We left home today at 9:15AM EDT. We experienced a significant delay of 30 to 45 minutes just North of Bruce B. Downs all the way to SR-56 near Wesley Chapel where they decided to repair some potholes by closing two of the three lanes of traffic. We stopped for fuel at the TA Travel Center in Wildwood, FL where apparently every car hauler stops for fuel. There were at least eight car haulers and none of them seemed to be fueling up even though they were at the pumps. We waited a good 20 to 30 minutes for the non-car haulers in front of us to finally fuel up and leave. We stopped at the Georgia Welcome Center long enough to stretch our legs and run the Equinox engine in order to lubricate the transmission. We made our second fuel stop at the Love’s Travel Stop in Yemassee, SC in a torrential storm. Even though we were under the canopy, the rear of the camper wasn’t and all of the water running off the roof and down the RV gutter came right to me where I stand to pump fuel. I got good and wet. To top it off, the high speed diesel pump didn’t seem to recognize when the tank was full and blew diesel fuel all over me. Fortunately, I had plenty of rain water to rinse it all off. The remaining 20 miles of our trip was slow going in the torrential rain with all the “do gooders” driving in the left lane with their emergency flashers on (since it’s illegal to drive with your flashers on anyway, couldn’t you at least get in the right lane if you think it’s sow bad you need your flashers?)
We arrived at New Green Acres RV Park in Walterboro, SC at 5:47PM EDT (not bad considering all of our delays). We traveled 413 miles today. We have stayed here three other times, but the most recent was in 2017 before we retired and started documenting our travels. It’s a handy place to stay just off of I-95 with huge pull through sites and very tall pine trees providing lots of shade. Even with all of the pine trees and rain, we were able to get decent enough Starlink reception to stream the Rays game.
This was our first trip towing the Equinox. Prior to towing the Equinox, our overall average on last summer’s 8,000 mile trip was 14.4MPG traveling at 71 to 72MPH. I assumed our mileage would drop today towing a 3,325LB Equinox, but since Chevrolet requires you to tow it at 65MPH or less (we chose 63MPH) we ended up increasing our fuel mileage (on this tank at least) to 15.4MPG.
We are still working out some kinks. Because the 2020 Equinox has electric power steering, you are required to provide 12V (i.e, leave it in “Accessory” mode) to keep the steering column from locking. Our tow setup installers ran a wire from the RV 7 pin connector to the battery to charge the battery while driving down the road. We stopped every couple of hours to run the Equinox engine in order to keep the transmission lubricated and it started just fine at a rest stop just two hours prior to our destination, but when we arrived at our campsite, our battery was too dead to start the engine. The good news is that our little lithium jump-starter had no problem starting the Equinox. We ended up letting it run for an hour at the campsite to recharge the battery. We will run it again in the morning while I do some troubleshooting with a voltmeter (hopefully the rain will have stopped by then). My wise father has always told me, “never go camping without a battery charger”. I even thought about that when I decided I didn’t need to bring a charger on this trip because I have so many options for getting the RV started (chassis battery, house batteries, solar panels, jumper cables, etc.) I never thought about needing to charge the Equinox battery. Dad’s right again!
| Device | Download Mbps | Upload Mbps |
|---|---|---|
| Campground Wi-Fi | n/a | n/a |
| Starlink | 25 | 7 |
| AT&T Hotspot | n/a | n/a |
| US Mobile – Brian (AT&T) | 85 | 7 |
| US Mobile – Beth (Verizon) | 589 | 20 |
| TV | Quality |
|---|---|
| Antenna | 13 Channels – ABC |
| Campground Cable | TBD |
| DISH Satellite | n/a |