Lots of people have asked how I’m filing my Great Lakes Shoreline Tour reports and what tech gear I have on our Roadtrek Etrek.
It was raining yesterday and we were stuck in cam so I did a short little video to show some of the gear I'm using.
I’ll do more and show the drone and some other gadgets and gizmos in future reports, but right now, here’s what was handy as I was shooting the report.
The Wilson Sleek cell phone booster I use comes with a small magnetic mount antenna, a couple of
I get lots of questions and requests for suggestions and recommendations about the tech gear I use to capture and blog the reports I’m doing out on the road. I’m always adding various things, but here’s my latest update on the gear I like to take with me.
My main video camera – I use the Canon XA20 Professional Video Camera. I love this camera. I got this in the fall of 2013 and have found it to be the perfect ”run-and-gun” camcorder, suitable for HD ENG work (Electronic News Gathering), event
“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
We’re on a we’re-so-tired-of-winter search for spring.
It has not been easy. It took almost 800 miles, heading straight down I-75 from our Michigan home.
At the Wal-Mart parking lot where we spent the first night in Findlay, Ohio, we parked next to a pile of snow. The overnight temps were in the upper 20s. This was our first time at a Wal-Mart. Except for a couple of big trucks, we were pretty much alone. It was not particularly scenic and there was lots of traffic noise. “You don’t need an al
It has happened again. This time in Alabama at a campground near the Talladega Speedway. Craig Franklin Morgan, 46, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Morgan and his wife, Jami Allison Morgan, 38, were discovered unresponsive by friends who went into their RV at the South Campground outside the track.
Jami Morgan was unconscious and was airlifted to a nearby Hospital, where she remained in critical condition and unconscious Monday morning.
Police said the carbon monox
The Original RV – The Covered Wagon
We RVers have our heritage and it really starts on Interstate 80 in Nebraska, America's heartland.
That’s where the Great Platte River Trail became the Oregon Trail.
This was the pioneer route that linked east to west.
And today, spanning the interstate near the mid-Nebraska town of Kearney, is a must stop for tourists and especially RVers…the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument
Of all the places we’ve been to, this is one of the most amazing and
The Nav-6: SUV/Minivan/RV and more
Of all the different Roadtrek models out there, one of the most distinctive is the new NAV-6, an SUV that can be used as an RV.
It’s really category-defying. A luxury SUV on the Nissan 2500 frame, it is expertly tricked out by Roadtrek with a built in kitchenette, complete with microwave, refrigerator, TV and sink with hot and cold running water. The NAV-6 has a roof that rises to make it big enough to walk around in without bumping your head. It’s also able
One of the great joys of traveling North America in an RV is the way it connects you to history and the people and places that have shaped us. So it was for us when we came to a historic site along the famed Natchez Trace where American explorer, soldier, and public administrator Meriwether Lewis – best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with William Clark – met his death on October 11, 1809 under highly suspicious circumstances.
He was 35 years old at the time,
The Mysteries of the RV Water Pump
Water pumps in Class B RVs, or pretty much all RVs for that matter, are just about the same. The basic design was developed back in the middle Cretaceous and...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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There are few animals as universally popular and liked as much as the Florida Manatee. Yet there are few animals in more danger.
The Florida Manatee, a large and slow moving aquatic animal, is protected by the federal Engangered Species Act of 1973, primarily because they are too big and slow to get out of the way of speedboats. As Florida’s boating population has exploded, the manatee has declined to an estimated statewide population today of under 5,000.
They used to be everywhere. And despi
If any of you have been to the Roadtrek factory in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada for a tour, you would have an idea of what it takes to build a Roadtrek, how busy the manufacturing floor is and how passionate everyone there is about the product.
For those who have not been able to make the trip (and we highly recommend that you do), we are happy to present a video tour for you on what it takes to build the #1 selling Class B Motorhome in North America.
Jennifer and I spent two weeks in Kitch
The Making of a Roadtrek: The Movie
If any of you have been to the Roadtrek factory in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada for a tour, you would have an idea of what it takes to build a Roadtrek,...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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The highs and the lows of the RV market
While at the recent Pomona, CA show, I decided to explore the limits of the RV market. Specifically, to find the most expensive and the cheapest trailer and coach. Elite...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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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
I always knew I was lucky to live in Michigan, the very heart of the Great Lakes. But until I started this drive along the shoreline of all five Great Lakes, I didn’t realize how fortunate I truly am to call this area home.
I also didn’t realize how interconnected they are. From a hydrological standpoint, they are all intermingled and pretty much part of one system. The water that passes the rocky northern Superior shore in Minnesota eventually makes its way to the sandy bluffs of Lake Ontario
Oh, boy. There goes the schedule.
With 10 segments due on our Verizon Wireless Tour of the Great Lakes shoreline across eight states, I have a pretty ambitious travel schedule.
We were doing all right until we crossed over the Big Mac Bridge into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula following the Lake Huron shoreline. But then we were seduced by the wide open spaces, the sparkling blue water, the big freighters and clean, fresh lake air.
Instead of sticking to the schedule, we tossed the planning aside
We’re about to set off on a 3,500-mile trip that will take us farther than if we drove across country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And although we till visit eight states, we will never really leave the Midwest.
We’ll be driving much of the U.S. shorelines that touches the five Great Lakes.
I’ve wanted to do this trip for years.
ow, thanks to Verizon Wireless and in partnership with Pure Michigan, we’re about to set off, starting from the Lake Ontario shoreline near Otswego, NY, and the
Every place, it seems, has its own ghosts and mysteries. So it is just north of the tiny Upper Peninsula town of Watersmeet where, for generations, people have gathered at the end of a gravel road to watch some mystery lights.
The lights appear nightly, year round near a crossroads community called Paulding. The first reported sightings were back in the 1960s and various investigations have been inconclusive, though a university team from a Michigan Technological University claimed the lights w
The RV promotion industry may argue over bragging rights to what is the biggest show of the year but if you poll both dealers and fans, it becomes pretty clear that in terms of influence, size and excitement, the annual Florida RV Supershow this week at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa is the one that sets the tone for the entire RV year.
The sponsoring Florida RV Trade Association proudly claim this show is not just the nation’s biggest – it’s the best.
This is the show in which RV owne
One of the places that has a special hold on me is the Everglades area of Florida, a wild, huge place filled with birds and wildlife as diverse as the flooded cypress and sawgrass prairies that make up the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States.
Every time I’m in south Florida, I budget time for the glades. I’ve ridden my bicycle along an eight mile paved loop at Shark Valley, cruising yards past snoozing gators with their huge tooth filled mouths open to cool off. There are air bo
No matter where or how you roll, the one thing all RVers have in common is the way the RV lifestyle seems to bring people together - literally and figuratively. For snowbirds, full-timers, near full-timers like Jennifer and me or weekend campers, it's the sheer joy of getting out and meeting new people or simply spending quality time with your spouse or friends.
For families with younger children or grandchildren, it means bonding time away from the distractions of day-to-day living, TV, video
I bet many reading this have not heard of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It’s probably not on many RVer’s bucket list.
It should be.
Invariably, it is compared to its more famous Big Brother, the Grand Canyon. But while the Grand Canyon is deeper (6,000 feet at its greatest depth) and longer (277 miles), the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is an amazing tourist attraction for RVers that is often overlooked because it isn’t surrounded by highly commercialized parks and campgrounds that cater t
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
The Beartooth Highway is one of the more spectacular drives you can take when touring in your RV out West, comparable to the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. It’s a 1930s WPA project that opened access to the Yellowstone region from the northeast, and an impressive engineering accomplishment.
Fortunately for us, it’s still in good repair and easily traversable by all but the most anemic RVs – there are probably a few gas Class As that shouldn’t attempt it, but the rest of us can
I have a serious bone to pick with whoever calls Michigan’s Upper Peninsula a paradise. Not this trip. This RV adventure was a battle of the bugs.
And while it looks pretty out the window of the motor coach, venture outside and you are fair game for swarms of insects that see you as smorgasbord.
The mosquitoes and biting black and stable flies of the Lake Superior region are the worst they’ve been in years. Locals blame it on the unusually wet spring and summer we’ve had this year.
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