As a winter nor'easter threatens to clobber us here in our hotel room in CT, we reflect sadly on our TinCanTour coming to an end! We're both back to work but every night we go back to our blog and journal to see what we were doing a year ago. Our 1st day a year ago we were wondering if we did the right thing - here's an excerpt from day 1 of our journal Oct 11, 2010:
"We went from NH to MA to CT to NY and eventually found our way to northern NJ. We found some place online in Montage, NJ. By the time we got there it was about 5:45pm. It was getting dark early as it looked like a storm was moving in. Pulling into the place I had to take a 300 degree turn up hill - managed to drag the bike rack across the street. Fortnately, no damage! We pulled into this place called Cedar Ridge Camp ground. Aside from the tricky entrance, and the 90 degree turn carved into rocks just barely wide enough for our rig to get through, this place was a scary! It seemed like a graveyard for old trailers (and many of them at that). No one in sight. We pulled up to the "office" where a 75 year old man who seemed to be under the influence led me into the office. After settling up, we followed him in his golf cart to our site. It was pretty much a field with a few trees and more deserted trailers. As we were trying to get the trailer situated, we began to hear to rumblings of thunder getting closer. So we scrambled to get the trailer stabilized, water hooked up and then . . . oh crap, the electric. Turns out we needed an adapter to make it work at this place. By now, the rain was starting and the lightning was cracking all around us. So we decided to rough it for the night. We went inside without even opening the slide outs (weren’t sure we could even open them as we may have parked too close to a tree). It was cocktail time, cheese & crackers and a little dice farkle game. We hit the sack early but kept 1 eye open all night waiting for the man with the knife to come through the door."
At the time we wondered if we had done the right thing. Looking back now, we laugh! Our 1st night out was by far the worst. Every day there after turned out to be a new adventure. This was truly a trip of a lifetime! So we want to share some other interesting stats, lessons learned and best practices so you can be that much smarter about your trip.
Favorite places - The Florida panhandle has some beautiful white sand beaches and awesome biking trails. This was our favorite "beach" spot down south. Next, starting in SD at Custer State Park and Mt. Rushmore and working our way up through ND to the Badlands National Park was fun with lots of interesting landscapes. Then we jump over to East Glacier NP in Montana where the animal sightings were just incredible. The trip from Banff National Park in Canada all the way to Alaska and back was beautiful at every turn. Alaska was amazing with the glaciers and bears all around. Wyoming's Grand Teton NP along with Yellowstone NP is probably our favorite area of the US. Glacier East, Alberta, British Columbia and Alaska all a close 2nd place.
Total Miles driven: 36,751
Total cost of gas: $12,955
# days traveled: 308
Highest price paid for gas $7.80 in BC, Canada
# Provinces visited in Canada: 3 (AB, BC, YT)
# States visited in US: 39 (which put us at 49 of 50 states we've now visited - still working on a route to drive the trailer to Hawaii)
# National Parks visited: 14 (but this doesn't include all the National monuments, memorials, historic sites, etc. that we also visited)
# Pictures taken: 10,233 (Tuesday night is picture night if you want to see them all)
Different animals seen along the way: Too many to list/count - coolest were the black, brown and grizzly bears! If you kept up on the blog, you saw most of them!
# of breakdowns along the way: One flat tire in Des Moines IA along the highway. AAA to the rescue!!!
Speeding Tickets: None :) With 22,000+ pounds you always need to be thinking about stopping distance!
# of fights we had along the way: 0, unbelievable we know, but what is there to fight about when your on a trip like this!
# times we got lost along the way: 1, We were headed for a campground on the west side of glacier when we should have been headed for the east side of glacier, campground unknown. Minor considering all the miles we traveled. Thanks to our trusty TomTom the trip was free of any other incidents.
Interesting people met along the way: We stopped counting but will remember them all for years to come. Hope to see the guys from St Augustine around the horseshoe pits again. We're also hoping our Alaska friends Dave and Lori (and Spaz) make their way to visit us in NH someday.....
Lessons Learned:
99.9% of the people you meet camping are wonderful, interesting, helpful, informative, fun and crazy!
We underestimated the number of miles we would travel without the trailer once we reached a destination. We planned to double the miles we traveled with the trailer - reality was more like quadruple! This was mostly during the winter months while hanging in the southeast. Once we got moving north and only stayed places long enough to scope them out, we'd rack up fewer non-towing miles.
A smaller rig would have been fine maybe but we were really comfortable the whole trip. We definetely could have packed lighter! It's amazing how little you need to survive and have fun while Rving.
You don't need to bring a gun for protection. We had no concerns about our safety (people or bears) along the way and the gun just caused delays, extra fees and paperwork crossing borders!
You should obtain an export license for laptop computers (and anything else applicable) you bring into Canada and back into the US. US border guard informed us that he could have confiscated everything we had but he gave us a break . . . what a sport, eh?
Alberta and BC Canadians are very nice, friendly people, eh. Most of them speak only english and don't speak french at all.
Spend the money on a nice 35x zoom lens or better (digital SLR)! 20x was nice but we "had to" upgrade along the way! Note - pocket digital cameras don't work well after you drop them in the water! While kayaking, it's best to leave your camera in a plastic bag or you'll find it necessary to replace that too.
When you're traveling to some of these places in July/Aug, you should stay in the campgrounds at higher elevations (like right at Bryce entrance) versus in the valley, the temps can differ 20 degrees.
Best Practices:
Camp in US State and Canadian Province campgrounds - well maintained, reasonably priced, easy to find, usually located right where all the action is. Most private campgrounds are more expensive because they offer activities we did not have time for.
If you visit your destinations just ahead of the tourist season it can be a much more enjoyable time. Campgrounds and National Parks are much less crowded and you will see more wildlife than you can imagine. Prices are sometimes lower and you don't need reservations everywhere you go.
Be flexible with your plans. This applies to pre-season mostly! Don't book reservations more than a week ahead so you can change plans/check out places other campers recommend along the way.
RVParkReviews.com is a great source for finding campgrounds and getting good feedback to avoid the bad campgrounds. Reserve America.com is a great online source for making reservations, quick and easy!
Keep a blog and or a journal. The blog is a lot of work but it's fun sharing with friends and family. The journal is great to go back to and read some of the details that you may not want to share with friends and family at the time (:
A nice quiet convection space heater for the master bedroom works well - saves on propane and the noise from the RV heater so it doesn't wake you up all night.
Invest in the in-line water filter where you can see the filter.
An inflatable kayak takes up little room and good if you want to hit the water - perhaps 2 singles if you each want to do your own thing but the double worked great for us! A kayak is a must if you are heading for the Snake River at Grand Teton National Park. We dropped a bike off 5 miles down the road and then cruised down river from the dam. Guess who got to ride the bike back to the truck?
Bottom line: If you're thinking about taking a trip like this but nervous about striking out on your own, we can be packed and ready to go as guides in 24 hours!!!
More to come . . . Tincantour 2016
