2012 Southeast USA Road Trip

---

All photos for this trip can be found in our
2012 South East USA Photo Album
Some are also shown in our weekly blogs.

---

This was our longest road trip so far. We left home on March 23rd and returned on September 12th.

We had only two firm dates arranged for the trip:

• Melissa and James wedding in Houston Texas at the end of April
• Mercer Lake Resort in Florence Oregon, for the Labour Day weekend, at the end of August

Other than those dates we had no firm plans just some general ideas. Overall this trip took us from Vancouver Island to Calgary (to pick up the wee trailer and visit friends), south to Texas, east and south to the Florida Keys, north up the coast to Washington and Baltimore, zig zag across Virginia to the Shenendoah Valley, south along the Blue Ridge Parkway of the Appalachians to Atlanta, north trhough the Great Smokey Mountains into Tennessee, across Tennessee into western Kentucky, back east across Kentucky into West Virginia, northwest to Cincinnati, south into Kentucky horse country, west to St Louis, Kansas City and on through the mid west out to the California coast, north along the Oregon coast and back home. Whew...

All together we touched 2 provinces: BC and Alberta along with 30 states: Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, DC (we'll pretend it's a state), Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington.

These five maps show our general travel directions. Google maps limits the number of points to ten so our overall trip had to be divided up. Each weekly blog provides a more detailed map for that week.

Courtenay BC to Washington DC

Washington to Asheville NC

Asheville to Huntington WV

Huntington to Columbia MO

Columbia to Courtenay BC

We stayed primarily in Good Sam RV parks, KOA Kampgrounds, Passport America parks and the occasional private park. We have memberships at Good Sam and KOA so save 10% there and earned lots of KOA reward points so often took another $10 or more off the nightly rate. We bought a Passport America membership where you get 50% off but with more restrictions. All 3 memberships well more than paid for themselves with the discounts received.

We bought a USA National Parks pass. For $80 it seems like a lot but it paid for itself. We even concluded it was a good thing to have even if it didn't pay off because it was handy to have and it prevented us from deciding not to go to a National Park facililty that might have cost more than we would have liked to have paid. If we were there we went in. We used it mostly for National Park Civil War sites but also got into a number of other facilities run by the National Park service or some other affiliated service. For example, some Oregon beach parks charge $5 for a day use pass but we were exempt with the pass.

Everywhere we went we picked up grocery/supermarket store customer loyalty cards. They are always free and can save a fair amount. One place our grocery bill was $40, the cashier asked if we had a card... "No, but how can I get one?"... "I can give you one right now"... bingo, knocked $12 off the bill; a 30% savings on the spot.

We saw 9 Major League Baseball games with the home team winning 7 of those (the MLB home teams should like us) and one minor league game with the home team getting trounced (minor league home teams definitely should not like us).

Some mileage and cost stats (after US gal to litre and $US to $CDN conversions):

• 33,673 kms put on the car.
• purchased 5,036 litres of premium fuel
• average per litre cost of fuel purchased in Canada: $1.367
• average per litre cost of fuel purchased in USA: $1.064
• overall total spent on fuel: $5,338
• overall cost per km: $0.16

Each of our weekly blogs, listed below, contains a more detailed map of our travels during that period. Each blog is linked to the one before and/or after it so start at week 1 then step through each week or jump to a specific week in this list...

Week 1 and 2: Courtenay to Calgary to Denver Colorado
Week 3: Denver to Lake Travis Texas
Week 4: Austin and environs
Week 5: Austin to Houston Texas
Week 6: Houston to Hattiesburg Mississippi
Week 7: Hattiesburg to Clewiston Florida
Week 8: Clewiston to Key West and back to Miami Florida
Week 9: Miami to Kissimmee Florida
Week 10: Kissimmee to Brunswick Georgia
Week 11: Brunswick to Myrtle Beach South Carolina
Week 12: Myrtle Beach to Washington DC
Week 13: Washington and environs
Week 14: Washington to Williamsburg Virginia
Week 15: Williamsburg to Shenendoah Valley
Week 16: Shenendoah Valley to Atlanta Georgia
Week 17: Atlanta to Nashville Tennessee
Week 18: Nasville to Milton West Virginia
Week 19: Milton to Elizabethtown Kentucky
Week 20: Elizabethtown to Columbia Missouri
Week 21: Columbia to Cheyenne Wyoming
Week 22: Cheyenne to Fort Bragg California
Week 23 Fort Bragg to Florence Oregon
Week 24 and 25 Florence to Portland to Courtenay BC