Two Stolen Park Signs, $4.36 Gas, and a Night in a $159,000 Electric Trailer

Good morning! It's Wednesday, October 14. Isaias redrew the Gulf Coast map, gas just posted its first $4 October on record, and out there somewhere, two different people are hiding stolen park signs.

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— OK WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING —

> Isaias came ashore near Destin on Friday night as a Category 2, and the Southeast on your fall map isn't quite the Southeast that's there this morning. At least four people died across Florida and Alabama, more than eight tornadoes spun off through Georgia and the Carolinas, and the strongest gusts hit 15 miles inland, where Milton, Florida woke up to shredded apartment roofs. More than 150,000 Florida homes were still dark Monday. On the coast itself, the storm flipped an RV at Pensacola Beach. If you ever needed the case for evacuating instead of sheltering in an RV, that clip is it.

For the trip you had planned: Alabama closed Gulf State Park before landfall and won't reopen it until damage crews finish their work, Florida shut a long list of state parks ahead of the storm, and western North Carolina took six-plus inches of rain on roads still under repair from Helene. The bright spot on the same map: one week before the storm, the Blue Ridge Parkway reopened about 100 campsites at Julian Price that Helene wrecked, closed nearly two years, back just in time for leaf season. Save the Panhandle trip for later in the season. The crews down there need the room to work right now.

— OK BUT A LOT MORE HAPPENED —

> Gas has never cost this much in October. AAA just logged the first $4-plus October national average on record: $4.36, up from $3.12 a year ago. Recalculate the fall trip budget, and if your route touches Ohio, fill up there. (More)

> America's biggest RV retailer keeps shrinking. Camping World announced more store closures and layoffs, and its CEO is calling this the weakest RV retail market in over 15 years. If you're shopping this winter, every dealer in the country knows that number too. (More)

> What it's really like to sleep in a $159,000 electric trailer. The first reviewer to spend the night in one came back with notes: windows that frost over at the push of a button, a trailer that backs itself onto the hitch ball in 45 seconds, and the distinct sensation of waking up inside a very comfortable spaceship. (More)

> Somebody started a turf war on Acadia's carriage roads. Longtime visitors say they're getting buzzed by e-bikes on the park's 45 miles of gravel, there's now an "underground task force," and the park's own speed data suggests the whole fight might be about the wrong thing. (More)

> South Padre Island is spending $26.3 million to win you back. A chunk of it is SpaceX money, and the headline act is a rebuilt Isla Blanca with 600-plus full-hookup sites right on the Gulf. Winter Texans: check what's open before you head south. (More)

> Utah's biggest wildfire-sign problem? People keep stealing Smokey Bear. And the danger level he's holding is set by hand: one office recalculates it every morning, but your local sign might not get flipped for a week, if it gets flipped at all. (More)

— OK BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS —

> Holding a Pacific-coast beach reservation for this winter? Read the pattern before you prepay. The central Pacific just posted its warmest reading in 45 years, and what a super El Niño means for winter travel starts at the shoreline: NOAA gives it three-in-four odds of being the strongest since before 1950, and California declared a statewide emergency before a drop of rain fell. Historically that means bigger waves and temporarily higher seas on the West Coast, the kind that close beachfront campsites. Book flexible, and take a row or two back from the dunes. Picking by park instead? Here's where fall and winter RVing actually works.

— OK BUT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GO HERE —

> Drive 350 miles without losing sight of the ocean — That's US-101 down the Oregon Coast, just named one of the most scenic drives in the country, and the local cheat is simple: run it north to south so every pullout lands on your ocean side. State park campgrounds are stacked the whole way. Give it three days. Everyone who budgets one regrets it.

> Go apple picking in California this month — East of Sacramento, about 55 ranches sell apples, pie, and cider within minutes of each other, and the whole region only exists because a 1950s blight wiped out the pears. Apples were Plan B. The same guide covers Oak Glen's century-old orchards down south. Ranch roads are narrow and fall weekends are packed, so camp low and take the tow vehicle up the hill.

> Chase New Hampshire's covered bridges while the leaves hold — The state just mapped four driving tours across its 50-plus bridges, anchored by the 1886 Cornish–Windsor: 449 feet over the Connecticut River, the longest two-span covered bridge in the world. One thing before you go: this is a tow-car day. Historic bridges run low on clearance and weight, so park the trailer first.

> Catch the Hudson Valley at peak, this week — Peak foliage there isn't a month, it's a schedule: 12 mapped drives each come with their own peak week, from early-October color in the Harlem Valley to routes that hold into November. Base the RV once mid-valley, pick the drive that matches the week you can actually get there, and chase the color in the tow car.

> Spend Halloween in a town that races coffins — Every October, Cave Spring, Georgia (population 1,200) runs coffin races through its 1830s downtown, a spooky spin on the Pinewood Derby, plus a costume contest and a Halloween parade. The limestone cave the town is named for holds 57 degrees year-round and costs $2 to tour, and Cedar Creek Park has RV sites from $20 a night. It's 90 minutes from Atlanta, a few miles from the Alabama line.

— OK BUT DID YOU SEE THIS —

> The world's largest steam locomotive is coming out for a holiday run to Denver.

> Six northern Michigan pumpkin beers, including one brewed with actual pie filling.

> A national park put its sled-dog puppies on a scale, on camera, and the heavyweight champ is 77 pounds of Mammoth.

> The only haunted-cemetery guide you need for a spooky RV trip includes one next door to a clown motel.

> For one pro ultrarunner, the family travel trailer is the lifeline that makes 100-mile mountain races possible.

> Nabbing a campsite on Montana's prettiest 59 river miles starts with a lottery application in February.

The Dump Station Someone stole an entire state park entrance sign in the middle of the night, and Michigan's counteroffer to the thief: bring it back and no questions get asked.

The Odometer 5. The number of places one Utah local swears are better than the Mighty 5 national parks everyone lines up for.

— OK BUT WHO EVEN IS THIS PERSON —

> If the Blue Ridge Parkway is on your leaf-season list, those 100 just-reopened campsites near Blowing Rock sit on land bought for a company retreat that never happened. The campground is named for Julian Price, and he never spent a night there.

Price ran a Greensboro insurance company, and starting in the late 1930s he bought 4,200 acres near Blowing Rock to build a retreat where his agents could vacation, complete with a dammed trout lake. In October 1946, driving from Greensboro to Blowing Rock, he died in a car accident. The retreat was never built.

Within a few years, his family and his company gave the entire property to the Blue Ridge Parkway, which built the lake he'd planned, named it for him, and ran the road right across its dam.

So Price bought the land for a vacation he never took. His company gave all of it away. And the campground he never saw is one of the most popular on the Parkway.

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