Trip Wrap-up and Update

Location: New Rockdale RV Park; Mansfield, Louisiana

Trip route (6 weeks)

Well, I've been back for one week so I guess it's time for a wrap-up and update. The hard facts of the trip is it lasted 6 weeks and I traveled through 11 states and stayed in 11 campgrounds. I towed Liberty 3,190 miles and explored in Freedom for an additional 1,200 miles. The campground breakdown is Corp of Engineers (2), Indian Casinos (4), County/City (2), Privately owned (3). The average price for the campgrounds was $24.17 with the most expensive one being $34.00 while the cheapest was $11.00. The highest price for gasoline was $3.09 and the cheapest $2.55. I don't know what the average price was but would figure about $2.75. 

I had my first blow-out on Liberty during this trip. All in all, I was very lucky in that it didn't do any serious damage, I wasn't stranded very long and I was able to buy a set of tires from a nice Goodyear dealer located right on my route. The whole incident from blowout to pulling out of the Goodyear dealer was 3 to 4 hours. The sad thing is that while I was on the shoulder of the Indian Nation Turnpike, no one stopped to ask if I needed help. Oh well, I didn't need any help and maybe they knew that, so we won't hold it against them. 

The World War I museum in Kansas City is worth a stop. The city campground near KC, while the most expensive on this trip, was conveniently located. Iowa is just Iowa, travelers will understand that. Lake Superior is always nice, but Lake Huron is still my favorite. Before cutting my trip short, I planned to cross Michigan to camp near the shore of Lake Michigan in hopes of getting a nice sunset picture. It has been a while since I've had a decent sunset or sunrise. I need to work on that.    

I've added Duluth, MN / Superior, WI to my list of "good vib" places. Those are places where I get an immediate sense of peace and contentment when I arrive in the place and it lasts until I leave. I've traveled coast to coast and border to border and have only discovered a handful of such places. They are rare and always a nice surprise. Some places I expected to be a "good vib" places, but weren't. An example would be Sedona, AZ. I had heard it described as such by many people. But, I guess I was the odd man out because it just didn't do it for me. Maybe I didn't get on the right vortex. "Good vib" places are different for everyone since the "vibs" inside us must jive with the "vibs" of the place. We have to be in sync. This isn't some new wave or old hippie thing. It is real and I'm sure others who travel a lot have run into the same thing. If not, then I'll deny ever saying this so the guys in the white coats don't come after me. 

The number of RV'ers on the road has dramatically increased over the last couple of years. Use to be the campgrounds were mostly empty during the week and only filled up to about 80% during the weekends. This applied to most types of campgrounds. That has changed now. A lot of the campgrounds have no vacancies on the weekends, especially the state/federal campgrounds. It seems locals have started reserving weekend campsites in the state/federal campgrounds months in advance. I found the Indian Casino campgrounds and county campgrounds to have more vacancies than any other type. They were nice campgrounds too especially the casinos since they gave me free money in hopes of getting me to gamble with my own after losing theirs. I fooled them,,,, 

I shortened the time on my trip by a few weeks after Brandon got a call to be on "stand-by" for his Kidney/Pancreas transplant. Although that one didn't work out for Brandon he has been placed on "stand-by" two other times since then with the latest being just an hour ago. They will let him know around 6:00 in the morning whether or not he needs to go to the hospital. They didn't give any other details about the donor, but with a kidney/pancreas transplant, the donor has to be deceased. If Brandon is given the honor of receiving these organs, then we will be told more about the donor. And so the waiting game continues. 

For those of ya'll still out there on the road, be safe and always be thankful for the freedom of the road.

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.