Day 7 - Daytona Disc Golf, Visit with Cousins, More Plumbing

My second night in the Prius was better than the first.  I think the trailer on the other side of me from my aunt figured out I am sleeping in it.  The woman is up early and says hi to me each am before sunrise.

I worked a bit on organization of the Prius and will do the same this weekend to make things easier to live in.  It will be different when I live in it this weekend.  

I was up at 5:00 this morning and on the road to Daytona for 7:00.  I snapped this sunrise on the way down US27 towards Orlando.

I had looked up a Disc Golf Course in Daytona so I could go there before meeting a couple sisters who are cousins that I have never met before that live in Nee Smyrna Beach, one town south of Daytona.

Today I played 18 holes.  Yesterday was only a 9 hole course.

When I play by myself although I try to improve I also try different throwing techniques.  Today I also tried a putter I have not used much and I figure I must have improved as it works so much better than when I first got it from son Brent when I first started playing. 

After Disc Golf I drive down the ocean side of Daytona Beach then on to visit Januce and Joan.

 

We have the same Greatgrandparents.  Their grandfather was Frank and mine was William and they were brothers. We are also related on the grandmother side as their grandmother was Annie and mine was Marion and they were sisters.  Yes two brothers married two sisters.

I want to explain this next piece correctly.  Our great grandfather William Martin MacAloney (Frank & William's dad) was widowed and our great grandmother Cora Parmenter (Annie & Marion's mother) was widowed too. So they married.  The boys father married the girl's mother.  I would say we were related with all this going on!

We had a wonderful afternoon looking at Their mom's photos and together we were able to figure out 90% of their names.

Here is a photo of our Great Grandmother Cora MacAloney (Parmenter) receiving the Gold Star Mother's award for Arthur MacAloney being killed in WW2.  She is in the dark cape.

I drive the 1.5 Hour drive back to Leesburg and I was told of a leak in the kitchen sink, dripping faucet in bathroom, and a dual light switch that was intermittent.  It was a trip to Lowes and came back with new parts and installed the Kitchen sink.  I will do the rest before I leave after the weekend to South Florida.

It was a wonderful day at 75 degrees with plenty of sun. The last two days have been shorts & tee shirt & sandals weather.  Got to love it.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

Day 6 - 1st night in Prius, Disc Golf, Plumbing

In review of my first night in the Prius, it went well but could be better.

I slept fine and that is very good news.  Not having a comfortable place to sleep is a real game changer.  The fridge ran on and off all night and I barely noticed and since it is at my feet I didn't wake from it running.  This was also good news as I had not tried sleeping with it on.  

First problem I have is that I need to do a better job of prepping for the next days clothing.  The clothing is under the bed platform and what I need to do is get tomorrow's clothing out before it gets dark and I go to bed.  Much easier than trying to do it in the am.

Another problem I have is that no matter how much planning I did I still think I brought too much and I will need to evaluate what I have and what I use with an eye for a possible shipment home.

I also don't remember where I put everything.  I have a two level trunk that I store things in both. I have things in bags.  I will need to tag the bags as to what they generally are.  Also little things end up in small spaces to save space.

With a good nights sleep I was good to go and head out for my am McDonalds stop for unsweetened iced tea and downloads using att wifi they have there. I also did some college course work for the class I am teaching.

It warmed nicely today to 75 with bright sun so I decided to play disc golf.

I played this course before and did ok.  I need to get some more practice to get into better shape.

When I was done playing I worked a project at home to get a quote on for window replacements on a friend's house, and I posted about the Rius trip down.  

I tried making tea in my water bottle at the park.

Tea bag and bottle of water in the sun and you get sun pomegranate tea.  Put that over the left over ice from my morning tea and I got some good home made iced tea.

I then needed to go to Ace Hardware for a toilet filler tube that goes in the tank for my aunts trailer.  The toilet has been leaking for weeks.

After that I was ready for another iced tea and some updates to my apps on my iPhone & iPad at McDonalds.  

Then back to the trailer to fix the toilet before dinner that my aunt made. Pot roast, red cabbage, mashed Potatoes, & greenbeans.  Mom had some store bought sweet bread.  

Not a bad day in sunny Florida.

At day's end I noticed my Prius was hit by a bumper that dragged from the front passenger door to the rear passenger door.  It was oh so light a run that I don't see a dent but a got a scuff search the width of a bumper.  Must have been a parking lot today.  Err!

This scuff goes with the chip in the windshield I got yesterday on I95 in Georgia.  I hope that my vehicle damage is over now for the rest of my trip.

Brent

macalonry@hotmail.com

Day 5 - South Carolina to Florida & First Night in Van

I almost feel that I should start off this post with me laying in my "Prius Bed", but I will start my day off with our 4.5 hour drive time to central Florida.

There was frost on the car this am at the motel outside Savannah, GA with the TV weather report that it would reach 70 deg today.  About 45 minutes into the drive I decided to stop for gas.  For a Prius with only a 11 gallon tank a fill up is generally 8 gallons.  I stopped at a Flying-J truck stop where the regular gas was $1.979.  With my Good Sam card I get 3 cents off per gallon so my price was $1.949 for just under 8 gallons.

I will cover Prius vs. Coachman Campervan costs in another post as I am in my bed position for the night and don't want to get up to fumble around for the details. I can say the following over this first leg of the trip from central MA to central FL that is over 1300 miles, the Prius was so much more fun to drive. Yes, it also saved momey but the a Prius was comfortable and ran well.  Here is what I learned about the Prius mpg.  In the summer I can drive to MD and get 56.6 mpg.  In the winter with it being cold outside running the heat the engine runs more and my mpg went down to 46.6 mpg.  I'm not unhappy as I knew there was a drop in mpg that would be expected.  

What I also learned about mpg is that at posted speeds of 70 mph I would set the cruse control for 74 mph and see 72 or 73 on the GPS I would get 46 mpg.  When I dropped the cruise setting to 65 mph the gas mileage went up to 54 mpg.  This is a good example of how speed affects mileage.  I don't get to set my cruise in New England to 75 mph so it was a good test.

Coming down I95 we took I295 in Jacksonville to I10 west to US301 south down through Ocala.  The drive became much more interesting on US301, that is a undivided 4 lane highway that passes through small towns as we headed south.  There were many farm stands selling citrus fruit. And lots of speed traps as the highway posted speed went from 65 mph to 30 mph through towns,

We we arrived in Ocala it was 1:00 pm and 73 deg and still an hour away from our destination at my mom's sister / my aunt's, so we decided to look for a place for lunch.  We found this very busy diner in the center of Ocala, FL called Aunt Fannie's.  As with all diners food is plentiful, delivered fast, and cost effective.  We went by many chain restaurants to find this one.  It's always a good sign when the parking lot is nearly full.  Any travel through the area it is worth a stop.

This afternoon I fixed a light switch that had a loose wire and changed the water filter to the trailer.

After my aunt made dinner for us I retired to the Prius where I am now.  This afternoon I did take a 1/2 hour to set up the inside as planned but only went partially stealth.  Curtains are up but window blackouts are not in.  I am in a Moble home park with most units off of wheels and are park models.  I am a visitor so I don't have to pay.  If I did it is $45.00 per night for camping spot.  The bathrooms and showere are 4 sites away.  I am plugged in to my aunts power.  Tonight I am running the cooler on a/c and running the charger I have to charge he Prius 12 volt battery that I have my iPad and iPhone tied into.  If I get cold by am I can turn on the electric heater on low but lows are only expected to get down to 50 deg.

So what has gone well and what hasn't as I start the first night.

Good:

- Bed design is working fine

- My staging area on the passenger front floor for items for showering and clean cloths seem to be a good idea, so when I get up in am I have what I need all ready in one place)

- Power center for Prius 12 volts works great.  Haven't tried out the house battery power center and inverter power yet.

Bad:

- Need more general organization (some things are still not is the best spot and this may take time.)

- My sitting area is cluttered and didn't want this (I didn't think of the clothing I take off at night and dirty clothing and having a home for it)

- Need to manage power cables from rear power center better and have a holder in the back for the phone.  (Right now I have the phone hanging from the cord and this is not good.)

- I keep on thinking that there may be items that I can send home eventually, but I don't know what yet.  

- Need to put on the Velcro sticky spots to the sides of the curtains and on the plastic on the Prius to hold the curtain sides closed.

What's ahead:

I still have to go grocery shopping for the solo weekend and will need to keep items to a minimal.  I have space in the cooler nonperishable in 2 bags that do have a home for.

I have visits to planned to cousins on Thursday and Friday.  Then the weekend in south Florida somewhere.

I know I will have more good and bad but this is the start for the first night.  Many more nights to go!

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

- 

Prius stats for first leg of trip (MA to FL)

We traveled 1380.9 from MA to FL.  

I spent $362.60 on the Class B Coachman Campervan last year for fuel to make the same trip.

This year I spent $65.05 for fuel.  That's 18% of last year.

We need to factor in that fuel was cheaper this year.  Today's gas costs are about 40% less than last year so in this years terms, if the Campervan made the trip this year I would have paid about $231.68 and that would be 3.5 times more than what I paid for the Prius gas this year.

I didn't try to get down to the exact difference but to do a comparison of the two normalized for the gas price change this year.

In either case I'm happy with paying less fuel as a presentage of my costs.

More on comparison between the two trips in the future.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

Day 4 MD to SC - it was a blur

This morning was icy in MD with the rain ending and the ground being cold.  There was a lot of frosted/frozen surfaces and it was 36 deg as we headed south.  By the DC beltway there was no more icing.  It was nice it was a holiday as the traffic was minimal.

Mom and I stopped for lunch in Emporia, VA and it was 55 deg.  With just a long sleeve pull over I was happy.  The locals think it is cold and are wearing winter coats and some with hoods.  Some were actually wearing them in the restaurant.  Ahhh, it's nice to be warm.  

By North Carolina it was 63 degrees and it made it to 64 as we entered South Carolina.  By then it was 4:00 pm and sun was starting to get low in the sky.

As stated above we didn't stop much and literally it was a blur.  Here is the quick snap photo of South of the Boarder  I took as we drove by.

We are outside of Savannah, GA in a hotel for the night.  My Vandweller experience happens starting tomorrow night in FL.

We have about 5 hours left driving tomorrow to get to central FL.  This is where Mom will stay with her sister for the remainder of the winter.

Tonight after doing some course work my class at MWCC, I will catch up with the second episode of Girls season 4 and download podcasts for tomorrow's consumption.

Day 3 - Last Day in Maryland

Today was a family day of rest and relaxation helping Brent with a couple of things and celebrating the actual date of both my mother and Avery's Birthdays.

Dinner was special for Avery going to Red Robbin for her birthday dinner and then coming back to the house to watch the Patriot's in the playoffs.  Mom also got her birthday ice cream too.

Although I am not a football fan it was nice to see the Patriots win and move on to the Super Bowl.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

Your going to sleep in a Prius?

People travel by foot, camping in the open air or in a tent.  Others bike camp the say way.  Some that travel by foot or bike stay in hostels.  

I traveled in a campervan last year sleeping in it.  Over the road truck drivers sleep in the back of their cab.  Others stay in motels/hotels.  Touring bands often travel in motorhomes and camp in them at the venue they play at.

But when you get to the point of sleeping in a car often skepticism seeps in and you feel you have crossed a line of acceptability.  I understand there is a stigma about what I am doing by sleeping in my Prius but I am interested in helping to change the image in my own small way.  I think the image of sleeping in your car goes to the image of homelessness for many people.

Certainly I am not homeless but choosing to do my traveling this way.  If I was to tell everyone I was traveling in my Prius and was camping it would be ok as the image would be a tent in a campground and this is acceptable to most, although not what many think of their life on the road.  The image is also towards younger people doing this.

Now let's lake a leap.  If I had a choice of sleeping in a tent or in a fixed bed in my car the fixed bed is much more comfortable, and why not be the most comfortable.  Therefore why not sleep in my car in a bed I made for the trip?

My bed in the Prius is off the ground, warmer, more secure, better in rain, nothing to pick up in the am and have to find a way to dry from dampness.

I have a fixed seat and a bed in the Prius and I don't have that in a tent.  Oh did I mention I have no setup time with the Prius. I can plug into electricity to power a heater and other items. If I don't have the ability to plug in I can get power from the Prius for those things other than the heater.

I drove in my campervan last year and and slept in it.  Now I have converted the Prius to do the same.  It's just so much smaller.  Everything in it had to be smaller.  I know this kind of travel is not for everyone, but try to rearrange your limits of what is acceptable and include this kind of travel.

Many people are vandwellers but choose not to discuss with family and friends as they know the reaction they will get.  Officially what I am doing on my trip last year and this year is vandwelling as it is a generic term for those that live for extended periods of time out of a vehicle.  Many also do it full time, some by choice and others by necessity.

Wikipedia definition ofVandwelling.

Vandwelling is a lifestyle of living full or part-time in a wide variety of vehicles, mainly cargo vans that have been modified with basic amenities like house batteries,^[1] a bed platform,^[2]some form of toilet,^[3][4] sink and storage space. Although the term can apply to living in other types of vehicles, it is mainly associated with vans because the word vandwelling is a portmanteau of the two words van and dwelling. Some vandwellers live this lifestyle by choice; seeking freedom, self-sufficiency and mobility by living outside the normal life of paying into conventional housing. Vandwelling may be done using a Campervan, Recreational vehicle, Travel trailer, or a mobile home. However, SUVs and larger station wagons can also be lived in.

I met a lot of nice people that are vandwellers and there are a large variety of vehicles.

I hope as you follow my travels you will open yourself to vandwelling and although you may never do it, include it into what is acceptable at some level.

I welcome you to check out Suanne's blog about traveling in a Prius.

http://suanneonline.blogspot.com/p/why-prius-rv.html?m=1

Over the course of my 2015 travels I will be comparing costs of traveling, including my last year costs and how the my Prius camper compares to the Coachman campervan.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com