I love stats, so I can’t resist doing this type of post at the end of a trip
Our trip highlights:
- The Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, MI
- The Detroit Riverwalk
- The Montana Factory Tour, in Goshen, IN
- The Meijer Botanical and Sculpture Gardens, in Grand Rapids, MI
- Our 7 mile canoe trip down the Mohican River, in Loudonville OH
- The Glass Blowing demonstration at the Toledo Museum of Art, in Toledo, OH (we purchased the vase from the demo)
- Our campsite at Lake Pymatuning, in Pymatuning OH. Spectacular view right from our site
- Niagara Falls from the US side and two wineries we sampled in Niagara Falls, NY
- South Higgins Lake, in Grayling, MI – beautiful lake, beach and hard ice cream at campground store…
- Lake Michigan from Holland Beach, in Holland, MI – the lake is so big, it feels like being at the ocean
- Meeting with friend Mike & Josy, and Christine a work colleague during our trip
Lowlights:
- Mechanical issue #1 – Failure of the truck’s Trailer Brake Controller
- Mechanical issue #2 – Loss of a bolt holding the RV’s rear axle leaf spring to the chassis
- Deteriorating road conditions, even on Interstate highways
- Maumee Beach, MI – nice campground but slime and multicolor pollution sheen on the surface of lake Erie
- Newaygo State Park, MI – our only “Dry camping” stop on this trip, which turned out to be hot and humid with no A/C
Ending with some numbers:
- We were gone from home for 33 nights, during which we stayed at 17 different campgrounds for stays between 1 and 3 nights.
- We stayed at campgrounds in 7 different states, with the longest being in Michigan for 11 nights
- We drove a total of 3529 miles, 2371 of which (67%) were while pulling the RV, and the rest being local driving with just our truck.
- For that mileage, we used 341 gallons of diesel, for a total fuel cost of $1,844. Fuel cost us as much as $5.99 a gallon, and as little as $4.79. In terms of fuel efficiency, overall we averaged 10.4 mpg. Combined, it cost us $52.03 in fuel for each 100 miles driven.
- For this trip, fuel was a more significant cost than camping, in part because we stayed at multiple State Parks. Campground fees were $1,364 for a total vacation cost of $3,208.