RV'ing across the States

Our blog has been quiet for a little while, and here is why: we have been resting at Lauren's parents' home since the end of December, quietly preparing the second part of our trip.

Here's our route (so far). The trip will take about 2 months to complete. We got the idea of the route from this guy who computed an optimized route.

We bought a used RV, cleaned it up, repaired it, upgraded what needed to be replaced, and took off last Wednesday (March 8) to tour the United States for 2 months. Our vehicle is a 2001 Trail Lite by R-Vision M-242, a 25-foot class A ("box on wheels"):

Here is how it looked the day we bought it:

And after we renovated it:

Most visible in these pictures is the fact we replaced the bulky CRT TV with an overhead LCD TV, and added new seat covers and pillows. But many other upgrades and fixes were done: new tires, new battery wire terminals, cleaned the generator's carburetor, new power inverter, new door lock, new skylight, new microwave, new shower head, resealed the roof, shampooed the carpet and seats, etc.

We started the road trip on March 8 and have been doing 2 days of only driving, stopping in a nice but expensive KOA RV camp in Tucson, Arizona. The second day we stopped in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Driving to Carlsbad Caverns.

We visited the Carlsbad Caverns, which are magnificent:

I liked this model of the caverns in the visitor center, showing how big it is. The underground walking tour is almost 4 miles in length:

After that we drove as far as possible during daytime, and stayed in a cheap RV camp in Fort Stockton, Texas:

On the road.

Our camp in Fort Stockton.

The next day we went shopping and hopped back in the RV to San Antonio, Texas where we planned to spend about 2 days.