The Lee's Great American Road Trip

By: Tyler Lee

By KAVU

January 24^th, 2024

I've had the privilege to drive across this beautiful country many times. As I grew up, my family was all about 'hitting the road', and camping along the way. So much so... when I was 12 years old, my parents decided to take my brother and I on a yearlong "America Road Trip" in a camper-trailer, and those special family memories remain very vivid, and positive. I've always hoped our boys could experience the adventure I found on that open road... and at all of the amazing and diverse places this country has to offer.

My wife Kati had never driven across America. So, being that it's always been a dream on her bucket list, coupled with the fact that I have always dreamed of visiting KAVU dealers around the U.S. to see “KAVU in the Wild”, we hatched a plan to make it happen!!

Kati’s parents live in Pennsylvania, and the boys love going to see “Nana” and “Pappy”…aka Grandma and Grandpa. So, Kati, Kace (3), and Rayno (5) jumped on the Amtrack and took the train for 3 days to Pennsylvania while I stayed home and packed the truck. A week or two later, I jumped in the truck and headed to pick them up, thus beginning our epic tour home.

Our starting point for the road trip... Pennsylvania. Destination was our home just south of Seattle, Washington. In between.... A Purely KAVU Adventure!!

We decided to do this “old school”, with a tent that you put on the ground like people “use to do” ha ha ha. This would not be a fancy “overland” kind of road trip. This was a "set up your tent, sleep in the dirt and take it down the next day kind of trip". This would be a trip that created “core memories” for our boys and our family. This would be a trip that we'd live by a quote from Kati (which I love and thought was exactly on-point): “It would be a cultural mind-explosion throughout one country”

But first, there were a few things that had to happen to make driving across the country with a 3, and a 5-year-old, a success:

#1- Since we were taking the “KAVU Truck” (ford F-150 Super crew), having a drawer system was an essential feature to allow stopping for 1 night at a time easy and functional. This allowed us to Not have to fully unpack the back of the truck at each stop. The left drawer was packed full of all things needed for sleeping. The right drawer was packed with our coffee station (key), food, and basically all things kitchen. And, if I did need to get into the deepest parts of the back part of our truck bed, I had my 3 year old, Kace. He was my main man! Toss him in, and out he came with the supplies. This saved my knees, energy for driving, and kept the positive vibes alive.

#2- Stay at campgrounds with playgrounds and pools. For us, these were KOA’s. Shout out to KOA for the hook up and having reliable, clean, epic campgrounds in every state all over the U.S. This was KEY in keeping "team Lee" moral high. We would tell the kids, “don’t worry... when we get there, you can swim and play as much as you want.” There is serious power in that statement!

#3- Have “The best Plan is no Plan” as KAVU athlete Tyler Bradt always says. To me, this means make a loose plan but allow LOTs of room for whatever life throws at you in any given moment. For us, this meant stopping whenever we wanted to stop, and charging ahead whenever it felt good and possible. Essentially, "go with the flow".

#4- Don’t make drive-days longer than 6 hours if at all possible. Also, make sure to build in some short 2 - 4 hour drives between those longer days in the truck. We also wanted to stay off interstate highways as much as possible, so we could actually “see” America. This was a good strategy to give the trip a more mellow, slower pace.

And..... #5- Break up the back-to-back-to-back drive days with stops at friends’ houses. This keeps road trip stoke high, we could do useful tasks like wash clothes, and of course.... recharge our mental batteries.

We were blessed to have 4 crucial friend stops along the way.

-The Baxter family in Charlottesville Virginia

-Uncle Allen’s Cabin on Greer’s Ferry Lake Arkansas

-The Smeester family outside of Denver Colorado

-The Carlson Family in Priest River Idaho

In our crazy digital world these days, it is nice to get out there and do something analog. As I mentioned, I've always wanted to see KAVU dealers across the country and shake the hands of shop owners and retail staff who are our KAVU “boots on the ground”. These are crucial members of our KAVU family who make all our dreams happen by believing in the KAVU mission and supoorting our products in their stores.

As the Marketing Director at KAVU, meeting KAVU dealers on their own turf was a refreshing and eye opening experience. Nothing can replace real human face-to-face interaction. No Zoom call will ever do that. On this trip, I was able to see 14 KAVU dealers and and personally see the beautiful Outdoor shops that carry KAVU across America. If you're interested, click on the link above to use our dealer locator to find a brick-and-mortar store that carries KAVU closest to you.

Knowing that stopping to see friends was important, we made our route based on those locations, with some other attractions we always wanted to see along the way. Kati had always wanted to see the Great Smokey Mountains, the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone. And, I wanted to see Dinosaur National Monument and the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Also, I wanted to visit Texas if possible. Texas is a wild state that everyone should visit at some point. What can I say.... It just has this “TEXAS” vibe to it;-)

The Trip!

So, we drove from Pennsylvania to the Great Smokey Mountains.... Then, on through to Chattanooga and up Lookout Mountain.

This stage of our trip allowed Kati, who had also always wanted to listen to blues music in Memphis, to walk on Beale... so we did that. We also took the opportunity to see the Mississippi River as we crossed it on our way to Allen’s Lake house in northern Arkansas.

We were excited to stop at Allen Breeding’s Lake cabin and hang with him for 4 full days. Allen is our South Central sales rep, and he has always told me to come visit him at his lake house, which I've always wanted to take him up on. But, northern Arkansas is a long drive from Seattle…

It was simply an opportunity we weren't going to miss!

This was Rayno’s favorite part of the trip! We ripped around the lake for days on Allen's pontoon boat and he taught the boys how to fish. In fact, Rayno caught his first fish there!

He even let the boys drive the boat!

Then we stopped in Fort Smith, Arkansas for lunch and randomly found a trolley we could ride, which was built in the early1900’s!

After that, we blasted across Oklahoma and ended up in Amarillo, Texas. I found us a place to stay that offered Limo rides to a steakhouse. Pure Texas!

When I saw this place with cabins and a Limo ride to a steak house, I immediately knew we were staying there for the night. Kace had a goal to get a cowboy hat from Texas, so we made that happen on our way to a great steak at the Big Texan Steak House!

Then, we ripped up through New Mexico and headed to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. We made a point to get up early and do some "sand-sledding".

After a few hours, there was sand everywhere... and we were exhausted from hiking up and down massive sand dunes.

So, we drove to our friend’s house outside of Denver and stayed for 2 nights. It was wonderful reconnecting with old friends Jake and Maggie and recovering from our wild adventures so far. I loved watching the kids play and enjoy some time out of their car seats. We also got to witness a proper Colorado hailstorm. Ice Cube sized hail falling from the sky was something I'd never seen before.... and it was wild!

After our time in Denver ended, we drove through Steamboat Springs, CO and finished our day at Green River campground near the Dinosaur National Monument. The following morning, we decided to do a hike to the quarry... where the dinosaur bones are.

I couldn't believe there were actual dinosaur bones! Honestly, it was mind blowing and amazing to see real bones from an animal that walked the earth so many years ago! The boys loved it!

Then, we drove up through Utah and Wyoming to Lander. There, we were able to meet “Rio” a pet racoon.

Surprisingly and randomly, there was this dude with a racoon following him outside the hotel we ended up staying at, and I was like….”Hey bro, there is a racoon following you.” He said, "yeah... he's my pet".

The boys got to pet “Rio”, making this.... without a doubt, a memorable moment on our trip! Ha ha...

After Lander, we rallied to Teton National Park, where we ate some burgers while starring at those epic mountains. Man, our minds were blown over how majestic the Tetons were. They're truly a majestic and uniquely beautiful piece of nature within our country.

Next, we drove out into Yellowstone and straight to Old Faithful.

We waited, and waited, and finally Old Faithful was faithful and blew. While waiting... we got to see a lighting storm, a Bison walk by, and a "show stopper" double rainbow.

The next day, we drove through the park with views of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, the Hayden Valley and a sulfur pool. We finished the day at the West Yellowstone Rodeo. Kati and the boys had never been to a Rodeo, so this was obviously a “must do” on our Great American Road Trip!

After Yellowstone, we headed up to Flathead Lake in Montana. This is a beautiful place that we are definitely going to come back and visit.

We finished the trip off by staying our friends, Elias and Theresa’s house. They have a guest tent set up in their backyard next to a creek which runs right through their back yard!

....What an epic way to spend our last night on the road!

I cherish the time we had on the road, and I will never forget this trip.

It took us 21 days to drive back to Seattle from Pennsylvania and after all was said and done, we drove 4,511 miles.. and shared nearly 98 hours in the truck!

A few weeks after our trip was over, my oldest son Rayno said to me “Papa I miss the road…” For which I replied, “Me too, Rayno.... me too.”

Being on the road can be really hard at times, but there is an undeniable beauty and freedom to it that is unlike anything else. I learned that I've continued to love being on the road with family, and look forward to many more road trips with my team in the future.