Bailey and I started 2023 off by packing up our RV and hitting the road full-time once again. In 2022, we spent a little more than 6 months on the road in our 2022 Coachmen Freedom Express travel trailer. This year, we will be living in our RV for 9 months and will be completing our exploration of the eastern United States.

Our original plan was to attempt to be up, hitched, and on the road by around 9 am, well that didn’t happen. We hadn’t even begun loading the RV until that morning due to how cold it was getting in Nebraska during the nights. As usual, I had underestimated how long moving takes. Our secondary goal was noon and we of course missed that one too. Then, the goal became to just be hitched and on the road by the time the sun left went down…well even that one we didn’t make. Finally, we hit the road right around 8 pm on the first day of the new year.

Our goal was to make it to Tulsa, Oklahoma for a few hours of sleep before hitting the road once again. Omaha, Nebraska to Tulsa, Oklahoma is roughly a 6-hour drive, which we have done a number of times since living in our RV. We didn’t quite make it to Tulsa, but mostly due to where the travel stop was located (about an hour north of Tulsa). We fueled, found a spot to park, and slept for about 4 hours in the truck. You may be wondering why in the truck when we have an RV to sleep in, well mostly due to not wanting to move the dogs from truck to trailer, especially since while moving in, we didn’t exactly organize or set things up, but rather just put things in boxes all over the place.

We got back on the road around 10 am on the 2nd and drove about half an hour past Tulsa to fill again with gas. Tulsa was a really interesting-looking city that Bailey and I would love to get back to explore. After fueling, we made the mistake of getting on the Indian Nation Turnpike. To explain why this was a mistake I need to explain that while we have the trailer on, we tend to keep slower speeds for fuel efficiency mostly. Our ideal speed is right around 57 MPH, we can commonly get MPG around 12 at that speed whereas 60 and above drops our efficiency to around 9 or 10 MPG. The Indian Nation Turnpike is a toll road that has a minimum speed of 60 (and a limit of 80) all while having very few services or options to fuel. The few fueling options that we did have were most expensive than non-turnpike options. Luckily, we made it past the turnpike options and to a cheaper option but just barely.

We arrived at our campground about an hour outside of Dallas, Texas at around 4:30 pm and the moment we stepped out of the truck to start the unhitching process…it began to rain hard. Our site is excellent, it’s very large and very flat. For once we decided to take a site that had almost no tree coverage. Being that it is January, we figured we wouldn’t need the shade from the sun as I can tell you that it certainly can get cold in Texas.

The majority of our first week has been spent in the RV during the days (mostly since Bailey still works a full-time job). I’ve spent the majority of my days getting things put away and organized. We did what we always do when we move and delayed too long, so now I’m having to get things set up while at our first campsite.

Our first night in Texas, we decided to give Whataburger a try. I’ve heard a ton of great things about the fast-food burger chain, so I was pretty excited to finally give it a shot. I will say that I did make the mistake of not even looking at the menu, I just asked what the favorite item was for an employee (a move I almost never make). The food was good, not the best burger I’ve ever had, but for fast food, it was pretty great. My highlight was the Dr. Pepper Shake, now that was fantastic.

Tuesday night, we visited the small town of Greenville, Texas with the intention of spending some time in a Starbucks (or somewhere with WiFi) so that I could attempt to get some work done. I have terrible reception at the campground and am unable to accomplish much online. Well, we never actually made it inside the Starbucks, instead we ended up at Jack In The Box for hopefully a cheap meal. We did pretty decent—if you haven’t tried the Jack In The Box late night Munchie Meals, I highly recommend doing so. We ate our Jack In The Box in the parking lot of Starbucks, but again got distracted by an Academy Sports store that was next door (I was in need of slides to wear for showering at the campgrounds or Planet Fitnesses).

Wednesday night was dedicated to taking showers. Living in an RV makes showering more difficult than living at a home or apartment, well for us anyway since our shower is so small it’s basically unusable. The showers at the campground are pretty rough, so we made our way back into Greenville to shower at the Planet Fitness there.

By Thursday night, we were sick of eating out and spending money. So, this night was dedicated to getting groceries. I had finally gotten the RV organized and cleaned up enough to feel comfortable bringing groceries home. We would have gotten some on Tuesday, except we had just gotten the fridge reset and working again after it crapped out on us during our time in Nebraska.

Friday was the first day that truly felt like we were living in the RV once again. I made us breakfast and was able to take some time to work on writing, photo editing, and even get started on videos again. I hope to get us caught up early in 2023 with our videos by publishing more than once per week, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Friday night was up in the air for what we were going to do. By the time Bailey was able to sign off from work, we decided that we wanted to do what we’ve enjoyed most in all of our travels, just drive the area and see what it has to offer. So, he set off for Dallas and came across our first Buc-ee’s along the way. After hearing so much about the Texas gas stations, it was something that I definitely wanted to get us to before we left. This location just popped up on our drive, so we stopped to see what all the fuss was about. When I tell you this place is so much more than just a gas station, I mean it.

Probably the most exciting part of being in the Dallas area for me was to see the location of the JFK tragic assassination. I had forgotten all about it while we were driving around the city tonight (mostly because I was a little stressed out by the road systems and traffic here) but luckily Bailey remembered just before we left the city. We drove by Dealy Plaza and the Texas Depository Building multiple times before heading back to our RV. We can’t wait to make it to the museum and get more information one of these days we spend in the city.

So far, I’m loving Texas, even though I know it’s not a place I could be outside of the winter months, I’m truly enjoying my time in this state. So far, everyone (outside of the large city, just like anywhere in the United States) has been incredibly kind. I’m excited for the next two weeks and will hopefully keep up on writing these entries throughout this year.

Life On The Road — Entry #1