Category: Status

We slept in a bit this morning (7AM) and knocked out the last of Grandma’s famous low carb sausage balls. The little trash man/black tank flusher and I went out and dumped and flushed our black tank and we hit the road around 8:15AM EDT. Now for those who aren’t familiar with motor home travel in the 2020’s, children DO NOT want to ride shotgun anymore (at least not when there are better options). The suffering in the “shotgun seat”, covered in significantly expensive leather, is beyond compare. One now calls “Theater Seat” where one can recline and not have the view of one’s tablet obstructed by the light emanating from that nasty old sun. So the eldest of the grandchildren likes to call shotgun first thing so that she can knock it out in the early morning light and enjoy the rest of her day “back in the cave”. My how things have changed.

We stopped for fuel south of Atlanta at the TA Travel Center in Jackson, GA. Our next stop was the Buc-Cee’s in Warner Robins, GA. My grandson was very concerned that we didn’t get sodas when we stopped at the Buc-Cee’s in Alabama on our trip north and made me promise that we could get some on the way home. Thank goodness I decided to let them desecrate my freshly flushed black tank on final day going home or we would have been stopping at every rest stop. The Buc-Cee’s drink is about as big as his midsection and I’m pretty sure that he alone made five or six trips to the bathroom on the final drive from Warner Robins, but if spoiling the grand kids means an extra trip to Little Manatee River State Park to dump and flush the tanks, then so be it. They were good sports throughout our nearly 2,504 mile trip.

We made our final fuel stop at the TA Travel Center in Lake City, FL. We arrived home at about 5:30PM EDT just before the rain hit. We didn’t get much rain, but the lightning scared us out of unpacking much. Our overall trip was 2,504 miles and our overall average was 13.7MPG and our average price for diesel fuel was 4.24/gallon. That’s 0.96/gallon more expensive than last year and the miles per gallon dropped 0.7MPG (I bumped my average speed up about 5MPH to decrease the suffering for my passengers).

The grand kids and I departed for Indiana to see the Great Grandparents today at 1:00PM. We stopped for fuel at a Love’s Travel Stop in Lee, FL, but none of their truck pumps seemed to be working and we had to go across the street to a Sunoco with the world’s slowest diesel pumps and pay about $0.30/gal extra.

We pulled into A Stone’s Throw RV Park (just East of Tallahassee) at 5:35 PM EDT (271 miles). This is a convenient place to stop along I-10 (where US-19 intersects I-10). We’ve stopped here on three other occasions (2020, 2021, and 2025).

We set the camper up and commenced nuking Hot Pockets for supper. Now none of us has any skin on the roof of our mouths. The kids claim they’ve never had them before and loved them. After eating the kids headed outside to terrorize the community. I told them to come back in when the street lights come on. Penny Crane, the lawyer, asked if that meant they could go anywhere they want including up to the gas station. I handed her the GPS tracker and said, “sure”. I gave her $20 and said each child could get a treat as long as each was under $5. They came back with close to $4 in change, so they did well. I felt like it would be a good little experiment in finding their way around and purchasing things on their own, but I was nervous as a mother hen the entire time they were gone.

Someone woke up early this morning excited to get home. I won’t mention any names, but theirs starts with a “B” and ends with an “ethany”. We departed from Cracker Barrel in Columbia, SC at 5:45AM EDT and continued our trek home (519 miles). We stopped for fuel at the Loves Travel Stop in Yemassee, SC and the Loves Travel Stop in Hawthorne, FL. Beth drove from the Loves Yemassee, SC fuel stop to the Florida Welcome Center (154 miles) while I demonstrated my napping prowess. At the final stop we dumped our tanks for the final time on this trip. They had water at the dump station, so we were also able to flush our black tank.

We arrived home at about 4PM EDT and immediately started perspiring. Our overall trip was 8,063 miles and our overall average was 14.4MPG and our average price for diesel fuel was 3.28/gallon.