Day 61 (August 22): 6.65 Miles Per Gallon
The second reservation we made for this global adventure was for a recreational vehicle (RV). About 11 months later, we stood in the driveway of RV Northwest in Tigard, Oregon holding the keys to a 2019 Forest River FR3. This beast sits on a Ford truck chassis with a V10 engine. It is 34 feet long (not including our bike rack, which has never looked smaller), almost 13 feet tall and just over 8 feet wide.
After Elise drove this monster to our house through nearly an hour of rush hour traffic and after she parked it on our block and after friends and neighbors popped in for a tour and after we loaded it with everything we had carefully prepared and after we spent a full day running around Portland acquiring more stuff, making two and a half trips to Target, and after one of those nights of sleep shaped by anxiety and excitement, we pulled away from the curb at about 7am.
RV Driving Lesson #1: There's a $95 limit on pay-at-the-pump gas transactions. This isn't relevant, even if you drive a minivan with a 20-gallon tank unless gas hits $5, which it hasn't in over 10 years. But when you drive a Class A Motorhome with a dry weight of 16,000+ pounds, you'll learn, as we did on the morning of Day 61, that you pay your $200 gas charge inside with the help of a little paper slip.
Our first stop was a Walmart in Kennewick, Washington. The driving on I-84 was easy and beautiful. The Columbia River Gorge, in our own backyard, is one of the most beautiful places you'll ever see. If you're reading this from far away, put this place on your list (but remember to avoid weekends and good weather if you also want to avoid crowds).
Our second stop was outside Spokane, Washington. It was sort of lunch time and we were sort of hungry but a SNAFU at the RV rental place meant we needed to get the rig an oil change sooner rather than later. This is not a simple matter of taking your Toyota Camry to the nearest Jiffy Lube so we took our 13' tall, 8-ton rental to a Camping World that could squeeze us into their schedule immediately. We passed the hour walking to and eating lunch at a Wendy's about half a mile away.
[Luckily, there is no picture to go with this vignette]
Our third stop was in Missoula, Montana. It was dinner time, whether or not you remembered that you had just crossed from one time zone into another (meaning it was 7pm and not 6). But Missoula is also the home of our friend Corie, whom you may remember from Days 8 and 9. We were here earlier in the summer when we interrupted our drive to Duluth to celebrate Corie's birthday. So now we were back and Corie came and joined us for dinner at an offramp pizza place.
RV Driving Lesson #2: 8-ton, V10 Motorhomes will not prevent climate change. "Assiduous" is exactly the right word to describe my approach to recording numbers like mileage and fuel consumption, not to mention the ratio between them because most humans react to this habit by muttering, "ass." What I can tell you, though, is that we drove 770 miles in one day and averaged, by my math, under 7 miles per gallon.
Our fourth and final stop was not where it was supposed to be. In Star Wars Episode IV, the peaceful planet Aldaron was not where it was supposed to be but that's not what happened here, in case you were wondering. No, not that. Our initial objective was Bozeman but that seemed to become unreachable after we lost two hours to the oil change.
We were leaving Missoula at 8:30pm with about two hours to reach Butte and a KOA campground. But the road was empty and the driving was easy so at 10:30ish we flew past Butte and set our sights on Bozeman, a bit more than an hour down the road. We survived (a carefully chosen verb) several passes. When we reached Bozeman, we followed signs to a rest area, feeling sure that we were done for the day. But there was no room at the inn.
We updated our objective: a Good Sam campground just off the highway in Livingston, 28 miles from our failed attempt in Bozeman. But on our way down from a pass, a blue sign came into sight. "Parking Area, 1/2 mile ahead." I don't know how a parking area differs from a rest area but there was room at this inn but soon our jacks were down, our bedroom slide was out and heads were on our pillows.
RV Lesson #3: We can do this. It's going to take a lot of teamwork and a ton of gas but we can do this. See you tomorrow.
After Elise drove this monster to our house through nearly an hour of rush hour traffic and after she parked it on our block and after friends and neighbors popped in for a tour and after we loaded it with everything we had carefully prepared and after we spent a full day running around Portland acquiring more stuff, making two and a half trips to Target, and after one of those nights of sleep shaped by anxiety and excitement, we pulled away from the curb at about 7am.
RV Driving Lesson #1: There's a $95 limit on pay-at-the-pump gas transactions. This isn't relevant, even if you drive a minivan with a 20-gallon tank unless gas hits $5, which it hasn't in over 10 years. But when you drive a Class A Motorhome with a dry weight of 16,000+ pounds, you'll learn, as we did on the morning of Day 61, that you pay your $200 gas charge inside with the help of a little paper slip.
Our first stop was a Walmart in Kennewick, Washington. The driving on I-84 was easy and beautiful. The Columbia River Gorge, in our own backyard, is one of the most beautiful places you'll ever see. If you're reading this from far away, put this place on your list (but remember to avoid weekends and good weather if you also want to avoid crowds).
Our second stop was outside Spokane, Washington. It was sort of lunch time and we were sort of hungry but a SNAFU at the RV rental place meant we needed to get the rig an oil change sooner rather than later. This is not a simple matter of taking your Toyota Camry to the nearest Jiffy Lube so we took our 13' tall, 8-ton rental to a Camping World that could squeeze us into their schedule immediately. We passed the hour walking to and eating lunch at a Wendy's about half a mile away.
[Luckily, there is no picture to go with this vignette]
Our third stop was in Missoula, Montana. It was dinner time, whether or not you remembered that you had just crossed from one time zone into another (meaning it was 7pm and not 6). But Missoula is also the home of our friend Corie, whom you may remember from Days 8 and 9. We were here earlier in the summer when we interrupted our drive to Duluth to celebrate Corie's birthday. So now we were back and Corie came and joined us for dinner at an offramp pizza place.
Our fourth and final stop was not where it was supposed to be. In Star Wars Episode IV, the peaceful planet Aldaron was not where it was supposed to be but that's not what happened here, in case you were wondering. No, not that. Our initial objective was Bozeman but that seemed to become unreachable after we lost two hours to the oil change.
We were leaving Missoula at 8:30pm with about two hours to reach Butte and a KOA campground. But the road was empty and the driving was easy so at 10:30ish we flew past Butte and set our sights on Bozeman, a bit more than an hour down the road. We survived (a carefully chosen verb) several passes. When we reached Bozeman, we followed signs to a rest area, feeling sure that we were done for the day. But there was no room at the inn.
We updated our objective: a Good Sam campground just off the highway in Livingston, 28 miles from our failed attempt in Bozeman. But on our way down from a pass, a blue sign came into sight. "Parking Area, 1/2 mile ahead." I don't know how a parking area differs from a rest area but there was room at this inn but soon our jacks were down, our bedroom slide was out and heads were on our pillows.
First request of what will likely be many: Please post a video tour of the RV, ideally hosted by one or more of your children.
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