Home at last. Our summer RV trip is over for this year, we really enjoyed it. Traveling by RV gives the traveler a different perspective than that obtained by the auto-plus-motel, train-plus-hotel, air-plus-hotel or cruise ship traveler.
How, you may well ask? Because you are less a captive of the tourism industry. As an RV traveler you visit the same supermarkets the locals use, drive their streets, buy fuel in their service stations, really "live in" whatever area you visit. Yes, you're still a tourist, but you feel the place differently. We know this because we travel by other modes too: cruise ship and train-or-air-or auto-plus-hotel.
The trip just ended gave us an interesting comparison. The party of four we met in Banff were on tour via train/bus and hotel, before flying home. We joined them for meals twice at their hotel in Banff. Tellingly, we returned to the hotel's restaurant a second time even though the group wasn't entirely pleased with their first meal there. The reason, simple convenience as they had no car and our vehicle could only accomodate a total of five, not six.
The other DrC and I were okay with our meals there, but others in the party were not. However, had they not been staying at the hotel it was a restaurant we would never have visited a first time, much less a second. We dine at restaurants a fair amount when traveling by RV, normally chains like Outback, Applebee's, and Cracker Barrel plus some local eateries. We also eat our own cooking much of the time and rarely get a bad meal.
New subject: our route from Dillon, Montana, to western Wyoming took us through a series of small farming towns in eastern Idaho on a midday Sunday. There were many parked cars at every Latter Day Saints church we passed, and they were the only churches that looked busy. Whatever they're doing seems to work, attendancewise. This whole region - eastern Idaho and western Wyoming - is basically Alta Utah, we call it "the Mormon west."
