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Roadtrekingmike

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  1. Roadtrekingmike
    This is a jam-packed podcast with lots of very practical news and information.
    In it we talk about another anti-RV town, how and when to winterize, along with lots of practical tips on all sorts of things connected with the RV lifetyle.
    Last week, we had 41,697 plus downloads of the Roadtreking RV Podcast. I am overwhelmed by your support and kind words. Thank you. If you haven’t already, please subscribe via the iTunes or Stitcher links:
    Episode 4 of the Roadtreking Podcast – How and When to Winterize (iTunes)
    Episode 4 of the Roadtreking Podcast – How and When to Winterize (Stitcher)
    Then you will have new episodes automatically placed in your podcast app ready to be downloaded and listened to when you are ready. I would also appreciate if you take the time to give us a review and a rating, too.
    Show Notes for Episode #4 of Roadtreking – The RV Lifestyle Podcast:
    Halloween camping – The month of October has become a huge month for RV campgrounds around the country. Many host Halloween weekend events aimed at families. People decorate their RVs, there are costume parties and trick or treating. We visited one such event this weekend and shared some photos at in my Halloween Campouts blog entry But check a campground near you for next weekend. Don’t be surprised if it is filled!
    Anti-RV towns – I talk to Jim O’Briant from OverightRVParking.com about yet another town that has passed local regulations aimed at overnighting RVers. Jim tells about one camper rudely awoken by a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
    LISTENER QUESTION OF THE WEEK: A listener from Florida asked about our experience with the StowAway Cargo Carrier. Before you get one of these, you’ll want to hear our experience. Jennifer joins me for her perspective on the pluses and minuses of this storage solution.
    RV NEWS OF THE WEEK:
    There were a rash of RV fires across the country last week, most due to propane problems. These accidents tend to spike in spring and then in the fall, as many are migrating to and from winter destinations. Here are tips on propane safety with links to valuable safety info.
    TRAVELING TECH TIP: The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and new iPads and new Android devices are now being released and lots of people are wondering what to do with their old phones. That’s where online trade-in sites come in. Here’s how you can exchange your old one for cash so you can buy a new one.
    Gazelle is one of the most popular electronics trade in sites, allowing folks top instantly see what their old electronics are worth, actually getting a trade in price on the spot. You pack up the old phone and they send you a check. Couldn’t be easier.
    NextWorth offers a similar service, but with a twist. You can check out the value of your trade-in and they’ll also send you a check if you want. But with NextWorth, you can also find a store near you that partners with them where you can actually go in person to do the trade-in.
    Online retailer Amazon has a very active trade-in service as well, on all sorts of personal electronics.
    So does the big box retailer Best Buy. Check out your trade in on their website and take it to a store near you.
    And you can do the same with Radio Shack.
    RV BUCKET LIST DESTINATION: The Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming –
    INTERVIEW: Yan Seiner, a Roadtreking Reporter who just also happens to also be a senior project manager with Roadtrek Motorhomes, talks to us about What you need to know about cold weather and how and when to winterize your RV.
    We also announce a winter campout Yan and I will be hosting in the snowy Upper Peninsula of Michigan Jan 23-25, 2015. You’re invited! Details at http://roadtreking.com/heres-chance-try-winter-camping/
    I mentioned how when we do camping in the wintertime, we also take along a small ceramic heater. It’s the Lasko 5307 Oscillating Ceramic Tower. It’s 16 inches high, easily stores and really kicks out a lot of heat and we are very happy with it. Here’s a direct link from Amazon. If you do buy from Amazon using that link, I get a small commission.
    I also want to thank Van City RV for sponsoring this week;s episode. Van City specializes only in Class B motorhomes and they have an extensive inventory of new and used rigs. If you buy from them, they’ll pay your way to St. Louis to pick up your new coach. Mention Roadtreking for special pricing.
    Many of you ask how you can subscribe, review and rate the Roadtreking Podcast on iTunes. Here's how:

    First, open up the iTunes app on your computer or mobile device. Click on Podcasts up on the top.
    > From the iTunes Podcasts page, use the “Search Store” field up at the top right corner of the page. Type in Mike Wendland or Roadtreking RV Podcast.
    > Click on the logo image of the Roadtreking RV Podcast on the search return page
    > From there (see photo above), you can…
    1) Subscribe
    2) Choose and Click on a star (1-5) that reflects your rating. Five stars means you really like it, one star not so much.
    3) Leave a written review.
    Thanks to all for the kind reviews we’ve received so far. That got us noticed by Apple/iTunes as “New and Noteworthy.” I appreciate every review!
  3. Roadtrekingmike
    Essential Cooking Supplies for your RV
    We do not eat out a lot when traveling, and when the weather does not cooperate for cooking on the grill, or we are in need of restocking the refrigerator/freezer,...
    Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome


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  4. Roadtrekingmike
    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 travels the country in a Roadtrek Type B motorhome, accompanied by his wife, Jennifer, and their Norweigian elkhound, Tai. Mike is an FMCA member (F426141) and is FMCA's official on-the-road reporter. He enjoys camping (obviously), hiking, biking, fitness, photography, video editing and all things dealing with technology. His "PC MIke" technology segments are distributed weekly to all 215 NBC-TV stations. More from this author. Reach mike at openmike@fmca.com.
  5. Roadtrekingmike
    Every RVers worst nightmare: When your dog gets skunked
    We’re not going camping this weekend.
    Blame it on a skunk.
    That’s because the night before we were to leave, Tai, our Norwegian Elkhound, was tagged at close range by a strolling skunk that has declared our front lawn his territory, despite the grey and black furball that patrols it with vigor.
    It was a busy night for Tai. First, he nailed an Opossum. Actually, he just thought he took out the Opossum. The ‘possum was playing, all curled up in the grass. Funny thing is the ‘possum and Tai should be old friends by now. This happens several times each year. Tai is always mystified that this “kill” is gone when he rushes out the next morning.
    I was on my way home from a meeting when Jennifer noticed Tai and the ‘possum last night. “Bring Tai in and move the ‘possum next door so when Tai goes out before bed he won’t harass that poor creature,” Jennifer instructed on the phone.
    The skunk must have come by shortly afterwards and Tai, thiking he was in doggy heaven, figured he had another critter to bag. Alas, he got sprayed. Drenched, actually.
    Skunked Tai tried to sleep off the stink on the front swing. Now we have to wash the cushions on that, too.
    I smelled skunk in my car a block away. It was heavy in the air as I parked in the garage and went to take Tai from guarding the ‘possum. I didn’t notice that the odor was coming from him. But Jennifer did, when I opened the garage door and sent him inside while I moved our little ‘possum buddy.
    She sent him out fast and we both gave up plans of packing the RV for a quick Friday getaway.
    The smell lingered inside and we both gagged. We sentenced Tai to hard time in the garage for the night and I Facebooked my plight. In the morning, Tai relocated to a front porch glider, where he looked humiliated. He lost his ‘possum and he stunk with skunk. Doggie disaster.
    From Facebook, I was armed with numerous suggestions from friends far and wide. I did two things: First, I went to Pet Smart and picked up two bottles of Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Removal. It came highly recommended from a friend in Canada named Jim and a local vet. Douse the dog in it, leave it on for five minutes or longer and then rinse it off. I used most of a bottle on Tai. I’ll keep the other one in the Roadtrek in case this happens while we’re out there boondocking. The second thing I did was take Tai to the pet groomer for a bath. They also claimed to have a secret formula which they applied, though they wouldn’t share the recipe.
    The bottle of the Miracle Skunk Odor Removal and the bath did the job, though there’s still a slight skunk smell which, we fear, would be way too noticeable in the Roadtrek. Hence, no boondocking trip this weekend.
    But the suggestions of other skunk remedies seem well worth passing along.
    Here they are. Feel free to add your own suggestions under comments.
    David and Helen both separately suggested that I mix up a three percent solution of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and liquid soap. That’s also the suggested recommendation of the Humane Society of the United States.  For more detailed instructions, here’s another variation of that recipe.
    Tina has had her dog skunked twice this year. She cautioned against leaving that peroxide solution on your dog for too long. “Mine ended up with blond highlights,” she lamented. “Took forever for the fur to grow out normal.” Instead, she swears by “Permatex hand cleaner, bought it at Meijer. Scrub it in, and wash it off.”
    Cathy says “Vinegar & dish soap really helps.” Colleen says “try Dry douche powder.”
    Susan said to bathe him tomato juice.
    Char says don’t. “Bathe Tai in dawn dish washing soap and then rub lemon juice all over. I had an Old English bulldog who did the same thing and trust me when I say tomato juice does not work but the dawn & lemon juice does.”
    And Judith suggested that I “Rub him with catsup – a lot – then wash off. Sounds strange but it really works. Something about the correct acid or pH or something.”
    Finally, as much as Tai reeked and cleaning him up was a hassle, Craig shared a perspective that made my experience seem not quite so bad: “The only thing worse than having a dog skunked? Having three dogs skunked. One night all 3 of our dachshunds cornered a skunk in the back yard. Long haired dachsies, too. It was weeks.”
    Lots of suggestions. I appreciate them all.
    As does Tai.
    Maybe we can get away next weekend.
    Roadtreking - A Journalist takes up the RV lifestyle - People and Places Encountered on the Open Road


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  6. Roadtrekingmike
    "How lucky I am to have known someone who was so hard to say goodbye to.” – Anonymous
    I write this with tears steaming down my face. Our noble friend and companion, Tai, has crossed the Rainbow Bridge – that sappy, mythical but nevertheless comforting place where much-loved pets go to await their masters. He would have been 12 this December.
    I debated whether I should do a blog post about this. But Tai was so well known by the Roadtreking community that he was a celebrity in and of himself, often being recognized as we camped across North America. People would come up to meet him and get that awesome Elkhound wag of the tail in return. He even got regular fan mail.
    So it’s fitting that I tell the Roadtreking community.
    We first learned that Tai had serious health issues about two weeks ago when he was found panting and having great difficulty breathing one morning. Rushed to an emergency vet clinic, a huge tumor was found around his aortic valve. It was inoperable. His heart sac was filling with blood and he was very near death. The fluid was drained, the tumor measured and a terminal diagnosis was given.
    We haven’t shared that publicly but our hope was for a few more months. That wasn’t to be. He began having seizures last night and, though he seemed to rally, they continued today. It was obvious his heart sac was again filling up. Tai took his last ride in the Roadtrek about 1:50 pm today (July 23, 2015). Jennifer and I were both by his side as he peacefully drifted off.
    Now, we are in a house that seems so empty.
    I drove home in the Roadtrek without him, a few tufts of his thick beautiful grey and black coat on the floor still between the two front seats where he loved to sit and be petted as we drove across the country. Unashamedly, I admit to crying the whole way home. His spirit and our Roadtreking lifestyle are so intertwined it’s absolutely gut-wrenching to realize he wont be with us anymore.
    To those who never had a dog, I’m sure all this grief seems misplaced. But to those who have been blessed to have a dog, you know how we feel.
    Tai loved Roadtreking. When we were home, he’d sit next to it in the driveway, anxiously awaiting the next adventure.
    And adventure he had. I have hundreds of photos of him. Hiking riverbanks and forests, mountain tops and canyons, beaches and meadows. He barked at bison, sniffed bears, chased elk and deer, mixed it up with raccoons, got sprayed by a skunk and made friends across the country.
    He had a good, full life. But now ours is so empty.
    Like our house. Like the Roadtrek.
    This will pass. Tai was our third dog, all of them Elkhounds. We’ve been through this before.
    Some say the only way to get over the loss of a dog is to get a new one. That may happen. But not for a while. That new one wouldn’t be Tai.

    I thought you should know.
    I want to end this with another quote, sent me by a reader:
    “It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them.
    And every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart.
    If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog,
    and I will become as generous and loving as they are.”
    – Anonymous
  7. Roadtrekingmike
    There’s a real battle going on out there in the RV world and it pits some powerful interests against those who resent paying for services they don’t need and only want to take advantage of the generous offers of places like Wal-Mart, Cabella’s, Cracker Barrel and other businesses that not only allow but welcome brief overnight stays by traveling RVers.
    But for more than a decade now, campground owners and their national association have quietly been working behind the scenes to convince local governments to enact anti-RV ordinances that ban overnight camping in anything but a campground.
    As a result, thousands of places around North America have passed such ordinances. And more do so everyday.
    Now before I go any further, I need to point out something. I am NOT anti-campground. Neither is Campskunk or Jim Hammill or any of the other writers on my http://roadtreking.com/ blog. I use campgrounds all the time. Jennifer and I will be in one in Cape Cod next week. We have reservations over the summer at others in Ontario, Nebraska, Oregon and will likely make more. Most of the time, our experiences have been great. But it is no secret to the RVing public that many campgrounds need a lot of work. I’ve written about this before and I will continue to do so, believing exposure is the best way to force them to clean up or go away.
    What so many of us object to are discriminatory laws and local ordinances that prohibit traveling RVers from overnighting in places like rest areas, Wal-Mart parking lots and other places. I’m not talking about setting up camp, putting out the chairs, starting a campfire. I’m talking about spending a few hours sleeping overnight before hitting the road again as we are on our way somewhere. Often, we’re on our way to a campground where we’ll stay for several days. Overnight Parking is not camping, it’s parking.
    Lots of paces welcome us. Wal-mart company policy, for examke, is to allow overnight RV parking. Sam Walton, the founder, was an RVer. But astutely, we realized that the RVers who overnighted in his lot bought groceries and supplies from his store.
    But corporate policy is trumped when a local ordinance bans overnight parking.
    As we’ve dug into this, we’ve encountered some pretty powerful players aligned against free RV overnighting and behind the anti-RV laws. The biggest is the 3,000-member National Association of RV Campgrounds (ARVC). Here’s a 2011 blog report from a site that at one point reported on a database of such places, even posting the accompanying map up above.
    “One of the stated missions of ARVC is to influence legislators to institute and/or enforce parking bans in public places where RV’s are otherwise welcome. ARVC actively urges and assists members to pressure their towns to prohibit parking at public places so that RV’ers have no choice but to stay at a nearby … campground. Such parking bans extend to temporary streetside parking in some cities and towns. Not only has this has resulted in the denial of the right of private property owners to determine who shall have the use and enjoyment of their property but it has eroded our basic freedom to choose!”
    Prodded by Jim Hammill, I was going to try and develop a listing here on Roadtreking.com of all such RV unfriendly places that prohibited overnight camping.
    Turns out, I don’t have to reinvent the wheel on this.
    There already is a resource that to help you find free or very low cost places to stay while traveling in your RV. It’s called OvernightRVParking.com and it’s a labor of love for a guy named Jim O’Briant, of Gilroy, CA, who started the site in 2008. As of today, it has a database of nearly 12,000 places around North America that can be searched, listing places that allow and prohibit overnight RV parking.
    Campskunk, whose recent post on anti-RV laws in Ontario started this whole controversy on my http://roadtreking.com/ blog, has been a user of OvernightRVParking.com for years.
    The site is a subscription service – $24.95 a year.
    Plug in a city and you’ll get a map listing where you can or where you can’t overnight free or for a very low fee. O’Briant himself tries to verify every report and there are easy ways for subscribers to add to the information. He also has individual state and province pdf files that members can download to their computers if they don’t have Internet service on the road. He doesn’t recommend printing them out, as some are over 100 pages long.
    The website is tablet and mobile device friendly, so you really don’t need a special app.
    I had a great conversation with O’Briant and he has made a nice offer to readers of this blog. If you decide to subscribe to his service, he will extend your membership from 12 months to 15 months. That works out to a pretty nice discount. To get it, when you sign up and the form asks how you heard of him, type in roadtreking.com and he will automatically extend your membership.
    O’Briant is no stranger to the overnight parking ban we’ve been writing about here recently.
    “As of about 5 years ago, the ARVC website had a page discussing their ‘model legislation’ (i.e., pre-written laws that RV Park owners could take to their local city councils) and about all the support that ARVC would give to local campground owners who were working to get these laws passed in their communities,” he told me in an email. “After this became public knowledge, that part of their website disappeared (or perhaps it moved to a ‘members only’ accessible area of their site).”
    On the ARVC site now is this description of what it offers its members:
    “Powerful legislative and regulatory advocacy programs that protect your business interests. We monitor state and national policy issues that affect our industry and take action on your behalf. These efforts ensure that all of our members have a powerful voice and strong representation on the issues that matter.”
    Other big names have been lined to the controversial anti-RV parking bans based on their support of ARVC.
    “Good Sam was barraged with questions about it, as they were also accused of promoting these laws,” said O’Briant. “Their official reply was that they don’t do it. But Good Sam is (or at that time was) the largest financial supporter of ARVC.”
    Another prominent RV industry name involved in the association’s efforts is KOA. The corporate organization seems to have taken a hands -off stance on the anti-RV parking laws but individual KOA owners have and still hold leadership roles in the group.
    I signed up for OvernightRVParking.com (I paid full price, by the way) and plan to use it Friday and Saturday night as we head to Cape Cod. We’ll be in a campground Sunday-Thursday. I’ll also use it on the way back.
    Meantime, share under comments here your experiences with RV unfriendly towns. Let’s make sure we don’t spend a dime in any of them.

    There used to be a website called rvunfriendly.com. It vanished from the net, sometime in late 2011 or early 2012. But this is the map they had that shows places with RV unfriendly laws.
  8. Roadtrekingmike
    The surveys show well over 75% of all RVrs travel with dogs. In fact, many said because they want to take their pets with them is one of the major reasons they bought an RV in the first place.
    Jennifer and I are the same. We enjoy the company of our Norwegian Elkhound, Tai, and bring him with us on most of our trips.
    But there are times while we’re on the road that Tai doesn’t quite fit in.
    Take the long trip west that we’re now on.
    Tai will be great for most of it. But the first part, a week in suburban Memphis where of right-year-old grandson was in a sports tournament, posed a major dilemma. We were staying with the rest of the team parents and grandparents in a hotel where dogs were not allowed. And the sports complex where the games were being played did not allow dogs in the grounds.
    Added to that was the notorious Memphis heat. The temperatures were in the mid 90′s each day, with heat indexes well over 100. So leaving him in our RV, even with the air conditioning running, just wasn’t a good idea. If that AC should fail, the heat buildup inside the coach would would be potentially fatal.
    We thought of leaving him 1,000 miles away, back in Michigan. But to take him on the trip west, which was to begin once the tournament ended, would have meant 1,000 miles back north, before we could start west.
    I posted our dilemma on our Roadtreking Facebook Group. And among lots of suggestions we received, one turned out to be perfect.
    A website called DogVacay, short for Dog Vacation, which lists thousands of trusted, licensed dog sitters who are willing to board pets in their own homes, just as if they were members of the family.
    Just to see what it was like, I plugged in the suburban Memphis city where we would be spending most of our time watching the games. You can imagine my surprise when the DogVacay sitter we choose turned out to live directly across the street from the ballpark.
    Sophia Townsend was her name and, with her husband, Gordon, she watched Tai all week. We even saw her walking Tai one afternoon and rushed over to say Hi.
    The Townsends live in a ranch-style home on a corner lot of a well kept subdivision and has a large, well manicured backyard surrounded by a tall fence, though in the Memphis heat, Tai much preferred the air conditioning inside.
    I can’t begin to say how thrilled we were to have found the loving dog sitters Sophia and Gordon and DogVacay.
    As we continue our travels across the country, I’m sure there will be other occasions when we’ll use it again.
    To use the service, you have to register for a free account You upload a photo of your pet and answer some questions about his temperament. Rates are $25 day. Other services like play time, walks, even grooming, can also be arranged. Your dog’s host family will even send you a daily note and photo of your pet, if you so desire. Each dog that is booked through DogVacay.com is covered under insurance policy that includes $25,000 in dog medical coverage in care, custody and control of the host, less a $250 deductible.
    The service also has a PAWtastic partnership with VCA-Antech, the largest veterinary group in the country to help handle any veterinary issues.

    Tai was welcomed on the couch. That's Gordon and Sophia and two of their four dogs that made Tai feel like one of the pack.
  9. Roadtrekingmike
    I’m lucky. To tend to the mechanical work on my Roadtrek eTrek on the Sprinter chassis, I have two great technicians: Daryl and Josh. Plus Eric, a great service manager who always manages to squeeze me in.
    I was just in the other day after a check engine light came on. Wouldn’t you know, it was one of those erratic issues. When I drove it into Hoekstra Transportation in Troy, MI, I felt somewhat sheepish. The warning light had something to do with a sensor that we had replaced about 20,000 miles ago. “That shouldn’t be causing you issues again,” said Daryl. Eric agreed. I’m driving it back in next week and they will replace a whole rail on which it is mounted.
    What I really appreciate about Daryl and Josh – they are both Sprinter mechanics – is that they always take the time to bring me back in the shop and show me what’s going on under the hood.
    I have had very limited issues with my Sprinter. I do regular maintenance and oil changes and I only wish that these guys could take care of my car, too.
    My experience with having my Roadtrek engine and mechanical serviced so well got me thinking about how lucky I am.
    The sad fact is, not all service places are as skilled, honest and ethical as the one I am blessed to use.
    Here are my five suggestions on how to make sure your RV has a good mechanic.
    Search for shops that are certified to do repairs on your engine and/or chassis. Check the manufacturer’s website, look for local dealers and ask the service manager what certifications and specialties their techs have. Check review websites.
    Ask your RV dealer for recommendations on where to have the vehicle’s engine serviced. They should be able to steer you to the place they use. Try to meet the tech who will be working on your vehicle personally. Ask questions. Most like sharing knowledge and since you are going to be building a long term relationship, familiarty brings respect.
    Make sure you have your vehicle maintained and serviced as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Tell them where your next trip will be, what the terrain and dust conditions will be like. They’ll know what to inspect for and may have some great suggestions on how to operate your RV in those areas.
    Call for an appointment instead of just showing up and demanding service. In an emergency, of course, a reputable place will gladly check things out. But even then, try to call ahead of time and give them as much advance notice so they know what’s coming in.
    Keep all your documents and service records. A good shop, of course, will have them on their computer. But if you find you need service on the road, being able to show vehicle records will help avoid unnecessary repairs and save time with a new mechanic or service center.

    What would you add to this list?

    Daryl Brown of Hoekstra Specialty Vehicles in Troy, Mich., running the Mercedes diagnostic check on my Roadtrek.
  10. Roadtrekingmike
    Florida’s panhandle is a special place. And the area from Panama on the East on to the Alabama border on the west may be the most special. It’s called the Emerald Coast, named after the stunning color of the Gulf of Mexico. Check out our video to see why we were so taken with this area.
    Our base for this trip was the new Destin West RV Resort, located on Okaloosa Island in Fort Walton Beach.
    http://youtu.be/2jQ_OR-tPxI
    We lucked out with an awesome spot, yards away from the 27-mile long Choctawhatchee Bay.
    The Bay is great for boasting and fishing. We met Bill Lovejoy from Memphis, who fishes just about every day right out in front of his campsite. Bill shared a way to get live bait by using a two liter soft drink bottle.
    Bill, who has spent the winter at Destin West, cuts the top third of the bottle off, inverts it and puts in back inside, neck down. You can see on the video how it works. Bottom line for Bill is he never had to buy live bait.
    The spots at Destin West are well spaced, with picnic tables and patios and the resort has its own heated pool and more amenities than you can count. It’s been open just over a year and already has quite a following.
    Stay there and you have access to everything at the Ramada Inn across US 28, including its waterfall pool, health club and beach.
    destin3But since Jennifer and I love to explore, we don’t sit still in one spot very long. Further west from Fort Walton Beach is the Gulf Islands National Seashore. It stretches across Florida and Alabama and even into Mississippi. But the emerald coast section of barrier islands has the most spectacular beaches we have ever seen.
    The sparkling white quartz sand beaches run along miles of undeveloped land. There are nature trails and convenience parking spots. With our Roadtrek, we staked out a spot with a million dollar view.
    We met another Roadtreking couple doing the same thing, Kathy and Les Shanteau, who own a condo in the area but use the Roadtrek for day trips, just as we do.
    The weather in mid March was chilly, with highs in the upper 60′s. Still, the sun was shining every day and we were surprisingly comfortable.
  11. Roadtrekingmike
    As we’ve traveled across North America, visiting wilderness areas and National Parks, one park consistently came up at the top of the list of must-visit places suggested by fellow RVers: Glacier National Park in far northwestern Montana.
    Now that we’ve been there and spent most of a week exploring this dramatic and spectacular park, we know why.
    But our adventure here didn’t start out well. We visited in mid-August, after school had started in much of the country. We thought the crowds would be way down.
    But as we entered the park from West Glacier, we immediately encountered a multilane traffic jam of vehicles at the welcome gate. For ten minutes we slowly crept forward. Then, just a couple vehicles from the front, a ranger came out and started motioning traffic through, without collecting entrance few or checking for passes. “Move on, move on,” she said, urging us forward.

    We were surprised.
    “Hurry please, traffic is backed up to the the intersection (in town a half mile back) and we have to clear this congestion.”
    It was a Monday. And the place was that busy. We checked two campgrounds at the entrance: Apgar and Fish Creek. Apgar was filled. Fish Creek had two openings. But as we drove through it, we decided to pass on it. Small, uneven campsites close to each other just didn’t appeal to us.
    We moved into the interior, following the east shoreline of Lake McDonald. Sprague Creek, located right on the lake, sounded good. It too, by noon on a Monday, was filled.
    Traffic was extremely heavy. Further north we traveled, finally finding a spot at Avalanche Creek. Not bad. Crowded, but somewhat spacious sites. An hour after we got our site, it filled. The parking lot leading to the campground was filled. So was a parking lot and picnic area along the creek, across the highway.

    We boarded a shuttle for the 16 mile trip up the Going-to-the-Sun Road to Logan Pass. Traffic was pretty much bumper-to-bumper the entire way. Once we reached Logan Pass, a huge parking area was closed because every space was taken. I started out on a hiking trail. But after counting what had to be 500 people strung out for as far as I could see, I turned back, stopping to photograph a family of mountain goats grazing in a meadow.
    This was the middle of the wilderness. But it was as congested as any urban area we have ever visited.
    The shuttle vehicle we took back to Avalanche Creek was a full sized Sprinter, the same chassis of our Roadtrek Etrek. So I asked the driver if I could take mine up. No problem he said.
    Now right now, let me say that I was not supposed to take my Roadtrek any further along the Going-to-the-Sun Road. If we had not been waved through the front gate of the park on Sunday, I’m sure now that the ranger would have so instructed me. Later, after I had done the deed, I learned that vehicles over 21 feet are not allowed to drive the highway.
    With my StowAway2 cargo box, my Roadtrek measures nearly 24 feet.
    But, thinking it was okay, bright and early the next morning, I took the Roadtrek up and down the Going-to-the-Sun Road. No one challenged me. Again, I should not have done this. So don’t try this on your own.
    That said, I did. And I had absolutely no problems.

    Going-to-the-Sun Road is one of the world’s most spectacle highways. Bisecting the heart of Glacier, the 50-mile-long road follows the shores of the park’s two largest lakes and hugs the cliffs below the Continental Divide as it traverses Logan Pass. It is not for the faint of heart or those who are nervous driving narrow roads that twist and turn and are bordered with steep rock walls on the driver’s side and thousand foot drop-offs, without guard rails, on the passenger side.
    Here’s a video of the drive, recorded with my GoPro:

    We did it early on a Tuesday morning with little traffic. I passed numerous park rangers and none seemed to mind. A couple even gave me that friendly raise-four-fingers-from-the-steering-wheel-hello as we passed. We stopped in turnoffs along the way to take photos. We spotted a grizzly on the way down and took some long lens pictures of him as he devoured huckleberries on a far away hillside.
    We took the highway all the way to the West Entrance and the town of St. Mary. We stopped at the Rising Sun Campground. Full. Almost out of the park, we stopped at the St Mary Campground. Also full. We made our way to the park’s most popular campground, Many Glacier. This one filled before 7 AM that day, and most days.
    No matter, we hung around and watched the sunset.
    We found a spot just out of the park at a KOA in St. Mary that was one of the nicest campgrounds we have ever visited, with very spacious sites and great views of Glacier’s craggy peaks. At $60 a night, it was also the most expensive place we’ve stayed on this trip west.

    The next morning we were up early and made our way back to Rising Sun and got a great site. for $10, thanks to our National Parks Senior Pass.
    Rising Sun is in the heart of Glacier’s bear country. This campground has been closed because of bear activity and a couple of incidents. It’s been reopened but is still posted to be especially alert because of bear activity.
    A husband and wife who were camping in a tent were awakened one night when a bear tried to lie on their tent. The husband said it was like sitting on his head. The wife bolted upright and, through a clear vinyl widow in the tent, was literally nose-to-nose with a black bear. She hollered, he hollered, they fumbled for a flashlight and zippered out, catching sight of a black bear scampering off into the brush.
    In another incident, a camper reported they a bear had stolen a pillow from their camp site.
    We saw bear tracks all around our campsite and fresh bear scat not far away.

    We caught a glimpse of a cinnamon colored bear crossing the road in front of the campground.
    Then, a half hour later, as we rounded a bend in the Otokomi Lake Trail no further than 50 yards across a creek from our campsite, we came upon a mama bear and her cub. They had just come out of the creek. We stopped and talked so they’d know we were there. With only the briefest glance at us, the mama crossed first, no more than 25 feet in front of us. She seemed unconcerned with our presence and certainly wasn’t apprehensive, taking her time getting up the opposite side, nibbling on some service berries. Her cub followed a few feet behind. He had to stand on his hind legs to grab a few mouthfuls of the berries, finally looking at us with youthful curiosity before slowly ambling off with Mom.
    By mid-week, traffic in the park was noticeably less. Same with Thursday as a change in the weather pattern and a cold front swept through the park. It felt like fall. They were even predicting snow by Saturday up at Logan Pass. We awoke to 46 degrees and, after coffee, moved over to Many Glacier campground where, thanks to the rain and cold, there were plenty of camping spots to chose from.
    We hiked to Fishercap Lake where we watched a bull moose stand knee deep just off shore munching on grass.
    That night, with continuing mist, it dropped to 39. We cranked up the Webasto heater in our Roadtrek Etrek, snug and dry and cocooned against the cold.
    The end of the week weather had us bundled up but it kept the crowds away and we delighted in the wilderness quiet. Glacier is a photographer’s dream. Every direction is postcard pretty, even in the clouds and foggy mists.
    Our mistake was in coming when folks were still on summer vacations. The next time we visit will be after Labor Day. Like Yellowstone to the south, the summer crowds are just too much for us. The more we enjoy this small motorhome lifestyle, the more we prefer going it alone, boondocking far off the beaten path. In September, they tell me, the Glacier campgrounds seldom fill. While cold weather at night guarantees you’ll be running the heater, Glacier will feel much more wild than it does with the summer crowds.

    One last thing: We took Tai, our Norwegian Elkhound, with us on this trip. Dogs are not allowed on trails or in many places in the park but we had plenty of spots to walk him in campgrounds and picnic areas. When we hiked, we left him in our Roadtrek. Because of cool temperatures and the beautiful weather, we didn’t have to worry about having the air conditioning on, though our Roadtrek Etrek with its eight house batteries and solar powered trickle charger would have easily handled that for several hours.
    We were glad we brought him. He seemed to greatly enjoy the park and we enjoyed his companionship.
    Here are some of our photos. They show why we’ll be back.




  12. Roadtrekingmike
    For Your RV Bucket List: Glacier National Park
    As we’ve traveled across North America, visiting wilderness areas and National Parks, one park consistently came up at the top of the list of must-visit places suggested by fellow RVers:...
    Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome


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  13. Roadtrekingmike
    Fridges and Freezers, oh my
    A few weeks ago we were at Mingus Park on the Oregon Coast. Mingus Park is in a really, really hilly part of the coast; there’s not much of a...
    Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome


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  14. Roadtrekingmike
    There are fulltime RVers and then there is Campskunk.
    Most fulltimers travel in Type A motorhomes or Fifth Wheels. They also tow a car. And though their RVs are as long as many a subdivision house, they are still a rare breed, disposing of only what they can put in storage or pack in their 36, 40 or 43 foot long RV. They’re generally celebrated by the RV community, looked up to and envied for their independence and vagabond freedom.
    But imagine doing it in a 22-foot long Class B campervan. That’s what Campskunk has been doing for the past three years. With wife, Sharon and their Ragdoll cat, “Fiona the Fearless,” they live 24-x-7, 365 days a year in their 2003 Roadtrek Type B motorhome.
    Campskunk, of course, is not his real name. But he’s known to thousands in the RV community by that moniker, which comes from part of the couple’s joint email address that blends the first part of Sharon’s maiden name with his old nickname from the days he held a high profile state government job that had him doing a lot of quality control work that made him more than his share of enemies.
    That was before he retired in 2010, let his hair grow down to his waist, mothballed his sportcoats and literally burned his ties to set off on the road, living life a day at a time in the most beautiful places he could find.
    “I wore a coat and tie everyday,” he says of his former working life. “I was burning yard trash getting ready to leave the house and begin fulltiming in late July 2010, so I just took my ties and draped them over the burning pile, one by one. It was intensely satisfying to leave that part of my life behind.”
    He does keep one tie, one sportcoat and one pair of dress slacks in his RV for funerals, weddings and special occasions. But his typical wear is a T-shirt, jeans or shorts. That’s because he is always somewhere warm. Always. It’s his hard and fast traveling rule.”I consider it operator error if we end up in a place colder than 70 degrees,” he says.

    Full time living in such a small motorhome is not nearly as difficult as it sounds, he says. “It a matter of priorities and planning, Most of us just don’t need all the stuff we have. The more stuff, the less free we are to live the way we want to.”
    Campskunk is a regular on RV forums on Facebook and Yahoo!. He’s well respected as an expert tinkerer, someone who can fix anything, build anything and modify an RV for years of use. His Chevy-based Roadtrek has 120,000 miles. He thinks he can get another ten years of use out of it and hopes to take it to Europe after several more years of traveling across the U.S.
    Money is admittedly tight. He and Sharon meticulously budget.
    “Leaving aside all the regular non-fulltiming-related expenditures like car insurance and health insurance, etc, we originally budgeted $50 a day, or $1500 a month: $500 for fuel, $500 for groceries and spending money, and $500 for lodging/campground fees,” he says. ”Since we started fulltiming, fuel costs have averaged $346 per month and our campground costs have gone down to $1,776 for the last year, or $148 a month.”
    That’s because whenever possible, he chooses to boondock, staying in free or reduced rate non-commercial campgrounds, typically in state and national forests, coastal areas or pubic land.
    “In one memorable month the summer before last, we only spent $600 – camping was free and town was only 5 miles away, so no fuel costs. And there was nothing else to spend money on. We were up at 9,800 feet near Silverton, CO,” he says.

    Campskunk has become amazingly adept at finding spectacular boondocking spots.
    “I Google around,” he says, “The national forest service’s website is very hard to find stuff on, But there’s a book of all the national forest campsites in a book put out by Coleman. Find the ranger station, stop in and talk to them about dispersed camping – that’s the best. I also keep my eyes open when driving, and have literally stumbled into many great places. Know the state laws where you travel – you can park along the pacific coastal highway anywhere There are no local ordinances or signs prohibiting it for 8 hours in California and 12 hours in Oregon. I think you can stay for longer in Washington state – nobody’s ever up there. The best way to find overnight spots when you’re just traveling through and want to overnight near the highway is http://www.overnightrvparking.com/ It costs $25 a year for a subscription but you make your money back the first campground you avoid. It has up-to-date information on 10,000 free or very cheap overnight parking spots nationwide.”
    He’s totally wired with satellite Internet and commercial TV. “Sharon insisted that if we were going to really do this, she’d have her TV,” he says. “I needed the Internet. So we have two dishes.”

    He is solar powered and has a wind turbine that also helped top off the coach batteries in his RV. He did it all himself thanks to skills he honed in the 70′s when he worked as an automotive mechanic befofe heading back to school for the specialized education that got him his government job.
    There are unique challenges to fulltime RV living, he admits.
    “Challenges are anything that you can’t do electronically – get a prescription filled, get your new credit cards when the old ones expire, getting your new insurance cards, etc. We now have east and west coast dentists. The other doctor stuff is harder- we had to go to Mexico once to get one prescription filled when the logistics of getting it filled by regular means failed. There’s no ‘see you in three months’ when you’re a fulltimer. One really annoying thing is going into a different grocery store every week – you never learn where they put things, and the next place is always different.”
    Campskunk turned 60 last fall. He travels about 15,000 miles each year, making non-rushed loops around the country.
    Fulltime RVing is not for everyone, he is quick to point out. But it is doable. His best advice?
    “Just get out there and do it. You’ll get better at it after a year or two. We are still learning as we go. We’re poor but happy.”
    Source
  15. Roadtrekingmike
    I use a lot of cameras while we travel North America in our Roadtrek RV. One of my favorites is the GoPro Hero, a very tiny high def camera that I can mount to the side of my vehicle, wear on a bike hemet or attach to just about anything.
    The folks who make the camera just released some free editing software called GoPro Studio. I couldn’t resist downloading it last night and throwing in a few of our driving shots from this summer. The music comes with the template you download, so no complaints, please.

    The video includes shots from Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Missouri and South Dakota.
    I’ll play with more of my GoPro video later but here’s the first effort with their new video editing software… without going through the tutorial.
    By the way, the software also imports video from your smartphone or other cameras so you can edit it into slick looking videos, too.
  16. Roadtrekingmike
    Man we got high near Telluride!
    At 9,500 feet in elevation, the Matterhorn Campground just south of Telluride, CO was the highest place we’ve overnighted yet on this Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2013. Son-in-law, Dan, noticeably felt the effects of the altitude and all of us noticed a bit of dizzyness on exertion, especially when hiking.
    The Matterhorn Campground is just off Colorado Highway 145, about an hour and a half’s drive from our stay at Mesa Verde National Park. Run by the USDA Forest Service, it has 28 spots and we chose two offering full hookups for Wendy and Dan and the granddaughters in the travel trailer and Jeff and Aimee in the Roadtrek SS.
    Jennifer and I put the eTrek in one of the dry camping spots.
    The campground also has showers and flush toilets, though the showers were a bit challenging, bursting out blasts of scalding hot water for 20 seconds, then abruptly shutting off until you waited six seconds and then pushed the button again. When I say scalding hot, I mean hot enough to make you howl if they hadn’t shut off when they did. Man, too hot is just as bad as too cold.
    We loved this campground, nestled in a valley and surrounded by panoramic views of the mountains in all directions. On the day we arrived snow had fallen on one of the mountain tops to our east. Right from the tent area of the campground runs the Galloping Goose Trail, a 15 mile trail great for hiking. The trail features over 20 footbridges, winds past historical landmarks and through the deep gullies of Uncompahgre National Forest—some of Colorado’s most beautiful scenery. And the famed Lizard Head Wilderness is only about 3 miles away.
    The big attraction in the areas is the nearby town of Telluride, described by locals as “the new Aspen.” To get to Telluride, we are advised by the campground host to drive up 145 to the nearby Mountain Village ski and golf resort community and take the free gondola ride into town. Since that was the only place I could get a solid Internet connection, I opted to stay in the Roadtrek in the parking lot while the rest of the family rode the gondolas.
    It’s a pretty cool service, free transportation that is supposed to take 13 minutes. Wendy and Dan took their Goldendoodle, Charley, the youngest of our three dogs and an energetic ball of energy that is game for anything.
    Sequouia, Jeff’s 120 pound part St. Bernard and partMalamute, is 12 and with, Tai, our 70-pound Norwegian Elkhound, opted to stay with me in the air conditioned Roadtrek.
    While I cranked out work on a fast 4g signal with the two dogs, the others found themselves stranded. Their gondola just stopped and hung there, swaying in the wind 6,000 feet above the valley leading to town and sweltering in the sun. While the adults and kids groaned, Charlie’s long tail thumped out a happy rhythm as it hit the side window of the gondola. He was with all his favorite people and all close together. What gets better than that? Maybe a little breeze but, hey, Charlie was happy anyway.
    They stayed like that for more than a half hour getting hotter and hotter. The first I learned about it was when I saw Wendy and Jeff updating Facebook about their plight.
    y the time I reached them on the phone, I offered to drive into Telluride and pick them up in the Roadtrek for the return trip. Jeff, Jennifer and Aimee readily agreed. Once on the gondola was enough for them.
    Wendy, Dan and Rachel considered it all a grand adventure and, with Charlie, took the gondola back to the village, where they had left their car. Hua Hua rode back with us in the Roadtrek.
    The town is very dog friendly so we brought all three of ours and even had them sit with us while we ate in the patio of a little restaurant area used by a nearby Mexican and Middle Eastern restaurants on Colorado Street. Our dogs looked downright shabby compared to the oh-so-upscale dogs of the well heeled Telluride residents. The “in” dog in Telluride is the massive Burmese Mountain Dog. If you have to ask how much such a pooch costs, you cant afford it. A puppy of average pedigree starts about $1,500.
    Telluride is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River that has great winter skiing and is a very popular Blues and Brews Festival each fall. Lots of Hollywood types have made their way here and have no problem shelling out $3 million for a vacation home on the edges of the box canyon that the town is built in.
    We walked the streets, stocked up on groceries and headed to the northern end of Main Street for a look at the spectacular 365-foot Bridal Falls.
    Then it was back to Matterhorn and quiet night beneath a stunning star canopy that takes your breath away, though at that 9,500-foot elevation, there was not much breath you could get. But even if you weren’t at such an altitude, those Colorado stars will get you high all by themselves.
    This is why we RV.
  18. Roadtrekingmike
    One of the things about traveling by RV that makes it so much fun is the serendipity, the unscheduled things that you just happen upon and, in the moment, take advantage of because, with an RV, you can.
    Such was the town of Glenwood Springs along I-70 180 miles west of Denver, home of the world’s largest hot springs pool.
    The hot mineral water has been drawing visitors from all over the world since 1888, when a resort and original spa officially opened for business. But even before that, the Ute Indians made yearly pilgrimages to the springs which they considered to be sacred.
    lenwood Springs was originally known as “Defiance”. Defiance was established in 1883, a camp of tents, saloons, and brothels with an increasing amount of cabins and lodging establishments. It was populated with the expected crowd of gamblers, gunslingers and prostitutes. Wild West legend Doc Holliday of the Gunfight at the OK Coral fame spent the final months of his life in Glenwood Springs and is buried in the town’s original Pioneer Cemetery. Suffering from tuberculosis, he hoped the healing waters would extend his life. President Teddy Roosevelt spent an entire summer vacation living out of the historic Hotel Colorado near the springs.
    Today, the hot springs have been turned into a community swimming pool. For$18, you can spend the day in it. The big pool is the size of a football field and is 90 – 93 degrees Fahrenheit, all year long. A
    smaller therapy pool is between 102 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit and has bubble chairs and submerged marble benches. There are two water slides and a kiddie pool.
    As the kids, in laws and grandkids swam in the hot springs pool, Jennifer and I dog sat Tai, Sequoia and Charlie in our Roadtrek eTrek, running the air conditioner full blast in the parking lot. It was a tight squeeze. The outside temperature was in the low nineties.
    It was in Glenwood Springs after the hot springs swim that we said goodbye to Jeff and Aimee, who had to return to Michigan for their jobs a little earlier than the rest of us. Daughter Wendy and Dan Bowyer and granddaughters Hua Hua and Rachel remained with us, staying in the 21 foot travel trailer we are hauling with our Roadtrek.
    We overnighted at the Glenwood Canyon Resort RV Park, located right off the next exit east from the spa on I-70.
    A spot with full hookup cost us some big bucks. There is a $54 campsite fee that covers two people, and then they charge $5 for every other person over five years of age and $5 per dog. Our total bill was $84, plus tax. Yikes. This is a pretty ritzy area and the even the camping fees reflect it.
    But it is also a resort with deluxe cabins, white water rafting, zip lines and a nice restaurant/bar.
    Best of all, the resort and it’s RV park is right on the Colorado River, surrounded by towering canyon walls. Tenters, Class B and C RV owners will want to take spots on the lower level, along the river, which flows white water fast ten feet away from your spot.
    When we checked in at the front desk, I noticed a bunch of earplugs, free for campers.
    “For the river noise?” I asked, amazed that someone wouldn’t like the sound of rushing water.
    “No, the trains,” answered the clerk.
    Right on the opposite side of the river is a railroad track that, during our stay, carried three high speed trains in the middle of the night. Mercifully, they don’t sound their horns. But the noise would definitely wake all but a very sound sleeper.
    The river is a great place to fish. A young boy from Texas had a stringer full of large rainbow trout.
    We walked down to it at night and sat on a picnic table, mesmerized by the swift water flowing past, sparking like diamonds in fading rays of the setting sun.
    Jen and I had planned on unhitching the trailer and going back to the hot springs to swim, leaving Tai with the with rest of the family. But the canyon RV campsite was so alluring and the river so strong a draw that we just stayed and stared at the beauty of the place.
    We spent just one night in the area. Though unplanned for us, it was a great decision.
    If you’re coming this way, plan it. You may even want to spend two nights.
  19. Roadtrekingmike
    Our Roadtrek Etrek now has its sea legs.
    Sometimes, to really appreciate something, you have to immerse yourself in it.
    So it was with Lake Michigan as we’ve been traveling around the Great Lakes Region these past several weeks on our Verizon Great Lakes Shoreline Roadtreking tour.
    No, we didn’t go swimming in it. The heavy ice up this past winter has left it and the other four Great lakes, abnormally cold. And normal is cold. This summer, it is really cold.
    So instead of getting wet in the lake, we crossed it.

    Bright and early on a recent Wednesday morning, our Roadtrek Etrek motorhome backed aboard the SS Badger, the largest car ferry steamship in the Great Lakes, measuring over 410 feet and able to hold 180 vehicles and 600 passengers.
    We took the 8:30 a.m. crossing, arriving the night before and boondocking in the Roadtrek in the carferry parking lot in Ludington.
    On the day we crossed, it was about half full. The ferryboat line suggests you call ahead to let them know you’re coming, especially if you are traveling in an RV. Size is not a problem. They seldom run out of room. They just like to know what to expect. On the day we crossed, there were Class A, Class C and Class B motorhomes aboard. There was even a huge truck semi-tractor trailer combo.
    We had Tai with us. Dogs are not allowed on the upper deck passenger areas. There are kennels for pets down in the vehicle parking area but most people chose to do what we did, crack a window and leave their pets in their vehicle. Tai slept soundly in the Roadtrek. There’s a fresh sea breeze down there so heat is not an issue.
    Our route traveled 60 miles in a straight line across Lake Michigan from Ludington, MI to Manitowoc, WI. Passengers sped their time doing all sorts of things. On nice days, they sun themselves on the forward deck. Inside, the ship offers bingo, movies, a arcade, TV and even satellite Internet Wi-Fi.
    Jennifer and I were given a bow to stern tour of the big ship – in consideration to be a National Historic Landmark.
    In the engine room, the massive steam engines run so smooth you can balance a nickel on them.
    To really appreciate the size of Lake Michigan, you need to be in the middle of it. It fills the horizon, as far as you can see in any direction, the only Great Lake entirely within the United States, touching the borders of four states.
    We even had a stateroom aboard the Badger. I grabbed an hour long nap as the big ship cut across two and three foot waves. I slept like a baby, rocked gently by the ship.
    The trip took four hours from shore to shore, four relaxing, stress-free, very enjoyable hours.
    How much does it cost to cross? Check out the schedules and fares page for the Badger. Our Roadtrek was considered a van. That’s $132 for a round trip. We elected for one-way as we did some exploring down the Wisconsin coast and hit Illinois and Indiana. The one-way cost is $66. Bigger Class C and Cass A RVs are usually priced by the foot, $5.95 per foot one way, $11.90 a foot round trip. That’s the same rate for passengers – $66 one-way. Seniors get a slight break at $62.
    There’s no charge for pets.
    The ship itself has a rich history.
    Today, it is the only coal-fired steamship in operation in the United States and has a unique propulsion system that has been designated as a national mechanical engineering landmark. It entered service in 1953, designed specifically to handle the rough conditions that it would likely encounter during year ’round sailing on Lake Michigan.
    Built primarily to transport railroad freight cars, but with lots of passenger accommodations, the Badger reigned as Queen of the Lakes during the car ferries’ Golden Era in the late Fifties, with Manitowoc, Milwaukee, and Kewaunee as her Wisconsin ports of call. By the Seventies, changing railroad economics were condemning other car ferries to mothballs or the scrap yard. With little railroad freight business left, and without ever tapping into the opportunity to serve the needs of the vacation traveler, the Badger sailed from Wisconsin to Ludington and tied up for the last time in November 1990 – signaling the end of the century-old tradition of car ferry service on Lake Michigan.
    The demise of the car ferries was devastating to the communities they had served. It seemed that the magic of these wonderful ships would only live in memory, never to be experienced by future generations. However, in 1991, an entrepreneur named Charles Conrad committed his own financial resources to reinvent the S.S. Badger to carry leisure passengers and their vehicles.
    Since then, this legend of the Great Lakes has delighted a whole new generation of people, allowing them to experience a bit of history that almost slipped away while cruising to fun destinations on both sides of Lake Michigan. The S.S. Badger now sails daily between Manitowoc, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan from mid-May through mid-October.

    The SS Badger is 412 feet long and can handle any sized RV.

  20. Roadtrekingmike
    Michigan’s UP is hemmed in by three of the Great Lakes. Everyone knows about Superior and Huron but the lake on the UP’s southern border has some great camping and exploring opportunities, too.
    So. after three weeks of travel on our Verizon Great Lakes Roadtreking Shoreline Tour, we have now arrived at the fifth of the big lakes – Lake Michigan.
    Lake Michigan touches four states and is the only one of the Great Lakes that doesn’t share a coastline with Canada.

    We started out following it across the bottom of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula near the Wisconsin border and because it has so much shoreline, we’ll cover it in three segments.
    You can see the first of our Lake Michigan reports and the 7th in our series by clicking above.
    Our first destination was a 17 mile long appendage called the Garden Peninsula that juts out into the UP’s Big Bay de Noc. There, we toured a ghost town of sorts, the once thriving iron smelting town town of Fayette. The state has restored many of the mid-19th century buildings.
    Today, it’s a reminder that nothing lasts forever. There’s a nice campground there with electric hookups. But there are just vault toilets, no shower facilities and there is no dump facilities. Park officials say they are planning to upgrade the campground next year, pending budget approval. But you can walk through a narrow forest and get right to the rocky shoreline. Be sure and wear real shoes instead of flip flops if you plan to walk the stone beach.
    Further east and just yards off US 2, Lake Michigan offers swimming beaches that beckon a stop by the traveler. There are several state campgrounds along the lake, too. Our favorite is Hog Island Point, a niftly little hideaway campground, nestled into the cedars and hardwoods of a small peninsula that juts into a pretty little Lake Michigan bay just off US-2, about 35 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge. There are 59 rustic sites and because of the name, perhaps, and the lack of hookups, most are usually vacant.
    Then it was across the Mackinac Bridge and the Lower Peninsula and Michigan coastal highway 119 – known as the Tunnel of Trees, one of the most scenic roads in Michigan, running 20 miles from Cross Village to Harbor Springs.
    This is the heart of Michigan’s “Up North” vacation land, characterized by the sparkling water of Lake Michigan, gently rolling hills, lots of scenery and beautiful beaches in Petoskey and the Traverse City area. As you drive south along the shore, vast cherry orchards line both sides of US 31, thriving in the unique glacial soil and climate along the Lake Michigan coastline.
    At Empire, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a true national treasure with miles of sugar sand beach, bluffs that tower 450 feet above the lake, lush forests, clear inland lakes and spectacular views that had this area named the “Most Beautiful Place in America” by the ABC Televisions Good Morning America show.
    You can even make your way down the dunes the water below… just remember, though, you’ll also have to climb back up.
    It’s also a place where the National park service is experimenting with an innovate high tech guide service that works with cellular phones at various spots along the lakeshore.
    Verizon’s robust 4g LTE network up here lets you dial in with your phone and hear interpretive descriptions of the exact location you are visiting, almost as if you had a park ranger at your side.
    This end of the tour ends at the port city of Ludington, about midway down the western shore of the Michigan Mitt.
    From there, we’ll temporarily leave Michigan and steam across the lake to Wisconsin on a 410-foot car ferry. Well tell you all about that in our next report.
  21. Roadtrekingmike
    Of all the eight states that touch the Great Lakes , Michigan – with 2,147 miles – has the most coastline. So as we rounded the bottom of Lake Michigan from the Indiana border and made our way into Southwest Michigan on the last leg of out 10-segment adventure, there was a sense of déjà vu about it all.
    Around us were beautiful blue waters, sand dunes, lush green agricultural fields and even a wine trail, much like we have seen to different degrees on all of the lake shorelines we’ve visited over the past month on our Verizon Great Lakes Shoreline Roadtreking Tour.
    Here’s part 10 in our videos:

    And yet, there was an entirely different feel to this stretch of shoreline.
    Seemingly every few miles were broad, sugar sand swimming beaches that put anything in California to shame. A series of welcoming beach towns – Grand Haven, South Haven, Saugatuck – are right on the shore, with trendy shops and restaurants just a couple blocks east of the lake.
    Southwest Michigan and the lakeshore is also known for its vineyards. Acre after acre… so many, there’s even a shoreline wine trail that draws fans from across the country.
    But then, along I-94 we saw a billboard promoting a place called The Chocolate Garden, a place the Food Network has raved about, a place voted as the Number 1 chocolatier in America, located in the town of Coloma, a mile off the interstate.
    The best? How could that be, especially in a, well, an obscure place like Coloma.
    Turns out it is a technology story.
    Tina Buck, the owner, is a former advertising and marketing exec who started a small online business from her home making chocolate truffles. Not just any chocolate truffles, mind you. She has some secret ingredients and a way of cooking them that made her chocolates to die for.
    People slowly started ordering them off the Internet. Then the Food Network found out about them and, blown away by Tina’s chocolates, did a full blown story praising them. Then came the Best of America Award as the best chocolatier in America and the Chocolate Garden was on the map.
    People started showing up in Colima, looking for her. But she had no building. She handled it all in the kitchen of her home. Because of the demand, she built a small little store and that’s where we found her, selling the best chocolates I have ever sampled. We liked them so much we spent $130 and walked off with a shopping bag of them.
    “Technology has been crucial to our success, especially the Internet,” she said. “That’s what made all this possible. That’s how we got our start.”
    She relies on Verizons 4G LTE network and an Air Card to provide redundancy to her network. “It’s actually our most stable connection,” she said.
    The shoreline tour came to an end just south of Ludington MI. We had come down that far on an earlier leg, before crossing over to Wisconsin on a car ferry.
    In all, we drove the coastline of all five Great Lakes, traveled 4,062 miles and visited eight states across two time zones.
    I invite you to follow in our tire tracks.

    Southwest Michigan vineyards

    Tina Buck makes the best chocolate in America!
  22. Roadtrekingmike
    The one thing we have learned on this Verizon Great Lakes Shoreline Roadtreking Tour is that very often, a surprise is literally around the next corner.
    So it was when we got off the car ferry in Manitowoc, WI, directly across Lake Michigan from Ludington, MI
    As we made a right turn out of the parking lot, we spotted a submarine. What on earth is a submarine doing in Manitowoc, WS? We had to find out. The sub is docked out front of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, a fascinating place dedicated to the maritime history of Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region.
    It turns out that the city of Manitowoc, WI built 28 sumarines for service in World War II. In all, more than 7,000 men and women worked around the clock, 365 days a year to build some of the best submarines in the Navy. Of the 28 submarines, 25 were built in time to see action during the war. Together they sank 132 Japanese ships.
    Just up the shoreline in Two Rivers, WI, we found another place of great historical significance about something very near and dear to us. Twi Rivers is recognized by the Wisconsin State Historical Society as the REAL birthplace of the ice cream sundae.
    I stress REAL because lots of other communities around the country have tried to claim that title. But well-known American language authority, columnist and author H.L. Mencken identified Two Rivers as the birthplace of the sundae. The claim is also supported by a 1929 newspaper interview in which the inventor recalls how the sundae came about.
    For me, it was a chance to visit the Ice Cream Sundae Museum there and order one. It was a piece of art. Two scoops of vanilla ice cream with caramel and chocolate sauce, whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.
    I love my job.
    Heading south, we came to Wisconsin Cheese country. Called America’s dairy state, Wisconsin has a rich tradition of cheese making. In the crossroads town of Gibbsville, the VanTatenhove family has owned place and been making cheese for generations. I sampled the extra sharp cheddar.
    Have I told you I love my job?
    Here’s the video we put together for this:
    A lot of folks have emailed me asking how we find all the interesting spots we’ve been visiting. Many times, it’s just a roadside sign or an email suggestion from a reader or our curiosity. But I have some apps on my smartphone that we use. Thanks to the solid Verizon 4g LTE signal we’ve had for most of the tour, those apps have really helped.
    Here are the three apps I’ve used the most:
    Roadtrippers- Search along a route or plan a road trip with their online trip planner for free, then sync it with your smartphone for turn-by-turn navigation. Roadtrippers is a powerful route planner, perfect as a RV trip planner or family trip planner, listing all the cool, offbeat and major tourist events for you to visit on your roadtrip.
    Field Trip – This is a very handy and totally free app from Google for the iPhone and Android devices. The app bills itself as a tool to find cool, hidden, and unique things in the world around you. And that it does, Field Trip give you inside info on everything from local history to the latest and best places to shop, eat, and have fun. You select the local feeds you like and the information pops up on your phone automatically, as you walk or drive. When you get close to something interesting, it will notify you and if you have a headset or bluetooth connected, it can even read the info to you.
    Around Me App. It is all about providing local info. Whatever you’re looking for -grocery stores, banks, hospitals, gas stations, movie theatres. This is really handy when you travel, but surprisingly useful locally, where I always seem to find cool things nearby that I didn’t know about. It’s free for Apple, Android and Windows devices and smartphones.

    The city of Manitowoc, Wisc., built 28 submarines during World War II and has a great maritime museum.

    Lake Michigan shoreline
  23. Roadtrekingmike
    There’s a reason it’s called Superior.
    There is no other lake like it in the world. It is truly immense, so big that it contains more water that all four of the other Great Lakes combined. You’d need two more Lake Eries to equal the water in Superior.
    Superior is so big we will need two reports to cover it all for our Verizon Great Lakes Roadtreking Tour.

    In the video above, we head out from Saulte Ste Marie, Mich., where Superior flows into the St Mary’s River and, eventually all of the other lakes, following the big lake west. We did our best to take highways and roads that would keep us as close to the shore as possible.
    Superior is so huge that to cover it, we would travel across three states and two time zones. We decided to make this first segment all Michigan, where Superior’s shore forms the northern boundary of the Upper Peninsula.
    At the Pointe Iroquois Lighthouse near the Michigan UP town of Bay Mills, Ron Gilmore – who everyone knows as “Gilly,” joked with us about life on the Superior’s Michigan coastline.
    “Up here, we have two seasons. One is shoveling and the other is swatting,” he says of the long winter and the UP’s notorious biting insects. “We have eight months of winter and four months of bad sledding.”
    Exaggeration. Yeah. We found that the usual spring bug invasion had died down, thanks to breezy, comfortably cool weather. We had our Roadtrek Etrek RV heater on for several nights.
    Further west and then south for a dozen miles past the town of Paradise, is Tahquamenon Falls, the largest waterfall east of the Mississippi. We had spotty phone service here and in several other areas of the UP. But I hooked up my Wilson Sleek cell phone booster and went from zero bars to three bars.
    In Munising we spent two days touring the pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, a 42-mile stretch of sandstone cliffs carved out by the mighty waves of the big lake. The best way to see it is on a boat, like the ones operated by the Pictured Rocks Cruise Line. It’s a three hour trip and gets you close enough to the formations to almost touch them.
    Another way to tour them is by kayak, though the chilly 44-degree water temperature kept me boat bound. Locals said the lake, always cold, is much colder than usual this year because of the severe winter. There were icebergs out in the lake until mid-June.
    These cliffs are up to 200 feet above lake level. They have been naturally sculptured into shallow caves, arches, formations that castles, battleships, event faces. Roads lead you to several overlooks, if you’d rather stay on land.
    Munising may be surrounded by wilderness, but it is a very connected town. Entrepreneur Tom Dolaskie IV runs a number of very high tech companies right on the main highway. His IT clients include hotels all over the world.
    He could live anywhere he wanted. But he lives on the Superior shore because of the beauty and the opportunity it gives him do photography and video.
    You can see his videos and photos at youtube.com/roamwherever
    Like me, he flies a personal drone and when I stopped by to visit, he and his team dropped everything for a chance to go outside and fly.
    We stayed at the Munising Tourist Park Campground, just a couple miles out of town on US-28. We were camped right on the lake and treated to gorgeous sunsets.
    All along Highway 28 west of Munising are roadside parking areas that provide great beach access. We walked empty beaches that we had all to ourselves. Tai gulped the fresh, cool superior water and romped in the sand. We think Tai likes sand so much because it feels like snow. He loves those beach walks and we’ve been able to find places on all the Great Lakes so far where he can play in the surf.
    We moved past the harbor town of Marquette. Up the Keewenaw Peninsula is Copper Harbor, the northernmost part of Michigan where the Superior shore is rugged and rough and stunningly beautiful.
    And then, there’s the far western end of the UP and the 60,000-acre Porcupine Mountains, one of the few remaining large wilderness areas in the Midwest, with towering virgin timber, secluded lakes, and miles of wild rivers and streams. Our favorite camping spot is the rustic Presque Isle campground at the western end. There’s no electricity, no water, no generators. We didn’t need any of it with our Etrek and we really like the wilderness quiet there.
    If you must have hookups, the Union Bay Campground at the eastern end of the park has them.
    In our next segment, we’ll follow Superior into Wisconsin and Minnesota.

    Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

    Sunset over Lake Superior, near Munising

    Our spot at the Munising Tourist Park Campground

    Tai, chilling inside as the sun sets.
  24. Roadtrekingmike
    Of all the traveling we’ve done on this 4,000-mile Verizon Great Lakes Roadtreking Shoreline Tour, Lake Superior’s North Shore in Wisconsin and Minnesota has provided the most diverse scenery to date.
    Up there, as we rounded the US-side of the lake and started heading north to Canada, especially north of Duluth, we were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Big Lake the Ojibwe call Gitchegume.
    It is so big it has tides.

    That was the first thing we learned as we moved from the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness Area at the far western end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula into Wisconsin and Minnesota.
    At the Northern Great Lakes Visitors Center near Ashland, WI, a huge floor-mounted model of the big lake greets visitors just inside the lobby and National Park Service employees answer questions and provide orientation to the detailed displays about the Lake Superior Region.
    That’s where we learned about Superior’s tidal fluctuations – changes in water level caused by the gravitational forces of the sun and moon. To be sure, the changes are measured in inches, but the movement, sometimes aided by winds and snow melt and known as a seiche (pronounced “say-she”) is yet another Superior fact that helps us appreciate the big lake.
    The Ashland area is the gateway to yet another National Lakeshore on Lake Superior – the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, where 21 islands and 12 miles of mainland make for dazzling displays of windswept beaches and cliffs, much like the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore a few hundred miles east in Munising, MI.
    Ashland itself caught our eye. Beautiful murals depicting the city’s martitime history and it’s once boomtown days adorn the sides of many of the downtown buildings, The murals are huge, some two stories high, others covering almost an entire block. They are a tourist attraction in themselves.
    Wisconsin soon gave way to Duluth, MN, the port city where so many of the big iron ore and grain carrying freighters we have been seeing during our Great Lakes tour pick up their loads.
    But our first destination on the tour of Superior’s North Shore was Spirit Mountain, a ski area just outside of Duluth where we dropped in with a group of amateur radio operators to observe the old technology that led to today’s cell phone technology. Our Roadtreking Buddy Dave Miller, who we met last year while covering a dog sled race in the area, took us up to the area. We ended up spending the night there in our Roadtrek Etrek RV, boondocking in the parking lot.
    It was Field Day, an annual weekend event in which ham radio operators set up antennas and emergency-powered radio transmitter to practice their communication skills with Morse Code and single sideband voice transmission for community service deployment during times of emergency.
    “This is the technology that makes today’s smartphones possible,” said Dennis Anderson, one of the Minnesota radio volunteers. Several of the hams were using their smartphones right next to their radios, checking weather apps and checking in with social media.
    From Duluth, we headed north along the Superior shoreline. The lake is so cold that dense fog often forms as the warm air collides with the chilly temps off the lake. We’d be driving in perfect, 70-degree weather, only to turn a corner and come closer to the coastline and have the blue sky obliterated by thick fog that dropped the temperature almost 20 degrees. We’d round another bend and the fog would lift and it would be sunny and warm again.
    The North Shore is a stunning place of sandstone cliffs, rushing streams and cascading waterfalls. We hiked back to several and could have easily spend several days in the area.
    In the town of Grand Marais, 110 miles north of Duluth and not too far from the Canadian border, we found the North House Folk School where thousand of students from across the country come each year to learn how to do things long forgotten by most people, skills such as blacksmithing, basket weaving and wood carving.
    “In this low touch, high tech world, we teach high touch, low tech,” said Greg Wright, the executive director. “There’s a joy to working with your hands.”
    We watched a group of guys finish up a beautiful wooden canoe. Several days before, it was a pile of sticks. We met a couple from Northern Michigan who were building a yurt, to be used as a guest room for friends who visited them in the log cabin they have in the woods, a log cabin they learned how to build at the North House Folk School a few years ago. And in the kitchen, we watched as a group of women were cooking with local plants and fruits.
    We fell in love with Grand Marais, MN, especially the local restaurants.
    A place called The Angry Trout Cafe is a must try if you’re in the area. It’s a very unimposing place, located right on the water in a low slung, multi-roomed ramshackle building that was cobbled together out of an old commercial fishing shanty. But the food, especially the salmon, was the best we’ve every had. The menu is based on the bounty of Lake Superior and the surrounding region – locally-grown produce, hand-harvested wild rice, and of course, their specialty, fresh Lake Superior fish.
    For lunch the next day, a couple blocks up the main drag, another restaurant, the Crooked Spoon Cafe, also blew us away.
    The World’s Best Donuts is a tiny little bakery in Grand Marais that has people lined up and out the door every morning. Run by a fifth-generation donut making family, the donuts really may be the world’s best. I’ve never had anything like them.
    And down towards Twin Harbor, Betty’s Pies makes a raspberry-rhubarb pie to die for.
    For camping, there are several excellent Minnesota State Parks between Duluth and Grand Marais. Gooseberry Falls State Park and Tettegauche State Park were two of our favorites and are right near the lake and various streams and waterfalls. Split Rock Lighthouse State Park has a gorgeous lighthouse. In town, the Grand Marais city campground is huge, with 300 sites located on the harbor and lakeshore and within walking distance to town.
    There’s s saying about Minnesota that applies to the people born and raised in Minnesota, folks who are friendly, welcoming, courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered. “Minnesota nice,” is what they are. You can even buy T-shirts up there with that slogan.
    The state itself, though, especially that North Shore is…. well… Superior.
    Seriously fellow Roadtrekers, you owe it to yourselves to spend some time up there. Late summer or early fall would be the times I’d suggest. We sure won’t need much convincing to return.
  25. Roadtrekingmike
    Great West Vans Revamps 2013 Legend Lineup under New Ownership
    Canadian Type B RV maker Great West Vans was bought out last year by one of their suppliers and the new owner, Dave DeBraga, has big plans for the company’s Legend brand of Mercedes Sprinter models.
    DeBraga, the owner and new President of Great West Vans, was all over the Florida RV Supershow in Tampa in January, meeting customers and sharing his excitement for the luxury Legend series of Sprinters sold by the company, now based in Winnipeg, where DeBraga’s other company, the Sterling Group, is headquartered. That company builds doors, fiberglass components and running boards.
    DeBraga did an extended interview with us, outlining the revamped line of the Legend, Legend SE and Legend EX models, which includ redesigned interiors, new running boards and a streamlined appearance.
    The distinctive sliding slide screen door on GWVans, introduced by the previous owner, Martin H. Guertz, continues to be a hallmark of the line. Guertz sold the company to DeBraga when he retired last spring. DeBraga’s Sterling Group company used to supply Guertz.
    “I’m told some people buy these vans just because of that screen door,” smiled DeBraga. “Out whole emphasis is on technology and quality and those screens definitely qualify for that.” Also new for 2013 is a newly designed rear screen that is more integrated into the back doors.
    DeBraga also showed up a handicap ramp that will easily load wheelchairs into the vans. “There’s a big need for this,” he said. “We’re very proud to be offering this.”
    Great West Vans sell from around $115,000 to $133,000.”We think we’re right there in the sweet spot for Class B Sprinter motorhomes,” he said.
     
    Roadtreking - A Journalist takes up the RV lifestyle - People and Places Encountered on the Open Road


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