Greetings and Salutations (and GPS Question)

[srbays]

G'Day to All,

For the last 18 months we've been playing with our "new" rig (a 2005 Mountaineer 29 BH and F-250 PSD) and are overall very pleased. Before this we had 100 nights on a Trail Manor 2619 with a Honda Odyssey (sounds bad but really worked great with an equalizer set up; over 10K comfortable miles and fit into the garage. A great "learner" vehicle!)

The current rig is looooong, with a 172" wheel base crew cab truck, so I went with a Pull-Rite hitch. This turned out to be a real help, both for sway control and for tucking into tight spots, because the pivot is up by the truck's rear axle.

My question concerns Truck-oriented GPS. Does anyone out there have experience with one of the later models? We have to be careful about where we get our diesel and many stations are simply not practicable without dropping the trailer. Ideally, I'd like to be able to pick out good, accessible fueling stations every 300 miles or so en route, and I'd like the GPS to facilitate that.

Any suggestions?

Thanks and Happy Trails...

Sam Bays

[Ruffus]

Welcome to the forum Sam.
I don't think that GPS's have that capability yet because there is such a turn over in Fuel stations through out the country now. Truck stops seem to be your best bet if your concerned about length. At 250 miles or so I start looking at bill boards for a Love's, TSA or Pilot station but I'm also looking ahead at stations that I can see from the highway.
California is one of the hardest states to find one because of the road sign restrictions.
I've been from South Florida to California and parts in between and have not had any real problems yet but stick pretty close to the interstates and major highways.
Good Luck and again Welcome.:)

[Terrydactile]

A GPS is a great tool but there are a couple of books that can help with what you are asking better than a GPS, granted if you want the latest info you'll have to purchase them every year or so. Here's a link to an on-line store that has the 2 books.

http://rvbookstore.com/shop/detail.aspx?p=1413&m=2

[Jim W]

Hi welcome to the forum.

I am planning our next trip out west now and in so doing I pre-plan our fuel stops. I lay them out for every 250 to 300 miles between fill ups for diesel fuel. I use two books they are called the "Next Exit" and "The RVer's Friend. These books list RV friendly fuel stops and parking areas, you may need to fill up with the semis but it works.
MY DW really likes the Next Exit, she can follow along by the mileage marker on the interstate and she can tell me what is at this exit. Everything from food places to Walmart and fuel stops are listed.
Jim

[antiqfreq]

We recently stopped fulltiming and since we were on the road for a year we used our GPS for mapping but used our laptop with wi-fi for finding our truck and/or fuel stops.
This worked out great for us and we traveled from So. FL to California, up to Canada and back to So. FL.
We did use GPS to look for fuel once in a while but it usually only looked 25-35 miles out. I start looking earlier, since we have a diesel, I start looking when we hits the just over 1/4 tank mark left on our fuel.

Jo/
Moderator
:D