Hey Guy's! Hope you're having a great week. Me? Pretty good! I just got back from a week long trip with the MAV (Max's Adventure Van). It was the first real trip with the MAV. I've taking it out on over night trips but not on a week long trip. I drove about a 900 miles on this trip. My wife and Forrest the wonder dog came along. We learned a lot on this trip about how to live and travel in a small van with two people and a dog. It's a little more difficult than you think.  So let me tell you the details of the trip.

The Trip. I have been planning this trip for a few months and was very excited to go. It was a multi stop and camp trip. We stayed at 4 different campgrounds and stayed a couple of nights with my sister. We visited 2 National Parks and 3 State parks on our trip. This was going to be a big loop starting in eastern North Carolina west to the Mountains near Cherokee then travel south to Greenville South Carolina then east again to Santee State Park then north to Carolina Beach and then back west back home. After packing the MAV up we departed our home and headed to our first destination Lake James State park. This state park was picked because it was about 4 hours away and that's about how long we wanted to travel in a day. I have stayed here before and was familiar with it. It was the first night that my wife and dog had slept overnight on a trip. It went well. The biggest adjustment for me was the room that my dog took up in the floor. Something I have to get used to. The next stop on our journey was to Cherokee NC. We walked around the town and had lunch then we went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Oconaluftee Visitors Center. We checked out the visitor center and the surrounding grounds. We then went to our next campground which was in the National park Smokemont Campground. This was a very beautiful campground the prettiest of the trip. It had a small river that flowed thew it and people were fly fishing just across from our campsite. When we checked in the Ranger said that there could be Elk that roamed in the campground so be on the lookout. We didn't see any Elk that night but the next morning we went back to the visitor center and we saw some Elk on the way and at the visitor center there were a group of maybe a dozen Elk. The next stop was to Greenville South Carolina to visit my sister and two new grand nieces that I haven't met yet. We spent a couple of days there and had a great time. Next it was off to Santee State Park which is in the south eastern part of the state. I picked this park because it was about 50 min away from Congaree National Park which we went to visit. We stayed at Santee for two nights and had great sunrises each day. The next stop was traveling north to Carolina Beach State Park just outside of Wilmington North Carolina. We traveled up through Myrtle Beach to get there. After a quiet night at the Campground it was about 2 hour drive home. All in all it was a full week of travel with the MAV.

Lessons Learned- Now I have done a lot of work to get the van (MAV) ready for this trip. I had even taken it out for a couple of over nighters by myself to prepare and learned something each time. This trip with 2 people and a dog was a real learning experience. Things that went right.  The MAV performed wonderfully in every aspect. From Driving to Camping it did well. The power situation with battery life worked out great and we were never under mid 80's on power percentage. Driving and recharging worked great. Three of our four campgrounds had no power and one did. Water consumption was also very well. With washing dishes hands and such we only used about 2ish gallons out of a 5 gallon tank. So there was no need to refill the tank or empty a tank. We did wash dishes at a wash station the first night so we really din't use any water then. I did forget to open the air vents on the tanks so the freshwater tank walls kind of collapsed until I opened the vent and the dirty water leaked a little until I opened the vent on that tank. But that was all on me so make sure vents are open. We made a departure and arrival checklist of things to do. Like make sure the cabinets are closed and Locked. We drove off a couple of times with doors opening and slamming into something scaring us. I also figured out that unless we are driving or sleeping Forrest bed needs to be put away somewhere because it takes up too much floor space. I also learned that either me or my wife should be standing doing something like washing dishes or cooking at the same time because we just get in each other's way. The Starlink Satellite dish works best with a clear view of the sky which we had at two of the 4 campsites. One of the campsites we only had partial view and the wifi was weak but usable. The other site we had great cell coverage but no clear sky so it worked out.  The Fridge worked great kept everything nice and cold and frozen. We should have got some ice cream the fridge would have had no problem with it. Cooking went well we brought a charcoal grill but couldn't use it the first night because of a burn ban but we used a cheap one burner stove I got for the MAV and it worked great. The induction cooktop worked great and I made breakfast on it each morning and make coffee with it. Our biggest lesson learned its that being organized is important. Knowing where everything is and making sure it gets there. Before you leave a place make sure you put everything away for one it won't be falling everywhere and just looks neater.  Poor Forrest world was shaken up with the trip. He enjoyed the hikes we did but had to stay in the van quite a bit. I could monitor the temperature and had either the fan or the AC on to keep him nice and comfortable and those systems worked flawlessly. 

Over all it was a great trip where we went to 2 National Parks and 3 State Parks and I got to meet my two new Grand Nieces and visit with my Sister and her family. It was a good week and the MAV performed great. Looking for my next big adventure that will be in West Virginia. Until then get out and shoot and have fun! Here is a link to a video I made of the trip. MAV's first real trip

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link