I love fall. The blue skies are more blue, the air smells clean and crisp and has no more of the sweltering heaviness of summer.

But it also makes me a little sad because, living in a northern climate like Ido, the approaching cold weather means it’s time to curtail my travel.

It means long stretches of RVing inactivity.

Of watching snow accumulate on top of the Roadtrek.

Of having to winterize it.

Of sneaking out there, turning on the heat, and sitting in it, remembering the places we’ve visited, dreaming about the ones we will visit. Sometimes, I’ve been known to take a nap in my Roadtrek. In the driveway.

It’s not that we don’t use it in the winter. We do. Just not as often as we do in warmer weather, when weekend and short trips are easy and the roads are not snow-covered and slippery. A few times each winter, we break loose and head south.

Last year, I winterized the RV three times. We made winter trips to Florida, Alabama and Georgia and each time, when we returned from those warmer states, we had to pump antifreeze back through the system again before getting back to Michigan. Once, I worried the pipes froze when the temperatures took an unexpected sudden drop in Louisville, KY.

They didn’t. But it was close.

I’m planning on monthly trips this winter, too. We plan to again visit Georgia and Florida, maybe the Texas Hill Country and the desert southwest. And we will do some winter camping again, like we did last year when the temperature at Tahquamenon Falls dipped to minus eight degrees and there was 28 inches of snow on the ground!

But those trips will not be as extensive or frequent as they’ve been since April, when we really began our travels in ernest.

Its enough to make me want to move and find a new place with a heated garage. That would be nice, huh?

I know this: I don’t want to stop Roadtreking for such a silly thing as winter.