RAV4 Roadtrip – Colorado to California

After our little train trip from Amsterdam to Munich we headed back to the States for some family visits and a bit of provisioning for our South American tour.  Our first stop was Colorado to visit my family and to get the adventure dog some tests that are required to bring him into Uruguay. This turned out to be quite a chore and Shani was nearly pulling her hair out trying to get a very special test done on him.

As we were quite short on time (The 4Runner was on its way to Montevideo and if we weren’t there on time there were some hefty storage fees in our future) Sebastian was going to see one vet in Colorado and then another vet would get the results and do a USDA certificate of his health records. Sometimes travelling with the little dude is a royal pain in the ass.

In addition to getting Sebastian checked out we also needed to do some research on some new additions to our road tripping kit. We were now in the market for a new cell phone, laptop, vehicle tracker, dash cam, SUV tent…you get the picture, it was a long list and we were pushing our luck to get it all on time. We also thought it would be a good idea to get some portable solar panels for an as yet unknown rechargeable battery we would somehow find in South America. We had to leave our EcoFlow in Europe as it is HASMAT to ship it in the 4Runner in a container. The EcoFlow powers our Dometic fridge when the car is turned off. The fridge has been a game changer for us travelling in the 4Runner.

Shani and her research assistant.

Armed with our shopping list we hit the internet full force doing hour upon hour of research as the clock ticked down on our departure date. We were flying Copa Airlines with one checked bag each and an additional bag was $50 so much cheaper to take extra bags full of goodies instead of sourcing and buying in South America.

We had a very nice time with my family catching up and after a week and a half it was time to rent a car and road trip to Sacramento to see Shani’s family. Our packages were starting to arrive and we were anxious to get all the parts and pieces and see what else we were going to need. Also, it was starting to get cold in Colorado and neither Shani or Sebastian was very thrilled. We got lucky and got a new AWD Toyota Rav4 from the rental agency and hit the road just as a big winter storm was headed south towards Denver and the Springs. An hour or so into our drive we hit the leading edge of the storm and I got to do a little driving in the snow, it had been a while.

By the time we hit Dillon and the Summit area we were out of the storm and making good time. In fact, there was so little snow when we passed Vail and Beaver Creek I wondered if they were doing much skiing at all, especially Beaver Creek; it looked pretty grim.

A little trip past the salt flats.

Our stop for the night was just shy of Provo, Utah at a Staybridge Suites we used on the last 2 road trips between Colorado and California. It’s very comfortable, dog friendly and has a kitchen. What’s not to like? The next stop was Winnemucca, Nevada. Kind of the middle of nowhere but hey, now we can add that to the list of random places we’ve stayed. And then we were in Sacramento.

It was great to see Shani’s family for a bit and to start working through the treasure trove of goodies the Amazon and FedEx guys kept dropping off at the door.  We (me) took a few trips to the old storage unit as we kept swapping out things from our current travel kit for new things in our travel kit. Sebastian had to spend a full day with the vet which had his helicopter mom worried sick. In the end it all worked out, he got the right paperwork and we ordered too much stuff, our last package arrived just minutes before our Uber picked us up for the airport! (Our first Uber cancelled on us, had they not we would have missed getting our SUV tent.)

The famous wild turkeys of Gold River.

The flight from SFO to Montevideo had a 4 hour long layover in Panama City. We, however, could not leave the airport with Sebastian as he needed Panamanian import papers which we did not have. We knew this and had done some research and at least there is a pet relief area he got to visit multiple times.

Stay tuned as we have a busy first day in Montevideo, get the 4Runner on the road and chill by the beach in Punta Del Diablo.