“How long do you stay in one place?”
We get that question a lot.
(We also hear “How do you get your mail?” and “What do you do about internet?”).
The answer to the “how long” question?
It depends. If Andrew is volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build, we are there for the timeline of the build (typically two – four weeks). If it’s someplace with a lot of potential for exploration, we try to stay at least two weekends. Since I’m working Monday – Thursday, it’s tough to cram everything into a single weekend (especially if we travel on that weekend). We also think about who we know in the area. For instance, we always book the maximum two weeks at Chatfield State Park near Denver, because some of our favorite humans live nearby, and I have a fair number of business contacts in Denver. Same with Grapevine, Texas — Andrew’s brother lives 15 minutes away from an amazing campground AND there’s a ton to do in Dallas.
However, we do occasionally schedule in overnights, aka one night stands.
Like many other RV’ers, we tend to follow the 330 Rule. There are a few interpretations of this rule, but ours is: “No More Than 330 Miles a Day and/or Stop by 3:30 PM” (some folks add “stay at least three days in a location’). We have established that 3 – 4 hours is a sweet spot for us in terms of travel time. It allows us a nice buffer on either end to pack up and set up; it’s not too tiring; and it’s less wear and tear on the RV (translation: fewer things end up where they are not supposed to be, break, etc). Plus I can generally go for three hours without desperately needing to pee. After that, we’re pushing it!I
So, if you need to travel 850 miles from Bentonville, Arkansas to Pagosa Springs, Colorado over a weekend, AND you’re following the 330 Rule, you end up with an overnight in Elk City, Oklahoma, and one in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Typically when we pull in for an overnight we don’t unhitch the rig, nor do we unpack anything more than the bare necessities. That creates an afternoon/evening where one can’t do much more other than chill out — often at the pool.
For me, there’s something magical about these fleeting visits. The RV parks tend to be small and quiet — most folks are, like us, just passing through. While the parks are often situated right off the highway, they are also typically in the middle of nowhere, with incredible vistas and starry night skies. These one night stands also represent the best of RV’ing. You never know who you’re going to meet, or what you’re going to discover. For instance, in Elk City we met another traveling couple at the pool — he was a welder who followed jobs at the oil fields and she was a remote worker like me. On the way out the next morning, on a tip from a friend, we stopped along Route 66 in Erick, Oklahoma to visit Sandhill Curiosity Shop and chat with the longtime proprietor Harley. Both shop and proprietor defy simple description…you need to experience it for yourself!
Here are just a few other delightful overnight adventures from our travels:
Early in Year One, we needed to get (quickly) from Hector, New York to Nashville, Tennessee (the start of the Slide Saga), which necessitated overnight stops in Erie, Pennsylvania and Lebanon, Ohio. In both places, we knew there was some good exploring nearby, so we actually unhitched the rig and went for a drive. In Erie, we spent the afternoon exploring Presque Isle State Park (“a 3,200-acre sandy peninsula that arches into Lake Erie…Pennsylvania’s only ‘seashore’…”). Later that evening, pursuit of good food, beer, and cider brought us to Cartridge Brewing in a restored cartridge/ammunition factory in Maineville. To get to Cartridge, we drove down a winding road, over the Little Miami River—it felt like we were heading towards a castle tucked into the woods! When we arrived, we found a fascinating campus, with the brewery and other manufacturing space, plus industrial-style apartments. A little Googling over our dinner (and delicious beers) provided the background for these very cool spaces in a beautiful setting. Turns out that the site was the original location of the Peters Cartridge Factory, which produced ordnance and shot shell ammunition at the site from 1887 to 1934. The Remington Arms Co. purchased Peters in 1934 and continued production for the next ten years. The site was abandoned for decades after that, until some creative and persistent developers recognized its potential.
Some of these overnights have given us a taste of a place that we then decide to revisit for a longer spell further on down the road. For instance, between Littleton, Colorado and Torrey, Utah, we stayed one evening in James M. Robb State Park. As we discovered with so many of the state parks we’ve stayed in, the site setup was perfect. We were parked parallel to the road, head to foot with others in that same loop. Our site included a nicely-sized concrete patio and a covered picnic table, all surrounded by native plants and trees. It was quiet, with tons of places to walk, and fabulous views of the Colorado Monument and the Colorado River. By the way, I had no idea back then how much I would come to value concrete patios (seriously!). When you live in an RV, you go in and out more than in your stationary home (at least we do). If you’re parked on dirt (or in some places in the southwest and west, red dust), you end up tracking way too much of it into your small space.
James M. Robb was a terrific example of the “tasting menu” nature of our first year, where we raced around the country trying lots of places. We liked that site so much, and were sufficiently interested in exploring the area, that we stopped there again the following year, this time staying at an RV resort across from the park because, as is often the case, the state park was sold out. That second time around, the host at the resort mentioned that our arrival timing was perfect to drive up into Colorado State Monument to see big-horned sheep. We decided to give it a shot, and saw a bunch of the agile sheep coming out for the evening. My favorite memory of that drive was going under a tunnel, looking up, and seeing a big-horned sheep standing on the rock right above our heads!
