Prepping for a cross country trip...wheeeeeeee!!!!

[rangerbait]

Getting ready for a move from California to West (by God) Virginia 🙂

We're taking a couple of detours, to visit the Grand Canyon, cross the Rockies, and then to dip back down into the Smokey Mountains...we plan to take 2 weeks to do the trip, but have flexibility to stretch it into 3 if we need/want. I love road trips!

Quick photo op after visiting the scales. (Edit: the trailer attitude is an optical illusion due to the uneven ground; it's actually slightly nose-down)





The route



We're taking off in about 2 weeks, and I will update as we make progress...right now we're deep in the process of preparing for the movers, and getting the trailer populated with everything we'll need on the road.

[Passin_Thru]

Ok! We are just down the hill so be careful. We shoot uphill. We are s of Harpers Ferry and recommend using Winchester and Chas Tn. Leesburg is just one big mess. We came here 25 yr ago to the country and bought a farm, now there are few farms left. Hope you don't plan on commuting 9 East. It's already at 22000 trips a day, 4000 above capacity. There is a wreck every day on it.

[Blazing_Zippers]

I truly understand the fact about moving from Cali to, well, anywhere else. However, if those photos are of your rig and the Pacific Ocean in the background----that's pretty hard to beat!
Have a fun & safe trip.

[rangerbait]

spoon059 wrote:
OP, my suggestion would be to plan for 3 weeks and try to find some spare time to stretch into 4 if possible. When I was a youngster we took a family 6 week cross country vacation...3 weeks out, 3 weeks back. The rush didn't afford us much time to sit back and relax and enjoy things.

Giving yourself another week (or 2) would allow you make it more of an enjoyable vacation as opposed to just a really long road trip. Day after day after day of driving got very boring to the kids... I still don't know how my dad handled driving it all!

Sounds like you will be in the Harper's Ferry area of West BG Virginia. Beautiful country out there, right near Washington County, MD and Loudon County, VA.

We have a bit of a time constraint built in with the movers delivering in early May, and have found (through experience) that coupling a coast-to-coast move with an extended rv trip + tiny kids isn't the best match...we did 6 weeks door-to-door back in 2014, and that was a solid 3 weeks too long 🙂

Bingo on the area...we'll be in Shepherdstown.

[rangerbait]

TKW wrote:
OP, can you tell me what trip-planing tool you are using? Your route map shows way more via points goggle maps would allow me to do.

It's the MapQuest Route Planner...pretty good little app

http://classic.mapquest.com/routeplanner

[rangerbait]

rbpru wrote:
We are returning from Redlands CA and are currently camped it Cortez CO to visit Mesa Verde, then the ride home to Indiana.

Going out a month ago we took I-40 to Flagstaff then dropped down to Phoenix and Tucson to visit sights and relatives.

Having driven the mountains in NM, AZ, UT and CO I have decided to drop back down to I-40 through Amarillo and OK rather than more mountains and cooler weather on I-70.

We did hit our share of high winds (15 to 20 mph plus gusts), steep grades and hot weather. We had to lay over and extra day in Las Vegas because of 60 mph cross winds and dust storms. We also made sure to fill-up before each days trip. You can hit sections of travel with limited gasoline stations and I sure did not want to have to dig out the extra 5 gallons packed in the bed of the truck.

So my advice is watch the weather, fill-up often, and drive the mountians at the speed you like.

The Interstate highways are okay but you will be passed by everyone; unless you like to tow at 70 mph. My sweet spots are 57 and 62 mph. Secondary roads are fine but many are only two lane.

Take care and enjoy the ride.

You are not kidding about the fill-up advice...we did a CA-VA trip in 2011 towing a TT with our Nissan Armada that was getting about 7.5mpg. We left El Paso destined for Carlsbad, NM, got about a third of the way there, then realized it was going to be a good 'nother 100 miles to the next gas station. We ended up turning around and heading back to El Paso for a fill up and a couple of Jerry Cans 🙂

This time, we'll be more in the 11mpg range with the turbo diesel, and have a 37.5 gallon tank, so we're in much better shape.

We decided to cut back north specifically to cross the Rockies, since I have never done it...really looking forward to checking out the snowscape, and hoping we don't hit too much wind; it's very tiring fighting a head- or crosswind all day. Had that experience coming across the plains of eastern South Dakota back in 2014...miserable! At least this time we've got the fancy ProPride hitch and the super long wheelbase truck!

[rbpru]

We are returning from Redlands CA and are currently camped it Cortez CO to visit Mesa Verde, then the ride home to Indiana.

Going out a month ago we took I-40 to Flagstaff then dropped down to Phoenix and Tucson to visit sights and relatives.

Having driven the mountains in NM, AZ, UT and CO I have decided to drop back down to I-40 through Amarillo and OK rather than more mountains and cooler weather on I-70.

We did hit our share of high winds (15 to 20 mph plus gusts), steep grades and hot weather. We had to lay over and extra day in Las Vegas because of 60 mph cross winds and dust storms. We also made sure to fill-up before each days trip. You can hit sections of travel with limited gasoline stations and I sure did not want to have to dig out the extra 5 gallons packed in the bed of the truck.

So my advice is watch the weather, fill-up often, and drive the mountians at the speed you like.

The Interstate highways are okay but you will be passed by everyone; unless you like to tow at 70 mph. My sweet spots are 57 and 62 mph. Secondary roads are fine but many are only two lane.

Take care and enjoy the ride.

[eipo]

Looks like a fun trip.

[TKW]

OP, can you tell me what trip-planing tool you are using? Your route map shows way more via points goggle maps would allow me to do.

[spoon059]

OP, my suggestion would be to plan for 3 weeks and try to find some spare time to stretch into 4 if possible. When I was a youngster we took a family 6 week cross country vacation...3 weeks out, 3 weeks back. The rush didn't afford us much time to sit back and relax and enjoy things.

Giving yourself another week (or 2) would allow you make it more of an enjoyable vacation as opposed to just a really long road trip. Day after day after day of driving got very boring to the kids... I still don't know how my dad handled driving it all!

Sounds like you will be in the Harper's Ferry area of West BG Virginia. Beautiful country out there, right near Washington County, MD and Loudon County, VA.

[rangerbait]

ken56 wrote:
Have you had the bearings serviced lately? You are going through some remote country at times and a mechanical break down would really shut you down. I lost one on our way down to FL and had to replace my axle. I learned my lesson. An ounce of prevention.........

Good advice...I'm spending a week at my parents' place before we shove off; I'll repack the bearings there. The trailer only has about 2,500 miles on it so far, but you're right about the ounce of prevention!

[rangerbait]

Passin Thru wrote:
West Va, Why? Ain't no Costco, weather is nasty in winter, I drove truck there and still go to Ok several times a year via WV. Everything is uphill too. Actually lived in Norwalk and at Rosamond so don't much care for Ca myself. Too expensive.

My friend moved from CA to Tx and raised the IQ of both states!

Haha...that's been a fairly common reaction we've been getting when we tell people we're moving to WV.

Work transfer...and we're going to the eastern panhandle, so I tell people it's really West Virginia-lite. You can see VA and MD from our place, and we're about 30 min from 3 different Costcos 🙂

The area is absolutely beautiful, and we can buy a mansion on several acres for what a crack house costs here in CA.

[ken56]

Have you had the bearings serviced lately? You are going through some remote country at times and a mechanical break down would really shut you down. I lost one on our way down to FL and had to replace my axle. I learned my lesson. An ounce of prevention.........

[Houston_Remodel]

My friend moved from CA to Tx and raised the IQ of both states!

Wait a minute.......:h

[Passin_Thru]

We had a mule. If his tail was straight out, wind was blowing. West Va, Why? Ain't no Costco, weather is nasty in winter, I drove truck there and still go to Ok several times a year via WV. Everything is uphill too. Actually lived in Norwalk and at Rosamond so don't much care for Ca myself. Too expensive.

My friend moved from CA to Tx and raised the IQ of both states!