Big Winter Texas Trip: Lessons Learned

I thought I'd diverge a bit from my normal journaling type post to reflect on lessons learned during our big trip to Texas.  Because of our initial desire to spend a winter in Florida to use the remnants of our Florida annual passes to Disney World and Universal Studios, followed by the pandemic (the two of which kept us in Orlando for months and then quarantined at my parents' houses for months), this was the first time we had really done an adventurous excursion in the RV to places completely unknown (and of course this is the travel we really INTENDED to do before COVID struck).

So here's my list!

1. We need to avoid 2-lane roads (that is, one lane going each direction).  Without a second lane (and frequently without a significant shoulder or median), there is NO wiggle room if we need to avoid an obstacle.  There's also usually not enough room for a truck or another RV to pass us in the oncoming lane without one of the parties going off the road.  Also, Aaron really hates trapping cars behind us - we're nearly always going less than the speed limit and almost reliably less than what some random car driver would LIKE to drive, and on a two lane road the cars just sit behind us getting frustrated with no escape.  Because of this, in our current RV we would greatly prefer to stick to destinations that he can get to on a minimum of 4-lane divided highways.
2. We shouldn't plan a leg of a trip that Google says is more than 2.5 hours.  2.5 hours in the car translates to more like 3 in the RV at the speeds we have to go, and 3 hours is about Aaron's upper limit stress/fatigue-wise.  Knowing his 3 hour limit while I was planning this trip, I'd planned several legs that were about 3.25 hours according to Google (approaching 4 in the RV), and that is really pushing it for him.
3. We don't need more than 2 nights at a location if there's nothing to do.  I had scheduled 4 nights for most stops because I wanted to give Aaron enough time to rest, but really he only needs about a day to rest after a particularly bad drive (read: lots of 2-lane roads, high winds, bad traffic, etc.).  We had a couple of stops where, despite our best attempts, we couldn't find more than a few hours' worth of things to explore, and the days really dragged on at those sites.  Aaron got particularly frustrated thinking that those COULD have been days added to a destination we particularly enjoyed.  Of course, this is a balance of sorts because I enjoy finding random things in an area (like giant squirrels and beautiful country churches) that we would NEVER go out of our way to see, and I think that's all part of the adventure.
4. We can easily go 4 nights without sewer.  This was something new we played with this trip.  While in Orlando, we'd stay 7 days at a time at Orange County Parks, where we didn't have sewer.  We would stay 7 days because that was the required time for us to be out of the Thousand Trails system.  We would use the bathhouse for all showers and all restroom visits that weren't in the middle of the night, and I would haul all of our dishwater to the outdoor bathhouse sink.  This trip we discovered that as long as I continue to haul dishwater, we can easily do all of our bathroom things inside the RV in 4 days' time, which is WAY more convenient.
5. Corollary: limit non-sewer stays to 4 days.  See point #4.
   
6. It's good to be on sewer every other week or so.  Of course, with only a few exceptions, this means staying in a private RV park rather than staying in a public/more natural park.  However, the sewer is nice for two reasons: (1) Aaron likes to do a thorough cleanout of the black and gray tanks on a regular basis, and that takes long enough that it's better to do it when a bunch of people aren't waiting in line behind you at the dump station; (2) having sewer makes it less stressful to shower, do dishes, and clean the bathroom - and also lets me do laundry using our own washer/dryer instead of a laundromat.
   
   Hmm...that's a lot of sewer lessons...you can tell what's frequently on my mind!!
   
   
7. It's best to travel midday on weekdays.  We kind of already knew this, but we did drive a couple times on a Friday afternoon or Sunday when all the weekend vacationers are on the road, and that's just a lot more stressful for Aaron.
8. Only Florida is warm in the winter.  We thought we'd take this winter trip because Texas is so hot in the summer, we figured it would be warm in the winter...nope.  Now, I know most of my readers are in much more northern climates and think I'm ridiculous here...but I haven't spent a winter in a place that really gets snow for over 10 years.  I'm spoiled, I admit it.  So, the highs in the 50s that we got a long portion of our trip through northern Florida and southern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas just weren't cool.  Or I guess they were cool technically speaking ;-).  After this trip, we're pretty confident we need to be wintering in Florida, southern Arizona, or southern California.  To be fair, extreme southern Texas *should* be ok too...we were just unlucky enough to get caught there during the crazy winter storm and didn't get to experience it.
9. Traveling during COVID times is...iffy.  This is a mixed bag.  On the one hand, traveling in an RV and staying at campgrounds and visiting mostly outdoor attractions is one of the few safe things I feel like we can do while the virus runs rampant.  On the other...a LOT of things are still closed.  It is a bit frustrating that we weren't able to do some very cool-looking things at several locations, making us think we probably need to go back some day...which kind of feels like it defeats the purpose of exploring new areas, if we aren't able to see what there is to see.  We're thinking maybe until COVID comes under control we should keep trips short and sweet so we're not expending tons of money on diesel to visit an area we'll have to come back to again later.  (Unsurprisingly, our gas mileage is TERRIBLE.)

I feel like we should have more lessons learned, but I've been sitting on this post waiting for inspiration for about a week now and this is all I have :-).  Overall we had an awesome trip and saw lots of great things, and I'm looking forward to more exploring in the months to come!  We're in Orlando now and then we're heading back to West Virginia for some maintenance for a bit, but we already have a nice trip around Tennessee planned for our anniversary and the month after.  Stay tuned!