Back Home in Benson

We arrived back “home” in Benson safe and sound yesterday afternoon, after a little trouble with road construction. For ten miles between Red Rock and Marana, I-10 was virtually stopped, merging from two lanes down to one. The first six miles of that took us a full hour.

We’ve had a grand seven months: we stayed overnight in two states (Arkansas and North Dakota) we hadn’t visited by RV before, we participated in grandson Jason’s and Crystal’s wedding, we took a boat trip into Hell’s Canyon, slept in Devils Den State Park, walked around Devil’s Tower, and saw aliens at Roswell, NM. We’ve been in big old churches and small modern chapels. We paid too much for some RV parks and absolutely nothing in some others. We walked white sand dunes in New Mexico and pink sand dunes in Utah.

We had originally intended to travel just to Arkansas and Oklahoma this year, spending a good deal of time in both states. When we got the word that the wedding was on for sure, we changed directions and ended up traveling at least three times as far as we had planned. However, It was a wonderful change of directions and plans, and led to some great adventures. Besides Jason and Crystal’s wedding, we were able to participate in our friends Jim and Ronnie Floding’s 60th wedding anniversary.

Here’s a map of where this year’s adventure carried us, from Benson and back to Benson. You'll want to click on "View Larger Map" below the map to see the whole thing. Then, if you have the time, you can play with the map, make it bigger and smaller, look at a satellite image or terrain. You can click on the blue markers to see the names of the towns, or the blue lines to see what day we drove between stops, and how far we drove. To get back here, click the Back arrow at top left of your screen.


View Larger Map

If you are pressed for time, you may want to skip over some of this. It’s statistics on distance, mileage, fuel prices, etc.

Suzy drove the motorhome a total of 5718 miles in just under seven months. I drove the car 3129 miles in the same time. We moved the motorhome from one place to another 53 times, driving an average of 106 miles each time, once only 7 miles and once as far as 167 miles.

Gasoline? Motorhome, 799.6 gallons, total cost $3,015.06, average price per gallon $3.77; highest per gallon price, $4.13 at Costco in Helena, MT; lowest per gallon price, $2.969 in Arizona City, AZ at a Petro Stopping Place truck stop. Average miles per gallon, 7.02; average gasoline cost per mile, $0.54.

Car, 184.7 gallons, total cost $710.54, average price per gallon $3.85; highest per gallon price, $4.21 at an Exxon station in White Sulphur Springs, MT; lowest per gallon price, $3.31 at a Valero station in Alamagordo, NM. Average miles per gallon, 16.9; average gasoline cost per mile, $0.23.

That’s all for this epic journey along … Our Life on Wheels!