RV Observations...

 

Not a long driving day today: leaving Winstar Casino and going just north of Wichita, KS.  Hot!  It was already 87º when we left at 8:30 this morning.  But, Rufus got a walk in the nice grass at the RV park.  He spent most of the day on my lap... he is a big, warm boy.

Only two cities of any size to drive through today: Oklahoma City and Wichita.  The rest is pretty open...

 

well, with the exception of several construction zones in Oklahoma, where things got a bit narrow.   I needed a potty stop while in Oklahoma, and they aren't big on providing rest areas on I-35 (there is one at each state border, none in between)... I pulled into a Love's and was surprised to see that they have overnight RV sites, with power and water...

Nothing where you'd be "camping," but it is paved, with utilities.  I was surprised to see they want $42.50 per night for a site.  When just passing through an area, something like this would be enough.  All back in sites, so those with a motorhome towing a car would have to unhook to use the site.  Interesting premise - I always thought something like this would be a good idea, but at a more reasonable rate.  That said, that is one of the "observations" I notice in the title of this post: RV parks have gone up in price.  "Well, sure, what hasn't?" you say.  True, but places going from $30 a night to more than double that seems a bit extreme.  It used to be easy to find $30 RV sites two years ago; the average for a "typical" sites seems to be $40 to $50 along our route.  Passport America used to have a lot of parks where you could get the site for 1/2 price - fewer of those these days, and almost never during the travel season.

Another observation: we didn't see a lot of RVs on the road the last few days.  I expected more.  And the RVs we were seeing were more inexpensive (that's relative) travel trailers than higher end motorhomes or 5th wheels.  I keep reading that travel trailers are the "hot" item in the RV market, with a lot of people buying them during the pandemic, so they could still travel and socially distance.  There seems to be less of a concern about the distancing thing; certainly mask usage is WAY down compared to a year ago.

I think the price of gas is having a real impact on people using RVs.  Towing just the cargo trailer, I am getting about 9 miles per gallon with the motorhome.  Stopping with a need for 40 or more gallons (based on looking for fuel before we get to 1/4 of a tank left) means putting $200 or so into the tank.  So far, we have found gas in the $4.49 to $4.69 range (less than the $5 per gallon that gets talked about on the national news).  I am guess that people will be using those RVs they bought last year less and perhaps taking shorter trips.

Over the winter, we saw a lot of RV parks that were full.  That was also the case last summer as we headed north.  It does not seem to be the case this summer (so far).  If that trend continues, I think you are going to see a lot of used RVs for sale by the end of summer.  People who thought it would be a "fun get-away" are finding there is some work involved in using any RV.  And, there are some folks who sold their house while the market was high, and bought an RV to live in... until they find another place they want to live.  While we enjoy it, RV living isn't for everyone.  Even for relatively short periods of time.

Driving by a lot of car dealers so far this trip, it is apparent they they still aren't back to pre-pandemic inventories - a lot of half-empty lots.  Not so with RV dealers - almost every RV dealer we have driven by so far seems to be packed with inventory, especially in the entry-level travel trailer offerings.  It makes me wonder if there is going to be a glut in that market in the very near future?

We rolled into the "mobile home and RV park" that is our overnight stop around 2:30.  It was pushing 100º.  All we need is a plug in so we can run air conditioning.

In what I would consider an out of the way place, we have 4 bars of Verizon service - the best we've seen this trip.  It will be good for being able to watch Stephanie's debut as a co-host on an internet show, where they will be ranking TV-theme songs from the 70s through the 2000s.  It starts at 6:00pm Arizona Time, which will be 8:00 where we are.  We'll be watching.  Here's the link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekDF7xckIEc

Happy Summer Solstice Day!

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Getting Skinny...

New diet?  Oh, hell no!  With this heat (100º here in south Kansas) and some instability in the air, the result is a chance of thunderstorms.  By 6:00, the local weather weasels are showing where the cells are on radar.  We were already watching that.  Nothing right over us currently, but looking at a big tree from our dinette window, we could see the wind was coming up... that can be a sign of a nearby storm and the down-drafts.  Being cautious, we started the coach and pulled in the slides.

Future radar (best guess) shows a couple cells coming over us before the night is over.  For now, we'll leave the slides in.  The sky is looking dark southeast of us, but that is supposed to be moving northeast... no telling what is coming at us from the southwest.  The air conditioning is on full blast.  It is working hard to keep us comfortable.  Radar looks worse north of us; good thing we stopped when we did.  It should move on through before we roll north in the morning.

On the bright side, the clouds rolling in have dropped the temp into the 80s.  It's a start.

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Around 9:00 a thunderstorm rolled over the top of us.  Lots of thunder and lightning.  First real world test of the water-tightness of all the repairs.  A pretty solid rain.  Supposedly, Winnebago puts it through their "water test" after replacing the roof and/or the windshield.  Rufus is a little anxious with all the thunder, but he handled it well.  We did, too.  ;-)

Even heavier rain at 9:30, more lightning...

Should move through by 11:00 pm.