I might be susceptible to peer pressure.

[SKIDMARC]

Great thread!!!

 

[charlyox]

Nice Chebbies.

 

[Taboma]

Lovin this thread, having seriously missed Hula's road trip threads.

 

[Warlock1]

Hell I'm over here plotting the course and checking the motorcycle numbers to see which Supercross rider you are referring to.......

 

[Waterjunky]

Good times! The wife and I are plotting a new RV and have discussed a trip like this if needed to retrieve.

 

[CJ_Donahue]

I would love you to write a travel guide. RV across America. I will buy a ton to give out to friends.

 

[phuggit]

Awesome read and your story telling skills are on point.

 

[whiteworks]

After the toilet swap, we headed over to Billy’s boudin and Cracklins, I’d never heard of a boudin or a cracklin up until this point, but after shoe horning The rig into the parking lot we made our way inside. Obvioulsy this stuff is good buy the line around the inside of the building as well as 20 cars deep at the drive through window. While in line we were talking to people around us and being advised on all things boudin and cracklin. Needless to say it was amazing and I’m a big fan, so much to the the fact before we left we filled the freezer up with Boudin balls and bought a big bag of cracklin that lasted all the way across Texas.

I have no idea whats on this stuff, but I’m guessing cocaine is one of the ingredients

 

[whiteworks]

I’m not sure who’s cousin got the highway paving contract in Louisiana, but fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. They paved the I 10 in 20’ sections and each section is not level with the one before or after, it’s like sand highway whoops at glamis, rough ride even in this plush pusher.

 

[whiteworks]

Well shit, all good things never last.....

Alarms start going off, sumbitch is overheating, were on a 4 lane section of highway with a grass ravine median and almost no median to pullover on.

we pull over on the median and and were on the white line, semis blowing past about 12” away and this mother fucker is rocking like 6” from the wind push. I’m like fuck this bullshit let’s get away from this thing right now. If it gets plowed we’re not gonna fare well. We get out and go about 50 away and behind it where the debri field will not get us if it gets taken out by a semi. I have my phone ready to film it as it will make some great footage as this thing blows apart.

after a bit we get back in and limp it down the road again until it overheats again. We had dumped all the coolant, that was for sure but needed to get to a safe place to check it out. Two more cool down/limp sections and we got it off the highway.

 

[2FORCEFULL]

2 guys....1 rv......what year is the coach???? does it take def???? for some reason I thought you said one year old some where...

 

[thmterry]

I’m not sure who’s cousin got the highway paving contract in Louisiana, but fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. They paved the I 10 in 20’ sections and each section is not level with the one before or after, it’s like sand highway whoops at glamis, rough ride even in this plush pusher.

I made that mistake once, I will never drive the 10 through New Orleans ever again. Beat the shit out of me.

 

[whiteworks]

Running across this bullshit section of highway for an extended period of time ended up breaking. A plastic 90* fitting that is on a cooling line routed through the DEF tank to keep it from freezing in colder temps, it cracked and we dumped all the coolant on the highway. We got our Walmart tools out and did a quick road side repair and then limped the coach over to a fueling station and topped off the cooling system.

from that point we made our way over toa freight liner repair facility a few miles away. We pulled in there about 4:30pm om a Friday afternoon, they were closing up the bays as fast as they could to get out of there for the weekend. We bought a new fitting and spoke with a tech, he came out and looked at our repair job and said it was better than putting the POS fitting back on, as hes replaced a lot of those and had to put them back on because of warranty. He advised us to run it the way we had it repaired and never look back LOL.

up and rolling again I found an RV park in Texas and we headed there for the night.

 

[2FORCEFULL]

lol....what did you do to poor ed when you were kids.... he won't bend over in front of you with out his pepper spray handy...

good job getting her going!!!!

 

[2FORCEFULL]

freight shakers ride good on good roads... horrible on bad...but, there's a ton of things you can do to make them better... on for sure is they like to be loaded down... running empty I would drop the air pressure in the tires..if you run across the scales..70 psi will get you 9k in front and 17k in the rear..

 

[Joe mama]

Thanks for giving us a ride. You can’t make this shit up..

 

[whiteworks]

AJ advised me to stop at Buc ces in Texas as it’s something to see, worlds largest gas station/store. It was huge, no idea how many gas pumps but a stupid amount for days.

we pulled in late night to our Texas RV park, woke up in the am to a very pleasant scene. This spot was right on some river just a few miles north of the 10. I couldn’t find it again if I tried, but it’s a good spot.

from there I wanted to check out new braunfels as I have a friend who’s been setting up shop there for the last few years, he was not in town at this time but we cut through there to check it out and see some back country. Real nice spot for sure, I’ll be back.

 

[stephenkatsea]

Good cajun boudin is outstanding. Look's like you found Billy's in Scott LA. The town of Scott has some of the best boudin around. Don's Specialty Meats is also good. They're right on the I-10 frontage road. I've only purchased boudin fresh in Scott. But, many of those places will ship to anywhere in the country. True Cajun Country is that region south of I-10 between Lafayette and Lake Charles. Those born there are proudly referred to as a Coon Ass. It is not at all a racial slur. It is a term of endearment used by those in the area. Tuff hard working people who can be a little stand offish. We lived and worked in the area and fortunately we were accepted.

 

[whiteworks]

Next on the radar was some legit Texas BBQ, I located a spot that had great reviews and looked like we could fit the rig, we drove past like 5 BBQ joints in this town before we pulled up on Buzzies. This place did not disappoint, the Georgia BBQ was good, but this stuff was on a different level. We loaded the freezer up with a bunch of the jalapeño cheese sausage to bring back. Texas hill country was pretty amazing, I plan on getting back into that area and spending some time In the future.

 

[whiteworks]

After the badass BBQ it was hammer down for San Antonio, i wasn’t able to find a good spot we liked in San Antonio and was getting sketched out because of the proximity to Ciudad Juarez, we rolled through and held up in Los cruces New Mexico Walmart for the night. This was a long push across, poor Ed had two cocktails on this leg and we were both pretty beat by Los cruces, we went to some Denny’s type joint late night to grub and just started laughing because we were wrung out. but in what was turning into a Walmart tour of the USA we went and bought more shit, the idea was to have the motorhome pretty well stocked by the time we got it back to cali

one thing I noticed was that the same people were in every Walmart all the way across the country, no idea how they kept up with us

 

[whiteworks]

So here is why a dope ass pusher is a good thing, you hit some buttons and the shades drop, you hit some more buttons and the thing self levels, you hit some buttons and the slide pop out, and you just turned a shitty Walmart parking lot into a very nice place to stay for the night. In the morning it business as usual, shit shower shave, hit the buttons and get moving.

at some point in New Mexico we hit the fire works stands, I hopped on the iPad and started reading reviews on which place had the best stuff, and we hit that place hard. I’m not sure how much we spent but it was $1000. If it was $50.00 with so many options and no adult supervision things got out of control a little bit at the fire works shop.

 

[whiteworks]

Quick push on to Arizona with a stop at the yacht club in quartzsite to grab a burger and watch the afternoon karaoke action and then back to Cali.

I hadn’t been to the yacht Club in years, it’s a snowbird dive bar where the youngest person is deep into there 60’s and considered a youngster in company. Every afternoon this joint fires up and they all get loaded and have a good time. There is offsite horse betting, booze, karaoke and the same elderly people from 20 years ago are still there getting after it. (Most likely new old people but they are carrying the torch)

these types of places are my favorite, it’s raw Americana at its finest, real people who are doing there own thing in there own time. Drinking, dancing, fucking, and fighting, that’s what goes down in these spots. If we are all lucky enough we’ll make it to some shit hole like this and live out our elderly days loaded up on booze giving the grim reaper a run for his money, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

This leads me to why this thread is titled “I may be susceptible to peer pressure” I thought the idea of a big pusher was way down the road, but I think it may be time to get into this shit and drag my ever living wife and daughter around to see some things.

So be honest, after reading this thread did you go look at some pushers online? Peer pressure is a mother fucker, your welcome

 

[rush1]

I've done that trip in my Holiday Rambler navigator a dozen times with the family, I'm retiring in a month and me and the wife are gonna do it again, Love it

 

[RiverDave]

We went looking last year and went to the quartzite rv show ready to buy.

We rented a Fleetwood discovery and went to glamis for the weekend and enjoyed it.

One thing I came away with.. renting might be a little work because you have to bring all your stuff.. but not having to own maintain and store it seems to make sense.

www.rvshare.com was pretty amazing. You can rent pretty much anything ya want and try before you buy so to speak.
We discovered for our purposes we pretty much require a bunk bed setup and an overhead sleeper over the drivers area. It would remove all the clutter of the bedding in the main room etc.

We will likely end up buying one this summer or this fall.

Overall great story telling.

 

[Sleek-Jet]

Surprised you didn't run into TPC at the Yacht Club.

 

[Taboma]

I see that Buzzie's BBQ is in Kerrville Tx. A couple of years ago my life long insurance agent moved there and really seems content. He's always forwarding me some listing from his community which is essentially a live-in wildlife preserve. Seems by the entire development being fenced in and raising rather exotic antelopes and deer, they all get an Agricultural property tax exemption that provides them substantial savings. Numbers of these game animals are sold annually and go to the HOA.

Someday we're going to check this place out and now I'll stop at Buzzie's

Fun adventure and yes, I'm feeling the peer pressure, thanks for letting us ride along.

 

[CarolynandBob]

Great Story. We spent 3 years doing what you guys did. Was an absolute blast. Not to turn it too political, but we found that if it was a blue state the rest stops were shit. If it was a red state they were pretty nice. Exception was the NJ turnpike, but they were not typical rest areas. They were service areas where they had restaurants, gas stations and parking to rest.

I would encourage everyone to do what you did. I agree about a big rig and back country areas. We were about 65 ft. There is an app called copilot. About $60 and it kept us out of trouble, Bought that after we ended up driving on top of a levee dirt road south of Lafayette LA. When we went to get off the levee I thought we were going to roll over.

You should try The Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Beautiful and interesting areas.

 

[whiteworks]

Last summer I flew up to Idaho and rented a 28 class c from a private owner, a couple of my buddies from highschool live up there and have been after me to visit. We cruised that thing all over Idaho for a week, they sat in the back and got fucked up, I drove LOL

it was a nice rig and we were able to get in some rad places a 40’ would not have been able to. I’m not sure what the right rig is for us yet, I have a sprinter light duty camper deal but my wife and daughter and dog are kinda fancy and after two days they are over that program and ready for some luxuries we use it to travel between houses, hotels/resorts but with this while corona shit, I’m not real stoked on shared spaces at this point in time. I’m thinking tow the sprinter van behind a pusher

 

[whiteworks]

Plan this summer was sprinter van up to Vancouver island then down through montana Wyoming colorado, renting pads and hitting resorts along along the way. I may say fuck it and just do the whole loop in the van and they can deal with that LOL

I canceled a Europe trip I had planned for the fall, this pandemic is fucking up my program

 

[CarolynandBob]

We had a class C like the one in your pic, We towed a jeep. Went to Yellowstone, Yosemite and a bunch of other places. It was great for a couple of weeks at a time. Had it for 11 yrs. Sold it when we went full timing. Was too small. Got a 40ft 5th wheel and a dually.

 

[Sleek-Jet]

It'd be a PITA to flat tow a Sprinter I would think.

Get a Jeep to use as a TOAD, especially for exploring the Western US.

 

[DrunkenSailor]

Great thread and extremely well wtitten. Thanks for taking us along.

 

[Waterjunky]

Peer pressure, no, interesting read, Yes! interesting timing because I am looking at parting ways with my truck and cabover for a super C. I have been looking at this for several months now and just getting ready to pull the trigger. I am probably going to look at one this weekend. We are trying to find the sweet spot in price and age. I may have found it around 2015 to 2017 give or take.

 

[clarence]

Canna wait to retire and travel.

Thanks for the reminder.

 

[That Guy]

Great story....thanks.

 

[lakemadness]

You can rent some dope ass RV's and save a college tuition type cash and all the bullshit that come with owning it. Thats in our future. No way I would ever own an RV.

Great road trip!

 

[sirbob]

Somehow I thought the Hockey team was going to come back into play!

I’ve done a few of these trips - we did a loop from OC to Colorado up through Wyoming and Montana and back down the California coast in a rented 40 fleetwood.

It was just before the movie RV came out with Robbin Williams - it would take way to long to tell that story, but suffice it to say - he should of talked to me before he wrote that movie. Our trip was way more tragic in a hilarious kind of way in hind site.

Although it wasn’t funny at the time!

 

[NorCalRiverRat]

You can rent some dope ass RV's and save a college tuition type cash and all the bullshit that come with owning it.

this is excellent advice. I really wish I had gone this route, I would have been THOUSANDS ahead.

 

[whiteworks]

You can rent some dope ass RV's and save a college tuition type cash and all the bullshit that come with owning it. Thats in our future. No way I would ever own an RV.

Great road trip!

this is excellent advice. I really wish I had gone this route, I would have been THOUSANDS ahead.

It seems to me like there is a sweet spot with these things on the secondary market in the $60-100k range where they have taken the depreciation hit but still have some life left in them, run it for 5 years and then sell it for for a $10-15k loss over purchase price.

I talked with a guy the other day who bought a used $800k coach for $400k thinking he would be good, paid $2100. A month payment for 10 years and had to stroke a check for like $120k at the end to make it go away

financially these thing make no sense, it’s like kicking a rock off a cliff except it’s your hard earned money vanishing

 

[JFMFG]

It seems to me like there is a sweet spot with these things on the secondary market in the $60-100k range where they have taken the depreciation hit but still have some life left in them, run it for 5 years and then sell it for for a $10-15k loss over purchase price.

I talked with a guy the other day who bought a used $800k coach for $400k thinking he would be good, paid $2100. A month payment for 10 years and had to stroke a check for like $120k at the end to make it go away

financially these thing make no sense, it’s like kicking a rock off a cliff except it’s your hard earned money vanishing

Great post. What I’m gathering is that 10k In bail money was spent on wood and fireworks? Or are you leaving some for the imagination

 

[Taboma]

When you rent a private pusher coach or class C, what's the recourse when shit happens or the shitter stops happening ? That's always my fear when renting and depending on others to maintain.
I've driven fairly large box trucks, but never a pusher, is driving a Class C a lot less stressful for a newbie ? Do rental companies allow you to tow a TOAD or SxS trailer ?

 

[ArizonaKevin]

When you rent a private pusher coach or class C, what's the recourse when shit happens or the shitter stops happening ? That's always my fear when renting and depending on others to maintain.
I've driven fairly large box trucks, but never a pusher, is driving a Class C a lot less stressful for a newbie ? Do rental companies allow you to tow a TOAD or SxS trailer ?

generally C's are easier to drive for newbies because you sit behind the steer tires similar to a pickup truck. With an A you generally sit on top of or in front of the steer tires so your timing when making turns needs to be adjusted accordingly

 

[whiteworks]

Great post. What I’m gathering is that 10k In bail money was spent on wood and fireworks? Or are you leaving some for the imagination

Actually I put the lumber on a card as it’s a material write off. Cash is always good to have on hand when swimming in the deep end of the pool, and you never know when you will find some cool piece of shit you didn’t know you needed

When you rent a private pusher coach or class C, what's the recourse when shit happens or the shitter stops happening ? That's always my fear when renting and depending on others to maintain.
I've driven fairly large box trucks, but never a pusher, is driving a Class C a lot less stressful for a newbie ? Do rental companies allow you to tow a TOAD or SxS trailer ?

The class C we rented last summer was low milage and less than two years old, it was a clean unit. However the house water pump took a shit up by Couer D’alene about day 2. It was a private owner deal and he had a policy of anything over $200.00 repair needs his authorization. I called him and told him about this and replaced the water pump with a new one I bought at an RV place. He credited the water pump cost back to me on final payment. These things all have the same crap in them, and if you think for a minute you will not be fixing shit all the time you’re in for a surprise. My other friend has a foretravel coach, they offr these caravan trips where everything is curated for the group and there is a mobil mechanic that follows the group. Moral of the story is a million dollar tig is still a shit pile, you just have a guy that follows you and fixes it

 

[Taboma]

Actually I put the lumber on a card as it’s a material write off. Cash is always good to have on hand when swimming in the deep end of the pool, and you never know when you will find some cool piece of shit you didn’t know you needed

The class C we rented last summer was low milage and less than two years old, it was a clean unit. However the house water pump took a shit up by Couer D’alene about day 2. It was a private owner deal and he had a policy of anything over $200.00 repair needs his authorization. I called him and told him about this and replaced the water pump with a new one I bought at an RV place. He credited the water pump cost back to me on final payment. These things all have the same crap in them, and if you think for a minute you will not be fixing shit all the time you’re in for a surprise. My other friend has a foretravel coach, they offr these caravan trips where everything is curated for the group and there is a mobil mechanic that follows the group. Moral of the story is a million dollar tig is still a shit pile, you just have a guy that follows you and fixes it

Appreciate your honesty and great story telling. Never owned a travel RV for traveling, although after the wildfire burned our house in 07', we lived in a 5th wheel in the driveway for 3 years --- so despite not getting beat up on the road, shit still failed. Owned a few sport fishers for close to 20 years, spent more time in the bilges than fishing --- far more
So moral is, if we rent one or buy one, shit will happen so bring a full set of tools and an extra ration of patience.

 

[whiteworks]

Appreciate your honesty and great story telling. Never owned a travel RV for traveling, although after the wildfire burned our house in 07', we lived in a 5th wheel in the driveway for 3 years --- so despite not getting beat up on the road, shit still failed. Owned a few sport fishers for close to 20 years, spent more time in the bilges than fishing --- far more
So moral is, if we rent one or buy one, shit will happen so bring a full set of tools and an extra ration of patience.

And cash, bring lots of cash, it has a way of making problems not be problems and guns, bring lots of guns, they have a way of making other kinds of problems not problems fortunately we didn’t have to apply our rape whistle, pocket knife, pepper spray, tire thumper security measures on this lap, but......

 

[ToMorrow44]

I’m not sure who’s cousin got the highway paving contract in Louisiana, but fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. They paved the I 10 in 20’ sections and each section is not level with the one before or after, it’s like sand highway whoops at glamis, rough ride even in this plush pusher.

Yeah fuck that shit, last time I drove 10
In Louisiana I couldn’t see straight and thought I was gonna piss blood.

Awesome write up, been on that trip many times but your spin on it is golden.