Hi Everyone. Well, after 15 years the RV-Dreams Community Forum is coming to an end. Since it began in August 2005, we've had 58 Million page views, 124,000 posts, and we've spent about $15,000 to keep this valuable resource for RVers free and open. But since we are now off the road and have settled down for the next chapter of our lives, we are taking the Forum down effective June 30, 2021. It has been a tough decision, but it is now time.
We want to thank all of our members for their participation and input over the years, and we want to especially thank those that have acted as Moderators for us during our amazing journey living and traveling in our RV and growing the RV-Dreams Family. We will be forever proud to have been founders of this Forum and to have been supported by such a wonderful community. Thank you all!!
We bought a Bighorn 3570RS from a dealer just outside of Portland, OR. Now we need to go out there and bring it back to Sioux Falls, SD....in January! Does anybody have any route recommendations for us? Obviously we will watch the weather but if anyone has traveled that particular route (or close to it) and has any advice (outside of, "you should have bought it in July!") we would like to hear it. We wouldn't be against going a little out of the way to avoid some mountain passes. I was wondering if anyone has traveled I84 down through Idaho. We could go that route and then across I80 and come back up to Sioux Falls. Mapquest sends us on I90 but that goes further north and looks quite mountainous.
Highway 2 is pretty flat (comparatively), followed by I-90. It is quite a climb out of SLC on from the I-84/I-80 junction. From Portland take I-84 east until the Junction with I-82, then head north to the Tri-Cities and pick up Highway 395 north to I-90 to Spokane then head towards SD.
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Barb & Dave O'Keeffe
2002 Alpine 36 MDDS (Figment II), 2018 Ford C-Max HYBRID
We've done both and would not choose to do either in January. It's a toss up, I-90 has 4th of July and Lookout Passes in ID/MT that are just not fun, in good weather there are posted truck speeds of 35 mph. I-80 has some really tricky spots as well but WY DOT will close I-80 when weather is too bad to travel.
Do you have chains? You need to check the laws for each state you will be going through, I know WA requires chains to be carried, even if you don't plan on travelling on days with chain requirements, between Nov and Mar, I think ID has a longer time period. Have you towed in snow and do you have a plan for where you will wait out inclement weather? In January, that's like to be when, not if, crossing the northern part of the Western US.
One question, why bring it back in January? Can you wait? We bought our rig in December in OK and didn't get it back to Seattle until April and even then had to take the long route back due to a snow storm that hit the Rockies while in OK. Never perfect timing, not going to tell you not to buy a rig this time of year, after all, tomorrow is our 5 year anniversary date of buying our rig, but we did wait a few months to get it home. If the dealership can store it for you, and you don't have to be out of your current abode immediately, it might be safer to wait.
I would think that, even if the roads are open, the winds will be almost as much a hazard as slick roads. I don't envy you drive in January. If it was me, I'd head down to I-40 in Arizona then turn left once you're past the Rocky's, maybe I-25 along the front range.
We have worked an agreement out with the dealer to have them keep it until mid to late March. I know we can still hit weather then but hopefully we can avoid any big storms! We need to bring it home to get it ready for our spring/summer trip. Thanks for the responses, we will still use these when we bring it home.
