Trip report

[Gary Smith]

Hey, Don. Delaware is my only missing state as well. You got by much cheaper for your fuel than you had expected when you left Eureka. That's good. I haven't found any of that sub $2 diesel yet this year.

See you on the groups!

Gary

SOB (Safari Trek diesel)

----- Original Message -----

From: "bluethunder@arcatapet.com"

To: "WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com"

Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 10:05 PM

Subject: [WanderlodgeForum] Trip report

On Saturday we returned from our longest RV trip ever, 4 monthe + 3 days, with 9203 miles in the bus and another 4000 or so in the toad.

A handful (but incomplete) list of highlights:

The Nebraska State Fair, the Bridges of Madison County, the Museum of the American Quilting Society in Paducah, the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Parkway, Williamsburg/Jamestown/Yorktown, the Outer Banks at Cape Hatteras, Grandfather Mountain and Chimney Rock in NC, Charleston and Hilton Head in SC, Savannah and Jekyll Island in GA, Sanibel Island and Key West in FL.

Along the way we met a number of Bird owners, including Jay Darst in Illinois, Bruce Morris in NC, all of the participants at RATS, and two couples who joined us at our Datastorm Rally in Tampa, Rod and Hollie Sorge (who were also at RATS) and John and Barb Ely. Would have loved to have made the Lonestar rally, but didn't get out of Florida in time.

Mechanically we did pretty well. Most serious was blowing up our ProSine 2.0 inverter near the beginning of the trip. We had our worrisome compressor coolant lines changed out by Randy Dupree, and we came home with a list of mostly minor items to repair, including a leaky transmission seal and the HWH problem outlined in another post.

All of our fuel fills were at Flying Js (did you hear they filed Chapter 11 today?), with the first in Winnemucca, Nevada, for $4.21. Last was in Lodi, California at $2.07 and the lowest was in Eloy, Nevada for $1.88. Average fuel cost was a shade over $3.02.

This was our 4th trip to the East Coast in the last 7 years, and I suspect it will be our last for at least a couple of years, but I never rule anything out. We've now RV'd in 47 states, with Iowa being the only new one on this trip; Delaware is the only one missing in the lower 48.

Don Bradner
90 PT40 "Blue Thunder"
Home in Eureka, CA
My location: http://www.bbirdmaps.com/user2.cfm?user=1

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