After driving 7,574 miles, visiting 14 states, and burning through who knows how many hundreds of gallons of dinosaur juice, we finally made it home! That last drive was definitely a doozy. It was by far our longest drive of the trip, coming in at slightly over 800 miles and taking about 12 hours. It’s not something I’d recommend, but we were all just ready to be home, and we figured we’d be able to rest over the weekend. With that said, I was amazed by Lana’s driving ability on that last run. She ended up driving about 10 hours, with me driving for a couple of hours through the Sierras (winding mountain passes is apparently my specialty). I’m pretty sure that if this corporate accounting thing doesn’t work out for her, she can easily transition to a career as a long haul trucker.
So was all this extended RV road trip worth it? Unequivocally yes. Not only was it great to see my parents again, as well as visit with some other family and friends on the way, this trip was exactly what we needed to help get us through the heart of the Covid related doldrums. While it was impossible to forget what was going on in the world in terms of the new “normal”, the daily sense of adventure made dealing with it that much easier.
While we were planning the trip, we kept referring to it as a once in a lifetime type of trip, but we had so much fun that we could all definitely see ourselves taking a similar trip some time in the not too distant future. I’m just hoping we can figure out a way to pull it off without the need for a global pandemic.
As much fun and excitement as we had on our trip, it was still very nice to be home again. I think the one who was most excited to be home was Boomer. He could finally roam free, going inside and outside whenever he wanted, without being tied to a cable. He had actually adapted to the RV life much better than we thought he would.
How about us humans though? I’m sure you’re all wondering how we felt about transitioning back from the RV life. Here are some thoughts in no particular order:
Doing things differently: So what would we have done differently with the benefit of hind sight? Even though we went into this trip knowing that there would be plenty of limitations due both to our work/school schedules as well as Covid related concerns, we could have done more to maximize our experiences. We did plenty of research in terms of where to stay based on our main destinations (Florida and home), but this was in terms of how far we wanted to drive on a daily basis, where we’d stay, and whether or not we’d have decent internet. What we didn’t do was actually research what to do when we got there. One example was finding ourselves on the White River in Arkansas but not realizing how special of a place it is for fishing. Had we researched, we could have scheduled for and booked a fishing guide.
We may also figure out how to tow a car behind us for future long trips. For this first trip we felt like we had enough on our hands to figure out without throwing a towed vehicle into the mix, but we can absolutely appreciate how that would make life easier in terms of exploration. For this trip we also didn’t expect to venture into too many urban centers due to Covid.
Toilet flushing: The RV toilet doesn’t have a flush handle, instead it has a foot pedal. The boys did mention that after they got home, they kept reaching for the foot pedal to flush the toilets, which I’m personally a big fan of. The less you need to touch in the bathroom the better.
Driving other vehicles: After driving a few thousand miles in a Class A, which is roughly the same driving height as a semi, driving a regular car, especially something like a Honda Clarity, makes you feel like you’re in a Formula 1 car. My first drive in the Clarity, I thought my ass was going to start scraping on the pavement. I may have also enjoyed my car’s corning capabilities a bit too much on my first few drives.
The cost of gas: It can be easy to forget just how screwed we are in California when it comes to paying for gas. But I tell you this, take one trip through the South and you’ll be reminded real quick. We left California paying a bit more than $3 a gallon. After that we quickly started complaining if we had to fill up at anything more than $2 a gallon. The cheapest gas we found was in the $1.50 range, which was in Texas and Louisiana. When you’re driving an RV that maybe gets 10mpg on a good day, you start thinking more and more about the cost of gas. Tesla RV anyone?
Getting some time back: It was definitely a little strange not to think about, plan for, and then actually drive for several hours every day or two. After getting home, it really did feel like we had too much time on our hands. That did quickly go away though.
So much space: At first I was a bit concerned that the 5 of us (I’m including Boomer here) crammed into a couple hundred some odd feet of RV for a couple of months would be too much, but we got used to it quickly. Plus most of the time we were able to spread out and go outside when it came to setting up for our work/school activities. But when we got home we had to adjust to much more space again. The first time this hit was when Boomer grabbed something he wasn’t supposed to and ran out of the room. I remember thinking to myself, how am I going to find him if he’s got so much room to hide? And of course there was also the need to get up and actually walk to where someone else was if we wanted to talk to them. First world problems…
Water usage: Living in drought prone California will already make you sensitive to water usage, but needing to deal with fresh and waste water tanks will definitely take that to another level. Even if we were connected to city water, we still had to be cognizant about how we used our water since the gray tank (sink and showers) tended to fill up pretty quick. Shhh, don’t tell the drought police, but when we got home it was definitely nice to be able to take long showers and run the sink without needing to worry about holding tanks or our freshwater supply.