Fall 2018 Trip Wrap Up

Corinne Family, RVing 2 Comments

This is it…week 13 of our Fall 2018 trip.  We are almost home and have been visiting family and friends (and their driveways) while we wander eastward.  And  totally neglected to take any people pictures while visiting all these people!

Here’s our full trip route. We left on August 1 and went into Canada. We had two firm dates we had to keep; Portland, Oregon by Labor Day weekend and East Grand Forks, Minnesota by September 26.

While wandering homeward, we had a wonderful meetup with nephew Andy during an overnight stop in Minneapolis.  Then it was on to Wisconsin to visit friends and family.

We spent two nights parked on Al and Bonnie’s farm.  Al was the best man in our wedding! 
Al lives around the corner from the Goeke “Home Farm”.  This is the house Jim’s Dad grew up in and was farmed by Jim’s uncle for many years.  Sadly, it is no longer in the family.
While I was out and about, I stopped at the cemetery down the road from the Home Farm.  It’s a little unsettling seeing your last name on so many tombstones.
This is the grave of Friedrich W. Goeke, THE Goeke that immigrated to the USA from Germany in the mid 1800’s.  It’s probably hard to see, but the tombstone is in German.  I would have to do some serious thinking to figure out how many generations away is Jim.
After two days at Al & Bonnie’s, it was a short 5 mile drive to Jim’s brother’s place.  Tom and his wife Cheryl have a tremendous view from their hill top.  They built on this land last year and Tom put in a 50 amp electrical outlet for driveway moochers like us to use.  Woohoo!  I was a warm, happy camper!!!!  Thanks Tom!

Our final night on the road was spent Jess & Dave’s driveway in Indiana (Jess used to live across the street from at our first house in Spencerport).  It was a quick stop, but we got to play with their toddler Penelope and enjoy a quick visit.

Today we put the Blue Flame in storage.  I’m typing this while we are on the road in the Jeep and driving home.  We should be back in New York this evening.

Here is the Blue Flame’s home for the winter, in one of these storage bays south of Cleveland, Ohio.

So how about some statistics from this trip.

Days away 97
Total campground fees $1402
Average campground cost per night $14.45 (lower than usual since our sugar beet campground was paid for by the farmer)
Most expensive campsite rate $75, Crown Villa RV Resort, Bend, Oregon
Cheapest campsite rate (ignoring the freebies) $7 – Beaver Creek National Forest Campground in West Yellowstone, Montana
Number of unique locations we parked overnight at (including freebies) 28
Highest temperature 104 degrees in Regina, Alberta, Canada
Lowest temperature 9 degrees in East Grand Forks, MN
Miles driven in the RV 6558 with 135 hours of driving time
Miles driven in the Jeep 2874 (920 of those miles in “The Forks”).
Total fuel cost $2617
Number of RV diesel fill ups 12
Cheapest diesel fuel $3.09 in Columbus, Montana
Priciest diesel fuel $4.03 – Shuniah, Ontario
Number of states and provinces. 17 (Ontario is a BIG one!)
Number of zip / postal codes 24
We have a white board in the RV where we write down our current zip/postal code.  Being too lazy to erase the board every time we move, we end up with a list of all the zip/postal codes we are in during a trip.  So here’s the list from this trip.  Zip codes come in real handy when you want to check the weather, the TV listings and locations of cell and TV towers.  

So that’s it, the last blog post of this trip.  We’ll be silent for while…until January when we head out to Quartzsite, Arizona.  Now that should be an experience!!!

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