Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
This was an epic year for travel! We left home on May 4, 2019, and didn’t return home till October 4. It was 151 days of blissful RV travel. We did much, saw much, and photographed much. I will compose this travel log on five pages, roughly one for each month of our journey.
One sad thing is that I shot most of my pictures with my nice little camera which I have subsequently lost. And, of course, all of my pictures were in that little card. In the camera. Which is gone.
Fortunately, however, I took some with my phone. Those will be the ones I present here.
We took this trip in our 2015 Winnebago View, model M.
Here are our numbers from the trip:
- Days -151
- Miles on RV – 9443
- Number of fill-ups – 43
- Gallons of diesel – 637.7
- RV mpg – 14.3
- Miles on car -5360
- Gallons in car – 168
- Mpg on car – 32
- New tires – 6 (2 RV)
- Number of camps – 54
- Driving days – 55
- Average miles on driving days – 171
- Pins collected – 65
- State capitols – 3 (GA, VA, PA)
- National Parks, monuments, etc. – 13 (Fort Concho, Ft Sumter, Carlsbad, Canyon de Chelly, Jefferson, Wright, Jewel, Rushmore, Scott’s Bluff, Richmond Battlefield, Devil’s Tower, Badlands, Parc Natl de la Jacques Cartier
- Street Fairs – 4 (Pueblo, S Fe, Ludington, Des Moines)
- Laundry Days – 60 loads in 20 days
- Churches – 20
- Zoos & Gardens – 8 (Tucson, Water Lily Collection in San Angelo, Dallas Zoo, Dallas Arb, Boothbay, Living Desert Carlsbad, DC, Bear Country)
- Museums – 21 (Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village, Legacy of the Plains, Plaines d’Abraham, Victoria Mansion, Chicamacomico US Life-saving Service, Fort Macon, WW I Museum, Manitou Cliff Dwellings, World of Coke, Circus World, Hirshhorn, Natl Archives, US Holocaust Museum, Natl Museum of African Am History & Culture, Natl Museum of the American Indian, Natl Museum of American History, Country Music Hall of Fame, Sackler and Freer Galleries, Natl Corvette Museum, Oldest House in Santa Fe, Hershey Mus)
- Roadside Attractions and other landmarks – 8 (Wall Drug, Corn Palace, Dutch Village, Carhenge, Bronners, Pike’s Peak, Lambeau Field, Stone Mountain)
- Boat trips – 6 (Casco Bay Bailey Island, Wisconsin Dells, OBX ferries, Badger, QC City, Fort Sumter,
- Bus Tours (Newport, Canyon de Chelly, Hershey
- Lighthouses – (Beavertail, Ludington)
- Stops to visit people – 31 (Thomas, Weber, Engelken, Thompson, Minar, Wrenn, Duvall, Charlie in Avon, Danny, Mitchell, Gatlin, Keier, Coffey, Kelley, Boudreau, George, Beach, church, Ells, Nash, Jordan, Risk, Kotecki, McMullen, Warner, Clifford, Ulliman, Fugate, church in Tucson, McKinney, Gregorich)
- 5/4/19 – left
- 6/4 – Cloverdale, IN
- 7/4 – Washington DC
- 8/4 – Quebec City
- 9/4 – Dubuque, IA
- 10/4 – home
Observations: Our house is far larger than we remembered.
We always stayed in campgrounds/RV Parks. Longest stay was 12 nights in DC. We always made reservations. There were only two times when we didn’t unhook the car and many, many times we clearly needed the car to do the things we didn’t even know that we wanted to do!
Nearly everything worked perfectly. In May, we found that the fridge worked only when we were plugged in. At Forest City, they replaced a board and all was well. We had water on the floor and Jack fixed that by tightening the water pump filter. We had serious front end shaking, so we got new front tires and an alignment in May. Because it was time, and the ride was rough, we got new car tires in August.
We left on May 4. Our first stop was Tucson.
From there, we headed eastward, making it to Alamagordo, NM by 5/7. One of our fun stops there is always the Pistachio Tree Ranch. Here are a few shots from New Mexico.
It rained a lot at the beginning of our trip. For the first 6 weeks, it rained at least a little bit every single day.
It rained a lot in Joplin. We went for our walk early, stopping at a little fast food place to get the breakfast sandwich Jack was craving. On the way back to the RV, I said, “We probably should hustle a little. Looks like rain.” So we hustled a little.
No sooner did we close the RV door, but it POURED down rain. We laughed and laughed!
And then we were in Iowa, just in time for Memorial Day. We stopped off in Des Moines for a couple of days. We were at a nice campground, but it was Memorial Day and they were jammed. We had a group with a campfire right by our RV’s bed. And they were party people, and they carried on every night they were there till past midnight. Ugh.
