July 10, 2025 / Blog | Where RV Now?

Year in Review

Hard to believe it's been just over a whole year since we started this crazy RV journey! Here are some of the highlights and stats on the past year.

We've camped from coast to coast at both Oceans and the Gulf of "Mexico", as well as multiple lakes, rivers, ponds, reservoirs, streams and even stepped in a few puddles along the way. We've stayed at numerous mountain ranges, deserts, high plains, grasslands, swamps, bayous, forests, swam in corral reefs and stayed at 2 volcanos.
We've driven 28,870 miles and used approximately 1,900 gallons of diesel fuel. The lowest cost of fuel was recently in Iowa at $2.79 per gallon and the highest in California at $5.65 a gallon. We've had 3 oil changes, 2 tune ups and grabbed a new pair of truck tires. The RV has had a few repairs with more scheduled.
Out of the 79 campgrounds we've visited our favorite places to visit have been: New York City, the Florida Keys, New Orleans and Austin with both our sons. Our least favorite places have been: the entire state of Nevada (excluding South Lake Tahoe), 99% of New Mexico (haven't seen Santa Fe yet).
We've camped in urban big cities, suburban campgrounds and rural farms. We've been fortunate to visit many friends and relatives all over the country (many we haven't seen in years).
We've shopped at too many grocery store chains to count, visited Costco's all over the country and change our Amazon delivery address every few weeks for supplies.
We've visited 33 US states, 20 National parks, and countless state and county parks. We've run races in 6 states and had training runs in all 33. We've played pickleball, tennis, hiked trails, paddle boarded, and rode our bike all over this country.
We've been to a multiple musicals, watched college tennis, watched baseball and softball games, been entertained by jazz, country and rock bands, toured museums, and numerous tourist attractions, We've ridden trains, bikes, paddleboards, airplanes, boats, trams, horses and jet ski's. We've been 750 feet underground (Carlsbad Caverns) and 1,250 feet above the ground (Empire State Building).
We've seen bears, elk, deer, coyotes, wolves, bald eagles, alligators, crocodiles, manatees, seals, beavers, sea lions, snakes, bison, flamingos, prairie dogs, wild horses and too many birds to name.
We've eaten Cajun food, alligator, southern food, creole, Texas BBQ, and all types of ethnic cuisine. We've eaten in fine dining restaurants and backyard BBQ's.

What an amazing year it has been. And we still like each other living in 300 square feet :).

We hope the coming year is as entertaining and adventurous as the last.

Below are our latest adventures.

Fox Den RV Park, West Yellowstone, Montana (May 23 to June 1st)

We drove from and through the Grand Teton National Park to connect directly to the 2.2 million acre Yellowstone National Park. Once in the park, it took another hour to get to the West Yellowstone gate and our campground. We initially planned to only stay 5 days, but our son Shamus is living and working in West Yellowstone this summer so we extended our time here for 10 days to spend as much time with him as we could.

The campground was basic, but the location was fantastic as we were only a few hundred of feet from where Shamus was staying.

Yellowstone National Park is amazing. The different scenery, geology and animals are incredible. Its easy to see why this was the very first National Park in the US. We spent 3 full days in the park and visited multiple sites including: Old Faithful, the Geyser Basin, the Grand Prismatic hike, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Lamar Valley, and Mammoth Hot Springs. One of the highlights in the park was when we were looking for the wolves on the north side of the park. Instead we found that a Bison has recently died and a single coyote was doing his best to make a meal out of him. While this may sound a bit gory to a few of you, to see nature in action was amazing - that little coyote was tearing meat from the bones with all his might.

We went horseback riding at the Diamond P Ranch for a few hours. We rode in the Gallatin National Forest (only 3 million acres) on the border of Montana and Wyoming. Dana was running a few days of week with Shamus, while Jim was able to lift weights multiple days with him.

KOA Billings, MT (June 1-2)

Just a quick overnight at the very first KOA in their network of campgrounds. It definitely showed it's age as the roads within the campground were very tight for a time when RV's were much smaller. Despite the infrastructure, the amenities and campground has been modernized and is in great shape. We got in a quick workout at Planet Fitness before making a trip to restock food and supplies at both at the local Winco and Costco.

Boots Campground, Medora, ND (June 2-5)

Very small campground (maybe 12 sites). So small they don't have a website, but they did have amazing views of buttes surrounding us. Why the heck did we go to Medora North Dakota? Another National Park - we visited the Theodore Roosevelt National Park for the better part of a day. It's actually quite a beautiful park with Buttes, a meandering river, lots of Bison, Prairie dogs and some wild horses. Prairie dogs are very cute and make funny sounds. Although it is primarily a driving park with vistas and pull outs in the car, we were able to go for a couple small hikes.

The next morning we walked around the quaint little down going from shop to shop in the morning. Luckily we made it home for lunch before a big rainstorm came in and forced us to stay indoors the rest of the day.

The surprise event we found was a full on high production outdoor musical in Medora. Very strange place to have it, but it was very well done with professional actors from NY, California and elsewhere. Although the show changes every season, they've been doing a musical there for 60 years! So if you ever happening do be passing through Medora, ND in the summer (yeah right!), it's worth seeing. We passed on the dinner offer before the show as it was your choice of meat, meat and more meat.

Black Hills RV Park - Sturgis, South Dakota (June 5-7)

This is a small town 50 weeks of the year with a population of only 7,000. The other 2 weeks in August (luckily we weren't there) it swells to 800,000 people for the annual motorcycle rally. There were only 11 RV's in the campground designed for 211 rigs. Office manager said they make all their money during those 2 weeks with revenue of $450k for the rally. Rates double and they are booked out years ahead as well as every other campground , hotel and motel during the rally.

The beauty of the Black Hills surrounding us is stunning with dark tree lined hill tops surrounding us.

We walked through the downtown with all the tourist trappings and more bars per square block than we've ever seen. One of the merchant's told us they bring in cops from nearby towns, sheriffs from surrounding counties and state highway patrol for those weeks. Sounds fun.... not.

The following morning we took a day trip to Mount Rushmore. Might be worth seeing once, but we can cross it off the list. We hiked around on the boardwalk to see all 4 presidents from different angles on a path they carved out. We joined a ranger talk filled with interesting history and then went into the museum to see the construction of it. It was quite a feat that took 14 years to finish.

We ran a 5k race for a dementia charity in the nearby town of Rapid City in Jim's dad Basil's name. It was quite a small race but still fun. Jim finished 4th overall behind 2 high school and 1 college kid while Dana finished as the 2nd woman to cross the line. Tough conditions at 3,200 above sea level and 75 degrees at gun time.

Afterwards we found a local Planet Fitness gym for a quick but much needed workout and a hydromassage chair for Dana (her motivation for going to the gym).

Sunrise Ridge Campground, Hot Springs, SD - (June 7-14)

Small town USA founded in 1880, but quaint and full of friendly folks. First night there was a "Music in the Park" event downtown. The band featured a singer from the TV show "The Voice" who made it to the top 10. She was a pretty good singer. The event had food booths and kids everywhere hanging out and having fun while the adults watched over them. The next day was too windy to do anything or go anywhere so we we hunkered down in the camper all day.

Tuesday we went over to Custer State Park for the whole day. It was incredible! What a treasure, better than many of the national parks we've been to. It's in the Black Hills so the landscape is beautiful, and there were "spire type" rock formations on the hikes. We drove through a very narrow tunnel that was only 7 feet wide. It was so narrow, we had to fold the mirrors in on the truck - Jim thought he'd have to apply Vasoline to the side of the truck to get it through. The hikes and the lake were stunning.

Friday we went to the Wind Caves National Park for the day. Above ground hikes were filled with Bison herds and fun hiking paths. Below ground in the tunnels was pretty cool (180 miles of caves). We did a 90 minute tour underground. Not as impressive as Carlsbad Caverns in NM, but still pretty cool. Park Ranger guide was funny.

Fishberry Campground, Valentine, Nebraska (June 14-15)

Just an overnight on our way east. Decent campground. Quick 5 mile run in the morning to cross Nebraska off the list:).

Lazy H Campground, Akron, Iowa (June 15 - 16)

This is the type of campground Dana loves - brand new, wide spaces with everyone having a big lawn, concrete slabs and all types of amenities. She swam in the lake and we both ran the campground. We were supposed to stay 2 nights, but we woke up in the morning to warnings about potential hail and tornados. The warnings are all it took for us to pack up quickly and get out of town.

Walnut Woods State Park, Des Moines, Iowa (June 16 - 18)

Very pretty and isolated state park. Only about 20 campsites spread out. Thick, thick woods combined with rain and humidity = mosquitos and bugs everywhere. It was a war zone outside. No bueno. Jim found a high school track for both days and it was good to escape the mosquitos, unfortunately the humidity was beyond hot. We found a Planet Fitness in town for some weight lifting.

O'Connells RV Park, Amboy, Illinois (June 18-22)

This is our second time at this campground. It's very close to Dana's sister Kelly's country house. We hung out with Kelly and her husband Tim multiple days. It was still incredibly humid here this week. Dana and Gracie ended up sleeping at Kelly's house the whole time while Jim stayed in the RV. They took many hikes in the state park and got some shopping in as well. We all went to a charity event at the Gristmill where Tim is a volunteer. It was cool to see how the Gristmill works turning corn into meal to make bread. Gracie was having a blast running through all the creeks and enjoying the hikes.

Camp Reinberg - Palatine, Illinois (June 22-25)

We went into suburban Chicago in a County campground with only 5 campsites. This place was a gem of a find. It backed up to a great preserve which was perfect for bike riding, running and walking the dog. We found a nearby Planet Fitness too. While Dana was busy hanging out with her sister, Jim met up with 3 different friends. He had dinner with former colleague and friend Greg Patrick one night, then played tennis and worked out with a friend (Rakesh Amin) from childhood. We had not seen each other since 7th grade (46 years), but we picked up immediately and hung out for a good 4 hours. Finally Jim got together with a good high school buddy John Carey for lunch.

Sand Creek Campground, Chesterton, Indiana (June 25-29)

It was our second time at this campground also. Pretty relaxing rural campground. It was so hot and humid that we unfortunately spent too much time in the RV with the A/C blasting. We used the track at Valapraiso University a few different times early in the morning for workouts. We spent a beach day at Indiana Dunes reading, relaxing and playing in Lake Michigan.

Twin Mills Campground, Howe, Indiana (June 29 - July 6)

We had a great Fourth of July week at a nice place. Very rural campground in the heart of Indiana Amish country. We plan to stay here again after Europe as it is close to our RV manufacturer that will be doing repairs for us. On the 4th of July, we ran a 5k race in the cute small town of Topeka, Indiana. We both won our age groups and the 1st place prize was a fresh Amish baked pie. Jim gave his pie to the neighbor at the RV park while Dana ate 90% of the other pie - no judgement:). We hung out in Topeka for a good 5 hours after the race as it was their town's big annual event. There was a huge softball tournament with 28 teams from the surrounding 4 states, volleyball tournament and 3 on 3 basketball tournament. Food trucks galore and lots and lots of Amish folk. Awesome day.

The campground had tons of activities going on that weekend (bands, parades, food trucks, softball game, jump houses for the kids. It is situated on a private lake that allowed Dana multiple swimming days and a few paddle boards tours of the lake. They had a fireworks display on the evening of the 4th at the lake.

Fisherman's Landing RV Park, Muskegon, MI (July 6 - 14)

This campground was right on Lake Muskegon and a stones throw away from Lake Michigan. Both Jim and Dana ran the Lakeshore trail. Dana even ran 8 miles to Lake Michigan for a cool refreshing swim. Jim came to the rescue and picked Dana up. The campground was a very relaxing place to hang out. Did some reading, and Dana did some painting and found another Planet Fitness to work on building our muscles. We had our ball bearings on our camper greased and repacked. We learned this needs to be done more often, especially after all the miles we have pulled our RV.

Next, we are off to Grand Rapids for the first of two weddings this summer for two of our nephews.

July 10, 2025