Thursday 10-19-23 Fall Trip Summary

Fall Trip

During our Fall Trip we camped in 10 states for 56 days. We drove 5850 miles, burned 585.78 gallons of gas and spent $4177.07. The states we visited were Texas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. We camped in 5 City Parks, 3 County Parks, 3 National Parks, 6 National Forest and Recreational Areas, 2 RV Parks, 5 Casino, 3 Walmarts, 1 State Park, 2 State Forest, Larry’s Ma house and our house. We took the motorcycle for a ride, while in Colorado. I gambled a bit. We hiked a total of 74 miles. While in Washington we visited Cape Flattery, which is farthest northwest point in the lower 48 states. We drove on many highways we have never been on. We camped mostly in places we never camped before. We saw wildlife, such as bay seals, elk, deer, bear and coyotes. We visited my niece (Ashley), Larry’s mom (Shirley), his brother (Ray), Mary, my sister (Donna) and her husband Stan. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery and sites. We met very friendly people. We did a lot of dry camping. We used our solar panels when we could. We had an outstanding trip.

The Minnie ran very well. We got an average of 9.9 mpg, which is outstanding with all the rough, curvy and mountain roads it was taken on. Our camping cost for 56 days averaged out to $16.32 per day. Our total cost was $74.59 per day. 

The solar generator system Larry built worked excellent. Using the new lithium battery we could easily go without power for over 3 days and the old house battery would still be fully charged. If we had sunshine the lithium battery charged much faster than the old lead acid battery, it also charged much faster when we were driving. It made camping without hookups much easier. Larry will make a few other changes to make it even more convenient to use. 

Whenever we get back from a trip I joke with Larry telling him traveling is less expensive then being home because he can't buy anything from Amazon.

 

Thursday 10-19-23

Today I slept in until 8:00. It was nice to be home and sleep in our bed and take a shower in our own shower. After I got dressed I made pancakes. Larry was already up, he was up by 6:00. His normal time.

After breakfast we went to town to pick up our mail at the UPS Store and restart our mail at the post office. 

Our neighbors are out of town so the grand parents are staying next door with the kids. I was talking to grandpa and invited him in to see our pinball machine. It didn't take long for Larry to get him to play a couple of games.

Larry spent most of the morning working on updating the pinball machine. Some of the developers of the pinball games are releasing games based on a new version of code. Larry and a lot of others were not installing the new code because it's still in BETA and people are having problems. But my weekly challenges have started using games made using the new code. A gentleman (Rudy) took time and put up a couple of YouTube videos to help people do the update. Rudy did an excellent job and Larry was successful on the update. He then installed Indiana Jones made via the updated version. He played it to make sure it worked. He was successful. Thank, you Larry. I played Indiana Jones, which is a great game with a lot of action. Then I played Cirqus Voltaire and Congo.  

Indiana Jones

 

Cirqus Voltaire

 

Congo

Afterwards I started doing a new diamond painting, which was Groot. I thought I could use the leftover diamonds from The Lady and The Tramp but I was wrong because the colors were different and numbered differently. 

 

Diamonds

 

Groot

I spent a good part of the day finishing doing laundry. I also continued reading the book I started a couple of days ago.

Doing laundry

 

Reading is fun

We spent the evening watching YouTube videos.

After Larry went to bed I watched Driving Miss Daisy on Amazon. Then I played some Angry Birds.