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bobbyg2013

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Feb 8, 2015
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I just returned home after more than a 8K RV trip over 82days and 20 states plus Washington DC . Saw lots of road construction, especially on bridges.  Was disappointed with much of our interstate highways however, especially portions of I-10 from Florida to Texas. Many parts are in dismal condition and I actually felt unsafe many times. It's not surprising because it gets a huge amount of traffic going both ways with 18 wheelers to many to count.  Just be careful out there.
 
I would love to see some constructive action from Washington, drawing up a priority list of necessary repairs and substantive action to get them funded. The total cost of overdue infrastructure repair is staggering, but we could be whittling away at it. Any further comments I could make would quickly devolve into political debate, so I too will desist.
 
There are other threads on this forum regarding how bad I-10 is through Louisiana. I lost my generator there last year. The road was so bad, I had to slow down to 25 mph and the generator still bottomed out, severing the electrical lines. Since I had no way of removing the generator myself, that was a $1,000 repair when I got back. Worst stretch of interstate I've seen thus far.

Gary, I'm with you on this topic, but as you said, I don't want to start a political debate. They tend to turn ugly.
 
Some roads are improving. We just drove across Pennsylvania on I-80. Four years ago it was a mess, but now it's been almost completely rebuilt.
 
bobbyg2013 said:
... especially portions of I-10 from Florida to Texas. Many parts are in dismal condition and I actually felt unsafe many times. It's not surprising because it gets a huge amount of traffic going both ways with 18 wheelers to many to count...

Interesting, I just traveled from Arizona to Florida on I-10 in May/June and while there were some definite bad spots it is nothing like I-40 in western AZ or almost anywhere in California... 
It's going to take a long time to catch up on all the run down interstates.
 
Worse yet is when I have to take a toll road and it's bad. I always tell my wife we should ask for a refund.
 
dkreuzen said:
Interesting, I just traveled from Arizona to Florida on I-10 in May/June and while there were some definite bad spots it is nothing like I-40 in western AZ or almost anywhere in California... 
It's going to take a long time to catch up on all the run down interstates.

I find that interesting since we drove from Florida to Las Vegas last year and on the way back, took I-40 from Kingman all the way to Ft. Smith, AR and didn't see any stretch of road as bad as I-10. I remember in western AZ there were stretches where I stayed in the inside lane for miles because the outside lane was trash, but nothing compared to the expansion joints of every slab of concrete lifting up for 30 miles on I-10 between Baton Rouge and Lafayette.

I-40 is just like I-70 in the respect that they could work on some section of that road all the time to keep it repaired because there is so much truck traffic on those roads, they are constantly torn up.
 
Stay off the Inter/intra states. Take the Blue Roads. Some day (I'm 66 so some day has to be pretty soon) I want to drive cross country on the Blue Roads.
 
When you say Blue Roads, to what are you referring? U.S. highways? When we bought our RV, we wanted to travel the country by taking US highways and stay off the interstates so we could "see" more of the country. What I found on our first trip was narrower roads, usually two lane, and in many cases, pavement that isn't taken care of any better than the interstates. So we now take the interstates and hope we don't damage the coach too bad.
 
Before I take the Jeep off-road, I air the tires down to between 12 and 15 psi. If I don't, it feels like my Jeep is being shaken apart, and my fillings are going to fall out. Been thinking about airing down my RV's tires to 12 psi while driving on I-5 through LA, which, unfortunately, we do fairly regularly.

Kev
 
John Stephens said:
When you say Blue Roads, to what are you referring? U.S. highways? When we bought our RV, we wanted to travel the country by taking US highways and stay off the interstates so we could "see" more of the country. What I found on our first trip was narrower roads, usually two lane, and in many cases, pavement that isn't taken care of any better than the interstates. So we now take the interstates and hope we don't damage the coach too bad.

I would have to look at a map but the back roads used to be blue on a map. There's a book called Blue Highways. The guy that wrote bought a van and traveled cross country taking only the back roads.
 
Oldgator73 said:
I would have to look at a map but the back roads used to be blue on a map. There's a book called Blue Highways. The guy that wrote bought a van and traveled cross country taking only the back roads.

Is this something that can be easily done with a 58' rig?
 
The older Rand McNally Road Atlas used to have the Blue highways. Looking at our 2017 RM road atlas it looks like the Blue may have been changed to red. Look like US and State highways. We just got back from Indiana and programmed our GPS to avoid tolls. We took plenty of state highways and county roads. I don't see why a 58' rig wouldn't fit. Saw plenty of 18 wheelers. I really enjoy getting off the Interstates. They are so boring. You may end up paying a bit more for fuel on the back roads. The least we paid on this last trip was $1.98 gal and the most was $2.39.
 
This is all great information considering I'm leaving Sarasota for Jackson, WY next week. I wanted to stay off the interstates as much as possible. On my 2017 atlas the state highways are in red. Has anyone driven across 82 and 287 from Montgomery Al to Amarillo, TX? From there looking to go through Santa Fe and Flagstaff then up to Salt Lake City on "Red" roads.
 
287 from DFW to Amarillo is a great road; 4 lanes, fairly flat, not much traffic.  You go thru several small towns but nothing too bad.  We've traveled that road several times.
 
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