Today begins the first day of our Schlanni Adventures. We have been working on the RV for the past couple weeks so it was all packed and ready to go. Our adventure started right on schedule at 8am – and made it about 10 minutes down the road before we realized we forgot the medicine. A quick U-turn and trip back home, and we were right back on the road at about 8:30.
Our travels for the day: about 460 miles from our home in Brighton, Colorado, to the Fireside Buffalo Valley RV Park in Moran, WY. Generally, our intention for this trip is to limit our driving days to no more than 4 or 5 hours, however we are excited to get the trip started, so we planned a longer driving day, estimated at about 7.5 hours.
The Route
After the initial false start, it was really smooth sailing. We encountered very little traffic except a brief 5 minute stop on I80 for some road construction outside of Arlington WY.
We made a brief pitstop for gas, lunch, and potty breaks around 12:30pm at the Maverik in Rawlins after getting off I80 and back on 287.
Miles: 216
Fuel Purchased: 33 gallons
Price: $3.17/gallon before our Open Roads fuel discount
Average MPG: 6.5 – not too bad considering all of the ups and downs.
After the pups and the humans had their break, we got back on the road for the second half of the journey. This second half of the journey was a mix of wide open prairie, scrub, and mountain climbs. Cat was napping in the back and missed a lot of the wonderful views. From Lander, WY, to Moran we climbed from about 5285ft, up to a peak of 9600ft along the continental divide (9,858ft), back down to a mere 6800ft. The Schlanni Bus does pretty well in the hills, but even it was struggling pushing 34,000lbs up the steep hills.
We finally pulled into the Fireside Buffalo Valley RV Park just before 5pm. After a quick check-in at the camp store, we drove to our site and got setup. After setting up we enjoyed the mountain views for a bit before whipping up some quick and easy chicken fajitas on the Blackstone before calling it a night.
Stay tuned for a future post for our review of Fireside Buffalo Valley RV Park, and more details on how we setup and break down the RV at our campsites.
Trip Totals
Today:
Miles: 465
Travel Time: 8:23
Fuel Used: 59.8g
Average MPG: 7.8
Total Trip:
Trip Total Miles: 465
Trip Average MPG: 7.8