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Blogs

Roadtreking Blog
 

Making the Best of Mountain Monsoons

The people who live in southwest Colorado have big smiles on their faces these days. Us, camped for our last day in the knock-your-socks-off beautiful Mesa Verde National Forest before moving on to Telluride and a few more spots, not so much. t The locals are grinning because the risk of wildfires - which devastated the region last year – is way down now. We’re not quite as appreciative because our plans were altered by a day of mountain monsoons. We had planned to do some video and still be
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Mesa Verde National Park – Great for Boondocking

The Morefield Campground at Mesa Verde National Park is nestled into a scenic canyon some four and a half miles off US 160 from the park entrance. With 267 sites, it seldom fills up. That’s because all but 15 are for dry camping only and of the 15 with full hookups, none accomodate RVs over 45 feet in length. The Class A congestion that turns so many other campgrounds into “tinominium “complexes is refreshingly absent here. Each site has lots of space between its neighbors and native Gambel oak
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Phoneless in Colorado

Remember that new Samsung Galaxy 4S that I wrote about two weeks ago -- RVing and My New Smartphone -- Well, that smartphone did a dumb thing: It up and died on me. It won’t charge, won’t power up and is totally dead. And I’m in the middle of a two-week RV trip in the Rockies. I tried all the reset tricks, like removing the battery. Its certifiably dead. Yesterday was the first time in two decades that I was without a cell phone and … I survived. I had my calls forwarded to Jennifer Wendland
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Wolf Creek Pass and the Roadtrek eTrek

I have a whole new appreciation for my Roadtrek eTrek. It not only allows us to boondock, or dry camp, for days on end, it can haul us up some of the steepest mountains in Southwest Colorado… while hauling a travel trailer. Our little family caravan made our way south from Colorado Springs in some pretty dicey driving conditions. Heavy downpours, fog, slippery roads and high altitude. But it wasn’t until we hit US 160 near Wolf Creek Pass when I put the eTrek to the hauling test. Some 37 Miles
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods and Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado Springs

It was a day of superlatives as our Roadtrek eTrek literally took us to the heights of RVing – climbing Pikes Peak. Making it even better because it was our wedding anniversary and we were spending it with family in one of the continent’s most beautiful regions. Pikes Peak surely is the most accessible big mountain on the continent, with a first rate road all the way up, despite some hairpin curves with little or no shoulder or guardrails. The only issue we had was on the descent, where at the
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Hard driving, Hells Angels and lots of pit stops

Now I know how Class A motorhome drivers live. They spend lots of time checking their mirrors, looking for places to park that are big enough to handle their length and…. visiting gas stations. As we are towing a 21-foot travel trailer behind our Roadtrek on a family caravan vacation trip to the Rockies, I’ve found towing very easy and parking not so bad as long as I don’t try pulling in to fast-food places with my 30-foot-plus length. Truthfully, I’ve quickly gotten used to towing and with 1,
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Tom and Louise on Tour in North America
 

Eastward Ho! U.S. 50 California to Colorado

After our stay in California, we set out on our way east to St. Louis, Missouri. We’ve made this trip many times. The default trip going either way is to travel to I-80 east to eastern Nebraska where we pick up I-29 south to Kansas City and then I-70 to St. Louis. When we make this trip we are usually on a schedule so time is important and the interstate fills the bill. We’ve detoured several times, to visit friends, to see the Grand Tetons. We sometimes stop in Denver to visit relatives so
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Meet our RVing family as we hit the road for the Rockies

And the Great Wendland Family Roadtreking RV Vacation is off and westbound, headed to Colorado and the American southwest in a caravan of two Roadtreks, a travel trailer and an SUV. Meet the Family Since you’ll be seeing and hearing about the six adults, two kids and three big dogs we have traveling in two Roadtrek Class B motorhomes, one Gulf Stream Travel Trailer and an SUV, I thought it might be good to introduce them to you. I should also point out that my third child, Scott, with his wife
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Details on the Travel Trailer We’ll Tow with Our Roadtrek

Lots of you have written asking for a show and tell and some details about the travel trailer we just just purchased to take on our “Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2013,” which starts Saturday. The video gives you a quick peek at what it looks like. http://youtu.be/kR7LVaLLR94 Jennifer and I love the 2012 Roadtrek eTrek. We’ve put well over 20,000 miles on it since we got it around the first of the year. But Class B motorhomes in and of themselves are not a family RV. While we could tak
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Tom and Louise on Tour in North America
 

Fun With the Girls

After our blistering cross country trip to California, Louise picked up our two youngest granddaughters in Stockton at noon on Monday. I stayed at Paul Evert’s RV to have a spring replaced in the roller of our slide out cover. As soon as that job was finished I headed for Watsonville to meet Louise and the girls. I arrived about an hour after Louise but there is a playground at Pinto Lake Park where we would be staying so the girls had something to do until I arrived. Louise had checked in
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Roadtreking Blog
 

The Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2013 is about to start!

Who says small motorhomes are only made for small vacations? In an effort to prove that the small motorhome lifestyle is very conductive to large family vacations, I’ll be turning a summer road trip into an RV caravan that my family and I are calling the “Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2013” It’s set to kick off Saturday, August 3, 2013. The road trip will consist of six adults, two kids and three dogs and we will travel through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, New
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Roadtreking Blog
 

How We Roll in our RV: Tech use While on the Road

Every week we get at least one question about how we use technology while traveling. In this edition of How We Roll in our RV, you get to see the way I stay connected all the time. Updating this blog, our Facebook Page and Facebook Group, plus the newsletter, means I need a reliable connection to the Internet. I’ve written before about my tech gear and the the MiFi card I use from Verizon Wireless to create a 4G network in my Roadtrek Class B motorhome. And a few weeks ago, I added a cell phone
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Roadtreking Blog
 

RVing and My New Smartphone

I’ve switched smartphones and it’s all because of RVing. I now use the Samsung Galaxy S 4. I traded my iPhone 5 in at my local Verizon store and now am tasked with learning a new system. I feel a little guilty about it. I have been told that the iPhone I bought at 6PM EST on June 29, 2007 was the first one sold. It was part of a TV live shot I was doing and I had stood all night long, first in a long line. Working with the manager of at AT&T store, we arranged for me to be standing at the c
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Roadtreking Blog
 

How to Unclutter your RV

We have discovered he one all important guiding principle that more than anything determines the success or failure of an RV trip: There needs to be a place for everything and everything should be in its place. When we first began our RV travels, we took everything. Sometimes two of everything. Both Jennifer and I were so paranoid that we left something behind that we overcompensated. Our little 24 foot Class B RV looked like a scene out of that Hoarders reality TV show, you know, the one where
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Roadtreking Blog
 

An RV gathering of friends

Please do not call it a rally. There was no itinerary. No organized programs. And no nametags. We all made our own reservations and the only coordinated planning was letting the word out on our Roadtreking Facebook Group that a bunch of us were going to meet on a particular weekend at a particular campground in Michigan. It was more fun than any of us expected and a great example that great RVing times can be spontaneous and as easy as just showing up and getting together. In all 10 coaches
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Roadtreking Blog
 

7 tips for using your Class B RV as an everyday vehicle

One of the great things about having a Class B RV like our Roadtrek eTrek is that it also can function as a second vehicle. I’ve used it to run errands, drive to and from meetings and work-related activities, church and – while Jennifer is shopping – a comfortable place to chill out while in the parking lot of the mall. I’ve also used it for what I call mini-vacations, short day trip respites of a few hours to parks, lakeshores and the like. Sometimes, I’ve put the bike rack on, drove to a big
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Stormy Kromer hats: A Yooper tradition develops a cult-like following

I’m a sucker for hats. Ball caps, cowboy hats, straw hats, watch caps and lately, Stormy Kromer hats. We picked up our first Stormy Kromer hats while doing some winter camping last February in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Seemed like every Yooper we saw was wearing one. So Jennifer and I both got one, me a rakish black, Jennifer’s a demure grey with pink trim. As we returned from that trip but kept wearing our hats, we met lots of other people who either had one, knew someone who had one or
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Tom and Louise on Tour in North America
 

That's How We Roll

We have just completed one busy week while putting some serious miles on the motor home. We've made a few trips like this before. I would like to think that this is the last one but somehow the need to quickly move from one place to another seems to keep popping up. Unlike much of our travel, this trip was in the middle of summer in the very places we have avoided during the summer for the past 12 years. We have never been at home in Edinburg, Texas in July. The same could be said for June,
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Cool Modifications to a Roadtrek: Screens and Cabinets

We RVers love to share modifications we’ve done to our vehicles to make they fit our personal style. So it is with delight that a share a series of photos that show some very unique customizations done by blog reader Alan Shafer from Rockford, Mich., to his Roadtrek 2006 RS Adventurous. His photos are included. Here is his account: As you can see by the pics, it had four captain’s chairs. I removed the rear chairs and started from there. I have detailed pics of the whole process. The good t
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Howling for Wolves in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

One of the reasons so many RVers love Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is because of all the wildlife. And in recent years, the chance, albeit slim, of seeing a wolf has been at least a possibility that has made the place pretty exciting. For the introduction of the grey wolf into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is one of the greatest wildlife management success stories in generations. Where there were none just a couple of decades ago, there are now around 700. On calm, clear nights, hearing the howls of
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Roadtreking Blog
 

Adding a Cell Phone Booster for my on-the-road RVing

One of the challenges of being on the road so much and doing a blog like this is being reliably connected to the Internet in a whole bunch of different places. I’ve been a huge fan of the Verizon Mi-Fi card and the network’s strong nationwide footprint of 4G connectivity. It very reliably gives me near broadband speed as I travel. Sending video gobbles up a lot of bandwidth and almost all the videos I do for this blog were sent via the Verizon network. But lately, I’ve been going to some reall
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Roadtreking Blog
 

The Bighorn Medicine Wheel

On top of the Bighorn Range in Wyoming is Medicine Mountain, desolate and nearly 10,000 feet high and only reachable during the warm summer months. And on top of it lies a mysterious and ancient Native American medicine wheel that precisely predicts certain astronomical events. This is not a casual walk. It is 1 1/2 miles from the parking lot to the medicine wheel. And 1 1/2 miles back down to the parking lot again. That’s a three-mile roundtrip hike, at altitude. The wind blows continually and
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Tom and Louise on Tour in North America
 

You Really Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd

We took the Bison Ranch Tour at the FMCA Family Reunion, 50th Anniversary Rally, in Gillette, Wyoming. It turned into a real adventure, much more than expected. Our tour was Friday evening and was to include a meal before our return to the rally site in Gillette. We met the bus at the assigned location and boarded without incident. This was a nice commercial bus with comfortable seats and air conditioning. After the last passengers were on board we were on our way south on Wyoming Highway
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