Sunday, May 3, 2020

Day 88 - Bowie, AZ

A somewhat short driving day, about 260 miles or so. We left with about ¼ tank and only 85 miles to the next fuel stop. What I didn’t know is that there was a steep grade just north of Las Cruces. The gps said it was around 8% in places. It was 82°F and the water temperature climbed and peaked at around 222°F which was less than when we had problems in the past. But still kind of disappointing. We made it to the Love’s truck stop without any problem and it only took 80 gallons. I guess that there is some reserve though the “low fuel” warning came on at ¼ tank. The discounted price was $1.342/gal which saved us $82 on just this fill from the listed price of $2.399/gal.

This campground is only $17/night with full hookups using the Passport America discount. Pretty reasonable especially since the A/C units will probably be running 18 hours per day. Some friends suggested this place as being very reasonable plus the free WiFi works pretty well. Not as well as the KOA but good enough for being included in the price. Bridget is planning to call the non-Encore RV park in Casa Grande as their office is closed until tomorrow. The person she talked to said it wasn’t going to be a problem. After all, it’s 100°F in the Phoenix area. RVs are leaving in droves. For now, we are planning on staying here for three nights. Mostly because it is cheaper than the RV park in Casa Grande.

Starting from CDT to MDT to MST is a lot of time changes in only three days. Over 900 miles. It’ll be nice to not move for a bit...

9 comments:

  1. Low gas prices plus low campground fees... gotta love a road trip.

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    1. It’s been 40 years since we’ve seen these gas prices. I’m not sure what to expect this summer.

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  2. So the annual fleeing of Phoenix’s heat has begun eh....$17 is quite reasonable for power and good connectivity. Have you figured out how much gas your onboard generator consumes while running full Air Conditioning?

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    1. I think so. The RV park that Bridget is calling has a 10-year old rule. We’ll see if they stick to it during the off season. While we are driving with the generator running, the A/C load is around 33 amps which is around 60% load. The specs say 0.48 gal/hr at 50% load and 0.51 gal/hr at 75% load. That fits with experience. While in Quartzsite, we ran the generator for ~5 hrs/day and in a week used less than 20 gal.

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  3. The TSD card is probably the best addition we've made in our 5 years of RVing. I'm not sure how long it's been available to non-truckers, but I wish we'd gotten it sooner!

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    1. We’ll see how long it lasts. Pilot withdrew due to RVers no longer using the Good Sam’s discount. I heard that there was some sort of legal agreement between the two organizations.

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    2. Well, we previously used the Pilot RV card, but that 8 cents per gallon discount, on Pilot's jacked up prices, paled in comparison with TSD, especially at Loves. So Pilot took their toys and went home. That's how I understand it.

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  4. Some friends of mine just arrived back from Arizona. Getting plenty warm down that way. I hope your travel plans to Alaska can get worked out. Crazy times. Everything is so much more complicated.

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    1. Getting complicated… Trying to find anything open is hard.

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