We drove a total of 4,339 miles in the motorhome and 1,139
miles in the car! Remember – our car
does not accrue towing miles - that was just from driving around. We did share
driving with another car and that doesn’t include those miles!
We stayed at 27 different RV parks. Shortest time at a park
was overnight. Longest was 11 days.
Using the ratings like we did last trip (from 1-10, 10 being best) we still
found there were no parks we gave a perfect score of 10. Three parks got a 9, five parks got an 8, three
parks got a 7, five parks got a 6, eight parks got a 5, and three parks got a
4. (for you RVrs I have the file with names and addresses and the ratings for
each park so if anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll send it to
you.) The parks we rated a 4 we probably
wouldn’t go back to. Those with a five
were good for overnight or just ok for a couple of days. Some were sparse; some
were tight for our rig. Those with 6-9 rating we liked very much and will stay
there again in a minute. Turns out we enjoyed all but a few of the places we
were in. Since the Passport America parks are ½ off the advertised price (with
limitations) we always try to base more at those. Turns out we ended up staying
in 12 pa parks, less than half. The others were found mostly in Trailer
Life. Some parks we found were close to
the highway and easy in and out. We liked that (unless they were too
close!). Some were extremely hard to get
to or were a distance from the things we wanted to go see. We didn’t like that but that’s part of the
adventure.
We made 8 fuel stops for the rig. This coach has a 150
gallon fuel tank. Note – I can go a lot
farther on a tank of fuel than in the old rig and we did but I still have a
policy not to let the fuel go below a ½ tank.
Usually way before it gets to ½ tank I start figuring where the next
stop will be. Rick & Janie and Bill
& Treasa have smaller fuel tanks but when they stopped we just hung around
so we could still travel together. Turns out on this trip all of our stops were
at Flying J except the first one in Kingman when I couldn’t get in so I went
next door to Chevron. We have an account
with Flying J so we search out those stops along our route. Also they turn over their supply very quickly
so we are assured of fresh fuel. Stops
were:
(1) Kingman, AZ ($2.49 per gal),
(2) Albuquerque, NM ($2.41 per gal.),
(3) Checotah, OK ($2.21 per gal),
(4) Sioux Falls, SD ($2.17 per gal.),
(5) Rapid City, SD ($2.37 per gal.),
(6) Aurora, CO ($2.29 per gal),
(7) Beaver, UT ($2.55 per gal.)
(8) Barstow, CA ($2.61 per gal).
That made the avg. price
$2.37 per gallon. I still have over 3/4 tank so I won’t fill up for the September
club outing (probably good till we head out in October). On last year’s trip
the avg. price was $2.74 per gal. so we think we did ok. I got a high of 9.2 mpg on one tank and a low
of 6.8 mpg on my worst tank. On the lesser mpg runs we were pulling high
mountain grades. On the best tank, we were heading down from the hills into the
deserts. Even with that, average was 7.6
for the trip (probably would be over 8.0 without air being on). That’s definitely lower than the last
motorhome we had but right at what we expected for this coach given the 400 hp
engine, plus the size and weight.
Highlights on the trip: for me were the day of fishing at Hesperia Lake, the four days
fishing in Branson, the show SIX in Branson, Lambert’s (restaurant), the Truman
Library, Arthur Bryant’s (bbq), the Corn Palace, the Firehouse Brewery in Rapid
City, Mt Rushmore, and my hike there, the Garden of the Gods, the Pike’s Peak
Cog Train, the Olympic Training Center, the Air Force Academy, the Coors
Brewery Tour, Woody’s Pizza, the Celestial Seasonings Tour, the White Fence
Farm restaurant, Zion Nat’l Park, the Terry Fator Show, the Blue Man Group
Show, and visiting with Lee & Lyn. I
think my two favorites were the fishing in Branson and the show SIX.
Except for the fishing
(not her thing), Lydia enjoyed all of the above and listed her favorites as the
Library, and the various quilt stores along the way!
Now expenses! This trip was
comparable to the 87 day trip we took last year, except that I had a few rv
expenses this time! The $1100 tire plus
the $200 deductible for the solenoid replacement were expenses we should expect
but hate to pay. But we still tried not
to buy everything in sight and other than a few things we didn’t expect to buy
I think we did pretty well. I was especially glad not to have any major mechanical issues on the
trip. I was pleasantly surprised that we
only had minor issues and nothing major mechanical with the coach. I have to
have the transmission serviced, the aqua hot water heater looked at, and the material
on two awnings (one slide out plus the Girard main awning) needs to be
tightened up.
Dumb stuff! I looked at my last
summation from the maiden trip in this rig to Oregon
Traveling with
Friends. We left California
So, what’s next? We still want to take another cruise. Just
not sure when. We are definitely going
back to Hawaii
Almost done….. just wanted to say thanks to all of you who followed my blog. Even though only a few of you made comments
it was nice to know they were being read!
I am funny about capturing our adventures in writing and in
pictures. It’s not for you that I do
this – but rather for us to look back on later in life (or have our kids read
to us in the home!). Thanks to my sister, Penny for taking care of the mail,
and watering. Thanks to both our boys.
Jeff did a ton of work to get our living room remodel done, plus he
painted awnings for us. Randy installed
the reverse osmosis system we bought several years ago so that’s in and working
now. Thanks to Bill & Treasa and Rick & Janie and especially to Lydia
for putting up with me on this 2016 trip!
See you all on the next adventure……..!
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