5,000 miles and three weeks of TC'ing it.

[lonegunman]

My July vacation is over and it is back to the daily grind. I took my Arctic Fox 865 and diesel 2011 F-250 on a cross country road trip and loved it from start to finish.

The first leg was from Washington state to Ohio, on Lake Erie for some quality time with 700 of my closest friends. I Wal-Mart or Cabela's camped the entire way and that was great. I overnighted in Sheridan Wyoming and the wally world had at least two dozen campers of all types and truckers parked there. It was close to everything and just off the freeway. It was my first Wal-Mart experience and it was perfectly pleasant.

Until now I have boon docked for the most part or stayed in state parks, so this was the first extended trip cross country. It went off without a hitch. According to several regulars on this board I should have been killed instantly when using an SRW truck at it's GVWR, that did not happen. My tires did not explode when driven at their max rated capacity, not did my factory wheels fracture and fail.

Probably the worst part of the trip was I-90 in South Dakota, it was all concrete in an endless stream of tilted and cracked slabs and the constant "Clunk, Ka-clunk" of the road about drove me buggy after 300 miles. I ground thru about 500 miles that day just to get away from the misery in one day and relaxed in another Wal-Mart well off the beaten path in Minnesota.

Being heavy and in a SRW truck it was a little tippy on some off camber corners and entrances. The wind had an effect with a high profile but even that was not completely terrible. A day of head winds in western North Dakota and eastern Montana made for terrible fuel mileage and a nearly constant right turn but other than that I have no complaints.

My wife flew east and we took a week to drive home together on highway 2. That was very nice. We drove up through Michigan and visited Mackinaw Island for a day. We stayed at Mill Creek RV park which looks to have over 2,000 spots and was practically full. Then we went thru the UP and spent a day in Duluth and Superior which was actually pretty awesome. They have a couple of ship museums, the Richard Ira Bong WWII museum and a train museum to visit. Ten miles west of town you are back in the middle of nowhere.

Highway 2 thru North Dakota is nearly all four lane with median, there were times we were the only truck for miles and we rarely saw more than a few cars on the road unless we were near a larger city or town. Once you hit Montana that is not a problem, no large anything and two lane road the rest of the way to Washington.

We stopped at a couple of dinosaur museums, a few sporting goods stores to inquire about the local hunting and fishing and then made our way below Glacier Park to Kalispell. Montana had a lot of nice folks and we spent the last night of the trip in a city park in Libby Montana. The volunteer fireman's park offers TC sized spots, no hookups and a dump station for $10 bucks a night. Rosauer's grocery is next door for coffee and breakfast goodies before you drive off.

If I knew how to post a picture to here I would give it a try. I have airbags, Rancho 9000XLs and upper Stable Loads on my truck, factory 18" Michelin take offs from a Lariat. My registered weight is 12K and I was under that. I typically loaded 2/3rds water and dumped blk/gray water every couple of days or when available. Nothing broke, nothing got particularly hot. Tire temps were fine, even after hours of driving and not one tire lost more than a pound or two of air. The airbags did leak down a tad and made the ride spongy. When set up the rear of the truck is about 1.5" lower than empty and the Stable loads contact the springs about 50%, everything rides fine, no squeaks.

We liked the trip from start to finish, this was very positive. I was in two different violent thunderstorms and far happier than if I had been in a tent. When you want lunch, pulling over and sitting down for a nice lunch in my own kitchen was awesome. Same goes for potty breaks and sight-seeing. Fitting in a regular parking spot is super cool as well, it made visiting Babe the Blue Ox and Stormy Kromer hat factory a snap.

It was a great way to spend time off.

[Stars101]

The BEST link for posting photos:

Look under the "More Truck Camper Info!!!" sticky at top of TC Forum page.

11th entry down - "How to post a photo, fix your signature or profile, etc" contains the link for the app that one member made.

HANDS DOWN EASIEST WAY TO POST PHOTOS!!!

No need to specify size, etc. it does it all for you.

(Can you tell I love that little link? LOL)

[lonegunman]

67avion wrote:
Ok, you got me with the Stormy Kromer museum. I have three Stormy hats to face the cold winter winds - without bills that the wind could rip the hat away. As you know Stormy was a baseball player who later worked for the railroad. He converted the baseball cap into a hat that the wind on the railroad could not unseat.
Who knew that they'd build a museum to him. But, then, they were far wiser than our generation has become. Stormy solved a real problem and he wasn't one of the designated elites.

Yes, they have a nice display of almost a 100 years of caps and a showroom. They give a daily tour at 1:30pm and we got there late because of road construction. They found a lady from marketing to walk us through the plant and watch a few workers do their thing. Every hat has a serial number and nearly all of them are inspected by one person, it was pretty cool.

I found a red wool baseball cap they had made for a photo shoot in their blem bin and bought it for $10 bucks. It was actually very nice and looked like an old cap from the 1900's.

If you drive thru Ironwood, Michigan stop and say "Hi". We enjoyed stops like this all along the way. It reminds you there is an America left in America.

Once I picked up my wife for the return trip, we planned on 300-350 miles a day. We spent more time visiting in a few places and made one big day in the middle to catch up.

[Grit_dog]

On the upside, of the 3 weeks we were gone there was really only like 6 days where we were "on the road" all day.

[Grit_dog]

GeoBoy wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
cool. Must be the year for bonsai runs to the upper Midwest.
Just got home from 5kmi and 3 weeks from Seattle thru MT, Yellowstone, Rushmore and a week in N WI followed by a cannonball run home of 1900mi in 2 days.

You drove 1900 miles in just 2 days?

Ha, yeah we were gettin it on the way home! Had to make it home for a soccer tourney on day 3 or we'd have taken 3 days to make that pull for sure.
About 20hrs the first day and 16 the second day. Woulda been a little less but we took a few decent meal breaks. Luckily not much for bad headwinds the whole way across I 90 until central WA for a stretch so I was able to run 75mph plus without the wind trying to suck the front windows out of the truck cab!
Although it's drives like that that I wish I could turn the TC into a TT temporarily. A lot easier towing that weight vs hauling it.

[GeoBoy]

Grit dog wrote:
cool. Must be the year for bonsai runs to the upper Midwest.
Just got home from 5kmi and 3 weeks from Seattle thru MT, Yellowstone, Rushmore and a week in N WI followed by a cannonball run home of 1900mi in 2 days.

You drove 1900 miles in just 2 days?

[monkey44]

Mote wrote:
Sounds like a great trip. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures. The link from Joe417 should work well.
We did a Indiana to Yellowstone trip last summer and also enjoyed the ability to park anywhere overnight and use normal parking spots at the site seeing spots. We ate lunch when we wanted and used out nice clean restroom when we needed to. Those pit toilets at Yellowstone stunk and always had a long line.

^^^^ THIS is what camping in a TC is all about !! 🙂 🙂 🙂

[67avion]

Ok, you got me with the Stormy Kromer museum. I have three Stormy hats to face the cold winter winds - without bills that the wind could rip the hat away. As you know Stormy was a baseball player who later worked for the railroad. He converted the baseball cap into a hat that the wind on the railroad could not unseat.
Who knew that they'd build a museum to him. But, then, they were far wiser than our generation has become. Stormy solved a real problem and he wasn't one of the designated elites.

[nomadictxn]

Great post and great trip. Looking forward to my next TC run!

[Grit_dog]

Grit dog wrote:
cool. Must be the year for bonsai runs to the upper Midwest.
Just got home from 5kmi and 3 weeks from Seattle thru MT, Yellowstone, Rushmore and a week in N WI followed by a cannonball run home of 1900mi in 2 days.

Meant to say banzi runs lol.

[Mote]

Sounds like a great trip. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures. The link from Joe417 should work well.
We did a Indiana to Yellowstone trip last summer and also enjoyed the ability to park anywhere overnight and use normal parking spots at the site seeing spots. We ate lunch when we wanted and used our nice clean restroom when we needed to. Those pit toilets at Yellowstone stunk and always had a long line.

[lonegunman]

Near Spokane. The last day was under 4 hours to the house. We thought about the long run and a few other stops but voted no. Still smiling when I think about the trip.

[trail-explorer]

lonegunman wrote:
... I am thinking an aftermarket fuel tank is in my future. I hate the idea of being in the middle of nowhere on 1/4 of a tank.

Check out Titan Tanks. They make a huge aftermarket fuel tank that bolts in place of the factory tank.

Where in Eastern WA are you based?

[Grit_dog]

cool. Must be the year for bonsai runs to the upper Midwest.
Just got home from 5kmi and 3 weeks from Seattle thru MT, Yellowstone, Rushmore and a week in N WI followed by a cannonball run home of 1900mi in 2 days.

[Joe417]

Try this for posting pictures....

I believe it was one of the rv.net moderators that created the link below to help with posting pictures. It works great.

At your home screen, right click, select new, then shortcut. Copy the link below as the location, select next and give it a name like RVnetPhoto, then select finish. This short cut will take you to the picture hosting site quickly any time you need to post a picture.

I keep it on my home screen next to my rv.net short cut.

To post a picture, double click your newly created shortcut "RVnetPhoto". Drag the photo you want to post to the host window and drop. It will return a link. Just copy the link and past it into the rv.net message window.

You won't see the picture until after it is posted.

You'll get the hang of it after a few posts.


http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/201045551/Forums/PhotoUpload/RV.NET-Photo-Upload.html