Gillette, Wyoming, is a certified American boom town. It’s 30,000 residents have grown by a whopping 48% in the past decade as this western city has become the nation’s self-declared “energy capital of America,” thanks to its vast quantities of coal, oil and coal bed methane gas. But today, it just grew by thousands more as 2,500 motorhomes of all shapes and sizes rolled into the sprawling CAM-PLEX exhibition center just east of town. Add another 5,000-plus people to Gillette.
Most of those her
Last night in Iowa, I was complaining abut the gnats.
Tonight in South Dakota, it’s the Frankenbugs.
The bugs have only gotten bigger as we’ve moved west
Honestly, I dont know what they are. Way bigger than a gnat. Some are beetles, or what we used to call June bugs. But there are so many and they are so big that as we drove down I-90 in South Dakota, they hit the windshield with an intensity that sometimes sounded like hail.
Jennifer said it was a bugout.
You can see from this photo and t
It’s pretty amazing what a few hundred miles can do to the view. That was driven home to us today as we made our way across South Dakota, taking in the vast green prairie and its lush grasslands, the wind-carved canyons, ravines and hoodoos of the Badlands and the rolling thick pine forests of the Black Hills.
Our Roadtrek heads across South Dakota, en route to FMCA'S Family Reunion and Motorhome Showcase in Gillette, Wyo.I’d send along a video but I’m barely able to get a cell signal from
In this edition of “How We Roll,” Jennifer answers a question about budgeting and how much it costs us to take a typical week to 10-day trip. In these days of $4+ fuel, that’s the killer to any budget that involves mileage. Jennifer shares our actual costs and ways we try to save money.
Then I tackle a stinky question ... about odor control and how we’re trying something called the “Geo Method” that mixes water softener and household detergent in a gallon of water that is poured down the toilet
RVers love their GPS units. Can you imagine traveling without one?
But do you know that many of today’s most popular units can be customized to show the special places you are most interested in? Called POIs – short for Points of Interest – there are so many lists of them available now that downloading them to your GPS unit can make travel much more efficient and convenient.
You need to have a stand alone GPS unit that can connect to your computer to be able to download POIs. Tom Tom, Magel
Kampgrounds Of America’s rebranding of its campgrounds based on their features and amenities has kicked off with the Billings, Montana KOA Campground, which officially becomes the Billings KOA Holiday Campground.
The change is the beginning of a new brand structure for the 51-year-old iconic North American camping company. Three new brand segments will better identify the specific offerings of KOA’s 485 campgrounds for the millions of North American camping families that use KOA each year.
Ove
With more and more RVers heading to the great outdoors this time of year, it’s time to sound two warnings. Depending on where you are, it’s now either snake season or tick season.
For some parts of the U.S., it’s both.
Both creatures post particular problems with pets. And humans, too, if they get bit. And both are very active right now.
And RVers, who are out there camping in the woods and wilds and deserts and fields, could very easily come into contact with them. RVers with pets need to be
It’s time to head west to Wyoming and, eventually, Yellowstone National Park. And this year, instead of repeating past routes, I thought it would be fun to get your suggestions, to crowd source our trip by drawing on the collected wisdom of our readers.
In other words, tell me where to go.
Here are the particulars:
’ll be leaving Kalamazoo, Mich., about 9 AM Friday, June 14. I need to be in Gillette, Wyo., by mid afternoon Monday, June 18, for the annual Family Motor Coach Association Reunion
“How’d you end up doing this?”
If I could have had a quarter for every time we’ve been asked that about our roadtreking.com RV blog we could buy another motorhome.
But since enough people seem to be interested….Here’s how:
This Roadtreking RV blog is a dream come true for me. Decades in the making, but now being lived out like one giant movie, seen through the wide expanse of my motorhome’s windshield as North America rolls on by. We can stop anytime, explore anywhere.
And we do, sharing it
Two very different questions from readers this week as we continue our “How We Roll in our RV” segment:
Jennifer answers a question about cooking while traveling in our eTrek and I assure a reader that the fabled black flies that invade Michigan’s Upper Peninsula every summer should not deter him from traveling to one of the least-visited but most beautiful places in North America.
I did a video called “The curse of the U.P: Black flies” last year you may want to check out.
Got a question ab
Roadtrek Motorhomes has released a new all-season, solar-powered 40th Anniversary edition of it’s 190 Popular coach that features a redesigned, higher interior and a stunning Mocha Steel tri-coat paint job that looks like diamonds have been embedded into the finish.
Roadtrek President Jim Hammill says the new model, revealed to attendees at the corporate anniversary rally in Branson, MO, continues a trend towards green energy use and extended dry camping through solar power. Pricing information
We all have places we want to see, to explore and experience. A bucket list. At the 40th Anniversary rally of Roadtrek Motorhomes in Branson, Mo., no matter how
experienced a traveler we found, we also found that every traveler still has a bucket list.
Just ask the question … what’s on your bucket list? You’ll immediately get an answer.
Watch the video below. Is your bucket place dream trip mentioned?
http://youtu.be/zGnQS8tUNvg
About the Author: Mike Wendland is a veteran journalist who tr
At first glance, the 250-plus Roadtrek Class B motorhomes gathered at the 40th anniversary corporate rally in Branson, MO look alike. But when you start walking among them, you soon realize that these touring coaches are not as alike as you may have first thought.
Each Roadtrek is tweaked, modified and personalized. To various degrees, of course. But all have been individualized. Sometimes it’s as simple as a vanity license plate. Maybe some bumper stickers. With others, it’s something more ela
The 40th anniversary Roadtrek corporate rally is going on this week in Branson, MO, with more than 500 Roadtrek owners and 250 coaches gathered for a week’s worth of fun celebrating the four decades the very popular Class B motorhomes have been sold.
Attenders from across the US and Canada were greeted with cloudy skies and heavy rain warnings on arrival Monday, but that didn’t deter many from taking advantage of a free Roadtrek wash organized by the company.
Check the vanity license plate mes
Just north of the Missouri “boot heel” is the small community of Sikeston, right off Interstate 57. It’s a great place to overnight. If you stay at the Hinton RV Park, they’ll arrange for a van to take you to dinner at a place you will not soon forget.
On our visit, we were with a group of 12 RVers, on the way to a Branson, MO rally. Our group came from Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Ontario and we were crowded driving in that stretch van the mile or so to Lambert’s Cafe, “Home of the Throwed Ro
Apps for on the road RV travel
The RV season is in full swing now with folks traveling to rallies, vacations and long weekend getaways. To help make those trips more fun and travel more convenient, I thought I’d share three more fun apps and web tools that I’ve been having fun with lately. This report was put together for my other [...]
Roadtreking | A journalist's RV travels across North America - Traveling North America in search of interesting people and places
<a href="http://Roadtr
In this edition of How We Roll, Jennifer and I tackle questions from readers asking about how we dry bath towels while we’re on the road. Jennifer shows some hooks I attached with stick-on tape and a very simple but effective bungee cord clothesline we have in the bathroom. She also recommends fast-drying micro fiber towels.
Besides the bungee-clotheline (which hangs and dries two full-sized bath towels very effectively and out of sight behind the bathroom door), I have strategically stuck on p
In the heart of central Kentucky – not far from it’s famed bluegrass country – is an area known as the Bourbon Trail, a confluence of seven distilleries that produce the bulk of the world’s Bourbon. Formally designated by Congress as “America’s Official Native Spirit.” The distilleries offer tours and tastings and offer a perfect RV getaway.
http://youtu.be/W_wm129Uk30
Bourbon has a rich history and proud tradition that dates back to the late 1700s. For more than two centuries, no family has
Canada is a very popular destination for American RVers.
And it’s home to several of the world’s best-selling Class B motorhome makers.
So a lot is us travel there. Canada feels very much at home. It’s people are open and welcoming.
In the last year, I’ve made over a dozen visits to the Kitchener, Ontario, headquarters of Roadtrek Motorhomes. And while I am very comfortable in Canada, there are some cultural differences.
I’ve been taking notes. Here are 15 things to know about Canada:
It’s
In this week’s edition of "How We Roll in Our RV," readers want to know how we fight boredom while doing all that driving, and what kind of meals we eat in our RV while traveling.
I offer my suggestions on finding eBooks, something we both really enjoy listening to while making long drives.
Jennifer shares some of her favorite meals for traveling.
Keep those questions coming in. We’ll do our best to answer them.
We try to do a new edition of How We Roll each week.
http://youtu.be/VKhQzs1acJ
It’s no secret that many of us RVers are, ah, shall I say, horizontally challenged?” With obesity already at epidemic levels and good, nutritious food hard enough to find, our laid back on-the-go nomadic travels can sure pack on the pounds. Sometimes, it’s time to get reprogrammed, to find a way to jump start a new and healthy living style.
That’s what Jennifer and I found deep in the rolling hills of south central Tennessee, two hours south of Nashville at a place called the Tennessee Fitness
I’ve never been one to worry much about the weather. If I have something planned and the blow-dryed weather guys on TV are breathlessly warning us that a snow storm or some weather situation is about to cause the sky to fall, I usually scoff and just go on with my plans. Weather forecasters like to scare us and keep us tuned in for ratings. I know this from firsthand experience back in my local TV reporting days when they’d scramble “storm teams” and bombard the public with 24 by 7 weather alert
There’s never enough room. That’s the first thing about RVing we all think when we start RVing, isn’t it?
But there really is.
No matter what size RV we have, we all want to bring too much stuff.armoire
Once we discover that, it’s a little easier to pack the essentials. Still, some times, you need a little more storage space. That’s why we recently replaced one of the two back seats with a custom sized armoire. It is a perfect match with the rest of the wooden cabinets inside our Roadtrek eTr
RVing in Hawaii
RVing is a huge pastime across the U.S. in 49 of the 50 states. The one exception is perhaps the most beautiful state: Hawaii. There just is not a big RV presence there. One exception is Al Waterson, a popular entertainer, singer and actor who tools around the island of Oahu in a 1995 Roadtrek 190 Versatile Class B [...]
Roadtreking - A Journalist takes up the RV lifestyle - People and Places Encountered on the Open Road
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This is the time of year folks are shopping for an RV and planning their first trips of the season. We have questions about both in this week’s edition of “How We Roll” in which Jennifer and I answer reader questions.
We travel in a Class B motorhome. I’ve written lots on why we chose a B. But if you have a large family, you may want something larger.
As for where we stay, we always opt for beauty and remoteness over crowded campgrounds.
We share more about both questions in the video.
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