Ron Moon has now camped in 49 states of the USA

For the past few months, Viv and I have been wandering the states of the contiguous USA.

In the process, we’ve been to the last few states we hadn’t visited before and have now travelled through and camped in 49 states of the United States – that is the ‘lower 48’ and Alaska, which sits on its own in the vastness of the very north-west of the North American continent.

As I write this we are back in ‘The West’, which is an area we love. Currently, we are in the Badlands National Park in South Dakota and there’s a small herd of bison (American buffalo) just outside the door. If there is a symbol of a wild America, then surely a bison amongst the buttes and spires of the Badlands would have to be it?

We started our latest American journey seven weeks ago, heading east out of LA and picking up our Dodge Ram 2500 and Four Wheel Camper in Arizona before pushing on to New Mexico, Texas and then Florida. As we headed up the east coast of America, trying to miss most of the crowded cities along the way, we took the opportunity to check out the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Here on a chain of sand islands off the North Carolina coast, amongst other historic events, the Wright Brothers became the first to take off and fly an engine-powered aircraft in December 1903.

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Those first flights were only a maximum of 500 metres or less, and the advancement since then was all the more stark as we had visited the Kennedy Space Centre a few days previously and watched one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets launch and carry one of his satellites high in to orbit. What a difference a mere 120 years make!

Leaving the east coast behind, we headed for St Louis on the west bank of the mighty Mississippi River. Back in the 1800s, this city was where thousands of immigrants started to follow their dreams westward along such iconic routes as the Santa Fe, Mormon, California and Oregon Trails.

We followed their routes, but with none of the hardships or dramas. The biggest complications we faced were what back road to take and what state park or national forest to head for, so we could have a good camp for the night.

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Over the next few weeks, we’ll head for northern California before heading down through fabulous Utah and Colorado back to Arizona, where we’ll put the rig in storage for another year.

Back in Australia after a long-haul flight over the Pacific, I’ll be picking up the Patrol from Outback 4WD in Bayswater, Victoria – where it’s been having a holiday while we’ve been away – and heading bush.

The first trip, just two weeks after arriving home, will be to help my son out on one of his tours (www.moontours.com.au) and head westward to Ceduna and then north through the desert country to hit the far north-west coast at Cape Keraudren. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us and the rain will stay away, and we’ll actually get to do the route we have planned to do.

Our travels in Australia are vastly different to what we do in the Americas, but the differences are part of the attraction and we couldn’t ask for anything better than spending time being lost in the States and following that up with time spent wandering our Outback.

If you ever get the chance, take the opportunity and savour the difference!