PROLOGUE

Here are the stats for our trip.

We were on the road for 197 nights all but 13 when we had the hire car were spent on Dude.

We drove 12,970 miles on Dude plus 2,000 miles in the hire car.

We spent 14 nights in our tent backpacking, 18 nights at Wal Mart carparks and 14 at interstate highway rest stops

Our camping costs were higher at $21 per night (ex hire car hotels). Not surprising due to the $77 cost per night at Key West, $74 in New York and $56 in Washington DC.

Our overage fuel cost per mile however was a lot less at only $0.37 per mile as fuel was 10% cheaper overall.

Our average fuel consumption of 9.36 mpg was slightly less than our previous trip despite having the spark plugs replaced before we left.

We visited 32 new states plus Washington DC to add to the 10 states we did on our last tour.

We visited 14 new National Parks to add to the 23 already visited.

We sold Dude for $21,000 with everything inside including our 2 mountain bikes. We purchased Dude for $23,000 and spent about $7,000 on servicing, repairs and upgrades. We had used Dude for at least 400 nights (not including weekend trips) in our 3.6 years and had put 31,000 miles on the clock.

To put this in perspective Dude only cost $25 per night or .33 cents per mile.

One door closes and another one opens…..