Late Summer trip completed

[BatDude]

We are back in our "Big stick" place where we live. Still only about 1,000 sq. ft. so we do OK in small spaces. Still contemplating an Escape trailer (19 or 21) to upsize for longer term stays when traveling. Would be awesome to find a used one to acquire asap. Oh well as the old adage goes "Dance with the one that brung you" so we will be Scamping again for the winter.


For our late summer-early fall Scamping trip we drove 4,870 miles over 122.4 hours in the TV. Our new (Dec 2016) Ford Flex averaged 16.6 MPG pulling our 16 Scamp for the trip. Not bad as our old Freestyle averaged 14-15 MPG so the bigger engine does mean the TV works less.

Our RV Parky Trip Summary: estimated a total distance of 3949 miles and our trip duration was 30 nights.


Now I need time for some Scamp maintenance, adding new door ribbed door seal, check the battery, top up butane, wash & wax. All before we escape Mich. winter for 4 months in mid- November.

Great wildlife, black and grizzly bears. moose, elk, mule deer and I recorded bats along our entire trip. Carolyn took many pix of a grizzly cub while mom was 100 meters away up in a tree. Eeee we listened to Wyoming NPR streaming when in the Tetons and a hunter was badly mauled by a mom grizzly with 2 cubs on the same road very close to where she shot her pix! A few days later, but too close for comfort. She is OK with jaguars and marginally pumas when she worked on big cats in Belize for years, but bears... Yikes.

Not sure about winter escape trip yet. A given is our first main stop be Huntington Beach State Park in S.C, then Jekyll Island until first of Feb. then not yet sure if we will head to Florida for months or back to the SW like last year.

I am semi-obligated to spend a few days in Gainesville to do a graduate seminar at the university on bat conservation and using acoustics to ID bats and related research with my Peruvian grad. student. So at least a week in Florida.

Cheers,
Bat Dude

[kgklem]

What do the letters along your route represent?

[k0wtz]

wow sounds great my back surgery has set me back to just trouting for the summer but I want another trip ASAP. Maybe to Texas and N.M. again talk about bats how about Carlsbad N. M. we did that again in Feb.

We are planning on a little Quartzsite in Feb also.

fun fun fun

bob

oh that 13f Scamp looks ridiculous!!!

[Hal Stufft]

Hi Dude and Carolyn,

Great trip to the west. I’d say the letters are the sequence of your stops. No E
We go to Jekyll on 1 November for 6 weeks. When do you arrive there?

Hal and Dorothy

[mary and bob]

We will just miss you Bruce, unless you leave Jekyll late. We arrive Feb 1, traveling up from Fort Clinch in Florida. We have decided to not stay in the campground this time, we rented a house for the month of Feb., got permission to park the Casita in the driveway.

[mary and bob]

Hal; a couple guys I went to school with 50 years ago will be in the Jekyll campground the month of November. One in an old Shasta 5th wheel, the other in a Keystone trailer, Gerald & Diane and Pete & Linda

[BatDude]

Hi all,

Yes the letters are the night stop over spots from RV Parky trip planner.
E is there, but is also P as we stayed the same spot both out and back. RVParky shows miles between stops and you add the # of nights at each. Stop B was just a stop to pick up the new propane supply hose that was leaking.

[k0wtz]

that is a nice post you did a good job far past my thinking!

bob

[BatDude]

Oops, I erroneously noted butane above which is what we used in Belize for the full sized fridge for a few years. We had a large 100 lb tank. For whatever reason, when we arrived in 1985 at the place we started the butane tank, had "Rita" painted on the side. So When it came time to fill the tank by driving 60 miles into town I had to wrestle the thing into the back of our International Scout. For a year or so when we ran out of gas, my wife referred to the event as "time to hug Rita" as I wrapped my arms around the tank to load it into the Scout.

Our Scout with the powerful V-8 was near legendary. It went places Land Rovers feared to tread. More than once on roads err better-called jungle tracks that were inundated we were up to the frame in mud. NP I would just power out and keep on chugging.

While we were never stuck, OK we experienced an event as the Brits used to say "We had our forward progress temporarily impeded!" Read we were stuck for 5 days in the jungle during Sept. rainy season. This when the front drive shaft was ripped off by a tree stump buried in the mud. I did not know that was the issue at this point...


While there was no point in trying to dig out the front wheel to put sticks under it I was not yet aware of the missing front driveshaft and loss of 4-wheel drive.




Here in the world of FB Trailers, it is propane we use.

Differnt temp index on flame and diffent gas jets required. LOL

RV Parky has been a great investment as when you select a destination the program pops up all of the possible places to overnight, from Walmart, city and state parks to commercial RV sites. Also, includes Corps of Engineers and other such. Once you select one it reroutes your tip to add the locations. There is a feature to then also DL the GPS stops points as waypoints. Does not seem I can use this feature with the Ford Synch 3 navigation but apparently many can with other systems.

[k0wtz]

I am funning you this is just what 4 wheel drive does to us. in your case you couldn't avoid it but I have seen 4 wheelers who just couldn't resist the challenge you guessed it time to call the tow truck as the rig was on it frame!

been there done that! you worked hard to get out of there I know!

bob

[BatDude]

Yep 4-Wheel just allows most w/o experience or judgment to get stuck in a more inaccessible place.

In our case, there were only 2 paved roads in the country when we arrive in 1985. And given we were working on creating a large national park/protected area we needed to document the biodiversity during fall migration for the Neotropical migrant birds.


About halfway through our quarter of a century there I switched to bats and my wife big cats...





I am still doing bats but based in Mich. Carolyn has had to give up big cats....

Although on our trip she did get up close and personal with a black bear, then a grizzly bear cub... One might gather she is not a "Shrinking Violet" LOL.



Mom was 100 meters away in a tree... I kept a close watch on her (mom grizzly not the wife).




Enough rambling... still doing Scamp maintenance.

[jgilliam1955]

WOW! Great Trip & Pictures

[Mitzi Agnew-Giles]

O'Leno State Park is a nice place to stay just outside GVille.

[ZachO]

NICE. Scouts and Toyota FJ40 Landcruisers are my favorites...Early Broncos are cool too.

Hmm...My experience with bat biologists is that they're...interesting people...

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by k0wtz

wow sounds great my back surgery has set me back to just trouting for the summer but I want another trip ASAP. Maybe to Texas and N.M. again talk about bats how about Carlsbad N. M. we did that again in Feb.

We are planning on a little Quartzsite in Feb also.

fun fun fun

bob

oh that 13f Scamp looks ridiculous!!!

I have to agree , you cannot beat Northern NM especially up in the mountains in Jan , Feb or March . The snow and the sights are fantastic !!