Chilliwack to Fort Pierce, FL 4450 miles of towing
We picked up our Escape 19 Oct 1 and just pulled into our planned destination in FL 21 days later. Chilliwack to Arlington, WA to visit a friend for day 1. Next we drove to Portland, OR to have a "house warming party" with Gary's 104 year old father and Gary's cousins. We spent 2 days at Barton Park on the edge of Portland, $28/night with showers and flush toilets. Leaving Portland we headed to Lakeside, OR to the fairgrounds. For $5/night we dry camped, but had flush toilets. Temps dropped to +24F, and the furnace was great. Next stop was a BLM dry camp with vault toilets at $6/night. Walker Lake near Hawthorne, NV had to be the most scenic spot we camped. Our last stop before getting home to AZ was Boulder Beach near Lake Mead. $10/night with the senior discount, but packed to capacity during a 3 day weekend. We spent 6 days in AZ, licensed the Escape and paying taxes was fairly easy.
Onto NM and TX. 2 nights were in I10 rest areas, noisy but flush toilets available. We discovered a new subculture of people that sleep in their cars overnight in rest areas. A Blue Norther blew through TX while we were headed to Houston. 85F at night with the Maxxfan running to +36F at 6 am. Furnace works great! We had a day of squalls and 30 mph side winds so gave up towing for the day at 300 miles. Spent the night in Shiner, TX at $20/night with flush toilets. Another +36F night and we love the furnace. Finally arrived in Houston to visit the grandkids, we spent 2 days there at $100 for 2 nights at an RV resort. We dry camped...
Our next stop out from Houston was Tickpaw State Park in LA. For $28/night we had everything at our site except a dump station. We dry camped. Free laundry here, unlimited hot showers and toilets. Heading into the panhandle hurricane zone we stopped at the western edge of destruction at Holt, FL. $30/night bought us hookups and flush toilets in a rundown private facility. As usual we dry camped. Our last day out from Ft Pierce was a Silver Springs State Park for $33/night. When we checked in it was 85F and at least 85% humidity. We turned on the AC for the 1st time, AC is really nice but noisy. Night was cooler so the Maxx fan kept us comfortable after 7 pm.
Looks like we tested every system on this trip, and all systems work well. We have the Carefree manual awning with a slight problem. At orientation we were shown the awning operation, Dennis says that the upper support arm isn't clicking into place, but someone will fix it. At Lake Mead we finally rolled out the awning and that slider with the lock mechanism would not click into place. A small branch jammed into position worked. Called Escape, were told to find a Carefree repair facility and Escape would pay for the warranty repairs. After calling 6 or more repair places in Prescott and Phoenix we determined it would take 2 weeks to get an appointment, another week for the part to arrive, then at least 2 more weeks to have an appt for the part install. Gary and Myrl's repair service will have to take care of this repair. Carefree of Colorado sent us the part for free, whenever we get back home we'll fix this.
We will be in Ft Pierce for 2+ weeks as we put our sailboat back unto sailing condition, then move her to the sales slip. We try to have her ready for sale about Nov 1st. Our trip home we plan to be much slower, stop and smell the roses, maybe get the heck off I10. We are using the app called Ultimate Campgrounds as a guide to City, Muni, state, and federal parks. Other apps on RV parks come into play as does Freecampsites.com.
Overall, our Diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee averaged 17-18 mpg, we traveled at 62-65 mph, and tried to drive 350 miles per day. Longest was 400 miles and shortest was 200 miles.
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