September 24, 2008

September 24, 2008

Aimee and I are both glad to be back in Tucson. It has been a long summer in the RV (124 nights!), longer than optimum. We need an extended break. The other reason we are anxious to get out of the RV is that we luckily snagged the best apartment in Tucson. It is in the same complex as last year but has the best view. To keep it we may have to rent it year round. That is ok, real estate and the economy seem to be worse than ever, at least if you are a Wall Street Investment banker, so buying a house may still need to wait.

This summer we drove well over 16000 miles, had great gas mileage of nearly 11.5 mpg, but paid the highest gas prices ever averaging almost $4/gallon. Ouch! With all this time on the road, we have now visited 180 National Parks, Monument, and Historical Sites. Only 210 left to go. In addition we hit a bunch of Canadian National Parks and US state parks. I am more than ready to be a sedentary vegetable for a while, sorting thru thousands of photos, but we already have plans to visit southern California this winter and maybe Alaska next summer. In the meantime the SS Free at Last needs some expensive work. After all that shaking on Canadian Maritime roads, the RV is starting to actually fall apart. Can’t let that happen.