This is the map of my big trip trailer in 2020-2021. The route I took and main destinations are shown, as are the days of the trip in 10 day increments.
Comments: I had a basic plan laid out before I started, but I didn't want the plan to be set in stone as one of the big things was to allow myself freedom to wander where the road took me, and I did end up changing the original plan quite a bit as I went along. For example, originally I planned to go to Key West but ended up stopping near Miami, and I also was also considering going all the way to California, but once I got going, that seemed like too darn much driving pulling a trailer, so I stayed longer in Texas and added Big Bend, the Alamo and Port Aransas as destinations. It was still over 9,000 miles of driving (covering 13 different states) and as it turned out, more than my trailer could handle! It was a heck of a trip.
Sunday, November 22, 2020 - Ypsilanti: My ''new'' (2015) R-POD trailer and ''new'' (also 2015) Ford Edge pictured in Ypsi the day before I left with the year's first snow. The trailer wasn't winterized, so I figured it was time to get out of Dodge. (I left the next day.)
Monday, November 23, 2020 (day 1) : the tenuous smile of someone who doesn't really know where he's going or why, just that he is. Getting myself out of the house and on the road wasn't entirely easy, but I did - about a week later than I originally envisioned.
Thursday, November 26, 2020: (day 4 - Thanksgiving in Florida): This was the best shot of my rig - it was at De Soto Beach near Ft. Meyers.
Comments: I had a logistical failure and couldn't find the rustic site I had reserved in a Florida State Park, and my friend Victor Dobrin came through and let me show up a couple of days early, so I was on the way to see him when I shot this. (I'm not sure where I would have ended up if he hadn't taken me in. Somewhere for sure, possibly a rest stop. It wasn't a proud moment for an RV traveler, my rig sure looked good!)
Friday, November 27, 2020: (day 5): on the terrace of a beachside bar in Venice Florida with my Friend Victor.
This was one of the few days of truly beach weather I had on the trip. I had a pina colada. It was great.
Comments: A lot of people asked me if I had fun on the trip. One thought I have is something an old friend told me long ago - that he "wasn't even sure what fun was anymore." That could be somewhat true with me as well, and I can say that there wasn't a whole lot of what I would call fun traveling alone on a trip like this, but this was one time that was. (Interesting, challenging, often enjoyable, yes, but fun, not so much.) Victor and I worked together for Ford for many years, and we also worked together to restart the Gallop Gallop 5K Run, and we're also both prostate cancer survivors. He moved to Florida about 4 years ago soon after he retired. (I spent the next 2 days visiting my friend Dean nearby at Port Charlotte, but I'll be darned if I didn't take a single picture there!)
Wednesday, December 2, 2020 (day 10): this was an RV park I was staying at in Hollywood Florida. (It was about as close to Miami Beach as I could get.) This was one of the more crowded urban parks I encountered.
Sunday, December 6, 2020 (day 14): this is a shot of the SpaceX launch that my friend Tom and I went to see. We drove from Tarpon Springs (on the Gulf side) to Cocoa Beach.
(Can you spot the (tiny) flame of the rocket's thrust?)
Comments: It was actually the 2nd day we attempted it as the day before the mission was scrubbed due to weather, which I happened to hear listening to NPR on the way there the day before, so we turned back. But we made it the second time and so did the launch. We were 10 miles away, which was as close as we could get without paying $140 bucks to get into Kennedy Space Center plus we woulda had to get there a whole lot earlier - and all that would have put us 5 miles away. For the science minded, the sound delay for something 10 miles distant is ~45 seconds (give or take depending on atmospheric conditions). The whole thing took about 90 seconds and then it was gone!
FYI - the old lightning adage is start counting out "Mississippi's" right when you see the flash, and it's a mile away for every 5 counts you get to before you hear the thunder.
(P.S. The rocket is a little above the horizon just below the first cloud line about in the middle of the picture.)
Monday, December 7, 2020 (day 15): a shot of Sandy at the campsite at Tarpon Springs FL. It was as nice a site as I had on the trip, at least as far as the amenities provided, but at $140 / night it was also the most expensive. ($50 to $60 per night was about average.)
Comments: After having the difficulties finding sites around Thanksgiving, I didn't' want to take any chances on having a decent place to stay when Tom was visiting, so I reserved this one for a few days. It was pricey, but nice, and the area was also rally nice, with lots of options for biking. (It was on the way here that my bike dragged behind my trailer for a few miles - long enough to blow the tire and grind part of the wheel down to a flat spot. Someone shouted to me as I was driving - seeing the bike had come loose and that the wheel was wrecked was not a proud moment. But I managed to get a new (used!) wheel and get it fixed, thank goodness.)
Monday, December 7, 2020 (day 15): this is Sandy with my friend Tom in out campsite at Tarpon Springs FL.
Comments: Tom drove down to hang out with me and to visit some relatives who live there. (At least that was his excuse to head south and spend a week in Florida!) He stayed in a rented van that he put a mattress into the back of. (We definitely stayed safely socially distant. His set up would have worked well for Chris Farley of SNL - who famously "lived in a van, down by the river...!")
Monday, December 7, 2020 (day 15): this is a shot from a site Tom and I stayed in for one night near Clearwater FL. People do extravagant things with their campers, as many of them live them all winter and some year round, so light displays like this at Christmas (or most any time) are pretty common.
Comments: I found it interesting how many people have relatively elaborate decorations put up around their RV. And of note, depending on the park, some people live in the same park permanently, so in many parks there is definitely a blend between RV vacation park and good ol' trailer park. FYI - loud running diesel trucks starting up at 7 AM every morning is a sure sign of permeant residents. It didn't take to long for me to figure that out (and for the noise to bother me a bit, but I didn't stay at any one place too long, so it wasn't a big deal. So it goes.)
Tuesday December 8, 2020 (day 16): This is a shot of sandy and my little trailer next to a bay off of the ocean at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores Alabama.
Comments: This place became a favorite of mine as it was a beautiful campground, and the had lots of great bike paths right in the park that I didn't need to drive to get to. The beach there is also fantastic. It wasn't really beach weather when I as there, but it was pretty warm and I took walks there. (Sandy had to stay at the camp - no dogs on the beach there. (Most places don't allow dogs on the beach.)
Wednesday, December 9, 2020 (day 17): another shot of the campsite at Gulf shores. Tom dropped by again for one more night after visiting his relatives in Florida and was on on his way to Houston, so he took the shot of us.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020 (day 17): this was the 2nd of 3 gators I saw on the trip, in Gulf Shores. The first was when I toured the Everglades when I was in Florida, and the last was when I paddled a bayou near Lake Pontchartrain just north of New Orleans.
Thursday, December 10, 2020 (day 18): Government Street in the historic district of Mobile AL. The oak trees were spectacular, as were many of the old mansions. I also stopped at Battleship Park to view the WWII battleship Alabama. I had already toured the North Carolina some years ago, so I didn't board, but it is quite a sight.
Sunday, December 13, 2020 (day 21): a nice view from a ridge in Oak Mountain State Park near Birmingham AL. The Smoky Mts end in Alabama, not Georgia - I didn't know that!
Sunday, December 13, 2020 (day 21): Sandy scampering around the rocks on a great hike we had together in Oak Mt. St. Park. Most National Parks don't allow dogs on the trails, but the State Parks often did.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020 (day 23): a famous picture in Sun Studio in Memphis on December 4, 1956. This is the "Million Dollar Quartet of (L to R) Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins (with guitar), Elvis, and Johnny Cash. They all started at this small studio in Memphis, as did Roy Orbison.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020 (day 24): National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martiin Luther King Jr was shot and killed.
Comments: I wanted to see the museum and the signs indicating that it was combined with the Lorainne Motel kinda had me confused. It wasn't until I got there that the significance of the location struck me. They even have the path of the bullet that James Earl Ray took to kill Martin Luther King cast in concrete in the street. It's very dramatic. The museum sorta hit me like the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC. The scope of the suffering in the Civil Rights struggle was simply overwhelming. One part of me felt I should stay for a month, or at least all day to study it all, but the rest of me got saturated and couldn't take it for more than a few hours. You can also go to the boarding house across the street where Ray took the shot. I choose not to go there.
Thursday, December 17, 2020 (day 25): Bath House Row in Hot Springs (National Park) Arkansas. I enjoyed my stay there. It was an interesting mix of natural beauty, a colorful history filled with fires and gangsters, and the hot mineral spring baths of the emporium. I was there for a couple of days and went to the baths at Quapaw Bathhouse both days.
Friday, December 18, 2020 (day 26): Sandy and I on a hike from the campsite at Hot Springs AR. This campground wouldn't take reservations, and consequently they had a good number of open spots, you just had to show up to get them, which I did.
Sunday, December 20, 2020 (day 28): campground shot from the place I stayed at Oklahoma City.
Sunday, December 20, 2020 (day 28): Oklahoma City Memorial. It's a solemn place, and it made me sad to think that 2 guys from Michigan were responsible for this despicable act.
Monday, December 21 (day 27), 2020: This was the view from the car of the industrial zone in western Texas - oil rigs, tanks, trucks, construction equipment and powerlines everywhere. (I thought flaming vent pipes were no longer a thing - they are in Texas.) I realize we need our energy, and I sure burned a lot of gas on this trip, but this place is a mess.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020 (day 30): Midland High - but in Texas, not the one I graduated from in Michigan. I had always wanted to go to Midland Texas, and it was right along my route, so I did. It's an oil town for sure and was fun to visit. (I blundered into the H.S. as I was driving around near downtown.)
Tuesday, December 22, 2020 (day 30): a couple of mavericks in Big Bend National Park in Texas.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020 (day 30): Sandy in her little trailer bed. She was pretty happy on the trip in general. She loves places like this to snuggle up in, and she was very happy being able to sleep in the same room as me - made her feel special! (At home she's normally in another room.)
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 (day 31): one of the better views from a ridge in Big Bend Texas. The landscape there is very beautiful - stark and somewhat barren, but compelling none the less.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 (day 31): a fairly common road sign in the park. (Big Bend TX)
Comments: I didn't see any bears, but I did see a gray fox on a hike, and a family of 4 javelinas crossing the road as I was driving. (They are not wild boars, but look very similar.) I'm told they can be vicious, but similar to bears, they don't normally interact with people in general unless there is food nearby or they feel threatened. But unlike bears, javelinas do tend to roam in packs.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 (day 31): yours truly under a big rock in Big Bend.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 (day 31): a sunset view of a large ridge near Big Bend. The Rio Grand is in the foreground.
Thursday, December 24, 2020 (day 32): a dramatic view of the Rio Grand shrouded by the in the sheer walls of Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend. The U.S. is one one side, and Mexico is on the other.
Comments: This was during a beautiful hike about a half mile up the canyon that I (and a lot of other people) took. There was a lot of great hiking in Big Bend. Getting a cactus quill actually poking through my shoe into my foot was an unexpected "bonus". (Shoulda used the beautiful REI boots I left in Ypsi vs the running shoes I used. Live and learn.)
Thursday, December 24, 2020 (day 32): campground shot on my last night at Big Bend on Christmas Eve.
Thursday, December 24, 2020 (day 32): Entrance to the RV place I stayed at on Christmas Eve in Terlingua TX (near Big Bend) - this critter was not so Christmassy, but also pretty dramatic and I thought it was funny. Every RV park is different, that's for sure.
Thursday, December 24, 2020 (day 33): the start of my dinner on Christmas Eve.
Comments: I ate pretty well on the trip in general, and I cooked every dinner either in my camper, or on my little grill. I often had salad, and grill vegie's was pretty common too go along with a brat of burger, or grilled cheese. I was also getting ready to watch an episode of 30 rock - I bought the entire 7 season series on DVD at the start of the trip, (I always liked Tina Fey and her show) and I was glad I did as I really enjoyed it. I found that I enjoyed being connected to the internet which allowed me to do e-mail, and also I enjoyed local TV when I could get it. But in locations where connects weren't possible, I enjoyed having DVDs to watch in the evening, which tool away some of the pangs of emptiness from being on the road alone. (Sandy helped with that a lot also - bring her was the best planning decision I made without a doubt.)
Friday, December 25, 2020 (day 33): Sandy on a hike I took her with me on Christmas Day in the back country of Carlsbad NM. The cavern's were closed, but the park gates were open. (I think we were the only people there that day, but it was a nice hike.)
Saturday, December 26, 2020 (day 34): the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns N.P.. I'd been there once before, but the series of caves is spectacular. In fact, rather uncharacteristically, I went back again the next day for a second look.
Saturday, December 26, 2020 (day 34): A ridge line in McKittrick Canyon of Guadeloupe Mts National Park, TX. It has been said to be the "most beautiful spot in Texas". (It was pretty, but I thought the boast was a bit of an overstatement, but to each his own.)
Sunday, December 27, 2020 (day 35): Another campground shot. This was the place we stayed in Carlsbad NM.
Comments: I arrived there on Christmas day without any reservations - I sure was hoping to find room at the Inn somewhere. (The Big Bend area of Texas I was in had no cell phone coverage I could connect with so I had no way to make contact. I just showed up and parked my rig and connected and called them the next day. It turned out the owner of the park was from Michigan, and a U of M fan - in fact he had been in Michigan Stadium when Michigan beat OSU in November of 1969 - that was first year coach Bo's stunning career making upset.) We talked some Michigan lore (I was in the U of M marching bad the year Bo won the Rose Bowl - that was January 1, 1981. Anyhow, he let me say there for 3 days for free, so it was a nice Christmas gift.
Monday, December 28, 2020 (day 36): Here is a wonderful shot of a crowded gas station in Kernville Texas, the first gas available for a (dire!) 53 miles..
Comments: I was on the way to San Antonio that day, and although I knew that you had to be careful in Texas about gas stations and not let the tank get too low, when I checked my tank at just under half, I hit a stretch that had no gas stations for over 50 miles. (When your getting 10 mile per gallon, it goes fast.) I did what I normally do in "regular locations" where I let the tank get down to a quarter before I look for a stop. Mistake. That occurred just past Junction Texas and the next stop was Kernville, and getting there took my tank down to nothing. It was literally reading "0 miles to empty" and I got spooked and pulled into a rest stop and decoupled my trailer and drove the final 10 miles to the next town without it. (Doing that more than doubles the mileage.) By God I somehow made it (but not by much) and when I got there you'd have thought this was the only gas station in Texas - everyone in town was there in line in front of me. I finally got gas and headed back for my trailer. I was so agitated that I did something I have only done once before in my life - I used an emergency turn around to get to the rest area where I left my trailer. (Wow - talk about living dangerously...!) That was my 2nd and final close call with running out of gas. (The other one was traversing Alligator Alley in Florida.) Anyhow, the picture many not seem like much, but by golly, it meant a lot to me, as it became rather traumatic!
Tuesday, December 29, 2020 (day 37): (San Antonia TX) This is the Mission part of the Alamo, which is most of what is left of the old mission and later fort. The Alamo and it's history are interesting, but as I learned most of what was then the Fort is no longer there.
Comments: Remember the Alamo? I did, but it turns out Ford doesn't - at at least their navigation system in my car anyhow. I had more or less given up on that in Florida when I tried to use it to reach the Everglades and it was taking me to downtown Miami when I realized something was amiss. Anyhow, I found it, but it was a bit of a challenge, and let's just say that wandering through the normally scenic stretch along the river was very disorienting, and finding my car was like finding a needle in a haystack, but got God I eventually found that also.
Tuesday, December 29, 2020 (day 37): The beach at Port Aransas, near Corpus Christi TX. I stayed here for a few days, and enjoyed it a lot. It was very free wheeling - you could drive, park, camp, cook, and walk dogs on the beach. That was a lot different from the other beaches I had been to on the trip, and I enjoyed the freedom Texas offered.
(So did Sandy!)
Wednesday, December30, 2020 (day 38): I visited the Lexington in Corpus Christi Bay. It's a fantastic floating WWII Museum and I could have stayed all day.
Thursday, December 31, 2020 (day 39): A shot of my cramped kitchen on New Years Eve. There's not a lot of room to cook or for clutter, so doing dishes right away became my normal routine.
Comments: There is actually a beer can on the right side of the counter. That was the extent of my celebrations that night, and truth be told, I did feel a bit lonely. I had purchased a 6 pack of "Lone Star Beer. (The other 5 are still in my refrigerator at home yet today - I'm not quite the wild guy I once was it seems...!)
Trailer Bathroom Adventures! A shot of the bathroom in my cramped little R-POD. It ain't exactly what I would call spacious, but it worked when I really needed it!
Comments: Ok, I wasn't exactly on a NASA mission, but similar to people wondering about how people go to the bathroom in space, things are also a bit difficult in a camper. (Although there isn't quite the same risk of anything actually floating around - well nothing solid that is!) Not too get too deep into the poop here, but bathrooms in campers are complicated, and can be very tight quarters and a bit unpleasant. The one in my camper is called a "wet bath". This is where the toilet and shower are all in the same small compartment. If you want to take a shower (I did that all of once - but wait - I did shower in the campsite bathrooms a lot more than that!) you have to pull the curtain around the entire enclosure to keep water from gushing out the door. If you want to use it to go to the bathroom (which I generally did at least once most every night (but number 1 only!) you just climb in and go. (Larger campers of course have more traditional bathrooms with a separate shower stall. (Ahh to be rich...!))
The real labor here is when you have to drain your tanks. Most come with two separate tanks - a gray water tank (for sink drain water) and a black water tank (for toilet water). Unfortunately mine were labeled "waste tank" and "sewer tank" and it took me a while to figure out which was which. The reason that is important is people usually only have one drain tube, and you want to drain the sink water second, to flush the tube of the aforementioned toilet water. And if you use your RV bathroom to poop, then you need to learn the formula for the required water level and chemical cocktail needed to induce "liquification". (I'll let you figure that part out, but suffice it to say, liquids drain better than solids.) I spared my self that chore by always using the campground bathrooms when I really needed to go. If I were to have tried to camp off the grid, as many modern campers like to do, that wouldn't be an option. (Although I suppose the woods and a shovel would have.)
The other fun little fact regarding emptying out the tanks is that the more expensive campgrounds have a waste dump hook-up in every campsite, where as the more rustic ones, you have to pull up to an aptly named dump station. And at 10 AM in the morning, there is also likely to be a line-up of campers waiting there to dump their tanks. (Driving any distance with full tanks is not recommended.) I managed to avoid having to use a dump station on my trip, but there are videos on the best technique to use to do this quickly while others are waiting behind you. (Man, talk about pressure nobody needs!) For the people who live in RV parks, they have fancy spacers that support their flexible drain tubes to create a perfect slightly-sloped downhill angle, and they drain continuously, more or less like a house. (The smell of a holding tank can also be something of an issue, and believe me they sell plenty of chemicals for that also!)
Ok, this was (likely way more than) enough of the bathroom physics and chemistry lecture. But if you read all this and you still want to be an RV'er, you'll become intimately familiar with this subject, I guarantee it!
Friday, January 1, 2021 (day 40): The Flamingo exhibit at the aquarium in Corpus Christi TX. These birds are hilarious and I watched them for most of a half hour. Walking in unison, dancing and pecking at each other are all specialties of theirs.
Saturday, January 2, 2021 (day 41): My rig on the beach at sunrise the morning I was leaving Texas. (Port Aransas )
Comments: I had considered pulling out the night before and spending the night on the beach, but I was comfortable in the campsite I had already paid for and choose to stick to the comfort of electric power and TV reception. (And I watched Ohio State play (and beat) Clemson in Football.)
Sunday, January 3, 2021 (day 42): Oak Alley Plantation just outside of New Orleans. I'd been there once before, but the row of old trees is spectacular, and the history of the place (and it's use of slaves) is very compelling.
Monday, January 4, 2021 (day 43): A bayou that I took a guided kayak paddle through. It was near Lake Ponchartrain LA. We took a nice 2 hour paddle there. I was the only customer so I had to pay double to meet the minimum they had. Since it was that or missing the chance, I figured it was worth it.
Tuesday, January 5, 2021 (day 44): Another traffic shot - this one was a highway closure due to an accident. With over 9000 miles traveled, driving and traffic was a huge part of the trip.
Comments: This was a back-up due to an accident that closed i10 just west of Mobile AL for about 3 hours when I was on my way back to Gulf Shores as my final stop before heading North. The frustrating part was that the accident was only about 300 yards in front of me, and the back-up must have stretched for miles. But at least I wasn't in it I figured. The emergency vehicles came right down the middle of the road - forcing everyone to part to the shoulders to let them through. That wasn't exactly a fast process, and why they just didn't head up the shoulder, I'll never know. And wouldn't you know that one stooge was following the ambulance right up the middle of the road past all of us. The guy next to me tried to pull out and do the same thing, but I made sure that wouldn't happen. (I figure the guy that did do that didn't get past the jamb, but who knows where that asshole ended up - in jail I hope.) The accident was a pick-up vs a semi. (I'm guessing the semi won.)
Sunday, January 10, 2021 (day 49): this is a picture of the location that the bomb went off in historic downtown Nashville very early on Christmas morning.
Comments: Nashville was my very first stop on the trip, and the bomb went off (on Christmas) 4 days after I had visited the memorial in Oklahoma City. from the bombing there that occurred 25 years before in 1995. I found the timing of all of that to be pretty incredible, but mostly I found it sad. At least only the bomber died in Nashville. This was my final stop on the way back to Michigan. I also walked about downtown and saw the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Monday, January 11, 2021 (day 50): A close-up picture of the ailing left wheel of my trailer. This was on the last day of the trip, just north of Louisville KY.
Comments: An hour or two earlier I had stopped for gas and looked back at the trailer, and noticed a plume of smoke drifting up from the axle. I was still an RV rookie, but I was pretty sure that was a bad sign. You can see that the tire is discolored from the heat from the failed bearing, and if you look really close, you can see that the middle of the hub is no longer aligned. As I write this, the trailer is still in Kentucky waiting for a new axle assembly to be installed, at Camping World's expense, since that is where I got bought the trailer and it had been serviced there just before I left - for the bearings specifically, so there's no way this issue should have occurred. But it did, and in fact, the wheel fell completely off as the service people were moving the trailer into their service bay a few days later. If that had happened as I was zooming north on i75, things wouldn't have been really hairy I suspect. Thank goodness I noticed it when I did.
Monday, January 11, 2021 (day 50): This is a shot of the car as I'm loading up everything from the trailer into the car for the final 5 hour drive home. Let's see, do I have everything - Sandy, are you in there...?
Comments: I hadn't expected the trip to end this way, but that's exactly how it did. Seemed like an apt metaphor for life - you plan for things to go one way and work really hard, and life, or chance, or destiny or whatever you believe in generally finds it's own path. So it goes. The tip was a great life experience. It was a bold adventure. But man was it ever a lot of work. If I do it again, I'd definitely do a few things differently. Still, I already look back at it quite fondly.
Thursday, February 25, 2021 (day 51!): This was the day I drove down to Crestwood KY and back to get my trailer, which now had a new axle installed compliments of Camping World and Christian Brothers Automotive. Sandy jumped in and took her favorite spot right quick!
Thursday, February 25, 2021 (day 51): This was the massive trailer fire that I passed in Ohio on the way back from picking up my trailer. This is from the news story - it was burning like a torch when I went by it - the firefighters were just watching it burn!
Comments: I've seen cars burn before, but never a trailer, and never a fire as large as this one - it was huge. (It was a semi-trailer with a prefab home on it. I wonder what made it go up in flames like that. Traffic was backed up in both directions, but way worse on the southbound, so I was glad I was headed north at that point. And as I said to my friends, there was some mild (perverse?) pleasure in seeing someone who had it worse that I did for once! So it goes.
Thursday, February 25, 2021 (day 51): This is the final final shot I took as I finally returned to Ypsi with my trailer and it's new axle. (Seems like I was a good bit happier than the previous final shot on day 50, and I was.) I still had a cracked trailer frame to deal with as I had discovered, but at least everyone and everything finally made it home!
