It is done

5,846 miles. 16 states. Untold numbers of cows. And we don't want it to end. Maybe if I don't answer the phone? I'll be "stuck in Bakersfield" or something. Nope, won't work, my boss reads the blog. Besides, the smoke column on the mountain behind the house is making me itch. Gotta get to work.

The geek squad was upset with me for not providing enough technical tidbits, so here goes:

5,846 total miles
29 days
16 states
Average MPG for entire trip: 16.2
Best tankful: 18.2 Eastbound across Wyoming
Worst tankful: 13.2 Westbound across Kansas
Most we paid for diesel: $3.64 gal in Logan, Utah
Least we paid for diesel: #2.33 gal some truckstop in Missouri
On average, we filled up every 253 miles.
The most we ever put in was 24.0 gallons. The warning light came on just as we pulled in to the station.
Total fuel costs were $1,111.72
Total campsite costs were $832.33
Most we paid for a campsite: $40 (a mistake on our part as to picking a park)
Least we paid for a campsite: $16 (not counting free nights)
Interestingly enough, the $40 night was the first night of the trip, $16 the last night. Both campgrounds were within 10 miles of each other. See what you learn over the trip?

The positives are too numerous to mention. Memories have been generated that will last a lifetime. Sara can confidently whip that beast around the country. She even did the sleet driving. Tom has confidence that this motorhome won't leak. The parts that broke are fixable.

We have trip plans for the next 3 years.

The final cap? That which sums it up the best? Just now, as I'm typing this, Miles is in the living room playing with toys he hasn't seen in a month. He just looked up at me and said, "Daddy, can we sleep in the motorhome tonight?"

Well, we took the "safe" route. Still saw some sleet on the drive. Went from 32 degrees at lunch to 80 degrees at the end of day.

The trip is almost over, and we don't want it to end. Life is already intruding, the Day fire just won't go out. Tom knows where he'll be Monday.

This picture was supposed to be in the other day, but since I was borrowing a wifi connection, I left it out.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the natural beauty has

been marred by graffiti.

When the hiking was done, we were all a bit tired.

Now we are at another decision point. Do we race back down to the

lowlands and freeway, or try another 10,000 foot steep twisty

mountain road with no guardrails that would take us to Bryce and

Zion NPs. It rained here in the valley last night, probably snow

up high. And high winds. If you don't hear from us, we might just

have dropped off the edge of the world. (Just kidding, Dad!)

So we went to Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, instead. This

is another absolutely beautiful park with stunning scenery. Trust

me, Sara shot over a gig of pics on the trip in alone!

e left Thursday morning after the last stop on our whirlwind

friends-N-family tour (did you get a t-shirt?) and headed West.

Our original plan was to go South, through Durango and Silverton

to the 4 corners area. But the weather was threatening snow, and

we don't have chains.

Now we are in Rifle, Colorado, visiting Sara's best friend Stephanie and family. Miles has been running, jumping, screaming, and generally having a blast. He even played dress-up with Sarah (not Sara) and I now have wonderful blackmail pictures of him as a fairy princess, complete with high heels. Just WAIT untill his first date! Time to try to put him to sleep...

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Nobturbo problems today. The little engine chugged right over and through the mountains. Just in time to see the colors starting to change.

We stopped in Denver at the Glauser Mercedes-Benz dealership. Unfortunately, a) the are not related and b) they don't work on Sprinters.

Denver

I'm blogging while trying to convince a super-tired Miles to go to sleep, so these will be short entries.

Last night we stayed just east of Denver, and visited with Sara's sister Cathy and her Levon. Today Miles saw bunnies in the campground, then we were off.

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Okay, blogger is having problems right now. Stand by for better posts later.

Ah Kansas. Good old flat Kansas. (The locals prefer "level") The funny thing is, most of Colorado is worse than Kansas. Colorado just doesn't show 2/3 of their state in their ads. The great excitement of the drive this afternoon was when they put a curve in the road...exactly at the same spot as an overpass! Wow! Usually they space them out a couple miles apart.

We recorded our worst fuel mileage of the trip yesterday, we got 13.4 mpg. We had a constant headwind the whole day, and kept the cruise set at 70. Totalled up all our gas receipts for the trip so far. We're still averaging 16.4 mpg for the trip. Since this is almost exactly double my old motorhomes mileage, we feel lucky.

This was the last day of boring travel for a bit. Tonight we drop in unexpectedly on more family members(we're getting good at that), tomorrow an old friend of Sara's.

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The firefighter memorial in Missouri was very nice, an unexpected find.

Homeward bound

Today we left Missouri and headed for Kansas. Last night we stayed @ a cute campsite in Missouri. The owners had done something really cool with one of the walls of the registration office, they painted it white and they-have their guests sign it. This was done after 9-11. Pictures to follow tomorrow.

Stopped at the firefighters memorial in Mo. It was pretty cool to see what other states do to honor their fallen firefighters. Pictures to follow tomorrow.

Went to another Cabela's for lunch today. This store had a bigger catfish than the Cabela's in Wisconsin. Miles thought this was cool.

Arrived in Kansas with no weather problems today. Of course, Tom said the only thing we haven't hit yet this trip is a traffic accident where we are first on scene. Still waiting....

Tomorrow we head for Denver Colorado and then onto Rifle for a quick visit With Sara's friend Stephanie. We will try to hookup with Sara's sister Cathy in Denver for Dinner tomorrow night.

Tom's off tonight so this is boring I know. More tomorrow.

Well, what an eventful day. We are reminded of the old proverb, "Be careful what you wish for."


We left Lexington, Kentucky this morning, determined to put some return miles under our belts.

Our target was the west side of Saint Louis, Missouri, so as to avoid any Monday traffic there tomorrow. Tom drove the first part, to get clear of big city Lexington. Sara took over at lunchtime, and uttered the horrible words, "You know, we really have had wonderful driving weather the whole trip.

Sure enough, not 50 miles later the sky ahead turned black and threatening. The wind started pushing us around. We ducked into a rest stop and hid between to 18-wheelers. A B-class motorhome on a Sprinter chassis pulled in behind us and we shared notes while the gust front of the storm passed. Thinking the worst was past (I of course checked NEXRAD and weather while stopped), we elected to press on. We were still on the wrong side of St. Louis.

Well, it wasn't done, as you can see from the picture. The View handles quite well in the rain. The outsides of the side windows kept fogging up!

Saint Louis

We made it through St. Louis, and thought we were going to miss the Arch. But it turns out that they actually made two of them, and painted them bright yellow!

We scooted out the other side, with Sara promising me a double martini for the extra driving. Met our class-B friend again. We took the downtown route and had slow construction traffic. He opted for the beltway and had fast kamakazi drivers. Slid his rig once, so we are happy with our choice.

They say that every cloud has a silver lining. In our case, the heavy downpour must have washed 20 pounds of bugs off of the rig!