Expense Report: December

December was another cheaper month. It was kind of a mixed bag as far as expenses since we spent 10 days staying with family. Even though we rushed from Southern Florida to Austin, we didn't drive too much. Our biggest expenses were a little bit of maintenance and some sightseeing in a national park.

Maintenance: After a lot of searching, we finally found a spare wheel online at hubcaphaven.com. We had the tire mounted at Discount Tire, and bought a fuel filter and some o-rings at AutoZone.

New wheel + mounting: $193.95
AutoZone: $31.37
RV running total: $19,637.86

Fuel: As always, if you're interested, go check out our Fuel log. December was a pretty light driving month since we decided to rush to Texas, but then hung out there and didn't drive the RV at all for 10 days.

Gas: $502.59

Propane: $19 - This took us from all the way empty to all the way full

Food: $544 - Again, we did a good job not eating out. We did go to quite a few restaurants in Austin, but we also did a lot of big group meals with the family that brought expenses down.

RV Stickers / Postcards / Birthday and Christmas cards: $21

Lodging: $90 - We spent a night at Days Inn and $10 for a couple of nights at Big Cypress.

Sightseeing: $127.44 - we took 2 trips onto the water at Biscayne National Park, since it really is the only way to see it.

Phone and Internet: $76 - Did a bit better than previous month staying off data. Probably had a lot to do with time with family, who had wifi, and utilizing public libraries.

Total December travel expenses: $1583.76

Total cost of the trip so far: ~$30150 - This includes the RV and all of it's repairs, insurance and maintenance
Days Traveling: 142
Cost / person / day : 106.15

Post-Christmas In Austin

The fun in Austin didn't stop after the holiday was over! Aunt Julie still had plenty of great activity for us.

December 26th we used an App called Let's Roam to do a scavenger hunt around Austin. The app designs fun scavenger hunts in cities all around the world that they send to your phone. You then walk around the city looking for landmarks and answering questions. It is a great way to learn about a city and give your wandering purpose. We also discovered that they have fun little quests in app that you can use to win a free scavenger hunt. We did a few and won a free hunt so we're looking forward to doing another one soon! (We're not sponsored by this company, but if they feel the need to hire us, we'd be happy to be!)

For dinner we went to the a local BBQ place near the house, Salt Lick. It was absolutely incredible! Luckily we won some of their rub in the Christmas Eve Texas Hold 'Em tournament. We can't wait to try it.

On the 27th John flew back to Eugene, Aubrie and Uncle Chuck had to work, and Ben P had to study for a test he had coming up. Andreas used this day to work on issues with the RV. The RV had been having trouble starting when it was warm and we decided that we needed to replace the fuel filter. Andreas made an attempt at this before Christmas but unfortunately it was leaking so he found a mobile mechanic to come to the house and take a look it. Annoyingly when the mechanic got there he wasn't allowed to work on it because it was an RV, even though the fuel filter is the same as in a Toyota pickup truck. Luckily he did leave Andreas with the part he needed to stop the leak and we got our money refunded. So maybe this was a good thing?

The other issue we had been having was that the RV was making a terrifying rushing air noise when it was getting up to speed. We thought that this had to do with the climate control because the issue seemed to be worse on cold mornings when we had the AC on to de-fog the window. However we noticed in Texas that while the noise was happening the speedometer was vibrating almost as if it was getting blown. After some searching online, and talking to Andreas's mechanically inclined friends, we came to the conclusion that we needed to grease the speedometer cable. This seems to have helped the problem but not gotten rid of it entirely.

Disassembling the dash on the RV

Instrument panel removed to reach speedometer cable

The rest of the crew went up to explore Waco that day. In Waco we walked around Baylor University and then went over to check out Magnolia. Magnolia is the brand of Chip and Joanna Gaines who have the show "Fixer Upper." They have a massive store in Waco including a coffee shop and bakery and a courtyard full of food trucks. It was super crowded which was interesting because the rest of Waco seemed a little dead.

 

On the 27th we did an escape room. Kathleen was a little nervous about the escape room because the last time she did one it was unexpectedly horror themed. That time the room was dark and involved dismembered bodies and live actors rattling cages. This one, however, was fully lit and set in a mountain cabin. We needed to figure out where we were located on a map, how to reach a rescue crew and get ourselves out of the cabin to be rescued before a blizzard took place. We made it out just in time and it was a lot of fun. 

The next two days we continued relaxing and enjoying having a house to hang out in. We deep cleaned the RV, did all of our laundry again and took a final couple of showers. We eventually took off on the 30th after 11 very fun, relaxing days with family.