29 Jul - Arrived at Brandywine Creek Campground near Downington PA + Stats Update

This morning at 09:45 hrs we broke camp at Fort Meade MD and headed northeast on I-95 past Baltimore, through Delaware to the beautiful countryside of  rural southeast Pennsylvania.  It was a relatively easy drive only complicated by a little construction.  Traffic was not bad at all. 

Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Patapsco River, SE of Baltimore

We rolled into Brandywine Creek Campground at 1250 hrs with one pit stop after traveling just 129 miles.  Ya gotta love these light travel days.  

Side view of our Alliance Paradigm 310RL all set up

Tons of room behind us.  Our site is a full hook up pull through.

Right across from our site is the Brandywine Creek.  Nice little babbling brook here!  It would not surprise me to see some trout in there.

Nice spacing between sites for us short stay folks.  A different story for the homesteaders

This is in a different part of the campground where the seasonal folks live.  That is two RV's with their slide-outs overlapping!  Yeah, not so much!!

When planning this trip the primary goal for camping in this area was to see Valley Forge National Park. We plan to do that tomorrow.  Valley Forge is about 30 minutes We also hope to see April Stanton Hill, a Norwalk friend of the family , who now lives in Hanover PA. We will only be here four nights before we move on to the south Pittsburgh area.

This stop marks a milestone in our RV camping excursions.  We have now dragged our camper through and/or camped in 49 out of 50 States.  The only State we are missing is Hawaii.  We have visited Hawaii multiple times but not with an RV.  We rented an RV in Alaska when our daughter was on military duty up there.  So Doreen placed the last sticker, and our map is complete!!

Doreen placing Delaware

Our intent is to continue RV'ing and traveling the USA as long as our health allows and as long as we enjoy it.  This traveling with an RV is a lot of work, but it is fun.  Even though we have touched every State, there is a lot of the USA yet to see for us. We still have a few major league baseball stadiums to visit.  We missed many sights when we had to expedite back to Iowa in 2019 when I had the cyst on my spine.  Plus there are many areas that are so beautiful we want to see them again.  Our modus operandi of staying home in Iowa over the winter and traveling spring through fall will likely stay the same for the foreseeable future.  There may come a day when we decide to go south in the winter, but it is not in our near-future plans.

So tomorrow to Valley Forge!  

Trip Stats:  

# States Traveled Through So Far This Trip: 15 (IA, MO, IL, KY, TN, GA, FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, DC, DE, PA)

Baseball Parks Visited So Far This Trip:  5 (Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins, Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles)

Lighthouses visited:  28

Lighthouses climbed:  7

Point to point travel miles:  3658 miles

  - Avg point to point travel miles:  159 miles

Vicinity miles:  5035 miles 

  - Avg vicinity miles:  240 miles

Total miles driven:  8693 miles

Total point to point driving time:  81 hrs 55 minutes

Total fuel purchased: 698.579 gals

Total fuel cost:  $2089.68

Average fuel cost/gal:  $2.991

Max fuel cost:  $3.299 (Odenton MD)

Min fuel cost:  $2.799 (Townsend TN)

Avg MPG:  12.38 miles/gal

# Nights at end of this stay:  143 (Includes Griffs)

Lodging cost:  $6026.09 (includes Griffs)

 - Avg lodging cost/night:  $42.14/night