Winter 24: A Month in Texas

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Snow Birding 2021: Wrap up of our 55 Days in Texas

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Wrap up of our 55 Days in Texas

This is the last entry covering our Winter 2021 Texas adventure.

Sunset over the Colorado, Matagorda Bay Nature Park

First, the our trip by the numbers.  We tracked our miles, the temp and time for each departure, costs by category.  Everything. 

  • Total Miles: 3736
  • Miles with Minnie (RV): 2399
  • Total Drive Time (between destinations): 57.55 hours
  • Lowest Departure Temp: 16 degrees leaving Cold Spring on 1/9
  • Highest Departure Temp: 67 degrees leaving Garner State Park on 2/28
  • Total Fuel Cost: $816.66
  • Average price per gallon: $2.38 (low of 1.94 in Matagorda, TX, high of 2.69 in Lakeville, MN) 
  • Total Lodging: $1975.37
  • Total spend RV Parks: $1701.00
  • Average RV Park: $40.50 

We built a google sheet to track costs against a target daily spend and a 5 day trend.  We were trending great until the power went out in South Padre - ending up going out a lot more than usual but hey - we survived and stayed sane!  Tracking this really helped us manage our budget and determine if our daily spend goal is realistic.

Here are all of the other posts, from planning to our last few days in Garner:

Here is the Roadtrippers guide from our trip, and what I learned from our 55 days on the road, mostly in Texas:

  • Bridges may freeze in cold weather ('cause there are like a million signs that tell you that - actually all over the south - apparently if you're in MN, no signs are needed).
  • Texans love their historical markers (there are over 14,000 in Texas).
  • A safe, reliable water supply is very important 💧 (check out the post on our week in South Padre).
  • It’s most convenient to have power - again we have had wonderful people from Iowa in a Class A to thank for getting us through the power outage.
  • While we would rather be on side roads, when hauling even a 19' trailer, Interstates are your friend.  Avoid traveling through major metropolitan areas during rush hour.  Dallas on a Sunday is crazy enough!  
  • We missed going to dive bars and Texas has some GREAT ones (more on our Bandera, TX adventure later in the Garner State Park post).
  • We'll continue to evaluate where we travel to determine if it's a place we'd stay for a month or longer...not sure any place in Texas met that criteria.
  • Great friends are super important.  We want to thank our friends for continuing to connect while we were on the road! 😎
  • People are amazing - and basically kind, funny, generous everywhere 💙
Lu Ann and Randy, our classy Class A friends from Iowa

We've learned a ton about how to manage our time, money and friendship while on the road, and look forward to our next adventure!

Have you ever traveled via RV to avoid the winter and snow?  Where did you go and for how long?  Have you found your long term stay place yet?  Leave your comments below!  Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us.

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