A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 163 miles from San Antonio, Texas to Corpus Christi, Texas.
Travel from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, Texas
We drove our coach 163 miles, about three hours of driving, from San Antonio, Texas to Corpus Christi, Texas.
The map route, heading southeast:
Leaving the campground, along the mile of dirt road:
A fuel stop; a later one would have been better, but this location was cheaper:
Paladin on the dash; not something we encourage. He was feeling a bit stressed about travel; sometimes he forgets about it:
I-37 south:
Paladin on the dash again:
Fortunately it wasn’t too far to a planned stop for lunch, which gave him time chillax:
I like it when I spot a roadside diner with adequate truck parking:
This was Kuntry Korner cafe in Pleasonton:
Menu:
Breakfast for lunch; not bad, if a little slow:
Back to our coach:
Onramp from the service road to I-37:
Paladin on the back of my chair:
There were several oil refineries near Corpus Christi:
Our exit:
Roadworks:
Buildings on stilts near the water:
Our destination, the KOA:
Check in:
Our coach and truck when checking in at the office upstairs:
Being led to our site:
Upgraded TST TPMS display
One of the first accessories I purchased for our coach was a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS).
Recently an RV technology site called TechnoRV announced an upgraded display unit, that is compatible with the older system. The new one has a larger display, and uses a touchscreen instead of buttons next to the display.
Here’s the old unit:
And the new unit:
I also got a weighted base, that attaches magnetically to the unit:
The unit on the base:
The new unit’s menu:
The old and new units next to each over; you can see how much larger and more clear the new unit is:
2023 travel plans
Enough reviewing last year; what’s in store for 2023?
We spent the holidays on the gulf coast in Corpus Christi, Texas. We are now doing a tour of more of Texas, including Austin, Houston, and Dallas. With a side trip to the US Virgin Islands for Jenn’s birthday (and to check off the Virgin Islands National Park) while our coach is being serviced. Then we’ll head back west through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California, collecting a few national parks we missed previously, including Death Valley, Yosemite, and Redwoods. We’ll also go to Disneyland again, because why not.
Then we’ll head up the coast in California, Oregon, and Washington, and spend some time at Mom’s place while we take care of doctor visits and such. Then we’ll go east through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, into Wyoming, where we’ll spend some time at Yellowstone, before continuing on to North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, some new states for us.
Following that, a little detour through Colorado and New Mexico to attend the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta again (yes, we recently managed to snag an RV site at the fiesta). Then some more new states: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and finally we’ll spend next winter in Florida.
This route adds 10 new states towards our goal to visit all of the states.
The stops for this route have been mostly booked already; there are a few holes that don’t have reservations, as some places don’t allow booking this far out, but we’ll book them as soon as we can. And of course we will make changes as needed (and in fact have made some minor tweaks since making these maps, not affecting the route noticeably). But this is a fairly solid plan for the year.
Here is a map showing our proposed route on the states and color-coded time zones:
A more detailed map:
Here’s the same map with the routes and stops for 2021-2022 added; the 2021 Yellowstone trip is in brown, 2021 coach travel in green, 2022 travel in blue, and 2023 travel in purple:
The same map as an animated GIF, adding each year:
It’s going to be another busy year. I hope you’ll follow along via this blog and the YouTube channel.
Video: 2021-2022 motorhome travel timelapses in less than 6 minutes!
Was the 2022 timelapses video not fast enough for you? Hey, I understand; 38 minutes is quite long, even at 20x the original timelapses speed. This video combines both the 2021 and 2022 timelapse videos, and makes them eight times faster (i.e. 160 times faster than original timelapses), so you can see all our motorhome travel in less than six minutes!
2022 stickers
On the passenger-side slide-out, we have a large sticker with the Sinclair Trails logo, a map of the US showing the states we’re visited, and stickers with the SinclairTrails.com domain name and @SinclairTrails social handle:
The states sticker consists of separate stickers for each state, applied to a base sticker. Our rule is that we have to spend a night in a state for it to count (and only since purchasing our coach). Once we have spent a night in a new state, we add its sticker. So far, we’ve visited 12 of the 50 states:
Visiting Alaska is going to be a major project. And of course we can’t take our motorhome to Hawaii, but we’ll count that just by the next time we visit (and may or may not rent a camper of some sort, depending on how strict we want to be).
On the driver-side slide-out of the coach, we have stickers for each of the National Parks we have visited, that being another of the goals in our travels. So far, we have visited 27 of the 63 parks:
Of course, we’ve also visited numerous National Monuments, National Historic Sites, and other classifications. With 423 parks of various types in the National Park System, not to mention parks administered by states, forest services, etc, we had to cap the memorializing of them somewhere! National Parks are the goal; others are gravy.
However, inside our coach we have a framed board with a wooden map of the US, around which we add stickers (and other objects) for any kind of attraction we visit:
The wooden map has pins for states we’ve visited (in their capitols); the pins feature the state flags:
Some of the stickers above and below the map:
2022 selfies
I thought it’d be fun to create an animated GIF of selfies and other pictures of Jenn and me from 2022. We’ve been to some interesting places!
2022 special posts
While most of the posts on this blog are about travel, campgrounds, attractions, and modifications, I sometimes post about other topics. This is a summary of those posts from 2022.
As with previous summaries, for each I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details.
Making a multi-year route map:
Introducing the Tiffin Allegro Bus 2016-2018 Owners group on Facebook:
Anniversary of buying our motorhome:
RV floorplan and square footage:
2022 modifications
We have done a number of modifications to our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome, to make it more comfortable as a full-time home, to improve the features, or to repair issues. This is a summary of some of the changes done in 2022; also check out the changes from 2021.
As with previous summaries, for each I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details.
You can see all of the modification-related blog posts via the modifications category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.
Spyder control panel and shades issue:
Bolts to secure our outdoor rug:
Truck windshield rock chip repair:
Cummins for check engine and malfunction lights:
Water quick connectors and gauges:
Ceiling fan motor replacement:
Replacing 3-stage water filters:
Reflectix insulation in cupboards:
Heavy-duty security chain and lock for bikes:
Automatic paper towel dispenser:
Wash Wax All waterless cleaner:
VIAIR tire inflation compressor:
2022 attractions, part 4
Concluding the summary of some of the attractions we visited in 2022.
This is part four of four, covering October through December, inclusive. Start with part one, or check out part two or part three, if you haven’t already.
October 2022
Drive through Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming:
Rocky Mountain National Park day 1, Colorado:
Rocky Mountain National Park day 2:
Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado:
November 2022
Truth or Consequences and Elephant Butte Dam, New Mexico:
White Sands National Park, New Mexico:
Las Cruces mountains and weather, New Mexico:
Texas and New Mexico wine tasting:
Roswell UFO Museum, New Mexico:
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico:
Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas:
Sitting Bull Falls, New Mexico:
Carlsbad Caverns National Park again:
December 2022
Fort Leaton State Historic Site, Texas:
Big Bend Ranch State Park, Texas:
Gage Gardens, Marathon, Texas:
McDonald Observatory Star Party:
Big Bend National Park, Texas:
South Llano River State Park, Texas:
Fort McKavett State Historic Site, Texas:
Ingram, Texas and Stonehenge II:
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park:
We certainly have done a lot!