Bucket List Check Mark

[JABURKHOLDER]

Third try posting this.

We started our RV lifestyle 21 years ago. We had no specific plans or specific destinations in mind, just enjoy the adventure. I knew I eventually wanted to travel the 48 contiguous states. We dipped our toes in with a 2003 Layton 25' TT. After just 2 trips, we determined that RV was too small for our needs. We stepped up to a 2005 Flagstaff 30' 5th wheel. We kept that RV for 10 years and made 19 trips. In 2015, we moved up to our current RV, a 2016 Montana 3791RD 41'6" 5th wheel. Notice we kept creeping up in size. Can you call adding 5' then 11'6" creeping up? Anyway, up to this point, our trips mostly consisted of single destination trips. An example would be; we live in Ohio and would travel to Las Vegas. Drive all day, overnight at a Flying J, drive all the next day, overnight in another Flying J, then arrive in Vegas for 5 days then repeat trip home. I was still working at the time and had limited vacation time.

In 2015 I retired a second time and started looking at more trips. Sadly, my mother passed away that same year and I spent several months sorting out her affairs. We spent the rest of that year and the next just taking small trips. Then things changed.

In 2017 I got off my butt and started planning my goal of touring the states in an RV. We went big that year, 27 states in 75 days. Quite a daunting task since all previous trips were 10 days or less. It took months to plan but was well worth it. That trip has been the most memorable in all our years of RVing. I even planned around meeting up with a buddy from the Navy whom I hadn't seen since I retired from the Navy in 1994 and arranged to be in Smyrna, TN to see totality of the eclipse. The RV park provided free burgers and dogs and Sunkist soda and Moon Pies. (nice symbolism)

In 2018 we embarked on 2 trips totaling 89 days. One trip even included a Western Regional Montana Rally in Heber City, UT.

And so the trips continued till now. Later this summer we will complete our RV tour of the states by taking a 39 day, 12 state trip through New England. We will have seen many, many wonderous things. Numerous National Parks, rodeos, state fairs, drove across the Golden State Bridge, museums, military bases, seen the Navy Blue Angels preform at their home base, the Great Salt Lake, the high desert of Utah, (so friggin hot), dinosaur fossils, all 3 coasts, the list goes on and on and on.

Now you might be asking yourself why it took 7 years to tour the contiguous United States ? Life happens. One trip, we got caught in hurricane Florenece and had to cancel/re-route portions of that trip. Next, our oldest granddaughter got injured in the Army. She was a Combat Medic. After a period of recovery, she was medically discharge with a 100% VA rated disability. Then came THE PANDEMIC ! Then the DW got a cancer diagnosis, so there was chemo then radiation therapy. After that, my DW's sister's husband (long winded way to say brother-in-law) passed away. I actually knew him from the Navy before they got married. In 2022, we made no trips whatsoever. Like I said, life.

Some interesting (at least to me) stats about our journey across the states;

Total days ... 343
Total RV parks ... 130
Total RV miles ... 41,399
Total costs ... approx $32,529 (that's RV parks, fuel, meals, entertainment, etc.
Average daily cost ... approx $95


Camp with the Montana in each of the 48 contiguous states ... CHECK

We may downsize after this and just do small trips in the future.
Thanks for listening.

yeah, after three tries, this finally posted