No matter what kind of RV we have, one thing that we are all interested in is the weather. Nothing affects traveling more. Across North America, the cold weather is coming fast and that means snow and ice and dicey weather conditions. Thanks to apps, tablets and the Web, you never again need to wonder what its going to be like out there.
I’m always installing and uninstalling weather apps. I’ve tried dozens of them and I’m sure I’ll try dozens more in the months ahead. But for now, here’s a rou
I’ll say one thing about our traveling this past year: No dust is gathering under the RV.
We received our new 2013 Roadtrek eTrek one year ago, in December 2012.
When I pulled into the driveway Thursday night after returning from an RV trade show in Louisville, the odometer read 34,156 miles.
We take off again today for a weekend trip to Western Michigan where we’ll visit Jeff and Aimee in Kalamazoo, our son and daughter-in-law. We’ll probably sleep in the Roadtrek in his driveway. We love ou
My Roadtrek has been encased in ice and snow for the better part of a week now with several days of subzero temperatures. Inside, shielded from the wind with the sun helping to mitigate the extreme outdoor temperature, it was about 15 degrees.
So, I got to wondering, how long will it take to warm it up, if, indeed such a thing was possible?
Slipping on my boots, a parka and my fuzzy warm hat with ear flaps, I donned my Google Glass and set out to video a first-person experiment.
Everythin
I’m at the Roadtrek factory in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada for the next two weeks shooting and producing a film to be called The Making of a Roadtrek.
This is a project I’ve wanted to do for two years and, with the company’s blessings, I am now be documenting the creation of a Roadtrek.
We began filming Tuesday morning as a brand-new but stripped-down Mercedes Sprinter was driven into the factory for what will be about a 10-day build. The model I am following through the assembly process will b
Summer travel and vacation is upon us and as many of us hit the road, we’re sharing our travel with friends and families. Many of you know I also am a techology correspondent for the 215 NBC-TV Newschannel affiliate stations across the country.
I do a weekly “PC MIke” Tech feature for the network and, these days, I am usually doing it from the back of my Roadtrek Etrek as we travel the country.
In this week’s report, I featured three apps and Internet services that can map and track your trave
Upgrading your RV to solar power
Advances in power management and solar power have made big news in the RV world of late, especially with the new eTrek and CS-Adventurous models built on the Mercedes Sprinter chasis by Roadtrek Motorhomes. New and efficient power control and management systems have put these advanced new Class B motorhomes on many a wish list [...]
Roadtreking - A Journalist takes up the RV lifestyle - People and Places Encountered on the Open Road
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Staying in touch while RVing is a challenge we all face. And a key tool many of us end up acquiring is a data card that lets us set up our own Wi-Fi networks to connect our various tablets and computers to the Internet.
True, many of today’s tablets and smartphones have a feature that will let you do that without the need for special card. But a special data card adds, in my view, more convenience. It can be plugged in and kept somewhere in the RV and be always charged, always ready and not pul
We’ve been riding hard up I75 today, trying to get to our southeastern Michigan home before yet another big winter snowstorm dumps another predicted foot.
All the way north, traffic has been unusually heavy in both directions. Lots of other northbounders are returning from long holiday breaks. The southbounders seem downright frantic, fleeing the cold. I’m fighting a strong urge not to turn around.
Early afternoon, I did an mobile phone interview from the road with the Internet adviser show on
Travels with the eTrek: A photo montage
Like a lot of RVers, I’ve been reviewing memories and photographs over the past couple of years. That’s what we do during the down time: Go back and look at...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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Like a lot of RVers, I’ve been reviewing memories and photographs this winter. That’s what we do during the down time: Go back and look at our photos and thus get excited by the places we’ll be going once the weather arms up.
If you’re like me, I bet you have a lot of photos of your RV. We take pictures of them in the places they take us.
That got me thinking about pulling a bunch of them and putting them together in a slide show.
So, here’s about 100 of them, taken all over North America ove
So far this year, Tai has had his hackles raised by a wolf in northeastern Minnesota, been terrorized by a Chihuahua and yesterday in Alabama, he came snout to snout with a horse. But when we arrived at Pogo’s pre Mardi Gras “Smokin’ on the Bayou” Roadtrek gathering in Gautier, MS, he seemed rather indifferent to all the excitement of a dozen plus Roadtrekers coming together. Instead, he opted to just hang out on the rug outside his Roadtrek. Alone, if you don’t mind.
His breed is known for its
If I had known ahead of time how high some of these mountains out here in Colorado really were, I’m not sure I would have decided to tow a travel trailer on our Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2013.
But now that I’m here and have climbed those super steep grades and come down them with brakes nearly smoking, I’m glad I did.
I’m towing a 21-foot-long AmerLite travel trailer that we bought just for this trip from American RV in Grand Rapids, MI. It weighs 2,780 pounds. Empty. With supplies
I came across this interesting You Tube video from a guy who calls himself “Master Luke.” It shows a 24-foot cargo trailer that he made into a totally solar-powered RV.
The entire roof of the trailer is covered with solar panels - 3,130 watts worth of them.
The Roadtrek eTrek we drive has a 5,000-watt inverter, a diesel generator and about 250 watts of solar power. But I reckon that we can get more practical RVing use out of our rig than he can with his. That diesel generator charges those ba
On this Labor Day weekend, we’re in Southwest Georgia, after driving down from Michigan last week with some fun stops along the way. We plan to take our time going home, too, enjoying the freedom that our little Roadtrek eTrek RV gives us.
After almost two years of this lifestyle, Jen and I are finding ourselves on the road more and more. We were at our Michigan sticks and bricks home for less than a week all August. We just turned 30,000 miles on the new eTrek we picked up in December!
When w
We just turned 60,000 miles on our Roadtrek Etrek as we pulled into our Michigan driveway after our latest trip, which essentially was four months on the road through 21 states, taking us from Cape Cod on the Atlantic to the far Pacific Northwest. When you add the 15,000 miles we drove in our first RV – a 2006 RS Adventurous – that now gives us 75,000 miles under our collective wheels.
We are no longer rookies.
Indeed, we’ve learned a few things.
And I’ve made some mistakes. But you’ll have t
Top 10 RV Lessons learned after 75,000 miles
We just turned 60,000 miles on our Roadtrek Etrek as we pulled into our Michigan driveway after our latest trip, which essentially was four months on the road through 21...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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Jennifer and I love watching things grow, planting them, tending to them and then – with our vegetable garden – picking them when they are fresh and ripe and enjoying them.
We’ve planted a garden for many ears but the last two years, because of our travel schedule, we’ve returned home from RV trips to find it mostly shriveled up from lack of water or, unpicked, gone to seed.
Nevertheless, there we were this week, getting the vegetable beds ready again, hoeing, weeding, improving the soil and p
It’s been a long and busy week with two big road trips this past week – one in the Roadtrek eTrek to Kitchener, Ontario, and a visit to the Roadtrek factory for some video work, the other to Pittsburgh, Pa., on another video project. While the Kitchener trip was blessed with great weather, the Pittsburgh trip led to some very white knuckle driving on the way back home when we unexpectedly encountered near white-out conditions from Lake Erie effect snow squalls just est of Cleveland.
It was a g
Time to re-winterize
It got down to 21 degrees as we spent the night in Kentucky on the way back to Michigan from a brief January visit to Florida and some southern states.
Guess it’s time to find some pink stuff and re-winterize. Sigh.
That warmer weather down south sure was nice.
Tai loved being out in the cold night air with the gusto that only a double coated Norwegian Elkhound can exhibit. I had trouble getting him to come inside for the night.
We slept comfortably in our Roadtrek eTre
This year, I’m planning on winter camping
We’re in early November now and while the ground is still bare, nighttime temps are regularly dropping to the upper 20′s in my part of Michigan. The leaves are all off the trees and snow can happen any day now.
Out on the interstates, I see a steady stream of motorhomes, travel trailers and fifth wheels making their way south, to warmer climes.
I hope to join them in Florida and the gulf states in January. For a few weeks.
But I also hope to do some
Buying an RV is perhaps the second biggest purchase most of us will make next to our house. In some cases, with kids grown and newly retired from our jobs, it becomes our house as more and more people embrace the fulltiming style of a life on wheels.
And these days, Type B RVs seem to be at the top of the motorhome popularity chart. Many who bought larger Type A or C motorhomes are downsizing, or “rightsizing,,” as some call it, for the more mobile and maneuverable Type B-style campervan motorh
There’s a dusting of snow on my RV
The first accumulating snow of the season fell last night near my Michigan home and as I look out at my motorhome sitting on the driveway, I swear I hear it calling me to get out of town and get warm.
Alas, as I look out, that’s all I can do. Look. I’m standing with the support of a walker. Five days ago, I had a total knee replacement.
I picked this time for the surgery specifically because it is the least busy time for RVing. Although the first wave of sno
Yellowstone National Park is one of our most favorite places to RV in all of North America. It draws us back and its sheer size and beauty is breathtaking.
We couldn’t resist sharing the wildflowers with you. I don’t know the names of them. But I do know they are stunningly beautiful. I think you’ll agree.
As macro as the place is, it is also meant to be seen on the micro level, close up.
So it was on our most recent trip, which just happened to correspond to the height of the spring wildflo
On this Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for many things that have come our way since we embraced the world of RVing.
I’m thankful in a new way for the awesomeness of God’s creation, for the many places we visited that I had never seen before. For the majesty of Yellowstone National Park, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets we witnessed in the Bighorn Mountains, the Pictured Rocks National Seashore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Emerald Coast of Florida’s panhandle, the sandhill country of Nebras
As we wait to set off on our next trip, I’m thinking about all the things I like about this new small motorhome lifestyle we have embraced.
Waking up to sunlight streaming around the edges of the shades of our Roadtrek and the smell of that first cup of coffee brewing as I start the day.
The first peek out the window at our surroundings. We boondock a lot so often, it’s wildlife I see. I love to sip that coffee and quietly watch the world wake up.
The smell of bacon frying as I start to
