Travel Days

Welcome back to our crazy lifestyle!!  Thanks for taking the time to catch up with our adventures.

Many people ask me what are travel days?  What does that mean?  Where are you going?

Travel days are the days you travel between destinations. It could mean one day, it could mean  an entire week or more.  Although that is a lot of travel.  Spending one night in each place and getting up and doing it all over again for over 5 days is way too much.  It all depends on where you are and where you are heading.

For example, we left Quartzsite, AZ on Tuesday and arrived in Austin on Friday.  That was 3 nights, 4 days of travel.  When we left Austin to drive to California, it took us 6 days.  Now, it all depends on how quickly you want to get to your next destination when determining how many travel days you have.

For us, when we know we are wanting to get to the next place we are staying at for a while, we are anxious to get there.  Many people decide to make their travel days into sightseeing days along the way depending on where they are traveling and how long they are staying at each destination in between.  So far, our travel days are just that, travel days. One night in each place. We are anxious to get to the next RV park and set up for a very long time.  

When we get into a park, we do a very minimal set up.  What that means is that we do not set up the outside with our outdoor carpet, chairs, etc.  On the inside, we do not set up my desk with all the equipment, or even put out everything in the kitchen. The less we do when we park, the less we have to put away the next day to get an early start driving.

I always pack food for travel days.  We have a GREAT electric cooler that keeps everything cold.  We really don’t like to make many stops along the way, so we eat in the truck driving along.  The beauty of having your house on wheels is if you need to use the restroom, we can just pull over if there are no rest areas.  

Our average miles/hours we like to drive is 200 – 300 miles and/or 4-5 hours.  We do not drive in the dark and we do not arrive after 4:00 or set up in the dark.  Unfortunately, there were a few times we had to drive 6-7 hours because there was nowhere to stop that we felt safe.  Not even a Walmart.  Since I am the one that plans our trips, I really try my hardest to keep to our rules.  Driving and towing a 42’ 5th wheel is very taxing on Jerry.  It takes a lot out of him, which is another reason we like staying in places for at least 2 weeks.

I enjoy travel days!  I love that we are starting another adventure to a new area.  It’s exciting for me!  Jerry has a different opinion as he is the one doing all the driving.  But, he loves getting to the new area. We love listening to books on Audible. That really makes the time go by.  We do a lot of talking and listening to music, but mostly listen to books!  

This trip we were so fortunate to have Kim and Rodger caravan with us from Las Cruces to Austin.  We met them in Las Cruces early enough to actually do some sightseeing.  We had the best day on Wednesday walking around historic Mesilla in Las Cruces.  We ate at the coolest Mexican Restaurant, Los Posta. They have huge fish tanks and a giant bird cage.  Excellent food and margaritas!

Kim and Rodger left Las Cruces a few minutes before us as we headed to Fort Stockton, TX for the night.  That was really cool as Kim was texting me along the way with things to look out for and road conditions, etc.   We then stopped in Fort Stockton RV Park and shared making dinner together.  It was so fun as I cooked some things in my RV and Kim cooked things in hers.  We ate together at their site and just enjoyed spending time together.

Travel days can be exhausting, but when you travel with friends, it does make it easier and more enjoyable. 

We are so excited to be in Austin!  Seeing Katie and Tito (her dog) is the highlight and showing Kim and Rodger around Austin is going to be a blast as they have not been there.  Katie did a great job being tour guide while we were there for 6 weeks in Oct/Nov, we have a fun itinerary planned for them.

Just One More….travel day!