I bought a 1999 coachman 085ds in March and rebuilt it for this trip. Our first stop after leaving was a Pilot in Davenport IA, that is were I could not sleep because my eye kept bothering me. At 1am I get out of bed and go to the bathroom and see a dark brown spot in the green part of my eye but floating above the color, quick google search for brown spot in eye brought up rust ring. So I wake up the wife and tell her we need to go to the ER and that is were my 15 year old son almost passed out when they pull out a deburr tool to grind the metal out of my eye after they have tried everything else but wouldn't work. Guess I got the metal in there when I was drilling under the truck in the middle of the night and my glasses wouldn't stay on, next time I will make sure they stay on. After this we ride the 7 miles back to the pilot and go to bed again.
Day 2 we are driving around in the dark looking for these boondocking spots I copied off the internet, lesson learned to stop for the night while it is daylight. So we stay in a campground just outside the badlands. They had full hookups but the 2 empty spots have breakers that are bad and since there was a big party in the tent area and fireworks all night I ran the generator since it was 88 at 10:30pm. Only had one guy mad at me the next day but I think he was born cranky. Everyone else seemed fine and were more pissed about the party and fireworks. By the way my generator is a 2400 yamaha that is pretty dang quiet, almost quieter than the a/c unit fans everyone was running.
Day 3 we drive through the badlands and then stop at wall drug for about 10 minutes and then head off to mt rushmore. We start heading for glacier np from there and are just above billing montana as dark hits, there is a large cliff by the airport and we could see all the fireworks going off(day is July 4), I wanted to stop but it was a huge dip going from the rode to the parking spots all along the cliff so I just did my best not to wreck while watching the light show. Can't find a good spot to stop and finally have a signal in the middle of nowhere and the free camping site show a city park close by so we use that and worked out fine.
Day 4 we continue our trek towards glacier and while looking at a campground at st. mary they have lots of open sites so we don't call to reserve and decide to just get one when we get there. Guess what, they are full at 2pm when we pull up and so is the koa that we really didn't want anyway. Driving around we find a red eagle campground and looks like its newly built but no answer at the rv with the office sign on it, finally find a note to go to the motel up the hill to get a spot. So we stay here for 3 days with full hook ups for 35 a night and its not bad. Now if your kids are picky and need a pool this aint the spot.
Day 7 we start heading to Mccall Idaho for the gps setting with Mt home Idaho as our intended destination but wanted to go through Mountains and forest to get there and that was the only way I could get the garmin to cooperate with the route I wanted. We stayed at the http://www.beardenrv.com/ which was full but they put us in a overflow spot and it was 61 degrees so no need for electric anyways. They had very nice campground and we did laundry here which was the only time on the whole trip.
Day 8 we arrive in Mt home and it is 112 but really it was a dry heat so didn't bother me or the kids but we stayed in a hotel just because we needed a break from the cramped quarters of the camper for 1 night and to get shower that didn't require me to do contortion to get everything clean in a cramped wet bath. Our old hose was still there and stopped by to see my air force dad and then off to the bruneau sand dunes before going back to the hotel.
Day 9 start heading to yellowstone and stopped at our old fishing spots at anderson **** and then at craters of the moon on the way. Stopped at Jareds resort on henry lake just outside of west yellowstone for the night. Good bug spray is mandatory here, lots of mosquitoes.
Day 10 we head straight to old faithfull to get that out of the way before the afternoon rush. Walked around the geyser fields and then just drove around the rest of the day noting that the wildlife is almost none existent compared to 1996 visit. We did find a few dozen bison and 5 elk and that was it. We decide to head out the east entrance and try the hwy 14 folks were talking about on here in the trailer section. As we are waiting on to turn off the grand loop we watch a guy forget to put his feet down at a stop sign and fall over on his ultra. I was going to help but he had several help him so I drive on. As we leave the park we see 5 rams on a cliff by the road so we stop to take some pics and then everyone stops so we had to wait to get out of there. That part of wyoming is very pretty so we stayed at mountain view rv park for the night and just admire the views and eat hamburger helper which was a first for my daughter who is 6 and thinks it is the greatest stuff ever.
Day 11 we head for Cody and go through the wild bill center which took several hours. Decided not to wait for 5 hours to watch the rodeo so we head towards devils tower. We stay the night in a big horn forest campground at prune creek and sometime during the night we got our first rain and only rain of the trip.
Day 12 we take off for devils tower and custer. We hiked around devils tower and then headed off for custer state park to ride the needle hwy. I had read about the needles hwy here somewhere but nobody told me that it had 9' tunnels so we did a u-turn at the park entrance when they told me and that was the only reason we went there. Took a few pics of crazy horse and then began our trek home. I had planned to stop at pilot somewhere in south dakota when I felt like I was done driving for the day but wound up at a super america somewhere about a 75 miles from rapid city. Watched a lightning storm off to the southwest before falling asleep.
Day 13 wake up at 9:30am so now the gps says we will not be home until 5am on Friday so I hammer down and do 68mph instead of 65mph max like I had the whole trip thus far. We make it home at 4:38am so I was proud to beat the original time. Even though I toke time to stop at the scales at work to see what kind of weight we were hauling around the hole trip.
Trip notable notes:
2017 F250 srw 6.2 gas with a total trip weight of 10,176lbs
Miles traveled 5037
Generator was a Yamaha 2400 and I tried the a/c at 8700ft just to see if it would run the 15.5k btu and it worked fine. Also it has a micro air easy start on the a/c unit which must be a mirical worker.
Average mpg was 10.3 but I was doing 12.6 with the none ethanol gas but thats hard to find after Illinois unless you want 91octane for 3 bucks.
Day 2 we are driving around in the dark looking for these boondocking spots I copied off the internet, lesson learned to stop for the night while it is daylight. So we stay in a campground just outside the badlands. They had full hookups but the 2 empty spots have breakers that are bad and since there was a big party in the tent area and fireworks all night I ran the generator since it was 88 at 10:30pm. Only had one guy mad at me the next day but I think he was born cranky. Everyone else seemed fine and were more pissed about the party and fireworks. By the way my generator is a 2400 yamaha that is pretty dang quiet, almost quieter than the a/c unit fans everyone was running.
Day 3 we drive through the badlands and then stop at wall drug for about 10 minutes and then head off to mt rushmore. We start heading for glacier np from there and are just above billing montana as dark hits, there is a large cliff by the airport and we could see all the fireworks going off(day is July 4), I wanted to stop but it was a huge dip going from the rode to the parking spots all along the cliff so I just did my best not to wreck while watching the light show. Can't find a good spot to stop and finally have a signal in the middle of nowhere and the free camping site show a city park close by so we use that and worked out fine.
Day 4 we continue our trek towards glacier and while looking at a campground at st. mary they have lots of open sites so we don't call to reserve and decide to just get one when we get there. Guess what, they are full at 2pm when we pull up and so is the koa that we really didn't want anyway. Driving around we find a red eagle campground and looks like its newly built but no answer at the rv with the office sign on it, finally find a note to go to the motel up the hill to get a spot. So we stay here for 3 days with full hook ups for 35 a night and its not bad. Now if your kids are picky and need a pool this aint the spot.
Day 7 we start heading to Mccall Idaho for the gps setting with Mt home Idaho as our intended destination but wanted to go through Mountains and forest to get there and that was the only way I could get the garmin to cooperate with the route I wanted. We stayed at the http://www.beardenrv.com/ which was full but they put us in a overflow spot and it was 61 degrees so no need for electric anyways. They had very nice campground and we did laundry here which was the only time on the whole trip.
Day 8 we arrive in Mt home and it is 112 but really it was a dry heat so didn't bother me or the kids but we stayed in a hotel just because we needed a break from the cramped quarters of the camper for 1 night and to get shower that didn't require me to do contortion to get everything clean in a cramped wet bath. Our old hose was still there and stopped by to see my air force dad and then off to the bruneau sand dunes before going back to the hotel.
Day 9 start heading to yellowstone and stopped at our old fishing spots at anderson **** and then at craters of the moon on the way. Stopped at Jareds resort on henry lake just outside of west yellowstone for the night. Good bug spray is mandatory here, lots of mosquitoes.
Day 10 we head straight to old faithfull to get that out of the way before the afternoon rush. Walked around the geyser fields and then just drove around the rest of the day noting that the wildlife is almost none existent compared to 1996 visit. We did find a few dozen bison and 5 elk and that was it. We decide to head out the east entrance and try the hwy 14 folks were talking about on here in the trailer section. As we are waiting on to turn off the grand loop we watch a guy forget to put his feet down at a stop sign and fall over on his ultra. I was going to help but he had several help him so I drive on. As we leave the park we see 5 rams on a cliff by the road so we stop to take some pics and then everyone stops so we had to wait to get out of there. That part of wyoming is very pretty so we stayed at mountain view rv park for the night and just admire the views and eat hamburger helper which was a first for my daughter who is 6 and thinks it is the greatest stuff ever.
Day 11 we head for Cody and go through the wild bill center which took several hours. Decided not to wait for 5 hours to watch the rodeo so we head towards devils tower. We stay the night in a big horn forest campground at prune creek and sometime during the night we got our first rain and only rain of the trip.
Day 12 we take off for devils tower and custer. We hiked around devils tower and then headed off for custer state park to ride the needle hwy. I had read about the needles hwy here somewhere but nobody told me that it had 9' tunnels so we did a u-turn at the park entrance when they told me and that was the only reason we went there. Took a few pics of crazy horse and then began our trek home. I had planned to stop at pilot somewhere in south dakota when I felt like I was done driving for the day but wound up at a super america somewhere about a 75 miles from rapid city. Watched a lightning storm off to the southwest before falling asleep.
Day 13 wake up at 9:30am so now the gps says we will not be home until 5am on Friday so I hammer down and do 68mph instead of 65mph max like I had the whole trip thus far. We make it home at 4:38am so I was proud to beat the original time. Even though I toke time to stop at the scales at work to see what kind of weight we were hauling around the hole trip.
Trip notable notes:
2017 F250 srw 6.2 gas with a total trip weight of 10,176lbs
Miles traveled 5037
Generator was a Yamaha 2400 and I tried the a/c at 8700ft just to see if it would run the 15.5k btu and it worked fine. Also it has a micro air easy start on the a/c unit which must be a mirical worker.
Average mpg was 10.3 but I was doing 12.6 with the none ethanol gas but thats hard to find after Illinois unless you want 91octane for 3 bucks.
