A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 249 miles from Ravenna, Ohio to St Clair, Michigan.
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Travel from Ravenna, Ohio to St Clair, Michigan
We drove our coach 249 miles, about five hours of driving, from Ravenna, Ohio to St Clair, Michigan.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading west then north:
An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:
“Is your TV Antennae Down?” — okay, pedantically that should be either “are” or “antenna”:
Leaving West Branch State Park:
High arching bridge over rail line:
Ohio Turnpike I-80 West:
“Trucks and slower traffic use left lane”; unusual:
Large service plaza truck parking:
Service plaza food court:
BK and Starbucks coffee for lunch:
Paladin in his dash bed with some roadworks:
Ohio turnpike I-80/90 West:
Another service plaza, with RV elctrical hookups!:
Toll plaza:
I-280 North:
Oregon?!
Bridge over Maumee River in Toledo:
I-75 North:
“Welcome to Pure Michigan”:
Not the best road surface:
TA fuel stop:
I-75 North:
“Speed limit 70, truck speed 65, minimum speed 55”:
“Welcome to Thousand Trails St Clair”:
Gate:
Our site:
Moved toilet paper holder in half bath
I’m sure most people are super-excited by minor modifications to our motorhome like this… and what’s more thrilling than toilet paper?!
But fellow owners of our coach (e.g. in the Tiffin Allegro Bus 2016-2018 Owners group on Facebook) might find it useful. For them, we have a 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP.
The toilet paper holder used to be next to the door, but was kinda in the way there. I tried raising it up, but that didn’t help much:
So we decided to move it to under the corner cabinet. Here’s the mount, screwed into the cabinet:
The toilet paper holder attached to the mount:
The final result, along with a rechargeable motion light and replaced soap dispenser and faucet:
Much better; still easily reachable, without getting in the way.
AC replacements
Our front and mid AC units were having issues for some time — mostly not getting cold, and sometimes refusing to come on at all. We got a few techs to look at them, without any conclusive results or solutions.
While staying at Thousand Trails Orlando, we got Charles Sutton of CS Mobile RV Repair LLC to take a look, and he determined that the compressors on both were shot, and we needed to replace them. An unpleasantly large expense, but he handled it very professionally.
Here he is lugging the very heavy AC unit up to the roof (and I appreciate the padding on the ladder to protect our paint):
The offending part:
Inside the old AC unit, partially disassembled:
It is nice to have reliably working AC units now.
West Branch State Park
We stayed at West Branch State Park in Ravenna, Ohio. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A nice state park, though many of the sites are unlevel.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-05-03
- Check out: 2025-05-11
- 8 nights
Weather:
- Some rain and some mostly cloudy
- High temps 60-70°F, lows 44-52°F
- Some wind, gusts to 21 MPH
Noise:
- No road noise
- Distant train horn noise
- Little neighbor noise
Site:
- #100, back-in, asphalt
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
- Very unlevel site; high in front and driver side; used hydraulic leveling (which couldn’t get entirely level; air leveling couldn’t cope either)
- Asphalt driveway about 45 feet long by 10 feet wide
- About 90 feet to neighbor on passenger side
- No neighbor on driver side
- Just grass between sites
- Picnic table
- Fire pit
- Tall trees
- Clean site
- Elevation 990 feet, front facing NE
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located
- 55 PSI very hard water, conveniently located
- Unthreaded sewer connection, very conveniently located (2 2-foot pipes needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 12-160 Mbps down, 5-22 Mbps up, 30-90 ms ping
- T-Mobile: 5 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up, 42 ms ping
- AT&T: 17 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 80-120 ms ping
- Verizon: 5 Mbps down, 9 Mbps up, 60-150 ms ping (our SIM has 5 Mbps max)
- Campground Wi-Fi: none
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Nice campground, unlevel sites
This was a nice state park on the lake. Our site was very wide with lots of space between the neighbors, but a bit on the short side (just long enough for our 40′ motorhome, and we parked our truck crosswise at the front with about a foot to spare). The only real downside was how massively unlevel the site was front-to-back. We tried multiple positions and both air and hydraulic leveling, but could never get flat. Examining other sites in our loop, it didn’t appear that any of them were particularly level. Many rigs had their wheels off the ground, which is just unsafe. Our utilities were all in working order, but with very hard water, which required us to refresh the water softener twice in a week. We camped at West Branch State Park in a Motorhome.
Campground map:
An interactive map:
Our site:
You can see how much the site slopes… and our coach wasn’t even level:
A track to the lake from our site:
We added the Ohio sticker to our map:
And added the Cuyahoga Valley National Park sticker:
Dumpster and bathrooms:
Other sites:
We’d be happy to stay here again, but not in the same site.
Video: Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Ravenna, Ohio motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 323 miles from Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Ravenna, Ohio, including several tunnels and narrow toll plazas, with clips from the truck perspective.
Travel from Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Ravenna, Ohio
We drove our coach 323 miles, about six hours of driving, from Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Ravenna, Ohio.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading west:
An interactive map:
Preparing to toad up:
Geese and goslings on the road:
Entering the Pennsylvania Turnpike:
The first of several rather narrow toll plazas:
I-76 West, aka the turnpike:
Another toll plaza to exit the turnpike for fuel:
Fuel stop:
Back onto the turnpike:
Fun with zoom:
The first of several tunnels:
This U-Haul driver wasn’t very good at lane placement:
Out of the first tunnel and straight into the second one:
The third tunnel:
Service plaza:
Paladin on the dash at the service plaza:
The fourth-and-last tunnel:
Another service plaza:
Bridge construction:
Welcome to Ohio; a frame from the dash cam, as the photo was too obscured by rain (not that this is great):
Huge welcome center parking:
The last toll plaza:
Yay for E-ZPass:
A steep arching bridge over a rail line:
West Branch State Park:
Check-in office:
Our very sloped site:
Mirror head replacement
Back in 2022 a truck clipped the driver-side mirror on our motorhome, smashing the mirror glass. I replaced the mirror glass, which made the mirror usable again, but unfortunately the motor that allows adjusting the position would only work three of the four directions, so I’d have to manually push the mirror if it drifted out of position (which seemed to happen regularly).
We were going to get it replaced when doing the annual service, but the pandemic supply chain issues made the part unavailable at the time.
It wasn’t a super urgent issue, so we put it on the back burner, but it continued to annoy us. Eventually after much research I determined that one could buy a replacement head for the mirror, which (in theory) could be easily plug-and-play replaced. The part is manufactured by Valvac, and the part number is 719853, “Euromax-XL Replacement Head w/Camera, Lighted, Left Side, Chrome”.
I purchased this part:
The new mirror head:
It looked like an easy job, but we were about to be in Red Bay, so I got a mobile tech to look at replacing it for me. Good thing I didn’t try it myself, as it was too hard for that tech; he couldn’t fish the wires out of the mirror arm.
So later while at Thousand Trails Orlando I got a local RV tech, Charles Sutton of CS Mobile RV Repair LLC, to have a go at it. He also had lots of difficulty with it, but eventually managed it (and was very generous in not charging extra for it, too; I’d highly recommend him for any RV services!).
Here’s the old head removed:
He had to remove a bunch of excess insulation in the generator compartment to access the wires to get enough slack to reach the plugs:
Finally able to reach the plugs:
The replaced mirror head:
So nice to have that working again. And if we ever need to replace it again, it should be a much easier job next time.
Thousand Trails Hershey RV Campground
We stayed at Thousand Trails Hershey RV Campground in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. (Campground Reviews listing.)
If you don’t mind the occasional farm smells and being woken up by geese, this is a delightful campground. And convenient to Hershey. You know, the chocolate place.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-04-20
- Check out: 2025-05-03
- 13 nights
Weather:
- Partly sunny, a little rain
- High temps 65-75°F, lows 44-56°F
- A little wind, gusts to 25 MPH
Noise:
- No road noise
- No train horn noise
- Some neighbor noise (dogs, a few kids)
- Lots of bird noise (mostly geese)
- Not noise, but an unpleasant smell sometimes, probably from nearby farms
Site:
- #B97, back-in, gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
- Somewhat level site; high on passenger side; used hydraulic leveling
- Gravel driveway about 55 feet long by 15 feet wide
- 25 feet to neighbors on both sides
- Just grass between sites
- Picnic table
- Fire pit
- Tall trees
- Mostly clean site
- Elevation 550 feet, front facing NW
- Backing on to lake
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, somewhat conveniently located
- 70 PSI water, conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, conveniently located (less than 1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 25-64 Mbps down, 8-20 Mbps up, 25 ms ping
- T-Mobile: 10-12 Mbps down, 0.25 Mbps up, 40 ms ping
- AT&T: 7 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, 45-70 ms ping
- Verizon: 5 Mbps down, 2-5 Mbps up, 30 ms ping (our SIM has 5 Mbps max)
- Campground Wi-Fi: not used
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
- Seasonally closed pool
- Small lake
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Nice park close to Hershey
This was a very nice park by Thousand Trails standards. The roads in the park are easily navigable, but the access roads are a bit narrow, so you’ll be fine once you get to the park. Our site was somewhat level, but the hydraulic levelers coped well. Utilities were all good, with 70 psi water pressure, so bring a pressure regulator. We enjoyed the view of the lake and the waterfowl wandering about. The Canada Geese are a bit of a hazard to navigation and sleeping in (better than an alarm clock), but seeing the goslings out and about was nice. This park no longer allows mail or packages of any kind, but the post office in Campbelltown accepts general delivery and was the cutest, friendliest, and most homey post office I’ve ever been to.
The most annoying thing about our stay was the check-in process. They took my TT membership card and held onto it until I trekked back and handed in the (unnecessary and redundant) paperwork where I had to give them my license and registration information for my RV and truck and any guests I might be expecting and pledging the soul of my firstborn child (or something to that effect), whereupon they deigned to give me my gate pass and return of my membership card. After a long travel day through the PA turnpike, dealing with asinine bureaucracy and being held hostage is one of the last things I want to deal with. I sure hope that once they get used to the assigned site situation, they sunset this ridiculous policy. Nevertheless, we’d be happy to stay here again. We camped at Thousand Trails Hershey RV Campground in a Motorhome.
Campground map:
An interactive map:
Our site:
Nice view:
Utilities:
Ducks below birdfeeders on our neighboring site:
Tortoise crossing the road:
Geese and goslings:
Bathrooms:
Other sites:
Cabins:
Welcome center:
Closed swimming pool:
Game court:
Mini golf:
Lake:
We’d be happy to stay here again.
Video: Ocean View, New Jersey to Lebanon, Pennsylvania motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 162 miles from Ocean View, New Jersey to Lebanon, Pennsylvania.