Mistake #37, driving through big sur with a fully loaded RV. Big sur is absolutely beautiful. Since we’ve camped here before we opted not to stay in Big Sur but I wanted to drive through it on our way to Santa Cruz. The scenery was epic, but so was the fuel cost!

We stopped at Elephant Seal Beach to watch these massive creatures. I always get a kick out of watching the males fight over the females.

Just outside of Big Sur we chose not to fill up because it was $4.75 per gallon. The problem is I didn’t expect to burn through as much gas as we did going up the steep cliffs and I thought we could make it to Carmel and we would fill up there. Halfway to Big Sur the gas light came on. With most vehicles that means you have around 50 miles or so before you run out, however we were pulling a fully loaded RV, pulling our 3k pound car, and I had the freshwater tank full (each gallon of water is around 8 lbs) and we still had around 30 miles to go! I suspect we were getting around 4mpg so we would end up in Big Sur running on fumes. Luckily we made it…but wouldn’t have fit the RV in the first gas station. They let me know there was another gas station just 2 miles up the road. Woohoo, we made it, but it was closed and they don’t allow after hours pumping and it was around 10 pm! I found out there was one more gas station in town, success! I was so relieved we made it, so relieved that I didn’t even mind paying $5.70 per gallon!