The open highway yawned ahead of us for as far as the eye could see without a car, person or even cow to break up the view of farmland and brush. By the third hour, it wasn't the only thing yawning.

Driving across Wyoming in a 25 foot long camper van, the five of us had revelled in the sheer size and majesty of the landscape and the fact that such long, open roads were so easy to navigate.

But having come from the splendour of Denver's Rocky Mountains on our way to the truly breathtaking Yellowstone Park, there is an awful lot of flat scenery in between.

We had flown to Denver to pick up our RV – Recreational Vehicle - which looked enormous, considering we don't usually drive around in anything bigger than a Renault Megane.

But 10 days of campsites soon made us realise we were driving a Mini compared to the 45 foot monsters the Americans favour for their holidays and, in many cases, where they live full time.

Think of a Greyhound coach converted into a motorhome but with added "slideouts" where the sides of the vehicle extend to create four separate bedrooms. Then imagine the coach towing a 4x4 everywhere it goes and you can see why we started to get an inferiority complex.

We drove from Denver to the nearby Rocky Mountains and then a long, 450 mile drive to Yellowstone Park, through to the neighbouring - and even more spectacular - Grand Teton National Park and then back to Denver.

The scenery is breathtaking - literally so in some cases where the elevation goes up to two miles high and the air gets thin.

But it is worth the extra wheezing. Views are superb, there hundreds of geysers including Old Faithful and the opportunity to see wildlife is a nature lover's dream.

We saw ospreys nesting with young, bald eagles and red tailed hawks, bison, moose, elk and deer and even wolves which were only reintroduced to Yellowstone a decade or so ago.

And best of all we saw bears – well sort of. My son got a glimpse of a grizzly and my wife and daughters saw a black bear swimming ahead of them as they canoed on Lake Jackson. Yours truly missed out.

Driving an RV seems daunting but with the open roads easy to navigate. Most campsites come with “full hook ups” which means you plug in electricity, water and sewage but as most had on-site showers and rest rooms, we tended to use those.

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