Now that we've been home for a couple of weeks, we've been catching everything up around the house. I thought it's about time that I do a budget wrap up for the entire trip.
Total miles that we traveled: 2,536
Total days that we were gone: 44
Here's a map of our route. It sure doesn't look like we went very far when you look at the scope of the vastness of the United States. But I would rather take smaller loops like this and explore one region of the country than make a full loop around the entire United States.
Longest drive day was our last day heading home: 513 miles. But it was mostly tail winds. There weren't any campgrounds open to stop at between Northern Missouri and Wisconsin. So we just decided to keep on going and get home.
Now people ask us questions about how much it costs to travel. Of course everybody's traveling style varies. So I'm going to give you the numbers that we actually had over our 44-day trip.
FUEL:
$611.16
We started with a full tank and ended with the almost full tank. So our actual diesel fuel costs are pretty close considering that reserve.
Our Winnebago View has a Sprinter chassis with a Mercedes engine. It requires DEF, diesel exhaust fluid. About every 2,000 miles we need to toss in a jug.
DEF $17.43
Average. 12.58 MPG
This is with pulling our little cargo trailer that weighs about 650 lb. We have probably 300 to 500 lb of cargo inside of it. We are able to pull up to 5,000 pounds with our motorhome. When we do not pull the cargo trailer we average about 14.5 MPG.
So our overall cost of fuel per day is $13.88.
CAMPING FEES:
Now this is another one that really can differ depending on your camping preferences.
Campground total $629.00
44 nights total. 41 nights we paid for camping. 3 nights boondocking in our friends driveway (also known as mooch-docking)
Average $15.34
We try to camp at rustic National Forest Campgrounds or camping ar the Army Corps of Engineer Parks where we can use our America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass. This grants us half price on our camping fees at Federal campgrounds. It also gives you a free entrance to all national parks and monuments.
PROPANE:
We started with a full tank and only filled once for $19.57.
Our motorhome uses propane for:
the cooking stove and oven,
the refrigerator,
the water heater,
and the furnace as needed.
But if we happen to be at the Corps of Engineer Parks with electrical hookups, the refrigerator switches over automatically to electric. We have an electric version mode on our water heater. And if we are hooked up to electric we can run the heat pump from the roof air conditioner or an electric space heater to warm us instead of the propane furnace. All of those things save on our propane consumption if we happen to have electric hookups.
This next category is also kind of subject to your own personal preferences. Some people like to cook all of their meals in their camper, like us.
Of course if you are the type of people that like to go to restaurants all of the time, your grocery totals will be a lot less.
GROCERIES:
7 weeks $518.86
Started with a lot of groceries on hand from our house, and we came home with other groceries bought along the way to carry back in.
Some of this is also odds and ends like cleaning supplies or tin foil or laundry soap, etc but I just lump them all into the grocery category because we bought them all at the same time. I wasn't going to get that particular on separating the items.
We left with an ample supply of Nicholas's specific brand of dog food. While we were traveling we were getting a little nervous about running out at the end and decided to stop and buy one more bag. Tractor Supply carries his brand so we knew we could get it wherever we were traveling.
Dog food $23.08
It's not good to swap brands on a dog, especially during traveling. Especially a long haired butt dog, if you get my drift... Ewwww!
MISCELLANEOUS:
Now we had a couple extra things in our category of "miscellaneous":
Beer $33.99
Twice Steve stopped and bought some of his favorite brand of beer. And after 44 days, we actually came home with 4 beers left over.
I brought my own supply of wine bottles from home of "Two Buck Chuck" from Trader Joe's (Charles Shaw White Zinfandel wine).
Restaurant or fast food:
We did splurge on our absolute favorite Godfather's Pizza in Lebanon, Missouri. $26 but a large pizza like this is actually three meals, sometimes four. We repackage it two slices per Ziploc bag and put it in the freezer. We reheat the slices in our air fryer which tastes almost as good as when it first comes out of the box.
Repairs door locks $80.04
OVERALL TRAVELING AVERAGE
$1,277 TOTAL FOR 44 DAYS
$29.02 PER DAY
While we were gone, the huge Blizzard Elsa, also known as Snowmageddon, hit Wisconsin and most of the Midwest. Our driveway was filled up with over 3 ft of snow. We hadn't planned to get home until after it all melted. But, plans changed and we decided to get home when we did during the end of March. We knew there was still a good 2 to 3 ft in the driveway and it was solid and crunchy and heavy wet snow.
Our wonderful neighbor Adam has a tractor with a big back blade. He is also young and strong, and does snow removal and lawn work on the side, in addition to his regular job.
We asked him to come over and at least yank out enough snow that we could pull in the 25-ft motorhome and the little 6 ft cargo trailer. He cleared more than enough so we could get in the driveway upon our arrival. Then he decided to keep on going for a couple hours and completely remove all of our snow from the driveway and the sidewalks and doorways etc.
He had set a price, and we insisted that we double it! So that was part of our budget, and it was well worth paying our neighbor to move our snow! $100
Best campground choice:
Karen - Buckhorn Creek Corps of Engineers Campground on Lake of the Pines, Texas.
This was hands down my favorite campground. We were in a perfect location with tall trees to the south of us to protect us from the winds. We could see the sun rising from the East and setting in the West and we had a perfect wide open view out our patio side to the North.
Steve - Pat Mayse Lake West Campground. This was also a Corps of Engineers Park in Texas. Steve loved that our campsite was out on a peninsula. It had a cement parking pad and 360° view just about in every direction of the water.
https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/233579
Our cheapest campground was $8 a night using our Senior Access Pass at Platter Flats in Oklahoma.
Most expensive campground we stayed at was a KOA Lebenon, Missouri $56 a night!!! This was a "Steve Splurge" because we were going to boondock in a Walmart overnight. The weather was very uncomfortable with high heat radiating off the pavement. The crazy "Heat Dome" that was descending on the Southwest was catching up to us. He opted to go to the KOA where we could have full hookups and operate the air conditioner all night long in comfort.
All in all, during the first month, we enjoyed the weather. We had many days in the '70s and comfortable evenings in the 50s.
But ... We spent a lot of the second month dodging storms!!! Between the ferocious winds and the large amount of thunderstorms passing over us, we were dodging either the Heat when we were parked or the Wind when we were driving. It seemed like band after band of storms were passing over us during the month of March. Many times they were compounded with heat fronts and then cold fronts, fluctuating the temperatures. We had days forecasted getting up to the '90s and we decided it was time to escape and get North faster than we had planned. The weather was exceptionally strange for that time of year in that area of the United States.
WHAT WE ENJOYED MOST WHILE CAMPING:
Relaxing- this was really one of our main goals during this getaway. We weren't up to running around doing a bunch of touristy things, touring a bunch of historical sites or fancy attractions. We just wanted to get somewhere warm and to relax.
What did we do the most? Bike riding, especially around Jonesboro Craigshead Forest. Some of the Corps of Engineer Campgrounds had a large network of trails and roads to pedal around on. Other times we actually left the campgrounds and pedaled in outside areas.
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WHAT ARE WE ENJOYING NOW AT HOME:
Unlimited water for showers & dishes & laundry... Not having to carefully monitor the usage or plan ahead if we are going to be somewhere without additional water access.
Now having a dishwasher again!
After being home now for a week, not raising my foot for imaginary pedal to flush toilet.
Having the big fenced in potty yard just outside the open door for letting Nick out to do his thing.
Nick says he enjoyed having snow when we got home! He was pretty tickled that he could roll around and play in it and eat it.
Want to hear something funny? Right before we left, Steve bought a DJI Neo2 drone. We brought it along, but never tried it out.
I guess we just never had the time nor the inclination to learn some new technology while we were out and about. So once we got home, Steve got it out and we tried it in our own backyard.
I told him it's specifically "his toy" and all I wanted was some aerial footage to add to my videos. He never felt like doing it I guess until now. It can be controlled by a controller, a cell phone, or just by hand movements! Here he is telling it what to do:
While they were gone, we had the task of babysitting the two grandpuppies and a hedgehog.... It's much easier to travel with the rambunctious family in a 25 ft motor home without two dogs under feet or a hedgehog in a cage. Plus, with many of the places they wanted to go, the animals would be left unattended in the motorhome. That cannot be risked in the heat due to the rising temperatures down there. Even with the generator running with the air conditioning, bad things could happen.
Here's the video that goes along with this blog:
Thank you for traveling along with us!
In the past we have done loops---
Stay tuned for our next adventures, we are planning where we're going to go next.
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