The very nice folks at the Suwannee Amateur Radio Club were having their annual tailgate on Saturday in Wellborn, Florida and I decided to go to meet some people I interact with on the radio face to face. Sonya and myself thought that this would make a good excuse to do an overnight trip on Friday so we could make it to Wellborn for the start of the event. On Thursday, we decided to abandon those plans since a very nasty weather front was coming and Friday night was when it was going to hit.
Now sometimes I am adventurous, but no need taking unnecessary risks. I also did not want to run down the highway in a line of Thunderstorms. We decided to re-group and change our plans and make it a day trip. The weather forecast said it would blow past us Friday afternoon and we would be in the clear Saturday morning. They were a little late on their timing.
We got up Saturday morning and it was still raining. We had gotten 4 inches of the wet stuff overnight so our decision was a good one. The rain in Tallahassee was light and the heavy stuff had blown East of our destination, but there was still rain along our path. Light rain I was willing to do.
So we took off down I-10 to Wellborn. We were in and out of light rain the whole way. The Fuse did wonderfully. The wipers made easy work of the rain on the front window and there were no handling problems. We made one stop at a rest area and lucked into a hole in the clouds. Found the mosquitoes but no rain. Back on our way we made it and had a glorious time meeting people face to face. We even got some nice comments about the size of the Fuse when we pulled up.
Sonya stayed in the motorhome, read a book and took a nap. Lily the beagle watched out the front window. Everyone had a good time and no one was grumpy or bored. The glory of RV traveling at its best.
After we left, we went down I-10 to the rest stop and pulled over and ate lunch. I got a little nap until Lily wanted to visit with some friends she saw walking with their humans. Again, the beauty of RV travel. Everyone was happy including me.
We went on down the road and stopped by the Steven Foster State Park to have a look. This was where we were going to spend Friday night had the weather not scared us off. The park was very nice and it is on our list to go back to for an overnight camping trip. The area was very flat and compact in size and layout. It would make a great place to walk/bike around and explore. We looked at the bell tower and the gift shop. The park was really packed with an antique tractor show going on. We missed the museum due to the crowds.
While I was there I dumped the septic tanks and we headed back to Tallahassee.
We learned a new lesson. Don't leave stuff in the black tank and then run the central fan in exhaust mode. We had no smells from the septic with our little fans on and had no smells when the house fan was pulling air in. With the house fan exhausting air out and the windows only cracked, I am pretty sure we were pulling aromas from the black tank every time we flushed.
We should have seen if we opened the windows all of the way up if that would have made a difference but there was an imperative to fix the problem immediately. A big note to self on this one and the tank deodorizer may need to be revisited. It was not helping much. This is why we decided to dump. when we did and we had a convenient place to do it.
Going back to Tallahassee the Fuse did not stick to the road as well as going over. We were bouncing around a little bit and not as tight on the road as it was earlier in the day. It might have been more wind, but I did not see any obvious signs. I am guessing the 10-15 gallons of waste in the tanks helped hold the Fuse to the road better than running empty. Another note to self for further investigation.
So now how well did we do gas mileage wise. We traveled 218 miles on Saturday. Well like the last time, I had the cruse control set to 68mph. Went a little faster sometimes, and a little slower once off of the Interstate. Going east to Wellborn the computer said we were getting 14.7mpg in the rain. Coming back the computer said we were averaging 14.3mpg, no rain and 78 degrees sunny.
I checked when we filled up and got 13.6mpg doing the hand calculation. I discount this as an erroneous result since this included 30-60 min of idling the engine while playing with the Fuse in the driveway. I am not sure how to figure that in other than to note it as an anomaly.
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