Look at us, so on top of the blog that the monthly report comes out within a week!
The Distance: 239 miles, as predicted in our August Report, a big slow down after our sprint east. The entire month consisted of crossing from one end of the UP and back, with our schedule defined by Serenity’s ongoing repairs. Our annual total is up to 8,031. October will be a big mileage month as we work our way all the way to Central Florida.
The Places: We spent the entire month on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We had only planned to be her for maybe 25 days, but the wait for our new refrigerator has pushed us up to five weeks. Fortunately the weather has been mild, sometimes downright blazing. We started the month in Ishpiming at the RV park behind Hilltop RV Superstore before moving to the Ojibwa Casino (another lucky casino for us) near Marquette. After a sprint back to Ishpiming for repair related reasons, we continued west to our favorite U.P. spot, Woodland Park in Grand Marais. After nearly three weeks there we decided to try another U.P. town, and moved back east to Munising’s City Tourist RV Park.
We stayed eight nights at private campgrounds (including three at the casino) with the remaining 22 at public sites (all at municipal campgrounds.) No drycamping at all this month; we had at least electrical power for all 30 days (27 with power and water, 3 with 20 amp electric only at the casino.)
The Budget: We killed it this month! The lucrative RVers promotion at Ojibwa Casino contributed, but our great success at the Grand Marais and (especially) Marquette markets really did the trick. We ended up under budget by 33%, which puts us within striking distance of being on budget for the year. This really validates our last minute plan to head to the U.P.; sure it contributed to us being way over budget last month, but the fridge was already bad by then, that tire was gonna blow one way or another this year, and the extra gas to get here will, by the time we get back to Florida, only account for perhaps an additional $350.
The first half of October will be tough since we have to pay the rest of our EasyCare Warranty deductible and freight costs for the new refrigerator, but when we get back to Florida late in the month we have a series of markets lined up to buff up the funding picture.
The Drama and the Improvements: We have been living out of a cooler for five weeks now as we wait for our new refrigerator, but the end is in sight; it should be installed by this weekend. This involved some unfortunate delays since our extended warranty company insisted on sending an inspector to confirm the required repairs, but most of the delay was just waiting for a new fridge from the factory. I finally got around to addressing the heavily oxidized and bug embedded paint on Serenity’s front end, going at it with rubbing compound, polish, and wax. Huge improvement. Lastly, we have heard from two different readers that our ongoing picture problem following the Photobucket fiasco seems to have solved itself. No idea what happened, but that’s good news. I am working to get the pics and associated links from 2016 and 2015 posts uploaded and repaired this month.
2017 monthly reports to date:
And here are our 2016 and 2015 annual summaries which include monthly report links.
Shell On Wheels 