2023 Summer Road Trip – Final update

Monday, September 4, 2023

With our last post we left you in North Carolina on Day 53.  Day 54 was thankfully an uneventful day of driving to Camp Sumatanga, in Gallant, AL.  This is the campground we use most when we are back “home.”  Sumatanga is a church camp, one where NOMADS work that is about 30 minutes from where we lived prior to going full time.  While in Alabama on Monday, day 55, we visited with friends, checked on our remaining property on Pine Mountain, took care of some business, had dinner with friends and Tuesday, day 56, Anne got to visit her hairdresser.  By mid-day Tuesday we were back on the road in route to Johnston, SC, our second home, at Randy and Debra’s.  That too, was another uneventful travel day, unusual for crossing Atlanta, and before bedtime we were back in Fred, making Day 56 the final day of our 2023 Summer Road trip.

We had 56 wonderful days of seeing beautiful sights we had never seen before and just feeling very blessed by the entire experience.  Following are some statistics and thoughts on the trip.

Total miles driven in our Coachman Beyond Class B, 8,393.3 miles averaging 15.3mpg

Fuel Cost $2,315.00

Total engine run time 216 hours

Nights spent in BB – 55. The most we have done in the Class B on a single trip. We decided we could travel in BB for pretty much any length of time.  It is small but quite livable.  We sleep great in BB.  However, we are not ready to give up Fred for our daily living and working of volunteer mission projects.  We enjoy being spoiled by the space we have in Fred.  Whichever RV we are in is home but Fred definitely wins out for comfort.

Days boondocking (using no hookups), 40 days with 27 of those being the most consecutive days we have ever boondocked.  We obviously had to stop at various places over those 27 days to empty tanks and take on water.  We located most of the dump stations using iOverlander.  We have found we can easily go 4-5 days between dump stations.

Days in campgrounds 15.  We had four nights in Wolfville, Nova Scotia while visiting Melody and 4 nights while visiting Acadia National Park so we could use the free shuttle into the park, 2 at Camp Sumatanga and the other 5 were just for visiting other friends and for our convenience.  Total cost, $791.00 – $53.00/night average – not too bad. It is a little more than we usually pay for campgrounds per night but again, we did some of those for our convenience and enjoyment.

We began this trip with several goals.  One – to visit with friends across the country and have fun seeing all the beautiful locations we visited.  Met that goal.  Two – to sleep at least one night in the RV in every state east of the Mississippi that we had not previously visited.  Goal achieved.  We added 11 states (Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island) and 3 provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) to our map and now have spent at least one night in the RV in every state east of the Mississippi. We still have 9 states in the west to visit in the RV.  We have been in most or all of those but not in the RV.  We are making plans to head west. Three – check some items off our bucket list.  We checked a number of things off, such as visiting Acadia National Park, and the Canadian Maritimes.  Four – to find at least two geocaches in each state and province we visited.  We now have at least two geocache finds in 48 states, missing only Washington and Oregon. We will hopefully pick up those when we head west.  We also have geocache finds in 6 of the 9 provinces and in 1 of the three territories in Canada.

One of the best parts of the trip was the new friends we made.  We met some wonderful people everywhere we traveled.  Especially fun was meeting two couples we previously knew only from their YouTube videos – Carrie and Dave of One AdVANture At A Time and Lynn and Owen of VAN TREKKING lifestyle.  All four were such a joy to meet in person.  Hope our trails will cross again.

Thank you for following along with us on this trip and for your prayers for our safety.  Stay tuned for our future adventures.