Greetings!
My family returned on August 25th from a 15-day, 2,900 mile round trip from the northern Virginia area to three national parks:
Prince Edward Island and
Kouchibouguac in Canada, and
Acadia in Maine. All three are gorgeous parks, with spectacular dunes, beaches and warm water at PEI, a varied and wild environment at Kouch, and just too much to do and see at Acadia, though the park and nearby towns have become quite crowded. All offer hiking, biking, recreational kayaking and scrumptious food! My favorite dish was broiled scallops wrapped in bacon ordered in a French-Canadian restaurant in New Brunswick –
Ooh La La! It was indeed great to get away for a while – I used a phone once in two weeks!
The truck and camper ran well, as usual. Loaded up in our usual ~10,500 lb configuration (truck, large pop-up camper, 4 bikes, 3 kayaks, 2 adults, 2 teenagers and other usual "stuff"), we ran at 60 to 70 MPH on the interstates and provincial highways. Average fuel economy was 13.00 MPG, with a low of 11.78 (traffic, hills and eastern "mountains" – the Appalachians and the Berkshires) and a high of 14.76 (flat, open road). Transmission temps were generally about 60 degrees F above ambient, and the highest reading I noted was 155 degrees F. The engine burned about a pint of oil.
For the record, my brother’s 2000 F-250 CC, equipped with a V10 and a 3.73 but of otherwise virtually identical configuration, load and trailer, managed 12.68 MPG – a negligible 2-1/2% penalty for the larger engine.
The new Michelin LTX A/S 26575R16E tires seem to be good general-purpose tires, and they’re very quiet. These are indeed heavy-duty tires though, with 7 ply construction and 10 ply rating, and they ride a bit rough, even when properly inflated (47 front, 53 rear) for this load.
I did manage to get briefly stuck in soft sand on the side of a road in Maine. The engine could turn the rear tires and move the truck, but it kept slipping sideways down the rather steep shoulder. I hitched my tow chain to the rear of a good Samaritan’s Jeep and we had it back on hard pavement in 10 minutes. I suspect my old Dunlop Rover AT’s would have handled this predicament with ease, but they were out-of-round and thus given the heave-ho several weeks ago.
We "dry camped" at both PEI and Acadia (no electric hookups), and those experiences have left me somewhat concerned about the truck’s alternator. Running a normal electrical load, plus day time use of head lights and running lights, plus the DC fridge, plus the electric cooler, plus recharging two drained deep-cycle batteries may be just a tad too much of a total load, as it seems to take a long time for the batteries to recharge. I’ll probably try running without all the lights for a while next time.
All in all, it was another good trip, and the truck continues to fulfill its intended purpose. Now, I gotta get to planning to next year’s trip to (in order) ND, MT, ID, WY, SD, NE, CO and NM [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]!
Regards to all,
crewzer
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