Big Trip: Statistics and Lessons Learned

Now that we've been back for a while and I've had time to get my thoughts together, I thought it would be interesting and/or useful for future reference to do a run-down on some trip data and lessons learned.

If you would like to take a look, click here.

A Few Notes About RV Travel

While I've been spinning my wheels at Lemoore Naval Air Station, I have been reflecting on how RV traveling has been so far.  We’ve now been on the road since April 17th  and it’s taken a few weeks to slip into a routine.  Of course, Lynda having to return home for a week or so has been an interruption but also, perhaps, a good chance for us to catch our breath and regroup.

We have driven a little over 5000 miles since leaving home and gas has cost us an average of $0.30 per mile.

All in all, this RV traveling is good fun and there are a lot of things I really enjoy about it. BUT, it has not been as relaxing as I had  imagined!  Truth be told, I’m not sure why I thought it would be that relaxing to begin with, considering our travel schedule. We've made 13 stops in 37 days, not counting the 8+ days here at Lemoore.  So, we've been relocating every 2.8 days on average and, folks, I gotta tell you that there is work associated with arriving at a a campground such as:

• Unloading the scooter
• Hooking up that power cord
• Hooking up that sewer line
• Hooking up the filters and water hoses
• Setting the leveling jacks and closing the curtains

Then, when you go to leave:

• Loading up the scooter
• Unhooking, cleaning and putting away the power cord
• Unhooking, cleaning and putting away the sewer line
• Unhooking, cleaning and putting away the water filters and hoses
• Retracting the leveling  jacks and stowing the curtains
• Checking the oil and tranny fluid
• Checking the air pressure in all six tires

Dry camping (no hookups) has a lot of advantage, particularly when you're only going to be there for one or two nights. Because there are no hookups, set up is simple and preparations to get on the road again are easy.  Park the RV, set the leveling jacks, close the curtains.  You're done!  The next day, retract the leveling jacks, stow the curtains, check the oil and tranny fluid, check the tire pressure, and off you go!  You just need to ensure you have enough fresh water on board, and your holding tanks are pretty empty.  Oh, and if you want to run your generator, make sure you have plenty of gas.

What are some of the issues we've run into?

• Well, the cursed tire problems of course - these are well documented in other posts (ha)
• A faulty thermostat for the AC and Furnace, which I easily replaced with a new thermostat from the Camping World outside Flagstaff
• Oil change for the Trek - taken care of at a Wal-Mart with minimum fuss
• Pesky scooter carrier bottoms out, damaging the anti-tilt plate. I'm still working on this
• Scooter bogging down at high altitude / faster speeds - this seems to be a fuel starvation issue.  I tweaked the spark plug gap, put a divot in the gas tank cover to avoid a vacuum forming, checked fuel and vacuum hoses for pinches or obstructions. All seems well so far... 'lil scooter is running great.

I am actually very happy with our travels so far and can see how this could become habit-forming.  And its been good for me - I've already learned quite a bit about RV care and maintenance, and I've become much more relaxed about going with the flow when things don't go as planned.

Oh, and I'm much better about picking up after Barley and Sydney! Dog poop scooping will never be my thing, but at least I can do it now without gagging. 

I leave Lemoore tomorrow to get Lynda from the Fresno airport and resume our travels.  I am so ready to go!

Cooking adventures in an RV

I thought it might be a nice to post some of the recipes for the meals we’ve been fixing during our trip.  Just so you know, the Trek has a combination microwave/convection oven and a 3-burner stovetop. We’ve also brought along an electric frying pan, a charcoal grill and a George Foreman Grill. We felt that with all these cooking options, we would be able to put together some pretty decent meals.

In the interest of sharing some of our cooking adventures, here’s the story of what Consuelo started calling my orange-drop chicken:

We always try to keep a bag of frozen uncooked chicken tenders in the freezer.  I thawed out about 8 tenders and dropped them into a large Ziploc bag.  I reached into the bag with a fork and pierced all the tenders and then I added small can of mandarin oranges (the small snack-size fruit cups).  I laid the bag out on the counter and using the heel of my palm, crushed all the orange wedges.  I then added a couple of spoonfuls of orange marmalade and kneaded the bag to make sure the tenders were well coated.  I left the chicken and orange to marinade for a while.  Meanwhile,  I mixed a small 4 oz. package of potato flakes in a dish with some salt and pepper and paprika. I poured a small amount of olive oil into the bottom of a baking dish (actually a 9” glass brownie pan). Then, I took the chicken tenders and coated them with the potato flake mixture and placed them into the baking pan.

I baked the chicken in the convection oven at 375 degrees.  After 20 minutes, I took the pan out of the oven and turned each tender. It was my intention to bake the other side for another 20 minutes.  But… while I was putting the pan back into the oven, I (gasp!) dropped it.  True to Murphy’s Law, the pan landed upside down, but fortunately, not on my toes – it was close, though!  Consuelo quickly jumped up to my rescue and  scooped up all the chicken pieces, rinsed them off and put them back into the pan. Everything went back into the oven for 20 more minutes. I cooked up a box of Uncle Ben’s Rice on the stovetop while we waited for the chicken to finish cooking.

Despite the mishap, the meal was still wonderful and I would certainly attempt this dish again (of course, Consuelo would have the honor of taking the hot dish in an out of the oven). My only disappointment was that the coating was not as crispy or crunchy as I had hoped.  I think rinsing the chicken –which was absolutely necessary since we’re traveling with dogs—made the coating a little soggy.

My big lessons learned: The position of our convection oven, above the stovetop, along with my short stature and my hyper-sensitivity to temperatures (a lingering effect from my stroke) are a bad combination.  So from now on, Consuelo gets to take dinner out of the oven!

Route 66, Standing on the Corner, Oil Change

After the Holbrook area, our next stop is Williams, Arizona where we will visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  On the way to Williams, however, we had some errands to run:  stop at the Wal-Mart in Winslow to get an oil change for the Trek, pick up a rental car at the Flagstaff airport, and then stop at Camping World outside Flagstaff to get a new thermostat.

There are fragments of Route 66, the old "main street of America", running alongside I-40 between Holbrook and Flagstaff (and beyond).  So rather than make our little journey to Flagstaff entirely on I-40, we decided we would hop off to drive on Route 66 segments whenever we could.  An that is exactly what we did.  It was actually pretty neat to drive along that old road. In some places, there are clear remnants of old gas stations, roadside motels, and diners.  Some of these buildings have been restored and are in use.

And do you know what is in Winslow, Arizona besides a Wal-Mart?  The Corner, of course, and we decided to go and stand on it! I'm talking about the second verse of Jackson Browne's song, Take it Easy, made famous by the Eagles:

Well, I'm a standing on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona
and such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me

The corner referenced in this song is found at North Kinsley Avenue and West 2nd Street (which is  eastbound Route 66) in downtown Winslow.

We had to park the Trek in a residential area and walk 3 or 4 blocks to get there.  The weather was beautiful and we did not mind at all. In fact, it was only because we were walking that Lynda noticed and we got photos of an apparently common (so a passing woman told us) sky-bound rainbow... when there was no falling rain.  The woman told us these are caused by moisture within the clouds.

Anyway, take a look at our photos - hope you enjoy!

Oh, and the oil change at Wal-Mart was a smooth experience.  They charged $50, considerably less than the other 2 places I called (Camping World quoted $90+oil filter, Jiffy Lube quoted $100) and did a good job.  You just need to call ahead to make sure the Wal-Mart offers vehicle service and has bays big enough to accommodate your RV.

This is a Test, Only a Test - Aghhhhhhh!

I think we are being harassed by space aliens - the New Mexico / Arizona deserts are the perfect place for such malignant activity.  Yes, slimy beasts from places unknown are sneaking over to our RV at night and letting the air out of our tires just to mess with us!

Let me explain: We get up this morning, well rested and all excited to be going to the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest... we read up on them last night and also looked up a couple places to find a replacement bolt for the scooter carrier.  We took the scooter off the carrier this morning and I had the anti-tilt plate and bent bolt in hand, ready to go forth and get a replacement on our way to the Painted Desert.  All was well in the Universe,or so it seemed. Sadly, the truth was that those pesky aliens were up to no good again.

Just before we started up the Trek to haul us and the dogs into Holbrook for hardware hunting (on the way to sight-seeing), I decided to check the tire pressure again.  You know, just to be safe.  Sure 'nuff Lucy, the passenger side outside rear tire was almost flat!

OK... that was it! I'd had enough of wheel simulators (covers) that pretty up your RV wheels but don't allow even a skinny hand like mine to get in there to check air pressure and/or attach an air hose to inflate.  Hence you're forced to install over-priced valve extenders that (as clearly proven by our numerous flat tires over the past several months) do more harm than good.  Off with their heads!  Or, more aptly put, off with that shiny, Magpie crap!

So, we asked around about tire repair shops and headed in to Holbrook.  First stop was the tire shop and those guys were amazing!  It was like pulling in to a race car pit stop.  Four or five of them swarmed out, listened to what I wanted and went to work.  In no more than 20 minutes from the time we pulled in, we were pulling back out.  The shameful valve extenders (all four of them) were tossed in a spare parts drawer inside the Trek and the offending wheel simulators for the rear wheels were stowed in a basement storage bay.  The guys double-checked the valve stems on all six tires and all were loose - amazing!  So, they tightened them all up and topped up the air in all the tires.  Charged us $25 and off we went!

I am willing to bet $100 that we won't have tire issues again, unless we get a "real" flat tire caused by some road hazard.  Sure enough, my wheels may be ugly but those tires are full of air!

Then we went to Walt's Hardware store and bought three replacement anti-tilt plate bolts (2 for spare). Our last errand was CarQuest for replacement indicator bulbs and then, finally, we headed off to visit the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest.

Heading to Arizona... and one bent bolt

The drive from Silver City to Holbrook, Arizona was mostly uneventful.  We went by secondary roads and, although the route did not offer up amazing views, it was a very relaxing and pleasant drive.  I really enjoyed the quiet time after dealing with the flat tire!  You can click here to see a few photos. 

We went by way of Show Low, Arizona so we could stop at the Super Wal-Mart and stock up on some groceries and other necessities.  Good or bad, right or wrong, Super Wal-Marts are a blessing for RV'ers because these stores have large parking lots and provide one-stop shopping - they sell everything from butter to sewer hoses (a necessary evil).  Yes indeed, we have learned to love Wal-Mart like you learn to love crutches after breaking a leg.  :-)

From Show Low, we headed towards Holbrook, with our destination actually being a small RV campground called Root 66 RV Park, located just east of Holbrook in the tiny community of Sun Valley.  We had chosen this RV park because of its proximity to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

Notice I said this drive was "mostly uneventful".  Well, in keeping with how our day started (flat tire), we ended with another, although fairly minor, happening.  We stopped to fill up the gas tank in Holbrook and then bottomed out the scooter carrier when pulling out of the gas station.  What an awful screeching, raking sound it made!  Yikes!

I immediately put the hazard lights on and pulled over to check things out. One of the three steel bolts holding the scooter carrier's anti-tilt plate was bent and mangled and the plate was not longer doing its job: the carrier (and scooter) were now able to bounce around in the hitch receiver.  Not a good thing since this puts a good deal of stress on the receiver and carrier tubing.  And we also noticed that the dual duty light bulb for the left rear flashing hazard light and left turn indicator was burned out.  Lord only knows how long it had been since no-one but us knew we were getting ready to turn left or pull out in traffic.  Perhaps that darn scooter carrier bottomed out for a reason?

Anyway, we decided to just grit out teeth and finish the drive to the campground - it was only another 10 miles or so, albeit on the interstate.  I took heart in the fact that I had actually added the anti-tilt plate to the carrier as an after-market improvement and so it was unlikely the world would explode or the scooter would get flung off during these few miles.  Sure enough, we made it with scooter intact, got settled in at Root 66, popped a cold adult beverage and decided to deal with bolt and bulb tomorrow.

What a day it has been!

Heading to Houston!

It’s day two of our travel to Houston, and we’ve settled into a pretty good routine with Consuelo driving and me in the “co-pilot” seat… Consuelo is a very good and conscientious driver – I feel absolutely safe with her at the wheel – the only time her attention drifts is when she starts punching information into the GPS (we try to avoid her having to do that while we’re driving).  And she does wake me up if I’m napping when she starts to feel drowsy. We chit chat and talk about the other RVs we see on the road or the flowers we see growing on the sides of the highway.

Consuelo’s taken to talking to the other drivers… especially the people who don’t accelerate on the entrance ramps and dilly-dally merging onto the interstate. Today, she invited a truck driver to play a game of Scrabble because he was taking so long to pass us on the left.

The dogs have also settled in very well. Sydney spends most of her time lying on the “dog house” between the driver and passenger seats… sometimes with her chin propped up on the dashboard, but usually staring balefully up at Consuelo as if to say " Are we there yet?" Barley’s happy stretched out on the floor in the living area.

We boondocked last night at a Wal-Mart in Meridian, Mississippi. We were a little bit nervous because this particular Wal-Mart was quite a distance from the interstate and we were the only RV in the parking lot. I did a little shopping when we arrived; Consuelo did some cleaning inside the Trek; we ate a sandwich and settled in for the night. The dogs enjoyed a nice long walk around the mostly empty parking lot this morning before we got back on the road.

We made such good time yesterday and today, we decided to drive as far as the Lake Charles area in Louisiana and find a state park for the night instead of boondocking. This way, we can hook up to water, take some nice leisurely showers, walk the dogs somewhere besides a parking lot, and dump our tanks before we get to Houston. We located Sam Houston Jones State Park in Lake Charles and stopped at a Wal-Mart on the way to the park for gas and groceries… Consuelo ran in to pick up some fried chicken for dinner. She bought a bag that was labeled “fried chicken dinner” but when we got set up in our site and opened the bag we discovered a giant burnt turkey leg! I made some rice and Consuelo warmed up some vegetables and we sat down to enjoy our “fried chicken” dinner! We tried our hardest to make the best of the meal and realized the best thing we could do was laugh… As we peeled the skin off the turkey leg, we uncovered turkey meat that was an unnatural pink color - lesson learned today: unless you can stomach bright pink turkey, always check inside the bag – don’t believe the label that says fried chicken: 2 breasts, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs”.

Click here to view some photos of our drive through Louisiana.

Logistics of Extended Travel… what to do with the house, cats, yard, car, and the mail?

I never thought much about the running and humming of maintaining a home and pets until I made the decision to travel for 5-6 months. Once I started planning Our Great RV Escape it became evident there were some major items to address before I could take off on any extended RV travels. Not surprisingly to those that know me, I made a short list of the big issues:

• The House… security, heating, cooling, using the plumbing, other maintenance needs that pop up mysteriously 
• Yard care… mowing, tending the garden beds 
• The cats… can't leave these guys to forage on their own! 
• Car… what to do about my car? We are not taking it with us and it really should not sit for 6 months 
• Mail… what to do about mail? How will we get it? 
• Bill paying… bills don’t go away, even if you wish they would

The house, cats, and yard care were the biggest conundrums – I did not want to leave the house unoccupied for 6 months and neither did my insurance agent. And we certainly would not abandon the cats!

Did you know that many Homeowner policies do not cover a house that has been unoccupied for more than 60 days? If you are leaving your property unoccupied for an extended period of time, you may want to check with your agent to see what options they offer for coverage.

So as far we could figure out the choices for the House, cat, and yard care were to either…

Pay a service to take care of the yard, and ask friends to come by every other day or so to check up on the place and the cats.  Nope, not a good option but an excellent way to overburden friends and run them off! It’s just too much to ask anyone to do. And the yard care service could get expensive. OR

Rent the place short term to someone. Did not like this option either - who would want to move into a house for just 6 months? And what about all the stuff in the house? And if we would consider this then why not the next option? OR

See about getting a House Sitter. That’s right… someone we don’t know and who probably isn’t even from around here. What a ridiculous idea! Or is it? The more we thought about this and researched the whole house sitting thing, the better we liked the idea. We would establish a contract, get references, do a background check and make sure we had a “warm fuzzy” for the person or couple. And our friends in the neighborhood could keep an eye out and let us know if anything looked worrisome.

So for caring for the house, cats, and yard, a House Sitter is the path we decided to take. House, Cats, Yard = done.

Finding and making a deal with a house sitter is turning out to be a very interesting journey, and is giving us a glimpse into this surprisingly wide-spread practice. There are people out there that have been house sitting for years, living for a few months at a time in various places throughout the US, South America and Europe. If a person has a telecommuting job or an internet-based business, or does not need to work at all, House-Sitting is a great way to travel at minimum cost. You can read more about House Sitting in my post, The Hunt for the House Sitter 

So, once we got a plan in place for the house, cats and yard I turned my attention to how to handle mail and what to do with my car? Well the car is a piece of cake…Lynda’s parents will take care of it. This is good for them also because they will have a second car to run around in if they need to go in different directions. Car = done

OK, what about mail? Well there are several options with this also: friends could collect and forward to us every so often; we could use a mail forwarding service (there are 100s of such services) or we could ask the House Sitter to collect up the mail and send to us every couple weeks. We decided that this would be a House Sitter task that would not take up much of their time and would be the simplest way to handle. The most complicated part of handling the mail will be to know at least a week in advance where we’re heading and then have the house sitter send the mail to us care of whatever campground. Mail = done

The last notable thing on my list of things to handle was bill-paying. This was probably the easiest… I already pay 99.9% of my bills on-line. The Internet may have some seedy aspects, but it also provides some wonderful abilities and freedom for travel! I will handle any miscellaneous bills I don’t pay on-line on a case-by-case basis - they are too rare to worry about. Bills = done

I have to admit I was a little worried at first about whether I could come up with practical ways to take care of all these things while off on our RV travels. As it turned out, with enough thought and planning, and the willingness to be creative, I haven’t tripped over a logistical issue yet that we haven’t found a way to handle.  Life does not have to be too complicated.

Selecting and Buying the RV

Once we decided we were serious about taking time off to travel throughout the US and Canada, the next big step was to select, purchase and provision a suitable RV. As much as I love my 19ft Class B camper van, there is no way the two of us could live in it for 5-6 months, much less with two big dogs along for the ride. So the hunt was on for another RV and the important factors were price and living/storage space.  Who knew the search would be such a big thing?

NEWSFLASH: RVs are like shoes - lots of categories, lots of styles in each category, many colors to pick from, what kind of material would you like? And on and on. For example, here are common categories of RVs:

• Class A Motor Coaches - resemble a bus and are built on specially designed vehicle chassis
• Class C - built on cutaway heavy duty van and truck chassis
• Class Bs and B+s - conversion vans
• Truck Campers - the camper rests in the bed of a pickup truck
• 5th Wheel Trailers
• Pull behind Trailers

… and for some of these categories, there are styles or sub-categories such as:

• Class A Diesel Pushers (diesel engine in the back)
• Class A Gasoline

...and there are a host of other things to think about:

• Length
• Number of slide outs
• Construction materials
• Interior furnishings and fixtures
• Gear and gadgetry
• And so on

Although all this was a bit overwhelming, we quickly ruled out Truck Campers and Class Bs and B+s - in terms of living and storage space, these are just too small for extended RV living. Too bad because Class Bs are great for maneuverability and offer some real conveniences. Then we ruled out trailers of any flavor because I am intimidated at the idea of hauling around some big ole' trailer… sure, all is fine when we're moving forward but what the heck will I do when I have to back the bloody thing up?

So, we were left with Class A RVs and Class C RVs. At first we did not consider Class As because we thought they were all 35 feet or longer, which I did not think I could drive very well, and Lynda did not care for the idea of living in a “bus”. But the more we looked at Class Cs the more we realized they just do not provide as much living and storage space as Class A coaches, except for the really big Class Cs - and then we might as well look at Class As.

We were watching Craig’s List, eBay and a host of other online RV sale sites. And we also drove around East Tennessee with our friends, Judi and Gary, and stopped in at some RV dealers to look at pre-owned units. I can honestly say that most of the folks we dealt with were very nice. There was one place, however, that I would not have bought anything from no matter how good the deal. I won’t say the name of this RV dealer… if you come across them, you’ll know it right away. Trust your instincts and go somewhere else.

Where was I? Oh yeah… trying to find the perfect RV in the right price range. The more we looked at RVs, the more I realized there are too many things to think about and keep track of without writing them down. So, I put together a checklist of features and equipment to ask about. You can pull this up and use it if you want but bear in mind that it does not cover everything and you’ll need to tweak it so it reflects the items that are important to you.

Anyhow, with Judi and Gary's help we came to be very interested in getting a late '90s Safari Trek 24 or 28 foot coach.  The Treks, although no longer made, are considered to be well built, good value coaches.  The older ones are not particularly fancy but are better quality than most in a similar price range. The Trek floorplan includes the patented MagicBed (hold the jokes people) which lowers from the ceiling in the living area... and cancels out the need for a bedroom.  This saves at least 10 feet in length.  So, what you end up with is a nicely appointed motor home that is only 24 or 28 feet long and much more manueverable than her longer cousins.

I must say a huge Thank You and send many hugs to Judi and Gary… these folks really helped open our eyes to looking at Class A RVs. And they have spent who-knows-how-many hours helping us learn the systems and figure things out. 

It must have been fate, because Gary and Judi spotted a 1998 Safari Trek at a Nashville dealer, Cullum & Maxey, and told us about it immediately.  They went back to Nashville with us a few days later to look at the coach and test drive it, and again the next weekend to help us bring it home.  The photo below was taken of the four of us on the day I bought the Trek.

And that's the saga of how we came to have the Safari Trek. This Class A motor home was in my price range (cheap!), has good living space and storage space, includes almost all the features that are important to us, and is in great condition for her age (like me).  I think we made an excellent choice!

Click here to look at some more pictures of the Trek, inside and out. Any ideas on what we should call it?  The little stubby bus is a mouthful and not very flattering.