyone could do with the RV that day — but the owners of the lot where we ended up told us we were welcome to boondock there for as long as we needed.

That night, we made dinner in the RV like nothing had happened. Sweet potato fries, broccoli, chicken. Some of the best comfort food of the entire trip, honestly.

Making the Best of It

Rather than sit around pouting, we decided to stay in Douglas instead of Scottsbluff and go see what was nearby.

We visited Ayers Natural Bridge Park, and that evening we found our way to the College Inn, a historic bar in town, where we ended up talking with locals for most of the night.

Finishing Without the RV

With the engine dead, there was no way to power the slide-out — which meant I couldn’t get to everything stored under the bed. So we did what any reasonable person would do: pulled a hinge off one of the doors to get to it.

We packed the Jeep as full as it would go, including every single bowling ball I’d hauled out for the tournament, and left the RV behind in Douglas.

Then we drove straight through, all the way home.

The RV didn’t make it home with us.

But it had already done what I bought it to do.

It took us places we’d never been. It gave us a home on the road. And even when things went wrong, it gave us another story.