Overall this trip went very well and I loved it!

My plan for this trip was essentially to not have a plan other than a general idea of driving around the perimeter of the USA and a rough timeline. I had no plans for places to stay overnight other than some points along the trip where I would be staying with family or friends. I also tried to avoid Interstates and take the scenic route along a coast wherever possible. Something I learned relatively quickly was that my rig was significantly bigger than it needed to be for this type of trip. Because of the way that the Ranger was towed (four wheels down), you physically cannot back up without potentially damaging the towing setup. These restriction made it very difficult at some points to park overnight or stop in some areas and I do feel like I missed out on some places that I would like to have stopped. For this reason, if I was going to do something like this again, I would try to take a conversion van or small trailer. The setup that I have is more ideal for picking a base location to park the motorhome and then completing day trips in the Ranger.

The first section of the trip down the west coast had some decent places to park overnight along the side of the road although occasionally an officer would stop by and say you couldn't camp overnight. The views along Highway 101 and Highway 1 through Oregon and California are absolutely stunning, especially at dawn or dusk. Along with the views though, there are some extremely tight turns and narrow roads. With the size of my rig and limitations for reversing and parking, it did make for some interesting and exciting (not relaxing) driving. I'm sure that stretch would have been extremely unpleasant for any passengers since they would be looking directly over the edge of a cliff without a guardrail a large part of the time.

Once you get south of San Francisco it starts getting significantly tougher to find places to stay overnight along the side of the road, and by the time I got to southern California I was pretty much exclusively looking for rest areas or Walmart parking lots to stop at overnight. One thing that started coming in really handy was satellite images in maps. I could look ahead at a rest area or parking lot to see how much parking was available and to see if there were trucks or RV's parked which would generally indicate that I could stay overnight without getting kicked out.

Driving across the south was relatively uneventful (other than the recurring tire issue discussed below). I'm glad I went through the south in early/mid May as it was already starting to get pretty warm and muggy in areas. Google Maps occasionally got me in trouble and put me on roads that were not necessarily designed for the size of my rig. I started looking at satellite images along some of my "scenic" routes to see how tough it might be to navigate my rig through tight roads. This method of navigating did not necessarily keep my from occasionally ending up on a road where my rig exceeded the weight limit though...

Driving through the northeast turned into an adventure when trying to avoid driving through major cities. We did get a chance to explore NYC by parking the motorhome at a Walmart in New Jersey for a couple days and then riding public transportation into the city which worked out very well. It was leaving New Jersey where I really started battling Google Maps. I completed the entire trip directing Google Maps to avoid toll roads, although there were two points where I consciously overruled Google; Chesapeake Bay Bridge & Tunnel and the Mackinaw Bridge. When trying to get around New York City, Google had me hop onto I-95 to cut across the top of New York City. This ended up putting me onto the George Washington Bridge where the toll for my rig was over $80, cash only. The most annoying part is that apparently in New York it is more expensive to tow a vehicle behind a motorhome than it would be to drive both vehicles separately across the bridge. After the bridge fiasco, Google directed me onto Parkways which actually ban RV's in the New York City area. Much to the amusement of my passengers, I spent a large portion of an afternoon arguing with, and swearing at Google while trying to figure out how to navigate back roads to get back to an Interstate to get out of New York. Lesson learned, avoid driving near NYC at all costs.

Even though I didn't really have a plan going into the trip, I did have a rough timeline that I was trying to stick to. I spent more time in Texas than initially planned as well as a couple extra days in the south, so by the time I got into Maine I was running about a week behind what I was initially thinking. Since my next planned stop was to visit my sister in New Hampshire, I decided to do a quick drive up the coast in Maine and spend one night before heading back towards New Hampshire. This ended up not being too bad since apparently Maine doesn't really open up until Memorial Day. Most of the drive in Maine was spent looking at closed down stores and empty towns. It was still nice and I will eventually spend more time exploring Maine and going further north into the wilderness.

Driving back west through New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania was filled with stops visiting family and friends, mixed with fixing the turbo and the recurring tire issue on the motorhome.

When I got to west Michigan I paused the trip for almost 5 weeks to work on my house and do a couple side jobs. This stop ended up being about 2 weeks longer than I was initially planning which put a slight time crunch on the final stretch from Michigan back to Washington since I did need to be back in Washington during the first week in July.

I drove up along Lake Michigan in Michigan on my way to the Upper Peninsula. To get into the Upper Peninsula I crossed the Mackinaw Bridge which oddly was the most unnerving part of the entire trip. There can be notoriously strong cross winds on the bridge and a vehicle was blown off the bridge in 1989 (technically a wind gust caused the driver to lose control, but close enough).  It wasn't very windy when I drove across but it was enough to rock the motorhome, and the guardrails look amazingly weak. I made it safely across and the west coast in Michigan and the Upper Peninsula (Tahquamenon Falls, Fayette State Park, Lighthouses, Porcupine "Mountains")  were definitely among the highlights of the trip.

After leaving the Upper Peninsula, I drove across most of Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana with minimal stops until I got to Glacier National Park in western Montana. I spent one night in Summit just south of Glacier, which provided a beautiful sunset and sunrise, before driving into Glacier in the morning. The full rig (motorhome towing Ranger) was too large to drive through Glacier but I managed to find a parking spot for the motorhome at one of the visitor centers where I disconnected the Ranger and drove up Going-To-The-Sun road. Along with some quick hikes, I saw mountain goats and a couple bears!

The drive from Glacier back to Wenatchee, Washington was uneventful. I washed the motorhome and Ranger after getting back since I figured they deserved it for treating me well (for the most part) the entire trip. I forgot how shiny both vehicles can be when clean.

As a footnote, I drove the Ranger through the Cascade Mountains from Wenatchee to Seattle the day after I got back and was reminded how beautiful the PNW is. The views in the PNW rival almost anything I saw during the entire trip and it was a good reminder how much somebody can take for granted what they have in an area they have lived in for a while.

Highlights:

• The people:

  • Visiting family and meeting new, distant relatives.

  • Seeing old friends, including some that I hadn't seen for over 10 years.

  • Making new friends.

• Highway 101 and Highway 1 in Oregon and northern California.

• Driving through northern New York and Niagara Falls.

• Biking, kayaking and hiking.

• Seeing a couple NHL playoff games, in San Jose and Dallas.

• The Michigan west coast and Upper Peninsula.

• Glacier National Park

Tips & Recommendations:

• If you are planning on moving (relatively) quickly around without extended stops, try to go with as small a rig as possible. Ideally you should be able to fit into one or two parking spots and be able to back up easily.

• Satellite images are excellent for looking ahead for parking and potential issues with roads (if you are taking "scenic" routes).

• Google Maps and most mapping apps are not necessarily great when driving a large rig, especially when you're trying avoid Interstates and take more scenic routes.

• Don't even think about trying to drive anywhere near NYC (or likely any large city in the northeast) with an RV.

• Get an annual National Parks pass. Significantly cheaper than paying for each park and you're much more likely to stop even if it is just for a quick visit.

Helpful websites and apps:

• allstays.com - Excellent website for locating parking lots that allow overnight parking. Generally includes reviews of the parking lot and will often let you know if you can stay in a lot marked as no overnight parking (generally will require you to check in with the store).

• passportamerica.com - Campground locations & discounts (annual or lifetime membership required). Good app for finding campgrounds along your route. With membership you can get up to 50% off campground stays but it is sometimes limited to a couple nights and/or excludes weekend stays.

• campendium.com - Great website for finding random places to stay overnight. Includes paid and free spots as well as some helpful information about the locations (like whether you can fit an RV or not).

• rvdumps.com - Great website for locating dump stations and includes tips for dumping your tanks.

Things that kind of went wrong:

• I had one full on breakdown while driving on an Interstate in Texas. This issue was completely me... I ran the rig out of fuel. I managed to nurse the motorhome to a road running next to the interstate and then disconnected the towed Ranger which I drove to get enough fuel to get the motorhome to the next station. The most annoying part about this was that the great State of Texas pulled one  of their normal stupid moves and had the next exit with fuel closed (without any notifications...) so I ended up driving almost 30 miles round-trip to get fuel.

• Recurring issue with the inner, rear, passenger side tire losing air. This issue started in southern California where I simply had to tighten the extender on the valve stem to fix. It started losing air again in Florida. This time I couldn't get it to stop losing air so I had to stop multiple times over the course of the day to refill the tire using an air tank I had on-board (thankfully). I stopped at a tire shop to get the thing looked at and they could not find any issues so I continued driving and the tire continued losing air. Eventually it was losing air so fast that I was stopping every 15 minutes. It was that point that I figured out that the tire was losing air between the extender and the valve stem only when the TPMS sensor was on the extender. I removed the TPMS sensor and the tire managed to hold air but I couldn't see what the tire pressure was so I had to check daily to make sure it was still holding air. This method worked until I got to Binghamton, NY where I found out that the extender and pin inside the valve stem had completely blown off. This meant that the tire would not hold air at all. I used the extender from the driver side to keep enough air in the tire to nurse the motorhome to a tire shop to replace the valve stem. The tire shop was awesome and replaced the valve stem for free and noted that the likely reason it blew out was that the last place that had replaced the valve stem (which I had done in Texas about 2 years before) had "modified" a valve stem that wasn't really supposed to be used for that type of rim. After replacing the valve stem I did not have any tire issues for the remainder of the trip.

• Started noticing that the motorhome was getting sluggish accelerating and going up hills around New York City. By the time I started heading back west out of Maine, the motorhome was significantly struggling and I was pretty sure it was related to the turbo. After the motorhome warmed up, I could turn it off and then restart and generally it would run better, but still not great. When I got into New Hampshire to visit my sister, the check engine light came on and I wasn't sure whether the motorhome would make it much further. With the help of a friend, we did some research online and figured that I would either have to replace the turbo or best case, clean a couple sensors. I confirmed that the check engine light was flagging an issue with the turbo and the spent an afternoon tearing into the engine bay to dig out some sensors for cleaning. After I finished cleaning the sensors (specifically the Exhaust Back Pressure sensor) i put everything back together, cleared the check engine light and took the motorhome for a spin. Everything seemed to work and I didn't notice turbo issues for the remainder of the trip!

Check out Instagram (jeremy.bemis) for additional pictures!