With record high gas prices, are your camping plans affected this summer?
I know we may take a few short trips but I don't think we will go too far away from home. I do have a plan to reserve an F-150 Lightning but I don't think it's possible to get it for this camping season. If I'm lucky maybe I will have it next camping season. It's also my understanding you will get about half the range towing as you do when you're not towing. I will also need to figure out where we can charge when we are towing our trailer.
Dan
Most of our camping is done close to home. We're fortunate to have several CGs close. No long trips planned this year, at least not yet.
I'm not doing any camping at the moment. I sold my camper and truck about five years ago. At the moment I don't have any time anyway since I work 6-days from open to close. I do hope to convince my wife to get back into it some day. She didn't like living in the trailer. In her defense, my back went out and she had to deal with the tanks which she was not happy about.
CamperDan I love that F-150 Lightning. Of all the EV trucks at the moment I like it the best. I do have a Tesla model 3 on order since last September which according to my account is suppose to deliver between July 6 and August 17, but, I may end up trying to delay it, I don't want to cancel, but things have been pretty slow this spring in our shop. It does not feel like the best time to buy a new car for us.
Good luck with your reservation, make sure you check with your local dealers to see if any of them will just sell at MSRP, lots of occasions where dealers are putting huge markups on both the F-150 Lightning and the Mach-E. I have read so many horror stories of people going to pick-up their reserved EV and get surprised by a $30,000 markup or more.
No Camper dno? That's sad. Can't tell you how many times the wife said she wanted a hybrid. That's when I tell her OK, new TV, new camper plus storage fees. She adds that up and changes her mind, LOL. Setting up the pup is getting to be a chore though with my back issues. Being old (71) doesn't help either.
Daughter and SIL have a TT, store it locally but that's extra fuel to pick it up and drop it off. Storage by us is at a premium now too, their rates have gone up $20/month in 2 years. It's to the point they are considering going permanent next year for about the same cost.
Sadly no camper at the moment. I took a real job after I sold PUX, then didn't have any time to do anything and the truck cost me about $200/month at the time for Diesel. We also bought a house so our expenses went up from living in the Camper. I traded the truck and trailer and got a plug in hybrid which saved us quite a bit of money in fuel.
My wife is not a big fan of camping but she loved the Excursion because it was comfortable on long trips and she could put a ton of stuff in it. We have the Ford Fusion Energi now and while it's super economical, you can't take much stuff since the EV battery takes up at least half the trunk.
After we get a new house I hope to try and get another camper maybe even a class b or small class C. The economic situation needs to improve a bit, the housing and rental prices have gone through roof here in Phoenix in the past two years.
We've been lucky enough to keep our old '94 Dutchmen going, although it sat under cover 2000-2007 because the roof leaked. In 2007 is when I found PUX and found the best way to fix the leak. Son and I fixed the wood rot, fixed the leak, cleaned it up and we were back to camping. Not long after moved to a house with a garage so it was kept covered. When I retired in 2013 and was tired of moving for my job the goal became to buy our first house. Lots of looking and in 2016 we found our house with a detached extra wide 2 car garage. One side for the pup, one side for my workbench & tools. Also lucky to buy while rates were low and the housing boom hadn't started. Five years in and the appraisal value of our place has increased close to 40%.
I've had three different campers but the first one, the popup is the one I miss the most. We had the best memories with it. I did like living in the RV, living was cheap and moving was easy. I feel like there was a fair bit of freedom living that way that is hard to replicate when you are tied down by all the things in your house.
Dno, with that Fusion, is that the plug-in hybrid version. Is that the one you plug in and can run on battery, what happens if your battery dies?
Quote from: CamperDan on Jun 13, 2022, 06:48 PMDno, with that Fusion, is that the plug-in hybrid version. Is that the one you plug in and can run on battery, what happens if your battery dies?
Yes it is a plug-in hybrid, if it runs out of battery it will just switch over to the gas engine. Mostly I would say it's a good car but I have come to the conclusion that 20 miles of electric range really isn't enough. I think the minimum useful electric range is 50-60 miles. In Washington winter would kill my range since I had to run the heater and the battery does not do well in cold. Washington summers are great. I worked 10 miles from home and in the summer could go to work and home completely on battery. I have gone as much as 4 months without buying gas and my gas mileage would be over 100 mpg.
In Phoenix my shop is 2.5 miles from my apartment. I can't charge at home but I am able to run the charger out of the back door of the shop and keep it charged that way. I only use gas when we go grocery shopping so I'm buying gas every 7-9 weeks. I have to worry about the summer heat here, when it gets over 100 degrees it want's to use the gas engine. Fortunately it's more or less down hill on the way home and it's cool enough in the morning I can still use battery.
Quote from: dno on Jun 13, 2022, 05:39 PMI've had three different campers but the first one, the popup is the one I miss the most. We had the best memories with it. I did like living in the RV, living was cheap and moving was easy. I feel like there was a fair bit of freedom living that way that is hard to replicate when you are tied down by all the things in your house.
I love our old popup. We've looked at all kind of campers over the years, most of the hybrids and TTs have so few windows they make me feel trapped in a tin box. When the first one-piece ABS Coleman roof came out, we almost traded our Dutchmen for one. Glad we didn't now.
As much as living on the road in a MH sounds nice, now I don't think I could give up all my tools. That was our retirement plan long ago. Then life got in the way.
We sold much of our possessions and put the rest in storage then moved down to Hell Centro, California (El Centro) I love the living in the RV part, wasn't in love with El Centro, nothing going on there, but my wife was happy to be near her family for a while. I found I was not quite as attached to things as I thought I was. I didn't have much trouble letting go. I will say that an all season 5th wheel might have been more comfortable in those 116 degree summers.
I could give up lots of my stuff actually if it came to it. The fact that 3/4 kids and 6/8 grandkids live close would make it harder. We always figured the kids would move away and we joked about taking a MH and going from one kids house to another depending on the season. One big benefit I see of living in a MH would be the ability to move where the weather suits you. As long as you weren't tied down to a job.
Moving away from my daughter was the hardest part. She had just graduated from High School when we moved to El Centro, we got back to Washington in time for her wedding, no way I would miss that. Moved away again about 6 months after my grand daughter was born.
Yes, the grandkids got me wrapped around their little fingers. We've been fortunate enough to see 5 of the 8 born. I took three months off work when one granddaughter was born so daughter could keep going to college. Seems like just the other day our first was born, and he is off to college next year. His brother is a motorcycle nut, belongs to a team in the UK. At 13 he's been on two wheels more than two feet. Jr. is taking us over this summer to watch him race.
I got rid of everything that I couldn't fit in the 5th wheel or the truck, including the house!! Have been full timing ever since I retired 3.5 years ago. I'm now working again seasonally doing Maintenance at a campground in Maine, spend my winters floating around Florida, using Thousand Trails Parks exclusively since I have no nightly fee's at their campgrounds.
Managed to get from Florida to Maine while gas prices were still floating around $4 per gallon, it's gone up another buck since I've been here. But looks like it's starting to trickle back down a little now.
Looks like it's trickled down here a little too. Gas station across the street from my shop was down about 20 cents, just paid $5.05 at Sam's club. Think it was $49.12 for a total of 9.7 gallons which is actually less than I paid last time I got gas which was a couple months ago
Since our Ford gets very little use anymore, the gas in it was when it was still under $4. 3,000 miles in 18 months. My mechanic said I should change oil more often than once a year, LOL.
Quote from: 4Campers on Jun 30, 2022, 08:04 AMSince our Ford gets very little use anymore, the gas in it was when it was still under $4. 3,000 miles in 18 months. My mechanic said I should change oil more often than once a year, LOL.
LOL, I actually went just over a year this last time on my oil change. I work open to close, Monday through Saturday. There are not many places open on Sunday. I think my total miles driven this past year was less than 4000, and around half of those miles were just off the battery where the engine never ran.
I used to pay just over $40/oil change before I left Washington. My first Oil change here in Phoenix was almost $130 at a JiffyLube near my shop. The engine in my car is 4 cylinders and uses about 5qts of oil. When I had the Excursion with the 7.3 liter diesel engine it was around $125 to get the oil change so I had a hard time reconciling why it cost as much for this little car as it did my big truck. Keep in mind that first oil change was prepandemic. Long before the gas hikes and price increases on all things to live. I paid just under $100 for the last one a month ago at a different JiffyLube further away from me, and that was the cheapest place I found.
Jiffy Lube charged me $119 to change the Acadia oil one time. Last time I went there.
I've got a local mechanic shop, been going there since the owner still worked there maybe 8-10 years ago. New owner was one of the mechanics. He discounts me if I pay cash. Oil change for the Ford was $40 cash. Oil change for the Acadia was $63 on charge card.
I don't put many miles on my truck and half of what I do is towing. We generally don't go more than 2 hours from home - 4 hrs is a long trip - so even with $5/gal fuel, that cost is not a major factor.