Thanksgiving
Warm Thanksgiving wishes to all of our friends in the United States.
Lorraine and I hope you enjoy a wonderful day with your family and loved ones.
Myakka River Motorcoach Resort
Our front yard. Such incredible views from our coach at Myakka River Motorcoach Resort. We love it here so much that we extended our stay until the end of January. It is quiet, peaceful with a wonderful community of people. With less than 100 sites, it is also an intimate spot. Close to so many services yet tranquil and calm.
Here is where you enter Myakka. Motorcoaches will park and unhook on the far side and register at the main clubhouse.
The clubhouse features some wonderful amenities and a beautiful swimming area.
Each evening we have been rewarded with beautiful sunsets from our site.
Our coach is right at the riverfront. The sites are large and landscaped with good privacy.
There is a boardwalk that spans the front of the resort property.
One path of the boardwalk leads out to a pier.
Here are a few of the coaches on the riverfront sites.
Roughly two-thirds of the sites are owned and many owners have built up their sites with coach houses.
And the inside sites are also very nice with water views and fountains.
We weren’t sure what to expect coming to Myakka. It is a gem in this part of Florida and we are thoroughly enjoying our time here.
Fuel Costs Southern Leg
We made five fuel stops on our way south from Ontario, Canada to the Myakka River Motorcoach Resort in Florida:
- Erie, PA
- Morgantown, WV
- Wytheville, VA
- Bowman, SC
- Dade City, FL
I had made a rough estimate for our fuel costs. The trip is about 2,400 kilometres or 1,500 miles. The coach can get roughly 7 miles to the gallon which means the trip would require 215 gallons. Given the topography on our route — we had lots of mountains to climb — I thought the miles per gallon estimate would be lower than 7 mpg and I planned on using 250 gallons for the trip.
The average price for diesel at the end of October, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, was $3.355 USD per gallon. Based on my planned usage of 250 gallons, the cost of fuel would be $838.75 USD. I rounded that up to $850 USD or roughly $1,120 CAD.
I wound up putting $1,500 CAD into the budget for diesel fuel in November.
We purchased 238.1463 gallons of diesel although I am sitting on about 75 gallons in the tank at our site. We started the trip with roughly that same amount of fuel so it evens out it terms of overall consumption.
We paid $809.19 USD in fuel costs to get to Florida or roughly $1,060 CAD. Slightly below my estimate and well below our budget.
It looks as though our fuel efficiency was about as expected. We wound up putting on a few hundred miles more than planned and we averaged 6.723 mpg.
I travelled at 59 miles per hour on the Interstates for most of the trip. Coming down on the last day of our southern leg, I increased that speed to 62 miles per hour on the Interstates. However, we had a fair amount of travel time on rural highways and mountain roads. There was also a lot of construction on the roads. All of that would have impacted our fuel consumption.
This information gives me useful insight into planning our leg from Florida to California. We do that drive in February although I hope to avoid buying diesel fuel in California. Diesel prices there are way above the U.S. average at $4.00 or more per gallon.
Myakka River Motorcoach Resort
Look at them awnings! They stayed put until we wanted them to deploy.
After a long 800km drive — almost 10 hours of continuous driving behind the wheel — we pulled into Myakka River Motorcoach Resort just minutes before closing.
They had a special welcome sign just for us at the check-in. A very nice touch to a stunning resort property. Thrilled that we get to spend a month here.
It was late and I did not have much time to take photos but I did snap a few of our site. We face the river with an incredible view.
More details about the park over the next few days.
Hilton Head Island Motorcoach Resort
We arrived to Hilton Head Island Motorcoach Resort late yesterday afternoon. Rain followed us the whole way down.
Lorraine went to the office to register while I unhooked our coach. Much to my dismay, we had “lost” one of our tow bar hitch pins.
We had made one, and only one, stop on our drive down from Mountain Falls. And that was at a Pilot in Bowman, South Carolina. Before I started to fuel the coach, I did a quick circle check to make sure everything was fine with the rig. And it was.
I guess I should have checked again before we left.
There was a pretty rough group of people in the lane beside us in a black pickup truck. They were not at the pump itself, more like twenty feet or so behind it. Outside of my visual range.
I really didn’t think much about them. There are rough people throughout Canada and the United States.
I was shocked to see that a hitch pin had been removed from the tow bar. Fortunately, the main locking pin that attaches the tow bar to the baseplate of the car was still in place. I’d hate to think what might have happened if we had lost that pin as we were travelling.
Our mission later this morning is to find some spare pins before we resume our journey south tomorrow.
Hilton Head looks best at night however I did not have my camera with me when we walked through the park last evening.
I did walk through this morning and here are a few shots to share with you.
This park has a lot of vegetation. Trees provide a canopy over much of the area and the landscaping is well developed. Most of the sites are occupied by Class A rigs. Very few Class B or C rigs. Fifth wheels are not permitted.
Some wonderful rigs like this old Prevost. Hard to make out, but the upper shades read: “Marty’s World”.
And a newer Prevost.
And look who’s here? Ryan from sortofhomeless.com. I’ve followed him for a while. And, since Lorraine and I currently do not have a stick and brick property, we can relate to being sort of homeless. Or, as someone has told us, not homeless, home free.
