Statistics

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A Missed Anniversary

We’ve been so busy visiting family here in Washington that our three year full-time RVing anniversary just slipped right on by us. Here’s a bit of a retrospective of the past year and the past three years.

We took delivery of our original trailer on September 7, 2012 and spent the night in it on the dealer’s lot. We stopped by a campground on the way home on the night of September 8, then parked it in our driveway at the house and spent the night in the house on September 9. On September 10, Malcolm took the trailer to work, then we took it on to Fort Toulouse Campground in Wetumpka, Alabama. We ended up just living in the trailer from then on. We consider September 10 as our anniversary date even though we really didn’t start doing any full-time traveling until January of 2013.

Here are some random stats for each of our three years of full-timing:

Year 1 (2012-2013)
Miles: 16904
States: 25 – AL, AR, AZ, CA, FL, GA, IA, IN, KY, LA, MO, MS, MT, NC, NM, NV, OK, OR, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, WA, WY

Year 2 (2013-2014)
Miles: 18995
States: 20 – AL, AR, CO, FL, ID, LA, KY, KS, MO, MS, MT, NE, OR, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WY

Year 3 (2014-2015)
Miles: 21520
States: 22 – AL, AR, AZ, CA, FL, IL, IN, GA, KY, LA, MN, MS, MT, NC, ND, NV, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI

Looking at the number of nights we’ve spent in different campgrounds, we come up with the following top 20 over the past three years. The number of days we’ve spent there followed by the campground name:

390 – Fort Toulouse Campground, Wetumpka, Alabama
143 – Nashville KOA, Nashville, Tennessee
32 – Washington State Fairgrounds, Puyallup, Washington
28 – Vacationer RV Park, El Cajon, California
25 – Kentucky Horse Park Campground, Lexington, Kentucky
22 – Traders Village RV Park, Houston, Texas
21 – Fort Wilderness Campground, Bay Lake, Florida
19 – Lone Star Jellystone Park, Waller, Texas
18 – Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds, Goshen, Indiana
18 – Westlake RV Resort, Houston, Texas
16 – Whispering Hills RV Park, Georgetown, Kentucky
15 – Lake Chelan State Park, Chelan, Washington
15 – Pineglen RV Park, Panama City Beach, Florida
13 – Lazydays Campground, Seffner, Florida
13 – Levi Jackson State Park, London, Kentucky
13 – Mission Bay RV Resort, San Diego, California
12 – Two Rivers Campground, Nashville, Tennessee
11 – Gulf State Park, Gulf Shores, Alabama
11 – Rainbows End RV Park, Livingston, Texas
9 – Gig Harbor RV Resort, Gig Harbor, Washington

Interestingly, if you take out the campgrounds we’ve stayed in to be near an office where Malcolm works from the above list, it looks like this:

32 – Washington State Fairgrounds, Puyallup, Washington
25 – Kentucky Horse Park Campground, Lexington, Kentucky
21 – Fort Wilderness Campground, Bay Lake, Florida
18 – Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds, Goshen, Indiana
16 – Whispering Hills RV Park, Georgetown, Kentucky
15 – Lake Chelan State Park, Chelan, Washington
15 – Pineglen RV Park, Panama City Beach, Florida
13 – Lazydays Campground, Seffner, Florida
13 – Levi Jackson State Park, London, Kentucky
11 – Gulf State Park, Gulf Shores, Alabama
11 – Rainbows End RV Park, Livingston, Texas
9 – Gig Harbor RV Resort, Gig Harbor, Washington

Some other little tidbits:

Longest driving day in miles: 587 – June 28, 2013, Deer Lodge, Montana to Gig Harbor, Washington

Shortest driving day in miles: 2 – July 29, 2015, From Jellystone Park to the KOA, both in Nashville, Tennessee

We traded in our 2013 trailer for our current 2015 model on March 26, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. We pulled that first trailer 46,991 miles.

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Top Ten Campgrounds

Malcolm has been keeping track of all kinds of data revolving around where we’ve stayed and how far we’ve traveled. For example, he can tell you how many miles we have on the trailer (see the statistics widget in the right-hand column of our blog), how many miles we have pulled the trailer with our truck and even how many miles we have on our trailer’s tires.

One thing Malcolm added to his spreadsheet of travel statistics is how many days we’ve stayed at different campgrounds. Some interesting statistics popped out of the results. So, for the first 816 days of our full-timing career, here are the top ten campgrounds we have stayed in by number of total days spent in each one:

  1. Fort Toulouse Campground, Wetumpka, Alabama, 357 days. No surprise here. This is the campground we stayed in for the first four months of our full-timing and due to the way Malcolm’s work/travel schedule works out, we spent quite a bit of time here off and on through 2013 and part of 2014. The actual number of days was a little higher than Malcolm would have guessed.
  2. Nashville KOA, Nashville, Tennessee, 88 days. This one didn’t surprise, either. Since selling our house earlier this year, Malcolm has been working primarily at the Nashville office so the KOA has become our new “home” when working.
  3. Vacationer RV Park, El Cajon, California, 28 days. This was another work stint. Initially, we were going to be here three weeks, but extended another week while Malcolm worked up the road in San Diego. This is the longest single stay on our list outside of Fort Toulouse.
  4. Traders Village RV Park, Houston, Texas, 22 days. This was split among three visits, again typically for Malcolm to work in the Houston office.
  5. Kentucky Horse Park Campground, Lexington, Kentucky, 20 days. This is the highest number of days stayed for someplace that was not for Malcolm’s work and is split among several different visits. However, we have family in the area and we originally lived in Lexington after we were married. Plus, it’s a nice area and we like the campground even though it doesn’t have sewer hookups.
  6. Fort Wilderness Campground, Bay Lake, Florida, 14 days. Disney. What else needs to be said?
  7. Lazydays Campground, Seffner, Florida, 13 days. We stayed here to visit in Tampa the first trip on the road, then stayed again for a week in January, 2014 for the Tampa RV Show. We are going to the RV show again in January, 2015, but staying in a different (i.e. less expensive) campground.
  8. Whispering HIlls RV Park, Georgetown, Kentucky, 13 days. This was originally going to be a five-day stay for a rally, but Malcolm ended up in the hospital with his appendix, so we spent the next week there while he recuperated.
  9. Pineglen RV Park, Panama City Beach, Florida, 12 days. We spent one night here in early 2013 and now that our son is stationed nearby at Tyndall Air Force Base, we just recently stayed there for 11 days for the Thanksgiving holiday.
  10. Two Rivers Campground, Nashville, Tennessee, 12 days. This was another work-related stay. We tried out Two Rivers before settling on the Nashville KOA for our home base while Malcolm works in Nashville.

Malcolm is playing with some other statistics that we might post from time to time.