Oh, the Places We Will Go!

This trip will be fun!

Dear Oliver’s Travels Readers,

First of all, Frieda, Maddie, Skipper and I hope you are well and enjoying the start of Summer.

It’s hard to believe, but so far this year, we’ve already made three major RV trips:

1. Florida 2023 was a 14-day, 1,800-mile trip to St. Augustine and then to Davie, Florida from from 31 January to 14 February 2023

2. Tex Trek '23 was a 10-day, 2,500-mile trip to Fredericksburg, Texas from 20-30 March 2023

3. A second Florida trip — to Eustice — for our Kleen Tank business was 12 days long, 1,300 miles and ran from 14 - 25 April 2023. Since it was really focused on business, I only documented a couple of days of it here, here and here.

Two major events have happened to us since these trips that have affected the rest of our travels this year:

1. We decided we needed a new truck. “Big Red,” as we affectionately call our 2013 F-150 Platinum has been our only vehicle for nine months now and we are wearing her out. With nearly 175,000 miles on the odometer including over 22,000 towing Ollie at 9-11 mpg, we decided it was time to move up. On April 7th, we placed a special order for a 2023 F-350 Lariat Super Duty with the new high output 6.7 liter turbo diesel featuring 500 HP and 1,200 ft lbs of torque. She went on the assembly line May 18th, and on June 1st, we took delivery. Within a week, the world had one less squirrel (I was driving) and one small bird (Frieda’s first time driving), so for now, the truck’s nickname is “Killer.” We pray those are the only two creatures (besides bugs) Killer claims.

2. We discovered we could fly to Monterey, California for less than it would cost us to drive there from my Dad’s house in Oracle, Arizona and back plus all the camping in between as we had intended to do this month. So we bought plane tickets and had a wonderful 11-day visit with Bill, Sarah, Tom and Elle from the 10th to the 21st of this month.

So tomorrow we set out on a pair of trips with Ollie being towed by Killer for the very first time:

1. West Quest ‘23 will allow us to celebrate my Dad’s 94th birthday with him in Oracle, Arizona on on July 2nd. Six states and 4,000 miles from 26 June to 17 July. Here’s what it looks like:

2. North Trek ‘23 will take us as far east as Cumberland, Maryland (for a long-planned funeral) before heading all the way up to Saint Ignace, Michigan to meet up with longtime Navy friends Mark and Deb Deppe. This trip will cover at least 7 states and over 2,200 miles from 20 - 29 July. Not yet decided is if we will head over to Wisconsin and North Dakota to get those two states that we left “stranded” in our travel map last year. More to follow on that one. Here’s how the trip plans look right now:

And yes, gentle reader, we will only be home for a quick laundry and plant-watering stop between the above two trips. Whew!

Thanks for following Oliver’s Travels!