Monday Oct 17, 2022 - Lyman Lake State Park AZ to Bisbee AZ (Home)

 

When they returned from the moon I am sure the astronauts had a list of things to take next time (4 pair of underwear instead of 3, more dental floss, air freshener, etc) and that's what it feels like returning home today. But actually, between all of my motorcycle trips and all of Deb’s backpacking trips, and our previous truck camping trips, we don't have too huge of a list. Mostly stuff to make this van thing more efficient, like a step stool, ground mat so we don’t track dirt in, window coverings so we don’t shock the neighbors, etc.

We love the simplicity of this design. It fits the sort of minimalist way we have traveled and camped (motorcycle and backpack). It is wonderful to have heat, to just jump in the back when it rains, to have lights, to have a fridge, and while I was skeptical, the induction stove is pretty nice. Oh yeah, and the electric tea kettle. Next phase is outdoor setup, stay tuned.

So today’s trip was kind of long, especially driving two cars (we both had to drive the entire distance). We had been down most all of the roads except one, a big surprise road, and that is RT 78 that took us west from RT 180 (in New Mexico) to the three way where we picked up RT 191. Wow, was that a nice road. Big open golden rolling hills with the road cut over and around the ridge tops.

We alternated van drivers with Deb listening to podcasts and me taking advantage of Sirius XM, which comes as a trial on the van. I hate monthly expenses but this one might be worth it. When the radio is doing the endless spinning routine, XM has every kind of station you can imagine (all Elvis??, Doctor radio??, Red White and Booze radio??).

Camp food was surprisingly easy thanks to our very experienced friends (you know who you are). There is a plethora of pre-cooked options as well as pre-cooking your own stuff. That way you are basically warming dinners up. I think when we graduate to outdoor cooking we can do more normal (smellier) cooking, but the pre-cook stuff is great for both not making a big stink and minimizing power consumption. We were able to cook dinner and get a few hot drinks per day while only using 20% of the power. This also includes running the fridge all day and running the heater every night. The Wabasco heater runs on the van's gas tank and they claim it uses 1 gallon every 22 hours of use. Sounds like an experiment. 

Speaking of experiments, the mpg figure the dash spits out is about 1 mpg optimistic. I did a check when I fueled up today (miles and gallons) and I got 20.1 mpg and Dodge got about 21 mpg. Not as good as the hybrid RAV4 but it's a bigger vehicle.