MTC’s Ride Across America

Jul 23

When you live in Danbury, CT, and buy a RV in Roseville, CA, you have to drive it back to CT. Pretty straight forward. Easy, right.

Now consider neither of you have ever driven an RV before, and you have your 8-year-old grandson along for ride. That makes it a little more difficult. But have no fear. Not that, nor the added pressure of a global pandemic could keep us from our pursuit. So off we go.

Fifteen days and fourteen nights lay between our start in Rocklin CA with Matt & Cheryl, and our destination… Home. We also had our daughter Darcie along for the first week of our stay in California and Las Vegas

We began our journey with a two-day local camp with Matt and Cheryl in their 5th Wheel. There are many “Jellystone” parks across America and this one in Lodi is one of the best. These first couple of nights gave Terri and me a good education on how to use our new coach. We needed that education and ended up learning new things almost every day of the trip.

Here’s a chronological account of our “ride”, accompanied with pictures and a summary of RV parks we visited.

April 10 - 11

Jellystone Tower Park, Lodi, CA. This was a very nice family park with tons of RV sites, pool, water park, trampoline ball, and other attractions. It has several cabins, so there were a lot of families with kids of all ages. We had “buddy” sites that were pull throughs and camped with my brother and his wife. They were a big help to us on our first two days. We’ll give this park 4 stars. The only drawback was that several attractions weren’t open.

April 12

South of Lodi in Clovis, CA, we stopped for a short visit with my sister Maureen and her family. It was great for Cayden to get a chance to re-meet his cousins and have a swim in the pool.

Then it was on to River Run RV Park, in Bakersfield, CA. A pretty non-descript park in the middle of Bakersfield. We arrived after the office had closed so received only basic information. Most sites were back in concrete pads. We basically cooked and ate dinner, watched a movie, and went to sleep. Only 3 stars and I’d only go back there for a one-night stop over on the way to someplace more interesting.

April 13 - 14

On day four we made the 6-hour drive over the Tehachapi pass to pick up I-15 and head east to Las Vegas. Our destination was the Homewood Suites Las Vegas Airport, Las Vegas, NV. We stopped there to visit Terri’s brother Tim, his wife Michelle, daughter Emily and her family. A great visit that allowed our grandson to meet more of his cousins again. He had a blast sleeping over at their house in Henderson, while Terri and I had a hotel suite. We also took a half-day trip to Hoover Dam and Boulder City. Five stars of family fun in a short 2-day stay.

April 15

On Thursday the 15th we made the long drive from Las Vegas to Winslow, AZ, and Meteor Crater RV Park. Cayden thought the crater was pretty cool. But he thought “Standing on the Corner” in Winslow Arizona was even cooler. I don’t think he got that song out of his head for the rest of the trip. Our stay at the park was short and uneventful. It’s a nice enough RV park if you want to visit the crater, but it was too windy and cold to set up so we cooked and ate inside, watched a movie and called it a night.

April 16

Friday the 16th had us driving east on I-40 through east Arizona into western New Mexico, bound for our overnight stay just west of Albuquerque. American RV Park in Albuquerque left a lot to be desired. COVID regulations seem to have New Mexico and this RV park pretty locked down. We arrived just before 5pm to see that the office was closed and our info was left in an envelope taped to the office door. The note in the envelope instructed us to call a phone # to get the security code for the park gate. We called and got voice mail. We figured we would have to wait for a call back, but luckily “tailgated” another park guest through the gate. The park’s amenities were completely locked down (except bathrooms) and it just felt like a really sullen place. Add to that, it was cold and cloudy weather. We knew the next day would have us driving to Amarillo and Texas. Yeah, Texas… land of free men.

April 17

The drive to Amarillo would have been uneventful if we didn’t pick Pilot Travel Center #475 in Moriarty, NM, as our fueling stop. I pulled up to the pump and tried to insert the diesel nozzle into the gas input on the Mercedes, and it wouldn’t fit. I had a YHGTBFKM moment and started to panic a little bit. We tried a 2nd pump. No go. How could it be broken? We pulled into a parking spot and start dialing #’s to get an answer: RV Travel World, Coach-net, my brother. I asked truckers in the store if they knew the problem and solution. None did. Finally I did what I should have done in the beginning, I “Googled” it. Sure enough, diesel nozzles are 24mm in diameter and gas nozzles are 22mm in diameter. The engineers at Mercedes have designed their gas input to only accept the 24mm nozzle. A quick check of Pilot 475 pumps confirmed all nozzles to be 22mm. Shame on you Pilot. A short drive across I-40 to a Phillips had us filled up and back on our way.

An hour wasted in Moriarty made us arrive later than desired to “Big Texan” RV Ranch. What a change from Albuquerque. Terri checked-in at the front desk with a very nice maskless lady. We were then ushered to our site by a super nice maskless gentleman in a golf cart. He told us that the “Big Texan” restaurant would deliver the signature 72oz Porterhouse to our site if we wanted it. Instead we griddled up some hamburgers and got a good night’s sleep in preparation for our long drive to Little Elm, TX, and another visit with family.

April 18

Sunday’s drive down Texas route 287 to I-380 to Little Elm, was the longest of the trip so far at 337 miles. Even so, it was a very easy drive. Not many of the big-rig trucks followed us down 287 as they stayed on I-40 towards Oklahoma City. Our destination in Little Elm was Terri’s brother Mike’s house and his family wife Marylin, and his kids Alyssa, Daniel and James. Their beautiful home was a welcome respite from our frantic 4-day drive from Las Vegas. It was a short visit but felt longer with all the catching up we did. And Cayden got to hang out with the adult kids and play “Cards Against Humanity”, family edition of course. Mike, Marylin, Terri and I sat outside enjoying fire and wine on a cool Texas evening. It was so great to be able to spend time with family on this trip. This marked our last “rest” stop before 6 days and 5 nights of travel on the run home to Danbury.

April 19

Texarkana, TX was our destination for what was the shortest drive of the trip. We scheduled it this way so we could spend more time with the family in Little Elm, and so Terri and Marylin could go shopping to restock our rig. Our choice of Shady Pines RV Park was just a guess that it would be not too far off our path and it was a Good Sam park. We were pleasantly surprised to find it was one of, if not the best park we visited. Each site was level concrete with a sturdy picnic table and easy to access hookups. The weather finely greeted us with normal spring like temperatures and we were able to setup a true campsite complete with our chairs, the griddle, and an outdoor movie (The Rookie). By this time in the trip Cayden had become a very good helper at setup and teardown. He’s a quick study. I mean, the kid figured out and solved a complex rubik’s cube, albeit with some help from cousin James and a set of impossible to read instructions.

Shady Pines will definitely be on the list of stops whenever we’re in the neighborhood. A great place to park for a night on your way to your final destination.

April 20

It was on across Arkansas to Memphis, TN, on Tuesday the 20th. Our destination, Graceland RV Park, immediately adjacent the Graceland mansion and museums. It was the only targeted destination on our last 5 days of the trip. We were excited to show Cayden a little bit of rock & roll history and where it all began.

Unfortunately, Graceland did not live up to expectations. I guess you could blame it mostly on COVID. None of the restaurants were open and we had hoped to dine out that night. The museums were interesting enough but the the place was practically deserted and masks were required everywhere. It felt overly commercial with each museum complete with a dedicated gift shop. Employees seemed uninterested in the few tourists like us.

The RV park left a lot to be desired as well. No amenities to speak of and sites were very close together. Add to that a thunderstorm and several short power outages to dampen our stay. We eventually turned off the 30 amp breaker and fired up the generator so we could watch a movie uninterrupted. We were out of there as quickly as possible the following morning to head east through Tennessee.

April 21

Our drive east through Tennessee on I-40 would take us about an hour east of Nashville to Belle Ridge Retreat in Monterey, TN. The drive started out uneventful and it was a beautiful morning with some great views of farmland in full spring bloom.

We were using a variety of “map app” help on this journey including, the Mercedes navigation, Waze, and a printed “Triptik” from AAA. Needless to say these three weren’t consistent in their directions. The Triptik had us avoiding Nashville by sending us south on the I-840 beltway, while Waze had us going straight through Nashville. I ended up missing the I-840 exit because it’s never a good idea to try to quickly change lanes in a 25’ RV. So on to Nashville we go.

The traffic wasn’t too bad as it wasn’t rush hour, and we did get a glimpse of a city we will be sure to revisit. East of Nashville the route got interesting due to the Waze app’s propensity for finding “alternate routes” to avoid traffic. Of course Waze doesn’t realize what type of vehicle we’re driving. Waze saw bad traffic ahead on I-40 and took us off on a joy ride on a country road for about 10 miles. When it brought us back to I-40 the on-ramp was closed due to construction. Waze had trouble recalculating the route because it didn’t know the on-ramp was closed. Eventually we just followed the herd for another 5 miles of backroads back to I-40. It was a bit stressful driving our rig on those narrow roads.

But anyway, Belle Ridge Retreat was super nice with big sites, trails, a lake and other amenities. It’s a park we would definitely return to for a longer stay.

April 22

Day #13 on the road brought us to the junction of I-40 and I-81 east of Knoxville. We were now headed north towards Scranton PA, where we would pick up I-84 for the final drive home. For our stay on the 22nd we picked Fort Chiswell RV Park in Wytheville, VA.

We like this park as it was pretty wide open and right off I-81, one block from a Flying J where we could fuel up the next morning. Another reason we like the park… their registration office was wide open and they sold wine. This park, like Big Texan Ranch in Amarillo, was the only other park with a wide open office and store.

As we’ve documented, we learned a lot about our Vienna on this trip that wasn’t disclosed in our training. Fort Chiswell had cable TV so we decided to hookup our rig. When we tried to scan for channels, the TV’s wouldn’t find any cable channels. I went over to the store to buy a bottle of Chardonnay and asked the kid behind the counter about the cable TV. He asked me if I had a Winegard Connect2. When I told him I did he said “make sure you turn off the OTA antenna on the Winegard, otherwise it will conflict with the cable channels”. Wow, who knew? I turned off the OTA and voila, 60 channels. Thirteen days into the trip and we finally figured out how to work our TV hookups.

Virginia was cold that night and we were again instructed to disconnect our water due to freezing temperatures overnight.

Just one more night and two more days until we’re home…

April 23

Our final night stop was in Carlisle, PA. To get to Western Village RV Park you drive through a middle class neighborhood full of single family homes. We both thought how we would really like big Class A, 5th Wheel and other RVs driving through our neighborhood. I’m sure that is a detractor once you try to sell your home.

The park was pretty cramped. Our hookups were pretty much in the front yard of our neighbor campers and their pop-up. It felt a little strange hooking up my black tank hose literally feet from their picnic table. And our front yard was shared with the site next to us on the other side. A “buddy” setup similar to our first two nights in Lodi with my brother. It didn’t really bother us much as we had cooked dinner and stowed our griddle before the four neighbor dudes got back to their trailer. They did some partying into the night, but it didn’t deter us one bit. We just turned the volume up on the last night movie “Shrek II”.

The next morning we were up and out early, anxious for the last day’s drive and home.

April 24

The last day’s drive might have been the most stressful of the entire journey. Maybe it was because we all just wanted to be home. Maybe it was because of the wind on the I-81 ridgetop we spent two hours on. Or maybe it was the 40-minute wait for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Carlisle.

Pennsylvania was another state that seemed to be overly cautious about COVID, especially in late April when cases across the country were in freefall. The Cracker Barrel only had 25% of their tables open and the wait to be seated and served was pretty ridiculous. This put us behind our schedule and added to the stress of the final push. Add to that road construction on I-84 east out of Scranton, and you had one stressed out driver. I also had two passengers who were itching to get home.

When we crossed the Newburgh bridge just passed 2:00 pm we new it was just a 45-minute drive to home. We were greeted by Dylan, Alishia and Addison for a quick reunion, and then it was time to unpack, start laundry and wash the rig.

My favorite band once sang about a “long strange trip…”. I wouldn’t call this one strange. Successful… Hurried… Exciting… Memorable… Educational… Really fun… Those all work.

Mark McBeth

Mark & Terri’s excellent adventures in America

https://skydogadventures.net