Spring Fling 2026: The Fling is Flung - Home Again

June 29

The last day of this last trip by us via motorhome to the eastern half of the country!

We left the Sylvan Park COE campground at 0645 CDT and arrived home at 1247 MDT.

We're very glad Uma, the VRRV gave us no further issues since the small scare involving the air filter in Wentzville, MO. 

We unloaded Uma and started in on the post-camping trip chores 

Some of the lessons learned:

Anything east of the Rockies is hot and humid in late Spring/Summer.  Sure, it's hot here in Colorado but way lower in humidity!

When you buy cheap parts, you may come to regret it.

You can get oversaturated with history and museums.  16 museums (including battlefield parks and attractions).

You can never go back to the friendships you remember.  

Just because it's grass covered, doesn't mean you shouldn't walk it before driving onto a spot in wetter climates.

Good family will always come through for you.

Don't trust a dealership to buy the right house battery for an RV, provide it to them yourself.  To be fair, they trusted the AutoZone guy.

Getting medical care at a non-VA facility but paid for by the VA is doable, getting prescriptions paid for by the VA can be problematical, self pay if possible.

Last but not least, a saying from Martha's dad: There's always a tuition for life's education.

Here's a compilation of stats, then and now both for record and consideration

I'd mentioned before we'd made a somewhat similar trip to the East Coast back in the summer of 2021.  

2021

74 days trip, 11 as guests of friends 

4887 miles driven by the VRRV.

Assuming $3/gal gas spent almost $2100

$630 camping fees

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2026

62 day trip, 19 as guests of friends 

4866 miles driven by VRRV 

Gas avg cost $4.05/gal.  $2635.25 spent on gas by VRRV.  $429.77 in gas for the Honda CR-V and Yagi, the TW200.

$665.63 in camping fees

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Back in 2021 I hadn't started using a gas/mileage tracking app to log such costs.

For the Spring Fling the app reports: (just for VRRV)

May 2026: 

Fuel price avg: $4.12/gal. Low: $3.89 High:$4.39

Fuel Purchased 222.948 gallons

Fuel Cost $918.40. Miles driven 1606 ($0.572 per mile)

June 2026

Fuel Price (avg) $3.92 per gallon.  Low: $3.35  High:$4.53

Fuel Purchased 368.442 gallons

Fuel Cost $1,444.88.  Miles driven 2587 ($0.559 per mile)

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Overall costs:

Counting fuel, lodging, food, entertainment and misc: $96.61/day.

The above overall costs don't include the repairs to the VRRV due to the short-circuiting incident.