A Lesson in Geography

One of the best parts about traveling by RV is seeing many states while driving. Places that where just names on a map now have a real-world physical perception. You learn about cities and states and the people who live there. You also figure out how the cities and states are geographically oriented around each other.

I still didn’t know which route I was going to take home. The preferred route was to take I-90 to Sioux Falls and then turn south on I-29. Next was heading south from Sioux Falls on I-29 to Kansas City to get on I-70 East. The river along I-29 was flooding again. A dear friend of mine who owns two cattle ranches, one in South Dakota, and the other in Nebraska, had just driven home to North Carolina from South Dakota. She left three days before I did driving along that route. She told me that I-29 had lane closures for flooding. Even if the road was open, the flooding still meant that any campgrounds along I-29 would be either closed, flooded, or the ground very soft. After my experience with the soft ground in Buffalo Wyoming, I decided to keep going east on I-90, past the river and Sioux Falls and into Minnesota. I also was not sure I was heading home yet. I thought I might spend some time in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan. I made reservations for one night each in Mitchell South Dakota and Austin Minnesota.

I knew I had a long trek across South Dakota which was another big state like Montana. I thought driving east on I-90 in South Dakota would be easy. My thinking was the road would be deserted since I-90 is so far north in the country. And just like I thought the drive across Montana would be easy, I was wrong. Sunday was the last day of the 4th of July weekend. The traffic was just insane. I saw more RVs on this day than I had ever seen before. Well, except maybe for the 1500 RVs that they have at LZDays RV dealer. I should qualify that to say the most RVs I ever saw on the road. Still the number of RVs might have been close to what is on the lot at LZDays. Many of the RVs did not look roadworthy.  Most of the RVs looked like they had just been pulled out of back yards for the first time after sitting through a snowy cold winter. There were many more RVs than trucks which must have driven the truckers crazy too.

One of the best parts of the trip was becoming proficient at using truck stops. My rig is too big to fit in most gas stations. I read online about the proper etiquette to follow in truck stops. At first being with all the truckers was intimidating. Then I found out truck drivers are people just like everyone else going to work except that their office is on the road. The stereotype of the old gruff white trucker dude is not true. I saw people of all ages, many ethnicities, and many women drivers too.

I probably made about 20 refueling stops in trucks stops. Each stop takes about 30 minutes. I would go into Google Maps and type “truck stops” to find them. I first tried to find Loves Truck Stops if I could. Loves seemed the cleanest of all the major truck stop chains, the best laid out, and they always seemed to have the friendliest pretty girls working the cash registers. After a long day on the road, a friendly smile went a long way to cheering you up. I would use the satellite view of Google Maps to figure out how to get into the huge refueling areas. You have to make sure you enter the truck stop in the correct direction. There is one way in and one way out. You don’t want to go in the out way. You pull up hopefully to an empty slot or wait in line behind a truck or trucks.

After pulling next to the pump, you go inside with an estimate of how much you think you are going to spend. I was rarely able to pay at the pump. I have a 100-gallon tank, so if the tank is half empty, I would figure 50 gallons, times $3/gallon, or about $150. Then I would add about $50 more to make sure the pump doesn’t cut off before the tank is full and to also add some DEF. Then you come back out, fill up, and then pull forward to the white line so the truck behind you can pull up to the pump and start refueling. Sometimes I would pull forward 40 feet to fill the DEF tank which was in the rear of the coach. The fuel tank opening was in the front, one beside the driver’s door, the other beside the passenger door. Yes, you can fill the tanks from both sides at the same time, and most truckers do. One great thing about truck stop fuel pumps is that the nozzles are about three times the size of gas station pumps so they pump fuel much quicker. There was no need for me to connect two fuel pumps as the diesel fuel flowed out around a gallon a second. If gasoline pumps had the same flow rate, most folks would be covered in gasoline and set themselves on fire since I see people smoking while refueling.

If there was a truck waiting behind me, I would usually just pull up to the white line that indicated there was enough room behind you for the next truck to pull in. If nobody was behind me, I would pull up 40 feet so I could fill the DEF tank located near the rear of the coach. DEF is the acronym for Diesel Exhaust Fluid. The emission system burns DEF with the exhaust to reduce nitrous oxides emissions. DEF is mostly ammonia and water, essentially DEF is pee. No, I never peed in the DEF tank, but I suppose you could. I am not tall enough to pee into the opening of the DEF tank. The DEF stuff really works. I can hardly smell any diesel fumes from my rig. The process turns nitrous oxides into nitrogen and water. I have a 10 gallon DEF tank. About one gallon of DEF burns every two hundred miles. The DEF is only $2.60/gallon at the pump, and about $7/gallon if you buy it in a container.

After checking to make sure that the cats all still in the coach, I would drive off while carefully observing the way other truckers exited. The hardest part for me leaving promptly was making sure the cats were in the RV. I knew I didn’t see them leave the coach. After opening the coach door three times I wanted to make sure both cats were inside. I do the same thing at home. I never leave home until I see both cats are okay. I never drove off from anywhere the entire trip unless I made eye contact with both cats. That was rule Number Two. Rule Number One was “Safety First.” I think next year I might make the cat sighting Rule Number One. The worst thing that could happen on a long road trip would be to lose a cat. I don’t know what Rule Number Three is. Two rules are enough.

Sometimes I would go back into the store and get my receipt but getting a receipt wasn’t necessary. The card would get charged for the dollar amount you gave and a few days later the credit card charge would show what you actually bought. I never had a problem with the correct amount being charged. No one stole my credit card number like I have had happen at gas stations.  I almost prefer truck stops now to regular gas stations. The truckers all observed these rules and were professional drivers. Regular gas stations are much different where drivers leave their cars at the pump unattended. The rude drivers go into the convenience store to buy cigarettes, lotto tickets, and a 12 pack of Busch Beer while you wait for them to move their car so you can pull up to the pump.

I learned how to use Google Maps and especially the satellite view to see how to get into and out of campgrounds. The earth view was very useful to make sure the roads leading to the campground were wide enough and had shoulders. I even used the earth view to determine whether I would take a route suggested by the RV GPS. I don’t like driving on roads with narrow or no shoulders. There is no room for error if you go off the road. Having a big truck coming the other way within a few inches is unnerving, especially when you see the truck driver using a cell phone or eating a sandwich. I always felt like our mirrors were going to collide. Losing a mirror would be a serious problem in a RV.

I used both the RV Nav GPS and Google Maps on my tablet for navigation. I programmed the RV Nav system with information about the size of my rig. That information is especially important because the RV Nav System has information about overpasses that are less than 15 feet (a good way to chop off the roof of your RV is to try to go under a bridge that is less than 15 ft high. Google Maps takes you the shortest direction but does not take into account that you are driving a 14 ft high, 42 foot long, and 40,000 lb vehicle. Google Maps also has traffic information. The two navigation systems complement each other. Each device excelled in different aspects of navigating. I didn’t trust either of them completely. I used my judgment deciding where to drive. Blindly following a GPS can get you into trouble. I know that from experience. And of course, there was always the good old fashion paper Rand McNally Atlas to use also.

The weather channel was my most visited website during the trip. Weather is very important while traveling in a RV. The weather would often help me decide the route and which days I traveled.

Learning to manage cell data plan usage was also important. Although Verizon says the data plans are unlimited, they only provide high-speed data up to 15GB on a line by line basis. With two hotspots, a cell phone, and a tablet, I had four lines or 60GB of high-speed data. After 15GB Verizon throttles the data connection back to 640KB. That data rate makes connections run at the speed of a dial-up modem or worse. I used the data on my tablet mostly for navigation on google maps. I used the cell phone data as I normally would at home.

I used the first hotspot just for the computer. I needed the computer for weather forecasts, route planning, and campground reservations. I also needed my computer to write a travel blog. The second hotspot I used for streaming NetFlix, Amazon Prime, and HBO. Every hour of streaming takes up about 2GB of data. You can only watch seven or eight one hour shows before the bandwidth limit kicks in. The ironic part of the bandwidth limitation is that I could still stream shows once I hit the 15GB limit. Netflix somehow does an amazing job of compressing data. Preventing unlimited streaming is the reason there are data caps. The streaming worked just fine at the slower speed. The shows would load a little slower, but once they got going the streaming worked just fine. The slower speed only affected me when I used the computer. That is why I had two hotspots, one for streaming and the other for the computer. I also used the second hotspot for cameras I had in the RV so I could keep an eye on the cats while I was away from the coach. I also used the second hotspot for a remote temperature monitoring device so I knew what temperature the coach was when I was away with the cats inside.

Only once did I go over the data limit on the first hotspot. I was short about three days in the data cycle while traveling through Iowa and Illinois. I paid the $35 for an extra 5GB of data to get me through the three days. I needed the computer for weather information, route planning, and campground reservations. Unfortunately, I ended in such a remote spot in Illinois where there was no 4G service. The connection scaled back to 3G so I paid the extra money for nothing.

I learned to manage the black and gray tanks. The tanks are not septic tanks, but traveling portalets. That is probably as much as you want to know about that.

Learning to manage electrical loads was also important. There is a very nice graphical representation of the electrical system on an I-Pad like display showing the source of the power, the voltages, and where the current is flowing. The coach connects to a 50 amp circuit in the campground. While 50 amps may seem like a lot, you can’t just go and turn on everything at once. Especially if you are running the three AC units, you can’t just go turn on the microwave, coffee pot, induction stove, washer and dryer all at the same time.

This is especially important when you first plug into the electrical post at the campground after a long day of driving. The batteries go into a rapid charge mode which draws a significant amount of current to quickly recharge the coach batteries for about 30 minutes. The coach batteries do recharge while driving but not up to their full level. After about 30 minutes, the batteries go back to a regular charge mode. Then you can start adding other electrical loads such as multiple AC units, or if the temperature is cold, turn on the heated floors. Many times in cold weather I found that turning on the floor heating would keep the coach as warm as I usually needed, even down into temperatures in the thirties. The floor heating is also silent and of course, heat rises. The warm floor felt wonderful under my feet and the cats especially liked the heated floor. Sometimes I would turn on the electric fireplace for extra heat.

Mountain Lioness loved the heated floor.

I almost never had to turn on the heat pumps or diesel-fired furnace to keep warm. The heat pumps don’t work below 40 degrees anyways. And when the temperatures dropped below freezing, I turned on the diesel-fired boiler to keep the bays under the coach from freezing. Keeping the bays above freezing temperature was especially important for the wet bay where the external water line connects to the coach. I often did have to disconnect the external water supply when the temperatures dropped below freezing in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.

I never did get tired of living in the RV. I did get tired of not knowing where I would be staying, where to get fuel, following directions, and having to pay such close attention to the weather. We settled into a routine similar to home. The cats and I would get up when dawn broke. Then I would feed the cats, make coffee and eat breakfast. Then I would figure out what to do that day.

The bed and bathroom area in the back is my favorite part of the coach. Most folks see the front of the coach, the kitchen, and the living area. For me, the back part was more important. The bedroom area is where you are likely to spend the most time because that is where you sleep. When you are up and about, soon you will be outside. The king bed, rear bathroom, shower, closet, and washer/dryer was all very roomy and comfortable. The extra space in the rear of the coach is what the hassle of the extra 10 feet in the coach length gets you. The comfortable spacious bedroom and the bath area is worth the hassle of driving the longer rig for me.

We made our way to Minnesota to the town of Austin, located about an hour south of Minneapolis. There were fields of soybeans next to a nice campground there. Getting back to I-35 concerned me. Construction closed the westbound lanes of I-90 between I-35 and the campground exit. I had to travel about seven miles east of I-35 to get to the campground. Turns out there was a good side road back to the I-35 intersection that also had a very nice Loves Truckstop right there, so the detour all worked out for the best.

We drove south from Minnesota to Iowa, we saw lots of corn, yea, lots of corn. When I got to Des Moines I finally got on I-70. Getting on I-70 made me feel closer to home. I still couldn’t figure out where I had crossed the Mississippi  River. I thought the river in Sioux City must have been the Mississippi River, not the Missouri River. Then I couldn’t figure out where I crossed the Missouri River. Once on a bike tour in Minnesota, I saw the headwaters of the Mississippi River so I thought that the river in Sioux City must have been the Mississippi River. Later I would figure out I was wrong about both rivers around Sioux City. I also don’t remember now crossing a river near Sioux City.

I spent the night in Newton Iowa. The campground was very tight. Getting out of this campground with many RVs and cars spilling out of their campsites into the roadway worried me. By the time I woke up and got going most folks had left and getting out was easy.

I went east on I-70. Driving east is always harder than driving west because the sun is in your eyes going east, Then I finally figured out where the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers are. (hey, I am learning to spell Mississippi without using the spellchecker). I crossed the Missississippi River in Davenport Iowa. The Mississippi River forms the border of Iowa and Illinois. The Missouri River forms the border of Iowa and Nebraska. Turns out I had crossed the Missouri River for the last time up in South Dakota. Like I said, driving around the country teaches you a lot about geography.

After crossing the Mississippi River in Davenport, I was in Illinois (I still need spellchecker to spell Illinoise), and turned south on I-55 heading east of St. Louis. I realized how close Chicago and St Louis are to each other. I could envision the baseball and football rivalries in the 19th century with the cities being so close to each other. I could imagine the teams traveling by bus or train to the other city. Like I said before, driving through the country gives you a good perspective of where cities are. The Mississippi River forms the border between Illinois and Missouri. Illinoise is also a deceptively long state. The state is longer than it is wide which surprised me.

The drive into the campground in Springfield was difficult. I looked at several ways to drive to the campground on Google Earth for several hours. There really was not a good way to get there. I would not drive to that campground again. The narrow roads leading to the campground had no shoulder. There was not even enough room for two cars to pass. Right before the campground was a very narrow old bridge, I wondered if the bridge would hold up with the weight of the coach. I saw photos of other large rigs in the campgrounds and figured if they made it there then I probably could too. The bridge held.

I decided to spend two nights there. I needed the rest. I drove 11 of the last 12 days and over 1800 miles. I made reservations for three nights in Benton Illinois which was about 150 miles away. I still had not reached the most southern tip of Illinois. Then I made reservations in Tennessee for three nights in Manchester. I was hoping my friend Ron who had retired to Tennessee and built a ranch on 200 acres could come and visit. Ron’s place is kind of like Kevin Costner’s ranch in the TV show “Yellowstone.” The campground in Springfield was mostly quiet. Then the second night folks came in after dark and made a lot of noise. I am usually very quiet in campgrounds as if I was a ghost. Other campers probably don’t even think I am there. Make a lot of noise starting my rig in the very early morning when I left the next morning didn’t bother me.

Wow, this trip required a lot of effort. Making my way to Wyoming and Montana and now making my way home was a lot of work. Figuring out all the directions, making reservations, refueling, monitoring the weather, and setting up and breaking down camp sometimes was exhausting. Setting up and breaking camp was not that hard, that part became routine. Getting in and out of campgrounds was hard sometimes. Pulling into sites straight which was almost impossible in a 42 rig due to crabbing. Crabbing is where the back tires don’t follow the same path as the front tires. Your vehicle crabs too, you just don’t notice it because the wheelbase of the vehicle you are driving is probably only 10 feet long. The wheelbase of the RV is 22 feet long which means the rear of the coach often ends up three feet to the left or right of the front of the rig depending on which way you turned to get into the site.

I suppose I still want to feel some self-worth by being called something. Actually now I am just a goof-off, and I am really good at being a goof-off. I have found my calling. Americans usually define themselves by their work. When people asked me what I did, I told them I was a travel writer and photographer. I didn’t want to just say I am just a goof-off. Then I would admit to folks that I am an aspiring travel writer which means I don’t get paid.

I am no longer a novice or rookie traveling on the road in a RV. I started back in 2015, so this is my 5th year. I think I spent about 140 nights in the first RV and another 150 nights in the Tiffin. I’m have spent close to 300 nights in a RV or about 75 nights per year.

The mental aspect of being on the road so long by yourself is challenging. The hours and hours and hours of driving with only your own thoughts was difficult at times. All that time alone was both difficult and wonderful. The time alone with only one’s own thoughts allows for self-analysis, introspection, and reflection. Realizing you only have yourself to depend on and figure everything out was difficult but I learned to get by. Having another person along would have been so much better when I was in the most beautiful scenic places. Seeing these magnificent vistas by myself without another person to share them with was sometimes lonely and depressing. Seeing these most beautiful parts of America with another person would be much more fulfilling.

I was really was in a groove now and feeling good. I planned another week in Illinois and Tennessee, and from there it would only be about 800 miles until I was home. I had no idea that the next day my spirit and will would be shattered and broken.

True Detective Theme Song – Probably my favorite song from this year.