#Washington

With two days left on this leg of the road trip, we made our way inland and north. After a delicious breakfast of crepes just a block from our hotel, we wandered around Monterey for a bit. The Sea Lions were out in force, serenading us with their plea for food, and overpowering the smell of the ocean with their stink.

We filled up in Monterey and headed towards San Francisco. Sun was out until we hit the Bay Area, then cleared again as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge; we had blue skies for the rest of the trip north.

Driving past Mount Shasta, and through the Siskiyou’s is always a thrill for me; Russ did a lot of driving so I could shoot pictures from the passenger seat.

We spent the night in Grants Pass, OR, and visited family in Rogue River in the morning, before hitting the road again for our last day.

I cannot honestly count how many trips I’ve made between Rogue River and wherever I’ve lived in Washington over the past 40-plus years. It’s such a familiar stretch of road, I still remember where the speed traps are, what hotels and restaurants will be ‘around the next bend’, and of course, where all the fun places to eat are. One of our all-time favorites is a little drive-in place in Rice Hill, Oregon called K & R Drive-In.

My first experience was in high school when our youth pastor took a bunch of us there on our way to an outdoor concert. I’ve rarely made a trip in either direction without stopping by for a shake, cone, or bag of fries; and of course, I’ve introduced everyone who’s driven with me to the wonder of this little hole-in-the-wall place that serves the very best ice cream ever (sorry Tillamook, I’ll have to go with Umpqua for this one).

Russ drove through Portland, knowing how much I LOATHE tall bridges; unfortunately for him, we hit traffic and road construction, which continued for most of the trip north and brought us into Redmond late. I have to say California was pretty rude, with no signs to welcome us nor say goodbye; however, Oregon and Washington politely greeted us as we entered and left the state.

After checking into the hotel, we grabbed dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and settled in for a restful night.

Safe Travels and God’s blessings!
You can continue following our adventures on Facebook at Normads (Norman Adventures), or here on the blog.

We just completed a month-long road trip covering 26 days, 7 states, 4457 miles, and several bucket list items checked off. Months of planning were involved, and after the fact, there is always laundry and catching up on other things. Not to mention the roughly 3,500 photos I need to edit.

I’ve kept mileage records for my cars since August 2014, first as a business log; more recently as a record for curiosity. I paid as little as $1.979/gal at Costco in February 2015, and as high as $5.559/gal in July of 2022 (excluding road trips and reward points). The highest I’ve ever paid for gas is $6.09/gal as we moved from Washington to Arizona at a station in Wikieup, AZ.

For this trip, I kept a trip log not only with gas prices but with mileage between some of the stops. I didn’t log every stop we made or the time we landed there, but some of the major stops were:

Mesa to Flagstaff, AZ – 176 miles
Flagstaff to Seligman, AZ – 75 miles
Seligman to Kingman, AZ – 85 miles
Kingman AZ to Needles, CA – 62 miles
Day 1 – 398 miles, 10 hours

Needles to Marina Del Ray, CA – 353 miles
Santa Monica to Monterey, CA – 216 miles
Monterey, CA to Grants Pass, OR – 552 miles
Grants Pass, OR to Redmond, WA – 465 miles
Redmond, WA to Boise, ID – 503 miles
Boise, ID to West Valley City, UT – 456 miles
West Valley City, UT to Flagstaff, AZ – 539 miles

Driving time was between 6 and 9 hours a day because it’s a road trip and there were numerous camera, bathroom, tourist, and food stops!

I expected we would see some fairly high gas prices as we hit California, but for the most part, prices stayed below $6 even in Monterey and Santa Monica, CA. We planned on buying at Costco when we could to save a few pennies, but in most cases we purchased at regular gas stations with no rewards or discounts.

Date                  MPG            Miles/Tank          Gallons       Price       Notes
9/3/2023         20.66078        227                        10.987        4.369     Costco Mesa AZ
9/4/2023         24.8282          336                        13.533        4.899     Kingman AZ
9/6/2023         25.4596          421                        16.536        5.199     Santa Monica CA
9/7/2023         26.60092        410                        15.413        5.499     Monterey CA
9/7/2023         34.79304        348                        10.002        4.999     Redding CA
9/8/2023         27.687            305                        11.016        4.539     Oakland OR (Rice Hill)
9/9/2023         19.73982        349                        17.68          4.759     Costco Redmond WA
9/15/2023       23.95137        394                        16.45          4.799     Marathon Lacey WA
9/26/2023       17.61252        225                        12.775        4.799     Costco Redmond
9/26/2023       25.81806        445                        17.236        4.499     Loves Ontario OR
9/28/2023       25.54095        373                        14.604        4.599     Arimo ID
9/29/2023       25.39208        340                        13.39          4.699     Beaver UT
9/30/2023       24.75775        511                        20.64          4.599     Costco Mesa AZ

As you can see, our mileage averaged right around 24/25 mpg, although the trip meter in the car averaged 26.5 mpg. With a 22-gallon tank, we tried to fill up when the tank hit 1/4, to avoid paying emergency prices at some station in the middle of nowhere. Even though we were fortunate (due to planning) not to pay high prices, there were several stations along the trip where we saw as high as $7.99/gal! Sinclair and Maverick had the most consistent pricing; surprisingly Shell, Chevron, and Union76 weren’t always the most expensive on the road. Love’s Truck Stops were either painfully high or right in line with Sinclair and Maverick.

Road trips are fantastic for conversations to while away the miles, and this trip was filled with several doozies. We commented several times about Diesel pricing, and I learned there are two grades of Diesel in the US. Diesel was consistently 30-50 cents or more pricier than gasoline.

We also had a spirited discussion about the difference between “motor” and “engine”, which is a concept I’d never considered. If it pleases the court, I maintain that if an “outboard motor” is really an engine, then that’s what it should be called. The words are used interchangeably, but by definition, it’s an engine, and I’d probably be laughed out of the rental place if I asked for an Outboard Engine for my (hypothetical) boat.

Calling out license plates on the trip was fun; the furthest being Florida and Maine. We did try to read or guess the state by the license plate.