Two Years on the Road

It’s hard to believe we’ve been retired and living on the road for over 2 years already! We are enjoying the adventure and have met many new friends along the way. We posted a year 1 overview, covering expenses and a profile of the types of places we’ve stayed. We’ll do a quick summary comparing year 2 with year 1 and then share with you our favorite places we’ve visited. You can always check our places link in the upper right of our page to see all the places we’ve stayed on a google map.

Statistic	Year 1	Year 2
Number of stops	74	84
Total cost of campsites	$9,751	$10,420
Average daily cost	$26.71	$30.37
Total cost for gas	$5,866	$4,731
Total miles on the truck	21,259	19,455
Total miles towing the 5th wheel	11,121	11,365
Average distance traveled between sites	150	134
Longest distance in a day	613	362
Shortest Distance in a day	1	16
Total days boondocking	91	86

We are a bit surprised by the site cost increase from year 1 to year 2 because we made a concerted effort to stay in more COE campgrounds and state parks. We did do that but we also stayed in KOAs more than we should just because they are convenient to book and you know what you are getting. We spent 3 nights in a KOA in Wisconsin Dells for $102/night, but did that to have a nice place for a visit with Dan’s brother. We could lower the nightly average if we worked at it, but keeping it $30 or below is a bit more reasonable than our original goal of $25 or below.

Favorite Places and Campgrounds

In no particular order, these are our favorite destinations and/or campgrounds that we’ve visited or stayed at so far.

Yellowstone National Park – The diversity of this park makes it one of our favorite places we’ve visited, if not the most favorite. Ranging from the geysers and hot springs to the green valleys and rugged mountains to the variety of wildlife, it’s just hard to beat. We were only there for 3 full days and will definitely have to return and plan to stay in the area for a couple weeks.

Tikfaw State Park, LA – This state park has some wonderful nature trails that we enjoyed hiking. It gave us our first up close encounter with an alligator in the wild. New Orleans was a short, one hour drive away and, to top it all off, the park had free laundry. Can’t beat that.

San Angelo State Park, San Angelo, TX – We’ve stayed at this state park in central Texas twice so far. We enjoy the large flat sites and the network of bike trails around the park. The city of San Angelo is really nice with a beautiful river walk to enjoy. We spent our second Thanksgiving on the road here at San Angelo State Park.

Glenwood Springs West/ Colorado River KOA, Silt, CO – This is our favorite KOA campground so far. We have stayed in a couple others that are quite nice, but selecting one of their premier patio sites and backing your RV up to the Colorado River is tough to beat. We enjoyed this so much in our first year that we made a return visit in year 2.

Whitetail Ridge COE, LeGrange, GA – We love COE (Army Corps of Engineers) campgrounds and this one will represent all of them. We’ve stayed here twice already. It is the perfect last stop before going into Andersonville, GA to visit Amy’s folks. During our first stay, we walked the campground and noted the best sites and booked one for our second stay. It still ranks near the top of best sites we’ve been in. The campground is closed for 2020 but a sister COE campground on the same lake is open and we will be staying there just before Thanksgiving. It will be interesting to compare R. Shaefer Heard COE to Whitetail Ridge COE.

Palm Canyon Road, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, AZ – The BLM dispersed camping site is located about 20 miles south of Quartzsite, AZ and will always have a special place in our hearts. We spent 17 days here during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were blessed to have our friends, Jim and Corinne, with us to make the experience that much more enjoyable.

South Entrance of Joshua Tree National Park, BLM camping – We stayed here in the beginning of March of our first full year. It was a wonderful experience for a couple of reasons. First, the desert flowers were beginning to peak and we were parked right in the middle of it all. Secondly, this is where we met John and Tina, who have become good friends and have camped with us several times since then.

Gros Ventre Campground, Grand Teton National Park – We stayed here for a week while we explored Grand Teton National Park and a bit of Yellowstone. We had no hookups in the park and our site was a bit too small for us, but we managed to make it work. Being a short drive from all the beautiful scenery and less than ten miles from Jackson, WY, made this a very memorable stop for us.

Mooch Docking with Family – We’ve stayed in the driveway of a family member 3 times so far and all have been memorable for a variety of reasons. Dan’s sister’s place in Peru, ME has always been a vacation destination when we were raising our kids and returning with our home in tow was a treat. Dan’s cousin, Lenny, hosted us at his gorgeous home just south of Millinocket, ME. We had views of Mt Katahdin out the back of our RV and we’d have enjoyed it more if it hadn’t rained. Most recently, we spent ten days with Amy’s sister in Monument, CO, complete with 50 amp hookups. Nothing beats visiting family and still be at home.