RTL_sparky
08-23-2007, 08:04 PM
Just got back from a huge 3 week trip visiting as many National Parks throughout the west. As you can see it was quite an undertaking. Beginning in Sacramento, CA and heading north toward Seattle, then heading east toward Montana, south into Wyoming, east into South Dakota, south into Colorado, along the south of Colorado into southern Utah and then up into Nevada and home.
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/2007Vacation.jpg
Some of the sites seen were... Mt Shasta, Klamath Falls, Crater Lake National Park, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Mount Rainier National Park, Pikes Place Market in Seattle, Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, Glacier National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Devils Tower National Park, Mt Rushmore National Memorial, Crazy Horse Memorial, Rocky Mountain National Park, Denver, Colorado Springs, Durango, Mesa Verde National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Bryce Canyon National Park, and finally Emerald Bay State Park at Lake Tahoe.
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/IMG_7240_B.jpg
As you can see we have a Coleman Yuma popup that weighs somewhere around 2500lbs. The Ridge pulled it very, very well. The small trailer tires where rated at 65mph so I tried to stay near that when I could. I was able to pass trucks and other campers by running up to as much as 75mph or so. The Ridge can run at 4000 RPM all day... with a few spikes up to 5800 RPM. We started with 2330 miles on the odometer and returned with 7890 miles. Of course I was negative 2000 on the MM... but what can you do?
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/IMG_7301_B.jpg
Picture of our camp at Mt. Rainier
A few interesting things to note about the RTL. The ride was great, what else can I say. There were some days that we drove for 11 hours. I found that by raising the front of the lower seat and keeping the back of the lower seat down I had more leg room. Of course I had to adjust the back of the seat so that it would not tip back so far. This helped me from getting so tired. The Navagation system was excellent. We were able to re-route or detour when needed to get a better route that would not take as long. The only thing that bugged me about the system is that it would not route you through National parks. While driving in hilly, switchback road the Nav helped me see how tight the next turn was before I got to it. We found that if we wanted to go to a certain town and we didn't know the address we would just select a gas station in town and it would route us there without a problem. We also have Nav in our Accord Hybrid but prefer the one in the Ridge. It's larger and easier to navigate.
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/IMG_7689_B.jpg
The last night at Emerald Bay State Park
I figured with the trailer and everything loaded in the Ridge that we would get 12 MPG and about 200 miles per tank full. We did much, much better than that with an overall trip average of 15.65 MPG.
One thing I need to point out is that if we were going to do this again... we wouldn't. Not in the 3 week timeframe and we would have stayed longer at each of the spots. An example is the Grand Tetons are best seen early in the morning as the sun rises, not in the late afternoon as we did. We I get all our pictures loaded on smugmug I'll update this with the link.
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/2007Vacation.jpg
Some of the sites seen were... Mt Shasta, Klamath Falls, Crater Lake National Park, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Mount Rainier National Park, Pikes Place Market in Seattle, Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, Glacier National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Devils Tower National Park, Mt Rushmore National Memorial, Crazy Horse Memorial, Rocky Mountain National Park, Denver, Colorado Springs, Durango, Mesa Verde National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Bryce Canyon National Park, and finally Emerald Bay State Park at Lake Tahoe.
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/IMG_7240_B.jpg
As you can see we have a Coleman Yuma popup that weighs somewhere around 2500lbs. The Ridge pulled it very, very well. The small trailer tires where rated at 65mph so I tried to stay near that when I could. I was able to pass trucks and other campers by running up to as much as 75mph or so. The Ridge can run at 4000 RPM all day... with a few spikes up to 5800 RPM. We started with 2330 miles on the odometer and returned with 7890 miles. Of course I was negative 2000 on the MM... but what can you do?
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/IMG_7301_B.jpg
Picture of our camp at Mt. Rainier
A few interesting things to note about the RTL. The ride was great, what else can I say. There were some days that we drove for 11 hours. I found that by raising the front of the lower seat and keeping the back of the lower seat down I had more leg room. Of course I had to adjust the back of the seat so that it would not tip back so far. This helped me from getting so tired. The Navagation system was excellent. We were able to re-route or detour when needed to get a better route that would not take as long. The only thing that bugged me about the system is that it would not route you through National parks. While driving in hilly, switchback road the Nav helped me see how tight the next turn was before I got to it. We found that if we wanted to go to a certain town and we didn't know the address we would just select a gas station in town and it would route us there without a problem. We also have Nav in our Accord Hybrid but prefer the one in the Ridge. It's larger and easier to navigate.
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/pt_sparky/IMG_7689_B.jpg
The last night at Emerald Bay State Park
I figured with the trailer and everything loaded in the Ridge that we would get 12 MPG and about 200 miles per tank full. We did much, much better than that with an overall trip average of 15.65 MPG.
One thing I need to point out is that if we were going to do this again... we wouldn't. Not in the 3 week timeframe and we would have stayed longer at each of the spots. An example is the Grand Tetons are best seen early in the morning as the sun rises, not in the late afternoon as we did. We I get all our pictures loaded on smugmug I'll update this with the link.