12/31 Summary of 2014

It’s been a good year for me:  still teaching a couple of college classes each semester, been pretty healthy, haven’t fallen and broken anything, no major mechanical problems with motorhome, and my kids and grandchildren are doing well.  Can’t expect much more in life!    

I’ve made another loop around the country this year.  Spent the winter in Arizona, Nevada, and Southern California, even meeting kids and grandkids at Disneyland in January and double-camping with them.  Made it back to Michigan and Ohio last May and then headed to Colorado, where I was met a few weeks later by both sons and their families.  We spent some time double-camping near Rocky Mountain National Park and then Colorado Springs.  Kids all enjoyed playing with their cousins, which was nice.

I spent the rest of summer heading north and west to Washington State and the Olympic Peninsula, and then fall heading down the Washington and Oregon Coasts staying at some very nice state parks.  Made it to Napa to visit with that part of my family for a few weeks and had surgery done on my right hand for carpal tunnel syndrome because it was making it too hard to ride my bike.  I enjoyed my grandkids while I was there, even though the surgery wiped me out for a few days.

I made a three-week long bee-line from California to Florida.  Spent two weeks in the Florida Panhandle, where I had never really visited before.  Incredibly white beaches, but a lot of cold wind and rain, so bailed out a couple of days early from the last place.  The rest of the winter will be at various state parks and Corps of Engineering recreation areas in Florida.    

I will be in Ohio and Michigan most of May, June, and July, doing some visiting and also traveling up north and into Ontario, so I am hoping to see a lot of friends and what family is left in Michigan.  Then through Pennsylvania and New York to New England and maybe the Canadian Maritime provinces, and then who knows where???

I keep a travel log and decided to share some statistics for this past year:

 

• I drove through 25 states and added Oklahoma and Arkansas to my map of states visited in my motorhome. 

• I have driven 19,825 miles and used roughly 2,394 gallons of gas. (Yikes!  I know that’s a lot, but I am going to be driving a lot less in 2015. Glad gas was cheap this year!)  That’s about 8.5 MPG, which is not good, but considering I am hauling around 15,000 pounds of vehicle and belongings wherever I go, I can live with it.  This is my only vehicle, and I don’t have a “sticks and bricks” home to heat or air condition, so it isn’t too bad. 

• I used 117 gallons of propane to heat water and motorhome, cook, and run refrigerator while driving.  I do use a small electric heater to supplement the propane furnaces, which is one reason I use so little propane.   

• I don’t know how much electricity I used, but my home on wheels is small, and I was not in very hot places.  In fact, I probably used AC at night only a handful of times because most nights were pretty chilly. 

• I average about 8 - 9 gallons of water per day for a hot shower and washing dishes, so that totals about 2,920 – 3,285 gallons per year.  (That does not count a couple of loads of laundry each 7 – 10 days or a very occasional car wash.)  The U.S. Geological Survey says most individuals use 80-100 gallons per day, or 29,200 – 36,500 gallons per year, so I did not do badly on this one.

I hope all of you who are my family and friends have had equally good years and hope you all have a happy, healthy, and prosperous year in 2015!