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docsouce's avatar
docsouce
Explorer II
Nov 09, 2018

Another Great Camping Year Comes to an End

I finished winterizing the RV yesterday, and today I'm going to put the winter cover over it. My wife and I had a fantastic year Camping. The highlight of the year was our 8 week 7800 mile cross country trip that took us through 27 states. This included 3 weeks poking around the desert southwest. Palo Alto, Carlsbad Caverns, The Roswell Alien Festival, Petrified Forest/Painted Desert, Zion, Monument Valley just to name a few places we were blessed to visit. Then we topped it off with numerous short trips through the back roads of New England. The RV ran perfectly. There were a couple of times when I needed some advise and as usual the folks on this forum came through. So this is how the year worked out.
March 25 opened up the RV and Closed it up for the season 11/9
11,576 miles driven. Averaged 8.0 MPG. strangely enough..
33 states visited (camped in)
83 nights camped out in 48 different campgrounds.
Again, my wife are truly blessed and I would like to thank all the folks here that offered us great suggestions and sound advise.
Now to break out the Road Atlas and start planning for the 2019 RV
season.
Class C
  • lfcjasp's avatar
    lfcjasp
    Explorer
    Nov 09, 2018
    We had a great year camping; got more camping done this year than any year before and always had a great time. I was really sad when we unpacked the camper after the last trip, really grieving! We are taking the rig in to have a cabover leak repaired, but DH wants to use as a hunt shack this winter (did this last year and it worked great!) and he tells me we can still go camping once deer season ends:)

    Now we're working on our big trip for spring 2019: a cross-country trip to see all kinds of great things (Grand Canyon, Alamo, redwoods, etc.) and visit my family in Washington State and back home (Mount Rushmore, Little Big Horn battlefield, etc).
  • bobndot's avatar
    bobndot
    Explorer II
    Nov 09, 2018
    docsouce, 'my wife and I are truly blessed'

    To be able to do what you do, you couldn't more correct my friend.
    It makes all the little annoying things that we deal on a daily basis ...not so important. Now it's time to get out the snow machines and head up to north country . :)
    This pic in one state north of you. We spend a month there, every year for the past 20 years.

  • ppine's avatar
    ppine
    Explorer II
    Nov 09, 2018
    In the West, there is no reason for it to end. It was 5 degrees last night at the house, but the weather will warm up again. I will be taking the RV out this month. In the winter we head for the low desert.
  • 2edgesword's avatar
    2edgesword
    Explorer
    Nov 09, 2018
    Glad you enjoyed your camping season. It's a sad time when you have to put the cover on :(.
  • rhagfo's avatar
    rhagfo
    Explorer III
    Nov 09, 2018
    ppine wrote:
    In the West, there is no reason for it to end. It was 5 degrees last night at the house, but the weather will warm up again. I will be taking the RV out this month. In the winter we head for the low desert.


    X2
    we live in the PNW, until retirement we went out all winter long. Now that we have retired, we are full-time Park Host now so camping all year except for a yearly cruise!
  • ppine's avatar
    ppine
    Explorer II
    Nov 10, 2018
    Just because you have winterized is no reason to stop camping in an RV.
  • pnichols's avatar
    pnichols
    Explorer II
    Nov 10, 2018
    I feel for you folks in cold country.

    I left a cold Northern state at age 19 and have never looked back, so I know about vehicle radiators frozen solid and wind-blown snow on the inside of the widow sill next to my bed in an unheated bedroom. (But snow skiing in Utah during my AF tour was a real hoot.)

    We plan on leaving Monday for several days camping to celebrate Thanksgiving with camping friends, and we'll take off again in January for a couple of weeks of drycamping and exploring in Arizona. We never winterize our RV and we keep it in the backyard pretty much ready to go 24/7/365. However, I'm not sure which part of our "ready to go 24/7/365" is for instant camping ... or to escape from fires that might arise anytime!
  • bobndot's avatar
    bobndot
    Explorer II
    Nov 10, 2018
    ppine wrote:
    Just because you have winterized is no reason to stop camping in an RV.


    Very true, not too many neighbors and we have heat. We always used our TC's all year long .

    I'm planning to use our class C now for ice fishing. Windshield washer fluid in the toilet and I'm now buying from Amazon, a portable submersible USB rechargeable shower head and pump so I can use the rv shower too.
    It gets submersed in a 6 gal bucket with preheated water that I'll boil up on the stove. I have room to place the bucket right outside the shower door. It comes with a 6 ft hose from the pump to the shower head. The new shower head sits in the OEM holder inside the shower.
    I am able to dump my shower water right away so it won't freeze.
    All I will have to do is dump a cup of windshield washer fluid down the shower trap after each shower and add a little to the holding tank to prevent the valve from freezing shut.

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