Nuiloa
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- May 12, 2011
- Messages
- 496
For those who asked - I'll give a quick rundown of this summer's road trip.
BTW - the title is the name of the blog my brother and I started to document our adventures.
Some background: I bought a mint-condition 1998 Winnebago Chieftain, 34-feet long, with only 46K miles on it. The cost to fix it up and add a tow bar to it, plus the extras I had to repair on the road, brought the total cost to under $35K. The repairs were mainly to the plumbing (faucets and washers went) and I needed new batteries and blew a tire.... thankfully not all on the same day.
I also towed my little Toyota. This was the start of the adventure: I'd never driven anything bigger than the Toyota and have never towed anything. It didn't take long to figure it out, though. Braking on long, windy hills was always a bit nerve-wracking.
My brother (who has a severe lung disorder) flew out from Ontario, to help me drive the Beast east. We had a great time. We visited a lot of small towns in Idaho, Montana, SD, ND, WI, MN and MI. Of course we visited Yellowstone and the Little Bighorn Memorial (which, BTW, was one of our favorite tours). We also visited a bordello in Wallace, and the Corn Palace in Mitchell, and we had the best sour cream raisin pie in the world in a little place called Murdo (which has a skeleton walking a T-rex skeleton at the freeway onramp!)
Considering the price of gas in Canada ($~5-6/gal), the cost of gas in the US seemed like nothing ($4.79 in WA down to $3.39 in SD). I also took out a membership in Passport America, which let us stay at RV parks for an average of $20/night. We ate most of our meals at "home".
I figure the cost of travelling by car, plus motels and 3 meals a day, would have cost at least as much, if not more, than travelling in the RV. I absolutely loved it!
If someone would just flatten out the Rockies, life would be perfect. Man, those hills are high!
BTW - the title is the name of the blog my brother and I started to document our adventures.
Some background: I bought a mint-condition 1998 Winnebago Chieftain, 34-feet long, with only 46K miles on it. The cost to fix it up and add a tow bar to it, plus the extras I had to repair on the road, brought the total cost to under $35K. The repairs were mainly to the plumbing (faucets and washers went) and I needed new batteries and blew a tire.... thankfully not all on the same day.
I also towed my little Toyota. This was the start of the adventure: I'd never driven anything bigger than the Toyota and have never towed anything. It didn't take long to figure it out, though. Braking on long, windy hills was always a bit nerve-wracking.
My brother (who has a severe lung disorder) flew out from Ontario, to help me drive the Beast east. We had a great time. We visited a lot of small towns in Idaho, Montana, SD, ND, WI, MN and MI. Of course we visited Yellowstone and the Little Bighorn Memorial (which, BTW, was one of our favorite tours). We also visited a bordello in Wallace, and the Corn Palace in Mitchell, and we had the best sour cream raisin pie in the world in a little place called Murdo (which has a skeleton walking a T-rex skeleton at the freeway onramp!)
Considering the price of gas in Canada ($~5-6/gal), the cost of gas in the US seemed like nothing ($4.79 in WA down to $3.39 in SD). I also took out a membership in Passport America, which let us stay at RV parks for an average of $20/night. We ate most of our meals at "home".
I figure the cost of travelling by car, plus motels and 3 meals a day, would have cost at least as much, if not more, than travelling in the RV. I absolutely loved it!
If someone would just flatten out the Rockies, life would be perfect. Man, those hills are high!