Expense Accounting

May 14 - continued

After lunch I fell asleep and when I woke up the GPS had turned itself off again and would not turn on. But we are going to be on I-95 so it basically isn't needed. Bob asked for a place to get gas, so I found a place on the outskirts of Rocky Mount where gas was $2.15. We stopped there - 46 mpg.

gas station

selfie

. We had dinner at Red Lobster- this is a chain, but there isn't one near us. And Bob suggested going there.

Red Lobster

May 15

We got underway early - Bob is - as usual - anxious to get home. We were crossing into Virginia by 9:30. Once Bob heads for home, he doesn't tarry.

Entering Virginia

Someplace in Virginia, the GPS turned itself on again. For reasons unknown except to it.

Virginia is a big fat state in the middle (unlike Maryland which is wide, but very narrow north to south in the middle), but it seemed like no time at all until we were crossing the bridge into Maryland.

Morgantown Power Plant smokestake

By 12:25 we were passing the PEPCO smokestakes in Morgantown on the Maryland side of the Potomac and turning down Budds Creek Road.

Bob suggested that we stop someplace and get lunch. I suggested going to KFC/Taco Bell in Leonardtown because there were a lot of choices (both Mexican and chicken), We got something for both lunch and dinner.

Our mail had been delivered and so had the papers.

The cats were confused because the cat sitter had already been there this morning.

The house a few days later with our car in the driveway

Accounting

So many people ask, "How much will it cost me to drive from .." point A to point B. Most of the time they want to spend minimal amounts of money. We don't want to scrimp, but neither do we want to pay more than we have to. So for this trip I kept detailed expense records. When we were traveling on our boat, my expense records included things like dockage, food, fuel, repairs, phone bills, and the cost of electricity, water and other utilities for our house when we were gone. That is total living expenses. But this report is just for the travel expenses, so I did not include the phone bills in this report, nor did I include house utilities or the cost of the cat sitter.

This is broken down into the following categories

• Gas/Transportation
• Sleeping Accommodations
• Food
• Other (such as admission prices, tolls and gifts)

Transportation expense when traveling by car depends on how expensive the vehicle is to rent. We had our own car, so the only actual out of pocket expense was for gas. Technically we should include the cost of insurance, licensing and depreciation, but I'm not going to get into that. We have a hybrid car which gets very good gas mileage. Our average gas use was 45 mpg for the trip. It was as much as 50 mpg on the freeway, and less than that in town. The average price per gallon was $2.23. So for a trip of 2088 miles, our total gas cost was $100.00

Hotels: For 8 days on this trip we stayed at Hampton Inns which have free parking, free internet and free breakfast. The price of the room depends a good bit on how expensive the area is. The average cost was $160/night, and we tipped about $3.00/night to the maids. We also stayed for three nights at a Navy Lodge (only available to military families) which has a small kitchen. The cost for this accommodations was $77.00/night. This helped balance out the price of the 2 nights where we stayed at a very expensive hotel in Tallahassee for $612/night. Our average room price for 13 nights was $210.46

Food: Most of our breakfasts were eaten at the Hampton Inn's free breakfast. When we are driving, we mostly eat at a fast food place for lunch. If we are going to be several days in a place, we have lunch at a regular restaurant and then take the leftovers home for supper. Since usually our room has at least a microwave and a small fridge, we will also go to a market to buy food to eat in the room. Also during this trip we attended a wedding, and two of the dinners (rehearsal dinner and reception) were free. Our total cost for food was $512.06 or $36.50/day

Other: We paid admission to one Florida State Park ($6.00), and one museum ($8.00 each). We had one bridge toll $6.00, and two ferry rides $6.00 each. We also spent $101 on gifts.

The total cost for 14 days (and 13 nights) was $3909 or $275.00/day

My last trip in 2017 was a Princess Cruise to Hawaii with my friend Polly