After 1.5 days on the road, I made it safely to Tacoma WA. Big difference from my previous long drives.

I started out at an RV park in Rapid City SD. My main concern when leaving that park was a tree limb at the front of the site. Sure enough, as I started slowly pulling forward, it contacted the roofline of the RV. Fortunately, the site behind me was still empty (I’d pulled through that site earlier to get into mine). I backed up in the dark, frequently stopping and getting out  of the truck to check for hazards, then was able to pull forward through another site without tree limbs. The park was Happy Holiday RV Resort and there was a world of difference between high season and off season. The quality of the employees seemed to be much higher during high season.

Another bonus this time was that I was able to pick my travel days based on the weather. Just prior to this drive, my onboard computer average MPG was showing single digits since I was fighting winds most of the way. Now, with favorable winds for most of 1200 miles, the MPG never got close to single digits. And this was despite the fact that I traveled over the continental divide and through several mountain ranges. There was one bad spot in the middle of Montana where a rainstorm with headwinds hit but I pulled into a rest area for most of it.

Overall, the trip was non eventful except for my phone coverage. Somewhere in the middle of Montana, I lost my data connection, then couldn’t make outgoing calls. I switched to T Mobile a few months ago. I was still able to get enough info from the Trucker Path app to see upcoming rest areas and truck stops so that worked out OK. Soon after entering WA, I still didn’t have service even though I could see numerous cell towers on the side of the highway. I decided to reboot the phone and immediately got service back. I guess somewhere along the road, possibly when it dropped out of a partner coverage area, it just lost its mind.