Florida to Idaho in four days

[Bucket Boy]

Here's a quick five day run from Florida to Idaho. Beth, my fiance, is "live blogging" (whatever that is...) our trip back. I convinced her to post it here too.

"Interstates are like food at McDonalds. Not so much a meal as a solution to a problem." -Glasseye, Sprinter Forum (http://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7135)

Unfortunately for us, this weekend will be heavy on both the Interstate and McDonald's solutions but despite the frantic pace, I'm super excited to be hitting the road with Forrest again for a few days. (Sprocket, we miss you!)

I'm flying to Florida this morning with Forrest to pick up this sweet ride:

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We land in Ft. Lauderdale at 8:30pm and have to be back in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho for class at 6pm on Monday.

I'm going to be blogging as much as I can (no smartphone for Team 3Up)...mostly from McDonalds.

[siswati]

My wife and I had the pleasure of welcoming Beth and Forrest into our home. What a lovely couple. As someone who gets emotionally attached to my vehicles, I am thrilled that my '02 Sprinter Van has found a great new home and I hope that it brings them as much joy as it did Kim and I. I know they will put a lot more miles on it than I did!!! Today they start their trip back to Idaho.

Boy Voyage Beth and Forrest - safe journeys and keep us posted of your travels

http://www.steynfamily.com/sprinter/forrest-beth-new-sprinter-owners-02sm.jpg

[Bucket Boy]

We left the house this morning at about five-fifteen and headed for Spokane—just the start of a long day of travel. On the flight, we talked a bunch with a gentleman in our row and shared with him our travel plans. He and Forrest kept up a nice banter (I looked up from my book to chime in from the aisle seat frequently, though!). As we touched down in Phoenix, we asked him if he would like to join us for lunch.

At lunch, we talked about a whole range of things—the conversation was quite spirited at times. I had so much fun! Meeting people on the road is one of the best parts about traveling so this happy meeting really brightened our day, not to mention that our layover flew by.

The flight to Ft. Lauderdale passed quickly enough and soon we were landing at the airport ready to meet our new van. The seller, Danny, picked us up at the airport and took us to his house. After he showed us all the features of the van and we had a chance to inspect it, he called for a bottle of prosecco to toast to the van’s new life and some pictures to document the transition.

Inside, we signed paperwork and shared travel stories—it’s always so wonderful to talk with others who love travel as much as we do. We were pleased to be able to assure him that the van is destined to have a future life full of adventure. We also learned that tomorrow will be the first time the van’s been out of Florida! We finally hit the road at almost 11 and started heading north.

We stopped for McDonalds in Palm Beach (and of course we chose the fancy McDonalds that didn’t have WiFi) and I took this sweet picture with the retro arches…actually turned out pretty cool. http://3upadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_4643-1024x768.jpg (http://3upadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_4643.jpg)

About Orlando, Forrest decided he was nice and awake and sent me to bed. I was awoken at six in Tallahasee—my turn to drive!

[glasseye]

YAH! You go, gang! :rad::popcorn:

My foot was glued like lead to the floor.
I said, "That's all there is, boys. There ain't no more".

Peter

[seans]

That's the way to do it with a new Sprinter - drive it across the country! I did that with mine about a week mine was delivered.. to California from the east coast, and back. Have great fun! If you are trading off driving day and night, you will make Idaho well before four days are up...

[sully]

That is the way to do it. I delivered from Michigan to Maine when I bought mine. Buying Sprinters is a national game...

[Bucket Boy]

Rosepine, Louisiana We arrived in Rosepine after a solid seventeen hours of driving! Today was pretty uneventful—we ate Subway only a hundred miles before stopping for gas next to a Cajun seafood hole-in-the-wall that looked awesome. Such is life, however, when you’re trying to make miles, quick food is the need at that point.

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These long days are hard but still wonderful; I’m so happy I came. We’ll go an hour not talking but it feels good to be rolling down the road observing the country around you. Of course, this way of traveling also reminds me how much I can’t wait until the next time we’re able to just cruise at our own speed so I can stop to hold the baby alligators at the tourist trap, eat awesome food, and poke around small towns.

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We’re spending the night here in Louisiana with Rick (a motorcycle buddy of Forrest’s who we visited in Tennessee a couple years ago) and his wife Roxanne.  Tomorrow we’ll take off nice and early for the longest day of our trip—a 1,200 miler. We’re hoping to make it to Farmington, New Mexico by about 1am…

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[Old Crows]

Nice thread! Expect heavy rain T-storms LA, E Texas to San Antonio, Hill Country, Austin, Waco moving toward Dallas - FW next 24+ hrs.

Are you doing I 10 or 35?

Cheers!

[sikwan]

Oh wow! I can't believe you bought the Ultimate Windsurfing Sprinter Van (http://www.steynfamily.com/ultimate_windsurfing_van_02.htm)!

Congratulations! :clapping:

[Bucket Boy]

Sorry about the lack of updates guys. We'll finish the report/pictures tonight.
Were home safe and sound. Even made it to class one hour early. (I didn't study for the midterm at all....but we did fine)

3,513 miles total. (13% of the miles that were on it!) :thumbup:

[Bucket Boy]

Nice thread! Expect heavy rain T-storms LA, E Texas to San Antonio, Hill Country, Austin, Waco moving toward Dallas - FW next 24+ hrs.

Are you doing I 10 or 35?

We crossed from Shreveport to Amarillo. Something different this time.
Ya- It was RAINING most of the day. Little bit of flooding along the way.

[Bucket Boy]

The alarm went off at 4am and we were up, dressed, and in the van by 4:11. On our way out of Leesville, Forrest found a doughnut shop that was open (4:13am). I've always sworn that I don't really like doughnuts but that was the first fresh one I'd ever had and I had to admit that they were quite good.

We headed north. I took the opportunity to sleep in the back  until we were about an hour outside of Shreveport where I swapped into the drivers seat. Forrest tried to sleep but the condition of I-49 was a little rough for him in the back (I maintain that I would have slept just fine!).

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As we cruised through Dallas, it started to rain. And it rained. And rained. All the way across Texas it rained. It was about 40 and raining (what happened to going south where it's warm?!). We did get a pretty decent hamburger at "Giant Burger" in Rhome (Forrest had to fix a busted power steering cooler line in the rain though) And then we kept on driving. After a brief stop in Amarillo for windshield wiper blades we cruised into New Mexico.

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In New Mexico there was suddenly elevation changes. There were arroyos and mesas. And then it got dark. It also started to get cold. We watched the temperature fall from 40 down to 24. I-40 deposited us in Albuquerque and we headed on towards Farmington.

On US 550 heading into the mountains we ran into a snow. The road headed up in to the mountains: 3,500 feet, 4000 feet, 4500 feet, and topped at on the Continental Divide at about 7,300 feet. Approaching the Divide, there were about 6" of snow on the ground and the driving was tense. The Sprinter is great for a lot of things but snow driving is not one of them. Forrest describes the Sprinters handling of high speed snow as a "skateboard with tiller steering".  As we "crested" the Divide, although the road didn't loose much elevation quickly we passed out of the storm onto dry pavement.

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We'd planned on stopping in Farmington for the night but as we reached Farmington we decided Shiprock would be a better place from which to get to Four Corners for sunrise. In Shiprock, we quickly realized there were no ideal places to stay the night and figured that we could camp no problem out at Four Corners.

WRONG. After a bumpy (Forrest says, "Insane but fun!") ride down US64, we reached the gate to the monument. This was also the first time I'd been in Arizona! Open from 8am-5pm (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other miscellaneous days). It was approximately 1am local time. (I think. Honestly, between time zones and Daylights Savings Time I was really confused about what time it was most of the time.)

So instead we kept driving. We didn't quite make it to 4 Corners but we did drive through the four states within a 20 minute period so that's close enough, right? Then, there we were in the middle of nowhere and it was definitely time to sleep. We drove up a small dirt road just out of sight of the road and crashed.

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We woke up to a glorious but chilly morning in the desert. We took some pictures and then headed for Moab. We pulled in to our friend's house for some coffee, catching up, and looking at the La Sals. We went out for lunch and basked in the glorious sunshine. The weather was so nice I really wished we could have stayed longer but we wanted to drive through Castle Valley on our way out of town to check out our wedding venue in person.

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I love the drive out to Castle Valley. The canyon is simply gorgeous. Castle Valley won't be a shabby location for a wedding either!

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Soon it was time to hit the road for real though. We arrived at Meghan (http://www.weskislow.com) and Eric's house in Salt Lake at about 9:30. They were kind enough to welcome us into their house, talk with us awhile, let us crash at their house and leave at 5am. Making it to Salt Lake set us up well for the final push back to class. We actually had enough time to stop and start a fire at the house to take the edge off the cold before picking up our puppy. We also made it to class about an hour and a half early for some last minute studying.

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After class, we wrapped up the trip by heading over to Spokane to pickup my jeep and then heading home. We arrived back home at about 9:30pm.

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Total mileage in van: 3,513 miles (plus 200 miles in the Cherokee and a plane flight from Spokane to Ft. Lauderdale)
Door-to-door: 4 days, 15 hours  

[Seerpsy]

What was you fuel comsumption for the trip? On one of your pics by the college I see the fuel door is ajar. I have done that a few times. The way the door covers the fuel door is nice engineering. What a wonderful and beautiful country we live in. :thumbup:

[Bucket Boy]

What was you fuel comsumption for the trip? On one of your pics by the college I see the fuel door is ajar. I have done that a few times. The way the door covers the fuel door is nice engineering. What a wonderful and beautiful country we live in. :thumbup:

I just filled up across the street, guess I'm getting old. :cry:

[glasseye]

a great adventure. thanks for taking us along with you. Can anything compare with waking up in the desert in your sprinter ?

[Type2Teach]

I just filled up across the street, guess I'm getting old. :cry:

No, it's just that for people who aren't used to the placement of the fuel door, it's easy to get out of the van and slide your body against the door and have it pop open. I did it a few times when I first got my van. :smirk:

[icarus]

Nice van, nice trip, nice write up.

I bought mine in Gettysburg PA, on a Monday. Leaving there on Monday afternoon, I arrived in Bellingham, WA Thursday afternoon.

We routinely drive from Puget Sound to Maine (and back) in 4-5 days depending, or from Puget Sound to Thunder Bay, ON in 2.5 days. Long trips on in my blood,, I was an OTR driver for a long time.

Icarus

[Mrdi]

How many miles on the van when you picked it up from Danny?
I think many of the Sprinter fans followed Danny's build...
One of the originals.:thumbup:
Congrats!!