Solo vagabond fulltiming in a Safari Condo Alto trailer
I know, we just got through the end of year holiday season. And hopefully, we all survived New Years and everyone’s 2022 is off to a good start. Mine has been kind of slow, which has been good. I’ve been reading a lot and napping. Until Monday afternoon, when I realized it’s less than 6 months till July 4 weekend. Which matters a lot to full-timers. Why? Read on…
[Read more…] about There’s Always Another Holiday
I read somewhere that pilots of small planes are always on the lookout for where they could land in an emergency: a country road, an open field, or similar spots. The last few weeks, I’ve felt a bit like that, changing plans as the weather has changed (from bad to worse…) as I travel down the west coast. I thought it might make an interesting post to talk about changing things when Plan A doesn’t quite work out, so I’ll cover two situations here.
The spot looked great on the website when I was making the reservation. Sunny so I could use my solar panels (no hookups available, which is fairly typical for California State Parks), and a long enough driveway to fit my rig. This is the site I thought I had reserved.
But…. when I showed up, no bueno. The site turned out to be what is referred to as a double, two sites side by side with no space between them. And the other site was full up with a big trailer, a big pickup and a dog run set up right to the edge of their site. Oops.
Three years ago, I would have bit my lip, moaned a bit, and backed in and stayed there for four nights. But I’ve learned a few things in my vagabond travels and one is that there is usually a better site to be had, especially if the park isn’t fully booked up. So I drove around, noting two sites that did not have “reserved” tags on them and then stopped at the camp hosts’ site to talk to them about switching. They said it was good for the one night and I could talk to the ranger in the morning about the other three nights. I pulled into the new spot and checked on the website to see it wasn’t reserved for the rest of my stay.
Next morning, I had a nice chat with the ranger who completely understood the double site situation and came by an hour later to tell me I was good to stay in that new spot for the rest of my stay. My new spot was quiet, even if it had zero solar and I had to haul out the generator after the first few nights (which was actually day 4 of zero solar between here and the redwoods camping).
Lessons: Keep your cool, scope out possible sites, be nice to camp hosts and rangers, and never give up!
I had reserved twelve nights on the California coast: six nights in one place, six in another. But the weather turned windy and rainy and cold, with my weather apps sending me wind warnings and gale warnings and flash flood watches. all of which didn’t bode well for warm or sunny weather. And none of those twelve nights had hookups (see earlier comments about California State Parks…)
I got onto Campendium, where I spotted a family-oriented RV park that a friend had stayed at a few times. Jumped over to their website to check availability and someone had apparently JUST canceled their Thanksgiving week so I scooped up those six nights. Twice the price of the state park, but with a more sheltered location, plus electric and water and even a laundromat. And did I mention the fast, free wifi?
By Day 4 of my stay, the weather had gotten worse. I was feeling those wind gusts shaking my trailer, even though I was a few miles inland from the coast, and the rain was almost constant. I decided to see if I could extend my stay and walked over to the campground office. Sure enough, three more nights were available, so I paid for those, then worked with a really nice agent at the California State Parks reservation line to cut my next campsite from six nights to three. I can do three rainy nights, especially since friends are joining me for the long weekend. We can always stay warm and dry in Alto-land, telling stories and drinking wine!
Lesson: Sometimes paying more is worth it. Especially in winter.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
More thinking, more discussion, more googling of places and things, and so today was time for round 2 of planning routes. I got some great feedback from people on the first round and also lost my outbound co-driver, so I made some adjustments in the plan.
Overall, still same general picture:
The purple pins are the eastbound route, while the teal pins mark the westbound route.
Eastbound: 3164 miles, give or take a few side trips along the way.
Westbound: 3411 miles, with the little Alto behind me all the way.
Let’s dive into the details, where the devil hides…
The first two days is going to be a fun route, starting with few visits with friends in the Spokane/Couer d’Alene area before wandering up and over the lower part of Glacier National Park. Then it’s on to Route 2 across Montana and North Dakota, where I imagine satellite radio and my own thoughts will fill the long hours from point C to point D to point E. Four days of 8 hours driving and four nights of motels in towns I’d never heard up before now.
From Minnesota (Pin E), I start making my way south as well as east, heading towards the tourist mecca of Niagara Falls (Pin H). Along the way, I make a good tour of the southern part of the UP of Michigan (UP = Upper Peninsula) and the top of the Michigan mitten, crossing the US/Canadian border just west of London, Ontario. I couldn’t resist the lure of Niagara Falls, so I splurged on one night of a hotel with a view, figuring I may never come back this way again. If you’re counting, this brings me to night 7, very close to the destination, but not quite there yet.
Now we can see the goal, that little purple pin with J on it marks the spot where I’ll meet my trailer on May 2. But first, some time enjoying Niagara Falls, so just a short drive up to Belleville for the night, then meeting an Alto friend in Montreal (I hope!) before finishing with the drive to St. Nicolas on May 1.
Hmm, I wonder what happens on May 2?
Not so fast, Bella! You and Breeze might be ready to go, but me? I want to rest up for a few days, practice my trailer driving a bit, test out all the things I learn on pickup day, and be able to go back and ask for clarification if I need it. And I have be admit that May 3 might just be spent with me walking inside and outside my new Alto and admiring every square inch. I will have waited 14 months for this event, so I intend to enjoy it!
Eventually though, I must head back, so May 5, the intrepid trio of Bella, The Breeze, and me will pull out of the KOA campground and head for Ottawa (also known as Teal Pin B). 266 miles doesn’t sound like a lot until I realize it’s my first time ever pulling a trailer and I will probably be the slowest driver on the road, and the most nervous and cautious, so then 266 miles sounds like a lot. I will have a little bottle of something tucked away so that when I finally make it through my first day, I can celebrate just a bit!
Next day, we do it again, heading for Parry Sound (Pin C) and some scenic driving before settling in overnight. My first week, I decided to go with KOA campgrounds because they have all the facilities and they probably have people who can help me overcome the newbie mistakes I’m bound to make. After this first week, though, I start getting more adventurous, so wait for it.
From Parry Sound, it’s up to Sault Ste. Marie (Pin D) for two nights, mainly because I don’t want to try to make it across the US/Canadian border on a Sunday with a new trailer with temporary plates. Let’s let the weekday shift deal with me, and hopefully avoid any complications!
Once I make it across the border and I’m back on US soil (and a US data plan, yay!), I head to the Keweena Peninsula on the UP, sticking out into Lake Superior. This will be my first campsite where I have nothing to hook up to (no water, or sewage) so it will be a good first step on the road to complete boondocking (no hookups at all). Two nights by the water, and hopefully out to the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula.
Then the journey turns southward and westward to visit family in Osceola, Wisconsin (Pin F), including one eight-year-old great-niece who might just be lucky enough to have a sleepover in Breeze. And if it’s a clear night, a telescope session trying to spot Jupiter’s moons.
From there, it’s a straight shot westward to Pelican Lake campground in South Dakota. Honestly, how could I pass up a place named after my favorite bird. I’m not expecting to see any of them, but still the name is wicked cool.
The state of South Dakota must be crossed, but I decided the Interstate wasn’t the way to go. Instead, I’ll stay north of that, and also cross the Missouri River about 30 miles south of Mobridge, SD. Why is that so special? Well, when I was flying cross-country on a business trip in January, I realized we were flying northerly across the US so I started looking out the window and comparing it to the map on my seat monitor. Two things stuck with me: it’s a damn wide country we have, and, oh, look, that’s a big river. The seat monitor said we were flying over Mobridge, so ever since I wanted to get reasonably close to it so I could say I was driving through the land I had seen from the plane window. Synchronicity and all that.
The longest day’s drive comes in getting from Pin H (Rocky Point SRA) to West Yellowstone, Montana (PIN I), where I’ll be meeting up with cousins and a nephew for a few nights of RV fun. I was with the cousins last spring when they bought that small Winnebago, and I want them to come up and see my trailer this year.
And if I can find my friend in Hailey, Idaho, I’ll spend a night there catching up and talking trailers, as she and her partner have one and have done a lot of RVing around the US. Always good to learn from the masters of the game!
It’s a bit too far to go from Hailey to Seattle, so I’ll spend one last night en route, in eastern Oregon (Pin B). Not sure where yet, might boondock somewhere, but probably not at Malheur reserve 🙂
One last spurt the next day, and we’re back in the Seattle, our first adventure done and dusted.
