Our epic adventure to the Canadian Maritimes is over. 132 days, almost 19 weeks or 5 months. We are now back home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The trip didn’t end as envisioned.
If you look at the above map, you might notice that in Arkansas, we took a sudden right turn northward. We got a call from our oldest daughter, Callie, telling us that she had accepted a neuroscience research position in Great Falls, Montana. Heck, we were out in the RV anyway, so we decided to meet her in Great Falls and help her find a place to live.
We were at the Tom Sawyer RV park in West Memphis Arkansas when we got the call. The plan HAD been to head home ,which would have been 1133 miles. Instead we went home via Great Falls, Montana, which turned out to be 3060 miles. Just a small detour of 1927 miles.
Callie now has an apartment in Great Falls. After we got back to Las Cruces, I got on a plane to fly back to New York to assist Callie driving westward and to help her move in and get settled.
But I digress, back to our Maritimes trip. It’s time for the numbers:
Fuel
The price of fuel, especially diesel, is not pleasant to think about.
| Number of miles drive in the RV | 12,323 |
| Number of miles driven in the truck | 3528 |
| Total spent on diesel for the RV | $8463 |
| Total spent on gas for the truck | $823 |
| Cheapest diesel | $4.99 (Kansas, June 16) |
| Most expensive diesel | $6.64 (Somewhere in remote Canada) |
| Cheapest gas | $3.44 |
| Most expensive gas | $5.24 |
Campgrounds
| Number of campgrounds/overnight stops | 58 |
| Most expensive campground | $90.25 – Wassamki Springs RV Resort in Portland Maine during high season |
| Average cost per night | $34.52 |
| Number of “free” nights (Harvest Hosts, boondocking, driveway surfing, rest areas) | 29 |
Our Thoughts
The Canadian Maritimes was a bucket list trip for us. We had planned a couple of times to make it there, but things never worked out. Finally, things went our way! The scenery is not as dramatic as Alaska, but it is still beautiful. We were amazed at how much we enjoyed the history of Gander. Seeing all the little fishing villages in Newfoundland was very interesting. And we thoroughly enjoyed traversing the Labrador Highway. This was definitely a once in a lifetime trip.
What surprised us the most was how much of Newfoundland was empty of people and/or industry. We expected it to be more like northern New England where there are small town and villages at fairly frequent intervals. This is true on the coast which has many small fishing villages. But inland there are very few towns or cities. Instead, there are many places where you travel hundreds of kilometers and see nothing but trees. And the trees are all so small due to the cold climate that there isn’t even much logging. So the vast ’empty’ spaces were our biggest surprise.
We are thinking next summer of heading up to the Pacific Northwest. Callie now living in Montana is added incentive to head that way. We’ll see if that is how next summer works out!
Thanks for following along on our Canadian Maritime adventure!
And — thank you to you for the blogs!!! Always enjoy reading about your adventures. Neat sculpture.