Here I am -- 2 weeks from my last post -- still working on getting the Winnebago cleaned up and into her storage spot, and still trying to get back into the swing of being "home."
We have finally managed to get Winne cleaned inside and out and taken care of her post trip oil changes and chassis greasing. Messy work but necessary. So tomorrow I will get her parked in her storage spot - at least for a while. I will still need to do all the "winterizing" chores before winter sets in - but I can put that off for a month or so.
It will be nice to regain our driveway space once Winne gets moved -- but it will be short lived ... as our friends Patty and Jerry Mello will be visiting in their 1968 Ultravan next week as they complete the East bound leg of their own 2015 Coast-to-Coast Adventure. It will be fun having them visit for a few days on their first trip to Maine. I'm sure there will be touristy stuff on the agenda.
We have only been home for two weeks but I have managed to accomplish a few projects on my 1974 Honda Project. The seat that I recovered back in Yreka got reinstalled and came out looking pretty nice.
And then I replaced the exhaust system with a new 4 into 1 style aftermarket system found on Ebay. I like its looks much better than the 4 into 2 system it replaced and I also like the new sound ... quieter than the previous system ... yet muscular!
I also replaced the drive chain and brake lines leading to the front disc brake and replaced the non-stock front fender that came with the bike with a nice used stock replacement purchased on Ebay.
The pictures above were taken without the side covers installed as those are currently undergoing cleaning and some pre-painting restoration. So ... the bike is running and driving pretty well now and starting to look more like a real restored motorcycle. I figure I will play with it for another month or so and then totally disassemble it for painting and detailing prior to reassembly. I can do most of the work in the basement this winter - after I remove the engine. Now removing the engine might be interesting ... it is waay bigger and heavier than that little 125cc engine in the Yamaha.
Besides playing with my Honda project and getting Winne ready for storage we have spent some time getting reacquainted with Miss Taylor and Miss Sophie and trying to find our normal at-home routine. I'm sure it will appear soon but it hasn't shown up yet!
Wow - I am way behind! As you all probably know by now we made it home safe and mainly sound on Tuesday afternoon. When I last posted we were getting ready to leave Elkhart, IN last Friday --- and we did -- driving all the way to Conneaut, OH on the shores of Lake Erie - almost to the PA border. After surviving a wild night of "Halloween in August" at a very popular family camping campground -- we hit the road early Sunday morning headed further east to Owego, NY where we found a very nice city run campground for a much quieter evening. We continued down the road - heading further east on Monday into Massachusetts where we spent our last night "on-the-road" in Monson, MA.
We only had a couple hundred mile drive on Tuesday from Monson to Home - so we arrived around 1 PM. We spent the remainder of Tuesday and most of Wednesday settling back in to life at home all-the-while continuing to unload Winne -- bringing back in all the "stuff" we loaded some 7+ weeks ago as well as all the stuff we accumulated while we were in Minden/Yreka.
So we are home. 50 nights on-the-road later and some 7600 miles later - we are back home trying to figure out where we were when we left! As I recall -- right before we left I was getting Winne ready to travel. Well - now I have a bunch of Winne chores to accomplish in order to get her ready to store for a while. Winne did a great job once again! She reliably got us "there" and "back" with hardly a wimper. She did such a good job I may just treat her to some new shock absorbers and a set of brakes before we ask her to do it again! Those Koni shocks I installed some 100,000 miles ago were a great addition but I think it may be time to take the Koni folks up on their "lifetime" warranty. And while I'm at it - I think some new brake rotors and brake shoes may be in order. The brake shoes were replaced about 60,000 miles ago - and the originals had about 60,000 on them when they were replaced - so I think it's about time again.
I'm really not sure when I'm going to find time for all that Winne Work. Now that we are home it is time to catch up with grand kids, catch up on yard work, attend a few motorcycle shows I want to get to, work on my Honda restoration project, visit with D&J next week and Patty and Jerry in a couple more weeks - whew -- I'm tired already and the leaves haven't even started to fall ... yet!
So now for the much anticipated travel stats...
This trip we traveled 7,556 miles. The trip out west to Yreka, CA covered about 3,400 miles and the return trip was right around 4,200 miles since we made that excursion up to Washington State and then over to Montana before heading mostly for home. We finally picked up Washington for our 48th state while in our Motorhome! When you add in the 8,870 miles earlier this year that brings us to 16,426 travel miles for 2016 - a new annual record for these Maineiacs!
Winne drank right around 1,070 gallons of gas on this trip and we averaged just about 7.1 mpg. The average cost of fuel was $2.75 - right on budget for this trip but not as nice as the $2.13 average for our winter trip earlier this year! All-in-all I can't complain - the $0.39 per mile cost for this trip is a lot better than the $0.50 per mile costs we were experiencing just a year or so ago!
Toll costs however are another matter. Those seem to be getting worse each year. On the way West we were in kind of a hurry so we used toll roads pretty much all the way from Massachusetts to Chicago at a cost of $109.24. On the way home we used the same route but avoided most of the New York State Thruway for a total toll cost of $66.56. That tells me that driving the Thruway from Albany, NY to Buffalo, NY cost right at $46. I will admit that the Thruway condition is bit better than the "Southern Tier Expressway" route I took coming home ... but I'm not sure it's $46 better!
Regardless of the costs - I'm still glad we made the trip. We may not have made it out west before Nan passed away ... but we were there to help grieve shortly thereafter. We did what we had to do ... and so did she. In spite of all the grief that goes along with such an ordeal we still got to remember some good times while visiting with a bunch of relatives and friends ... and even got to see some new gorgeous country on the way home.
Nan would have approved.
