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.

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 61: Sylvan Grove COE

We got an early start to the day today, leaving the Missouri Conservation Dept's Boat Ramp/campsite at Roberts Bluff, Missouri at 0615 hours.

Driving was very tiring as it was a very windy day, and we were fighting winds from the West and Southwest all morning!

By 1300 we were almost done setting up camp at the Sylvan Park campground near Wilson Lake. It is a Corps of Engineers campground, and I realized as I drove into it that I had been here before! Yep, August of 2021 as I was headed home from a previous trip to the Eastern half of the country, the really humid half as I had selectively forgotten it seems.

Today was damn hot, sunny though only with a relative humidity of 39%, which beats me almost 95% humidity we experienced in Missouri yesterday!  The RV thermometer was showing an outside temperature of 100° F.

We plugged into shore power, a major factor in picking a COE site for today, and spent the rest of the afternoon in AC comfort inside the RV.  It did take quite a while to cool down the inside of the RV though, as it had been showing a temperature of 85°F when we started setting up camp.

While we waited for the RV to cool down, we both took cooling outdoor showers beside the RV after I had hooked up the campsite water faucet.

Tomorrow, Colorado and home!

Spring Fling 2026 - A Small Scare and now in Missouri

Due to foggy conditions we weren't able to leave the Richards farm HH until almost 8:00 a.m..  Traffic on I-70 was heavy at times and there was many construction zones and two spots where we experience delays due to crashes that happened before we got there. 

In other words quite the slog, and then we had our little scare near the town of Wentzville.

We were cruising along and all of a sudden the engine lost power and shutdown!  Cursing, I coasted to a stop at a somewhat safe spot on the side of the highway.  The gauges were still operating so it wasn't the same problem as before I thought. After a bit I turned the engine back on, things seem to be fine, and we decided to drive to the next exit which we could see down the road. 

Getting off the highway, there happened to be a Camping World franchise right there! 

We drove into their parking lot and  parked the RV to check things out.  Nothing immediately or obviously wrong. She was a little low on oil so I added some.  I had noticed that she had thrown the usual P0152 OBD code and I mentioned it to Martha.

She immediately started using her Google-Fu and one of the items to be checked was the status of the air filter and also the MAF sensor. 

I opened up the air filter housing and discovered that the air cap on the air filter had separated from the filter element and had apparently blocked the air inlet enough to cause the engine to shut off on the highway.  At least that is the theory.

The black cap is supposed to be glued on...

We disconnected the Honda CRV and drove a couple of miles to the nearby NAPA auto parts store and got a replacement filter.  This time I bought the expensive version versus the cheaper one, hoping that the more expensive one have better glue to hold on to that stupid cap!

We hooked the Honda CRV back up and once again rejoin the slogging traffic on I-70. By 14:30 hours we had arrived at the Harriman Hill access camping spot just off of the I-70 highway. 

We secured a nice spot but we found that the site was next to the highway and there was quite a large amount of highway noise. 

Leaving the RV there, we took the Honda CRV and checked out the nearby Roberts Bluff camping area and boat ramp.

The site was quieter and empty of other camping rigs.  I left Martha with a lounge chair to hold down our spot while I raced back in the Honda CRV to the first site.  

I returned with the RV, towing the Honda CRV and setup camera. 

It was a hot and humid day under the sun and we both took cooling showers after setting up the RV for the night.  I even took a dip in the nearby river, using the boat ramp to get to the water.

There was a noticeable current in the river so I didn't go too far from that shoreline. 

The RV seem to run fine after I replaced the air filter. So I am hoping my theory was correct.

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 59: World's Largest Pitchfork

We didn't leave the Blueberry Patch Harvest Host until almost 9:00 a.m. this morning, the rest of the day was spent driving towards and then on Interstate 70 and it's many instances of construction delays.

It rained on us several times and the skies remained solidly overcast. 

Now near the town of Casey, IL at a different Harvest Host, though this one is also a farm.  It's main draw however is a restaurant where we had dinner. 

This farm is also host to the world's largest pitchfork, verified by the Guinness book of World records.   There are other world largest type objects in town but we were too tired and weary to disconnect the Honda CRV and go check them out.

This picturesque pond is part of the farm as one walks toward the animal enclosures where Martha found a hairy cow, goats and chickens. 

The restaurant's decor and food were very good.  A tad pricey perhaps, the food, but definitely tasty.

Brisket Mac & Cheese 

Pork Chop and Fries

The RV is running good I am happy to report. There seems to be some glitch now with it charging the house battery while the engine is running, but no problem. I just simply run the small generator for an hour or so to top off the house battery when we get to the new location. I will look into it further once I am home.  This is more impetus for the DC to DC charger option that I am thinking about. 

Tomorrow, Missouri!