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Roadtrekingmike

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  1. Roadtrekingmike
    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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  2. Roadtrekingmike
    Okay. Do not panic. So the groundhog saw his shadow here atop Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa. The rodent, if you check the history books, has been right just 39 percent of the time since this little community in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains .
    But that didn’t stop tens of thousands of people from all across the U.S. from traveling here, many in RVs, like us. While the campgrounds are closed, the local Walmart welcomed them. For us in our Roadtrek eTrek Class B, wherever we stopped was home and we used it here all weekend.
    But the night before Groundhog Day, using our media parking pass, we drove it atop Gobbler’s Knob, turned on the heater and caught a few hours of sleep. That is until about 3 AM when the public started making their way here, bussed up from Walmart and other parking areas in town. A band kept playing “Ring of Fire” in front of a huge bonfire as a cold rain turned the entire nob into a muddy mess. No one seemed to mind.
    Jennifer was able to sleep through the noise. Me, sensing there was a party going on, couldn’t resist getting up and venturing out.
    Before you get the wrong idea, this party is pretty tame. There is no alcohol allowed. Folks can’t bring in backpacks or chairs. But this has become such a huge spectacle of an event that it just seems to have a bizarre energy of its own. That’s the only way I can describe a gathering outdoors at 3 AM in the middle of a February rainstorm. Very bizarre. But strangely fun.
    The star, of course, is the groundhog, officially known as “Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary,” according to the Inner Circle, the board of directors of the Groundhog Club, the local group that manages all things related to Feb. 2 and the care and handling of the 20-pound groundhog. Bill Cooper, a former president of the club, said Phil is normally good-natured and glad to see his handlers, though he “has bad hair days from time to time.”
    The Inner Circle guys, in their dark coats and top hats, are the town’s ambassadors and walked up and down downtown streets all weekend, greeting the tourists.
    And tourists there were,
    We were surprised how many people came here because it was on their bucket list.
    A young married couple from Fort Myers, Fla., came the farthest of those we met. There was a guy from Atlanta wearing a muskrat coat and a top hat who came because Feb. 2 is his birthday and he always wanted to spend it in the place where Feb. 2 is the most important day of the year. A school teacher from New Jersey left her husband home to watch the Super Bowl. She came with some girlfriends because, like apparently so many, coming here for the events of Groundhog Day was always on her bucket list, too.
    Those events include craft shows, chain saw carving demonstrations and live broadcasts all weekend from the Weather Channel, which endorses the town’s official motto as “the weather capital of the nation.”
    There were hayrides downtown. Hat decorating contests. And at midnight, in front of the community center, a countdown in which people cheered in Groundhog Day at midnight. At 6:30 AM, there was a pre-sunrise fireworks display on Gobbler’s Nob. In the rain.
    Oh, yeah. At the community center in town, there were repeated showings of the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day. Indeed, that 1993 movie, more than anything else, went to transform Feb. 2 of each year from a quaint event to a mega happening. Before the movie, maybe 3,000 people came here for the annual prognostication. Since the movie, the number of tourists who come here for the big day swell the normal 6,000 population to as many as 30,000. Because of the rain, the 2014 event drew an estimated 25,000 to the nob.
    I find that very ironic because the movie wasn’t even shot here. It was shot in Illinois, which the producers somehow felt was more photogenic.
    No problem. Punxsutawney loved the movie, even though it was Woodstock, Illinois, that is shown on the screen. Go figure.
    Punxsutawney is a town built around a rodent. Souvenirs like Groundhog day hats, mugs, T-shirts, mittens, trinkets and chain saw carvings seem to be the leading industry. The Chamber of Commerce here says $1 million is pumped into the local economy from Groundhog Day alone.
    The actual prognostication event happens at sunrise every Feb. 2. There’s a little wooden podium built in the shape of a stump on a stage and Phil is brought from his downtown burrow to a box built into the podium. One of the members of the Inner Circle brings him out, “consults” with Phil and determines whether or not he saw his shadow.
    This whole tradition stared around 1860 as a result of a superstition from the German immigrants who settled this area that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the holiday of Candlemas, winter will last six more weeks.
    Well, this year, Phil saw his shadow. It’s been a long winter. Phil says it’s going to get even longer.
    I think I’ll trudge back to the Roadtrek in the parking lot and make some coffee and breakfast and dry out. Then we’ll head back into town for some more of the festivities.
    Punxsutawney really is a charming place. Locals tell me that people come year around. Phil, when not on the Nob for Groundhog Day, is in a see-through burrow in a downtown square and can be seen anytime. During the summer, RVers come to two nearby commercial parks and several state parks in the area.
    But, as we found during our visit, folks are delighted to see visitors and we were welcome to park our RV anywhere.
  3. Roadtrekingmike
    I think I have become a big fan of winter RVing.
    And dog sled races.
    Last year, we reported on the Michigan UP 200 dog sled race. Our friend and fellow Roadtreker Gary Hennes met us up there and told us about the Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in Duluth, which is the longest such sled dog race in the Lower 48 states.
    And so we went this year. We boondocked overnight in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere and I volunteered and worked on the communications team, using my amateur radio gear in the Roadtrek to help keep track of the mushers and get them any help they needed.

    The above video tells the story. It was a ball.
    But I will concede, the return home from the John Beargrease Dog Sled Marathon in northern Minnesota was a long, tough drive. Once we thawed the Roadtrek out from the -55F/-68C wind chill temps after a tow to a service garage in Ironwood yesterday morning, we made our way back through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to our suburban Detroit home – a trip of more than 700 miles.
    At the Mackinac Bridge, we suddenly found ourselves in marginal weather conditions. Blowing lake effect snow made restricted traffic to 20 miles an hour. We tucked in behind two snow plows and made our way slowly across the five-mile span, buffeted all the time by a howling northwest wind.
    Once we got in the Lower Peninsula, we thought the lake effect snow would end. It didn’t. It followed us all the way to Bay City, about 250 miles south. Even though we were less than 85 miles from home, I was beat and we pulled into a rest area about half past midnight and we slept till sunup.
    I should have slept some more when I got home but I was so excited about the video we shot of the Beargrease Dog Sled Marathon that I spend the day editing it.
    I can’t think of another adventure in our Roadtrek that we enjoyed more.
    Minnesota is a gorgeous state in the winter, especially the northern shore of Lake Superior that the dog sled race followed. I can only imagine how beautiful it must be in the summer. We will be back.
    Up above is the video. You can also see how well we fared in our RV. As we’ve been saying all along, winter camping is great!

    Howling winds buffeted us as we crossed the Mackinac Bridge behind two snowplows.

    That’s me with one of the musher teams passing my checkpoint. I was on the team using amateur radio to provide communications for the mushers and race officials.
  4. 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.
  5. Roadtrekingmike
    Jennifer has one requirement as we travel: We find a place to work out.
    She’s a fitness instructor by occupation, though lately, because of our near-fulltime traveling schedule, she’s had to cut back on the classes she teaches.
    But that doesn’t mean she cuts back on her fitness goals.
    We're on a very hectic Great Lakes Shoreline Tour that we’re doing for Verizon Wireles, so finding time to pull over and find a gym hasn’t happened as much as she’d like. I can usually tell when I better get her to a gym because she starts to get a bit cranky.
    So, in answer to a reader’s question about where Jennifer finds places to work out, we put together this How We Roll in our RV video.

    Jennifer talks about the Silver Sneakers fitness program. Joining it gets you in at more than 11,000 locations, as we found with the Anytime Fitness chain we chose. Many health insurance plans also include Slver Sneaker benefits.
    Meantime, some of the national fitness places you can look into include:
    Snap Fitness
    Planet Fitness
    Fitness 19
    LA Fitness
    Curves (women only)
    Workout Anytime
    The video above was shot at the Anytime Fitness gym in Saulte Ste Marie, Mich.
  6. Roadtrekingmike
    RVers aren’t the only ones winding down the season this time of year. So is Mackinac Island, the summer resort island located in the Straits of Mackinac at the tip of the Michigan mitt, right where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron.
    Next weekend, the place shuts down until spring, with only a single hotel, restaurant and bar left open to serve the several hundred full-time residents and the workmen who come in during the winter to renovate, repair and restore the hotels and shops. Many shops were shutting down this weekend.
    Jennifer and I have made it a tradition to visit this special island every year at this time. Gone are the thousands of summertime tourists who jam the streets and make it difficult to navigate on foot. The stores all have deep discounts and there’s a sort of back-to-nature feel for the place as winter approaches. In fact, snow is in the forecast here for mid next week.
    There are no motorized vehicles on the island. You walk, ride a bike or get carted around by a horse. So our Roadtrek was left back across the straits on the mainland, in the parking lot of the ferry boat company that makes the 20-minute crossing a dozen plus times a day. The boats will start cutting back trips next week and, usually by the end of December or early January, have to suspend all service because of ice.
    Most winters, the only way to the island in the winter is by air or, for the adventurous, by snowmobiles over the ice bridge that forms between the island and St. Ignace, the closest city in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Locals mark the path by sticking Christmas trees along the route and entrepreneurial St. Ignace business owners have been known to set up portable bars and hot dog stand on the ice half way between.
    So this week is the last active week here before most everything closes down until late April. At the massive Grand Hotel, where we are staying, the largely Jamaican staff, many of whom have served here season after season, will be leaving a week from Monday. Frederick, one of our waiters at breakfast, is in his 26th year at the Grand.
    This weekend, the hotel is featuring a ballroom dancing extravaganza that has brought people in from across the country. Decades ago, we spent a couple of years taking ballroom dance lessons. We like to joke that disco dancing saved our marriage. This weekend saw me not being able to remember a single step.
    There were beginning and intermediate classes during the day. Friday and Saturday nights, everyone dressed up and danced to a full orchestra, complete with a vocalist. Some of the men wore tuxedos. One guy wore a Scottish kilt. Several wore spats. The women wore fancy shoes and elaborate dresses that ranged from formal to Dancing With the Stars-like costumes, complete with hats and long gloves.
    The Grand bills itself as “America’s Summer Place” and has been welcoming guests since 1867. Today, like back then, you still must dress for dinner. No jeans, shorts or casual clothing is allowed after 6 p.m.
    Whenever we come here, we bring our bikes across on the ferry and try to ride around once or twice each day. It’s 8.4 miles around, all on a paved road along the shoreline that offers great views of the water. We also enjoy riding the interior roads, past natural attractions and the marvelously restored fort on a high bluff above town that was built buy the British during the American Revolution and later became the scene of two strategic battles in the War of 1812.
    At night, we walk. Friday night, the temperature was a crisp 38 degrees and there was a beautiful full moon peeking out between the clouds. We strolled the west bluff overlooking the twinkling lights of the Mackinac Bridge that connects Michigan’s two peninsulas. On our right were gigantic Victorian mansions that are summer homes built by turn-of-the-last-century business tycoons. Then we made our way back to the Grand to watch the dancers twirl around the dance floor.
    Saturday, it was dancing all day and night. Our first class, the Tango, began at 9 a.m.. Then came the Rumba. Then East Coast Swing.
    At night, everyone danced. Non-stop. The Fox Trot, the Waltz, the Quick Step, Cha-Cha, Rumba, Jitterbug, Swing and variations of them all.
    The dancing crowd had a surprising number of young couples, despite the Big Band music from the 1940s.
    Jennifer is immensely enjoying the island, the dancing, the old world charm of the Grand. I love having a happy wife.
    But two nights of wearing a suit and tie are enough to last me a long time. I’m greatly anticipating being reunited with the Roadtrek tomorrow and finding a place in the woods to boondock before heading home Monday.
    Finally…for those of you who asked … here’s video of us dancing during our swing class. No snickers, please:

  7. Roadtrekingmike
    Naples, Florida is the crown jewel of Southwest Florida, a west gulf coast town known for upscale dining and shopping, designer golf courses, awesome boating and fishing and the best weather in a state that is built around tourism and sunny skies.
    It’s always 10 to 20 degrees warmer here than most other places in the Sunshine State.
    Our destination for this trip was the Naples Motorcoach Resort on U.S. 41 just east of Collier Boulevard. Highway 41, also known as the Tamiami Trail, leads to the Everglades, just a couple miles down the road. Collier Boulevard south leads to the Isles of Capri and Marco Island, for boating and fishing.
    This is a Class A resort only, We stayed there in our Class B under a special media exemption because we were doing some reporting about the place.
    So we were living in a B in a Class A world.
    But it gave me a chance to see what all the fuss was about Class A RVing and to realize that as much as we B owners criticize A owners for looking down their noses at their Class B cousins, I also was guilty of reverse discrimination, thinking, wrongly, that those in Class As were not really RVers at all. More on that later.
    We love the Naples area. We had been there many times before. When our kids were young, we rented condos on Marco Island for many years. And Jennifer and I have stayed in condos at Naples, too. But this was our first trip there in our RV.
    The attractions in the area are many.
    According to the Naples Historical Society, the area was long the hunting and fishing grounds of the home of the Caloosa Indians. It wasn’t until the 1860′s that the first white settlers, Roger Gordon and Joe Wiggins, arrived in the area. A river and two inlets still bear their names.
    Throughout the 1870s and ’80s, magazine and newspaper stories telling of the area’s mild climate and abundant fish and game likened it to the sunny Italian peninsula. The name Naples caught on when promoters described the bay as “surpassing the bay in Naples, Italy.”
    In 1887, a group of wealthy Kentuckians, led by Walter N. Haldeman, owner of the Louisville Courier-Journal, purchased virtually the entire town of Naples. One of the first improvements Haldeman and the Naples Company made was to build a pier 600 feet into the Gulf of Mexico. The unusual “T” shape allowed large ships to dock easily. Despite being destroyed and rebuilt three times, the pier’s “T” shape remains.
    Naples quickly gained a reputation as a winter resort. Social life revolved around the Naples Hotel, which played host to celebrities such as Rose Cleveland, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, Greta Garbo, Hedy Lamarr, and Gary Cooper. As the town of Naples went up, so did the price of property. The cost of a beachfront lot soon reached $125.
    In 1911, Barron G. Collier, who had made his fortune in streetcar advertising, visited nearby Useppa Island. He was so taken with the area that he bought over a million acres of untouched swampland – including most of Naples. Collier believed that Florida’s west coast could enjoy the same boom that the east coast was experiencing in the 1920′s; but first it was necessary to bring in road and railroads.
    Based on Collier’s promise to help build the Tamiami Trail, in 1923 the state legislature created Collier County, of which Naples is the county seat. Collier spent more than $1 million of his own money to construct the Tamiami Trail, which opened in 1926 as the only paved highway linking the state’s two largest cities – Tampa and Miami.
    Collier died before he could see his dream come true, but come true it did. Today, Naples enjoys unparalleled prosperity. And the area’s unrivaled sport fishing, hunting, boating, sun bathing, and beach combing attract people today just as it did a century ago.
    Downtown Naples is known for impressive shops and sidewalk cafes, chic bistros and gourmet delis that serve up lunch, snacks and pastries. Fine and casual dining options are available at the restaurants located on Naples’ fashionable Fifth Avenue South, Third Street South, and Bayfront. Dress well if you are heading downtown. This is high end, sophisticated shopping and the tourists here are well-heeled and look it.
    Parking downtown is hard to find for an automobile, even harder for a Class B RV.
    One must visit place is the historic Naples Pier, located on the Gulf of Mexico at the West end of 12th Avenue South. On-street parking is supplemented by a parking lot one block East, with additional parking at beach ends on the avenues to the north and south. It’s easier to park a car here, but still challenging to find space for a small RV.
    The Naples Pier is a favorite location for sightseers and fishermen with plenty of space to cast a line. It features restrooms, a concession stand with a covered eating area and beach supplies. Fishing from the pier does not require a fishing license, as the City of Naples has purchased a bulk fishing license for the pier. The beach at the pier also features volleyball nets, and is one of the best places to catch a spectacular Naples sunset.
    If fishing is your thing, you will want a license. I bought a seven day out of state license for $37.
    My brother-in-law is a snowbird and keeps a boat at the Isles of Capri Marina, at the southern end of Collier Boulevard. The Isles of Capri are adjacent to Marco Island and 20 minutes from Naples’ downtown. It is a waterfront community with canals and mangrove islands and backwater kayak trails that lead to the Marco River and the gulf. On it’s northern side it is surrounded by the the wetlands that are part of the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Sanctuary.
    From the Isles of Capri Marina, we boated around the islands to the river and then out to the gulf where we anchored on a spit of sand and spent two great days fishing. In these waters where the river dumps into the gulf are all sorts of salt water fish, including shark, speckled trout, redfish, amberjack and, later in the summer, snook, tarpon and big game fish. Our target for this trip was one of the tastiest: Sheephead.
    We caught them on almost every other cast, most over the 12 inch keeper limit.
    We used our Roadtrek eTrek to drive all around Naples, the islands and the Everglades. Evenings, we spent back at the Naples Motorcoach Resort.
    It is a five star resort with beautiful, spacious lots, lush landscaping, a large manmade lake with a lighted fountain, three swimming pools, a full fitness center, a deluxe clubhouse with free breakfasts each morning and numerous activities for guests and owners every day.
    The basic lot sells for $99,000. Lakefront and the best locations are over $150,000. There are also rental spots available. They start at about $85 a night. Many spots cost as much or more than a four star hotel room does in many places.
    I admit, for a while, being in our little Class B made us feel like we were living in the slums. While our Roadtrek sells new for over $120,000, most of the Class A motorhomes around us start at four and five times that amount.
    Everyone was amazingly nice and polite to us, though there were several double takes when people saw that a Class B had been allowed in. But no one complained to us. And as we got to know the other RVers – the clubhouse has numerous meet and greet events, parties, receptions, games and social gatherings – we realized that these people are having a ball. We used to think that Class A folks just sat. While Class B owners did stuff. The people we met were not sitters.
    The majority were there for the winter season, arriving back in November or December, departing for their northern homes at the end of March or early April. But because they towed vehicles – Jeeps and small trucks seemed to be the most popular – they were able to range far and wide from the resort. They were hikers, bikers, golfers, fishers and – thanks to a creek that leads to the extensive canal system around the area – boaters.
    Towards the end of our stay, I found myself with a strong dose of Class A envy. These motorhomes are massive. They have king-size beds, huge bathrooms and roomy showers, full kitchens and home-sized refrigerators, washer-dryers and room to store and bring all the toys you could want.
    So I got to wondering… why couldn’t we drive a Class A and tow a Roadtrek?
    The idea of staying in a place like the Naples Motorcoach Resort for a winter season and then taking two and three day excursions around the area in our Roadtrek would truly be the best of both worlds. When summer gets too hot and sticky down there – about mid-April most years – we could pull up shop and head west to another spot… say the mountains or the west coast and stay there for the summer season, again ranging far and wide in the Roadtrek.
    Hmmm. That is my idea of fullt-iming!
  8. Roadtrekingmike
    Now I know how Class A motorhome drivers live. They spend lots of time checking their mirrors, looking for places to park that are big enough to handle their length and…. visiting gas stations.
    As we are towing a 21-foot travel trailer behind our Roadtrek on a family caravan vacation trip to the Rockies, I’ve found towing very easy and parking not so bad as long as I don’t try pulling in to fast-food places with my 30-foot-plus length.
    Truthfully, I’ve quickly gotten used to towing and with 1,000-pus miles under my belt as we pulled into Gothenberg, Nebraska, last night, the only complaint I have is what towing a trailer has done to my fuel consumption.
    Where before my 2012 Roadtrek eTrek averaged 17-18 mpg, towing the 2,780 extra pounds in the trailer has dropped it to 11-12 mpg.
    Still, it’s well worth it to be all together as a family.
    This is now my third trip west along I-80 and I have forgotten how much corn they grow our here in the prairie. And how tall it is, easily eight feet in most fields.
    The biggest challenge we’ve had so far is group sightseeing with three big dogs. Someone always has to stay outside or behind to tend to the dogs.
    The biggest excitement yesterday was having lunch with a bunch of Hells Angels motorcycle club members. About a dozen of them from the California chapter pulled into the same Kum & Go gas station and Subway restaurant we chose west of Des Moines. A guy named Demento told me they were headed to Sturgis in San Diego, and the big motorcycle week doings up there.
    They seemed like nice enough guys. In the Subway, one of them groused that there was a steakhouse up the road and he couldn’t figure out why they were eating at a Subway rather than a steakhouse. One of the other members said they could eat steak tonight and that about ended the discussion.
    Steak sounded pretty good to me, too, but with all the extra fuel expenses, I’m lucky I can afford Subway.
    As we pulled out of the station, we saw an Iowa State Police cruiser backed into the Kum & Go keeping an eye on the Hells Angels.
    We drove 480 miles yesterday from Amana, Iowa to get to this little community, which bills itself as “the the Pony Express Capital of Nebraska” because of a restored station in town that is a great tourist stop. Gothensberg is near the original route of the Oregon Trail and right on the Pony Express route west.
    The Pony Express was in existence a very short time – from April 3, 1860 to late October 1861 and provided the fastest mail delivery between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. As explained by the Nebraska Tourism folks, the whole reason it existed was promotional – to draw public attention to the central route in hope of gaining the million dollar government mail contract for the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak express Company.
    In total there were 183 men that were riders for the Pony Express during this period of just over 18 months. They had to be young, skinny men, not over 18 and must have been expert riders. It was said they had to be willing to risk death daily and that orphans were preferred. Most of the riders were around 20 with the youngest of them 11 and the oldest was in his mid-40s. The average weight was 120 pounds.
    These men worked for $100 a month. The riders traveled for between 75 and 100 miles with fresh horses being provided every 10 to 15 miles. The speed of the horses averaged 10 miles an hour. The mix of breeds included thoroughbreds, mustangs, pintos, and Morgans. There were approximately 165 stations along the route of almost 2,000 miles.
    The cost of a 1/2 ounce letter was $5 when the rides began but by the end of the Pony Express the price had dropped to $1 per 1/2 ounce.
    The end of the Pony Express happened on October 24, 1861. With the outbreak of the Civil War and the lack of getting the government contract and the debt incurred by the owners the route could not be continued. The Pony Express station in Gothensberg is open from 8am – 8 pm during the summer and 9 – 6 in May and September.
    Also in Gothensberg and right off I-80 at the town exit 211 is a sod house.
    Sod houses or “soddies,” as they were also known, were built on the prairies from the sod of thickly rooted prairie grass by the settlers and were forerunners to the log cabins in North America. The sod was used primarily as there weren’t standard building materials such as wood or stone on the prairies. The houses were naturally very cheap to build and surprisingly well insulated but were susceptible to damp and even rain damage.
    The Sod House Museum is a red barn shaped authentic replica of the sod houses built by early settlers in this region and was established in 1988. The lives and working practices of the settlers is honored here with memorabilia and photographs taken during the pioneer era. The inside of the sod houses were pretty sparse reflecting the hard times experienced by the settlers who lived there. The women who work at the musem tell fascinating tales of life on the prairie and its many hardships. Many of the women settlers here, isolated in such big country, committed suicide.
    One story they told us involved a variation of the sod house, lean-to houses carved into the sides of hills. Seemed that sometimes,snakes would some down through the earthen roofs of some of these dugout homes, dropping right on the floor.
    We’ll stick with our RVs, thank you very much.
    We spent the night at the Gothenberg KOA, a pleasant shaded little campground just a half mile from the Interstate.
    Off we go again today, 360 miles to Colorado Springs, CO and the Cheyenne Mountain State Park.
    But first, I better fill up.
  9. Roadtrekingmike
    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 in upstate New York.

    And until I started out in our Roadtrek Etrek motorhome moving west from near Cape Vincent, NY, I was unaware of the amazing diversity of the land, the history, culture, economic import, beauty and recreational opportunities that make the Great Lakes the largest system of fresh, surface water on Earth, containing 84% of the U.S. fresh water supply and 21% of the entire planet’s supply.
    Our first leg took us from the eastern end of Lake Ontario in New York, on to Lake Erie in Pennsylvania and Ohio, north into Michigan and the start of the lake on the shores of the Lake Erie Metro Park, at the mouth of the Detroit River. Total distance was 702 miles.
    We were plagued by cloudy skies and intermittent rain most of the way. I used my 4g LTE Verizon connection – something we had pretty much the whole route – to scout for nearby attractions.
    Our first discovery was in Le Roy, NY, a half-hour from our campsite at the Lakeview State Park on the shores of Lake Ontario. Why Le Roy? Because that is where we found the Jell-O Museum and Gallery, an absolutely fascinating place that chronicles and celebrates America’s most famous desert.
    In 1897, Pearle Wait, a carpenter in Le Roy, experimented and came up with a fruit flavored dessert which his wife, May, named Jell-O. He tried to market his product but he lacked the capital and the experience. In 1899 he sold his formula for the sum of $450.
    The Jell-O Museum and Galley documents how the Jell-O’s success is a tribute to marketing and advertising. In 1904, a three-inch ad costing $336 in the Ladies Home Journal launched the printed portion of the campaign, and the first of the Jell-O “best seller” recipes rolled off the presses. In some years, as many as 15 million booklets were distributed. Noted artists such as Rose O’Neill, Maxfield Parrish, Coles Phillips, Norman Rockwell, Linn Ball, and Angus MacDonald made Jell-O a household word with their colored illustrations.
    Salesmen, well-trained, well groomed, well versed in the art of selling went out in “spanking rigs, drawn by beautiful horses” into the roads, byroads, fairs, country gatherings, church socials, and parties to advertise their product. First came team-drawn wagons, to be followed by smart auto-cars. Pictures, posters, and billboards over the American landscape, as well as magazine, carried the Jell-O Girl and the then six delicious flavors into the American home.
    Eventually, Jell-O was bought by General Foods and moved away from Le Roy. But the museum, staffed by local folk, is a delightful place of Americana nostalgia.
    We moved from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie.
    In Erie, PA, we spend a drizzly afternoon touring the 11-mile long, 3,200-acre sandy Presque Isle State Park, located on a peninsula that arches into Lake Erie. Besides numerous beaches, picnic areas and bike trails, the park boasts the Perry Monument, a 101 foot structure located at the eastern end of Presque Isle dedicated to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who defeated the British fleet in the War of 1912.
    Standing next to Misery Bay – so named by the men of Perry’s naval squadron, who wintered here 1813-1814 after the crucial Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813 – the monument reminds us that if Perry hadn’t won, much of the Midwest would now likely be Canada.
    Further east into Ohio we overnighted on the shoreline at the Geneva State Park. In town, we visited the original old-fashioned soda fountain at the local drugstore where I had an early morning root beer float, the perfect way to start the day.
    We were headed back west when Jennifer did an Internet search (that 4g LTE Verizon network and our Mi-Fi card in the Roadtrek is better than a travel guide) where we discovered that the area has over 17 covered bridges and more than a dozen local wineries.
    The glaciated soil along the Grand River was laid there as the Great Lakes were being formed and is perfect for great grape production. At the Harpersfield Vineyard and Winery, we chatted up the winemaker himself and learned that the estate grown Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines there are among the finest in North America.
    Then it was on to Vermilion, Ohio, where we attended the town’s annual Festival of the Fish, a weekend event boat parades, races, pageants, contests, food, entertainment, markets. We wanted to stick around for the fireworks but stiff winds blowing off the lake had postponed them for a day.
    While there, we met Christopher Gillcrist, executive director of the newly opened Great Lakes Historical Society Museum in Toledo. Gillcrest is a wealth of information about the Great Lakes and it’s importance.
    From there, it was back west and then, at the state border, up along the coast into Michigan, where the entire stretch of the lake from the Detroit River mouth south to Monroe and Toledo is one of the probably the most prolific walleye fisheries on the continent.
    Alas, the stiff winds following the storm front kept most boats in harbor during our visit.
    Standing on the shore, watching the Detroit River empty into the lake it formed so many eons ago, we realized all that water in front of us originated from the upper lakes.
    After a quick weekend home for Father’s Day, we looked forward to the next week 00when we would resume the shoreline tour – at the end of Lake Huron in Port Huron.
    Be sure and send along your tips on what we should see. You can Tweet me using the #VZGreatlakes, #Roadtreking and #PureMichigan hashtags.

    The native American’s who first lived on the shores of Lake Ontario in what is now upstate New York called it “the land of the shining water.”

    The Jello Museum and Gallery in Le Roy, N.Y.

    Our Lake Erie shoreline campsite at Geneva State Park in Ohio
  10. Roadtrekingmike
    Our favorite features on 2013 model Type B motorhomes
    We spent most of the past week touring the 2013 edition of the Florida RV Supershow, arguably the nation’s biggest and best RV shows.
    Some 1,100 RVs spread out over 16 acres were on display this year from just about every RV manufacturer in North America.
    Since we concentrate our coverage on small motorhomes and Type B coaches in particular, we had lots of time to inspect the 2013 models from the leading Type B manufacturers.
    Jennifer and I saw the lineup from Pleasure-Way, Leisure Travel Vans, Great West Vans, Airstream and Roadtrek Motorhomes, as well as the new Ocean One model from Type B start-up manufacturer Advanced RV.
    The vans are beautiful, the interiors varied and the colors and  options many.
    Here are a few of the top Type B  trends we identified at the show, as well as some of the things we liked the most:
    Solar – Everyone s jumping on the solar option, as led by Roadtrek and its new eTrek Bigger Refrigerators – The fridges are getting bigger, 7 and 7.5 cubic feet will be common in 2013 Stainless appliances – The galleys are sparkling this year thanks to an abundance if stainless Heated floors – Hydronic heating is offered by several Type B manufacturers, heating the coach interiors, water tans, bathrooms and floors. Keurig coffee makers – This seems to be the choice for Type B coffee-making, typically on a slide out shelf Touch screen control centers – Advanced RV has the Silverlight flat panel touch screen. It’s expensve. But sales and RV industry folks we talked to said other manufacturers will be implementing other versionsof this technology, utilizing iPad and Droid tablets. The video above shows some of our favorites.
     
    Roadtreking - A Journalist takes up the RV lifestyle - People and Places Encountered on the Open Road


    Source
  11. Roadtrekingmike
    My Roadtrek has been encased in ice and snow for the better part of a week now with several days of subzero temperatures. Inside, shielded from the wind with the sun helping to mitigate the extreme outdoor temperature, it was about 15 degrees.
    So, I got to wondering, how long will it take to warm it up, if, indeed such a thing was possible?
    Slipping on my boots, a parka and my fuzzy warm hat with ear flaps, I donned my Google Glass and set out to video a first-person experiment.

    Everything on the video above was shot with Google Glass, a wearable computer that does video and still photography from the user’s point-of-view, as well as a gazillion other cool things. If you are on the geek and nerd side and want to know more about Google Glass, here’s a post I did on it on my PC Mike Tech Blog. But my interest in Glass for this blog is to take POV videos like this.
    The Webasto heater that my Roadtrek eTrek uses has impressed me before. But on this day, with an outdoor temperature of -12, it really proves its power.
    So come along with me to snowy Michigan and click on the video to see for yourself just how fast that cold can be chased away.

    It's cold up here!
  12. Roadtrekingmike
    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 were from cars on a distant road and that they seemed to grow brighter and closer because of refraction. The Syfy Channel did its own paranormal investigation and said they could not find a scientific explanation.

    Whatever, the Paulding Light is fraught with many different legends, the most popular appears to be the death of a railroad brakeman. The legend states that the valley once contained railroad tracks and the light is the lantern of the brakeman who was killed while attempting to stop an oncoming train from colliding with railway cars stopped on the tracks. Another story claims the light is the ghost of a slain mail courier, while another says that it is the ghost of an Indian dancing on the power lines that run through the valley.
    There’s even an official US Forest Service marker at the site marking the spot. The light typically becomes visible an hour or so after sunset.
    I spent an entire night there a few years back on assignment for the Detroit Free Press, meeting people who had come from a wide region of Northwestern Michigan and Eastern Wisconsin and interviewing local people.
    Check out the video and you can see the lights yourself…. and what I think they are.
    There’s lots of RV camping nearby in state and federal forests.

  13. Roadtrekingmike
    We’ve sure enjoyed the warm weather down along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and throughout Florida the past few weeks except for one thing: Bugs
    The mosquitoes are hatched down south. As are the No-See-Ums, Biting Midges and Sand Flies.
    They are particularly bad at night. With the warm weather, that means it can get pretty hot inside a camper van or Class B motorhome. We could have run the air conditioner. But that’s pretty loud. And it tends to make it too cold late at night.
    So we rolled down the driver and passenger side windows.
    And the bugs never got to us.
    That’s because we used Skeeker Beaters.

    We’ve been offering them on the Roadtrek Store for a couple of months now. But this was the first opportunity we had to really test them out.
    They worked great!
    Skeeter Beaters are magnetic vehicle window screens made out of mesh fabric that allows air to flow freely through open windows while keeping out not only mosquitos, flies and other pesky bugs but also the tiny, blood sucking midges and No-See-Ums. These screens adhere to your metal window frame using non-abrasive, high-energy magnets that will not shatter or break. The magnets are sewn in around the hemline. The screens come as a pair in a set, one for both the driver and passenger side windows.
    We put them on most every night. When the wind kicked up strong one night they held fast. They pack in their own drawstring bag and fit easily into a suitcase, the glove box, a door pocket, or the map pocket behind your seats.
    They fit all models of the Roadtrek and most other Class B campervans on the Sprinter, Ford or Chevy chasis.
    Check the video to see them on our Roadtrek eTrek. Click here for more info on them.
  14. Roadtrekingmike
    If you like gambling, you’ll probably love Deadwood.
    If not, probably not so much.
    After years of passing by on the way to the Badlands or Yellowstone and seeing the signs, Jennifer and I made a recent RV sidetrip to this town on the edge of the Black Hills of South Dakota. The entire city is listed on the National Historic Register. The city aggressively promotes itself as having done a careful, accurate restoration of a historically significant western city so we figured it was worth checking out.
    The Victorian architecture is indeed attractive.
    And the turnaround of the town itself is a a great come back story.
    Deadwood was truly a wild west boom town, thanks to the God Rush of 1876 that brought the likes of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. Gambling places lined the main street. There were real gun battles and many of the west’s most colorful characters passed through.
    And then it was passed by and a long, slow decline took place. According to the town’s official website, by the mid-1980’s, many of the city’s historic buildings were dilapidated. In 1986, Deadwood citizens formed the “Deadwood U Bet” organization and advocated legalized limited stakes gaming to increase tourism and generate historic preservation funds. Legalized gaming in Deadwood began on November 1, 1989.
    Gaming over the past fifteen years has revitalized Deadwood’s tourism industry and provided lots of revenue for city government activities and historic preservation. Today Deadwood, with a year round population of about 1,300, is the largest historic restoration project in the United States.
    Which takes us back to gambling. I counted no less than 25 casinos and gambling halls, some open 24/7. We’re not talking Vegas glitz, we’re talking penny slots, $1,000 limits, lots of Blackjack and, on the sidewalks outside, lots of seniors puffing cigarettes.
    The town’s most famous resident, Wild Bill Hickok, was not a long-time Deadwood citizen. Just a few short weeks after arriving, he was gunned down while holding a poker hand of aces and eights – forever after known as the Dead Man’s Hand.. He is buried in Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery, along with such notables as Calamity Jane and Potato Creek Johnny, Seth Bullock and Al Swearengen. The cemetery offers a a self-guided tour.
    A couple of times a day, traffic is stopped and there are staged gunfights downtown, with a local actress dressed up like Calamity Jane entertaining the camera toting tourists before the bad guys and the Marshall take the streets.
    We spent a couple of hours walking around Deadwood.
    If we were gamblers, maybe we would have enjoyed it more.
    As it was, I think we can say we probably won’t be back.
    The town is very friendly to RVers. While there’s little or no parking along main street, parallel streets offer lots of lots where, for $5, you can park all day.

    Great Victorian restoration

    Deadwood had its share of “fancy ladies,” as they were called, and these mannequins along a downtown building depict.

    I counted 25 casinos and gambling halls.

    Calamity Jane entertains the tourists.

    The town Marshall deputizes the kids.

    Several times a day, staged gunfights depict the town's Wild West Days.
  15. Roadtrekingmike
    We’ve shared this on our Facebook group but thanks to a reader’s suggestion, I thought I’d better post it here on the Roadtreking blog as well: Roadtrek has made it easy for owners of its various models to keep up with the best operating practices and learn exactly how their motorhomes work by putting new revised editions of its owners manual online.
    They can be accessed directly from the company website at http://www.roadtrek.com/manuals.aspx.
    The manuals, in convenient .pdf form for easy printing and reading, go all the way back to 1987.
    I’ve been sending lots of readers to the download site in recent days, many of them folks who are shopping for their first Roadtrek. Others who have owned a Roadtrek for years, have misplaced their original printed manual or worn it out.
    To download them directly to your computer, just right click on the file name for your model.
    You will especially appreciate all the new photos, which offer great how-to information on how the features on various models work.
    There are detailed notes on winterizing, de-winterizing, how to use the macerator, how the batteries and inverter work and what are the best operating positions for the various functions.
    Check it out.
  16. Roadtrekingmike
    The snow is gone and the 5-foot-high banks that formed a wall along the driver’s side of our Roadtrek eTrek has melted away.
    As I look at it sitting there on it’s special little apron in the driveway, I can almost hear it calling: “Take me someplace fun. Now.”
    When I snapped this photo yesterday, it got me wondering how and where most of you keep your RVs when at home. Most of the bigger Type C and Type A’s, of course, need to have lots of room, and that usually entails a storage facility.
    But Type B’s can often be kept at home in the driveway, unless there are special zoning or neighborhood association rules prohibiting it.
    Because I drive the Roadtrek as a second vehicle when we’re at home, ours gets almost daily use. That keeps critters like mice and squirrels from claiming it as theirs during long periods of inactivity.
    Lately, I’ve used it as a wildlife blind, sitting inside and taking photos of the deer and turkeys that seem to think our landscaping is the animal world’s equivalent of a Golden Corral.
    A year or so ago, I hired an asphalt crew to add on a parking area for it. This year. I’m thinking of having an electrician put in a 30-amp box next to it. That would be for Roadtreking friends who visit.
    So, where do you keep your RV?

    Our eTrek sits in the driveway, waiting to head out.
  17. Roadtrekingmike
    It was a day of superlatives as our Roadtrek eTrek literally took us to the heights of RVing – climbing Pikes Peak.
    Making it even better because it was our wedding anniversary and we were spending it with family in one of the continent’s most beautiful regions.
    Pikes Peak surely is the most accessible big mountain on the continent, with a first rate road all the way up, despite some hairpin curves with little or no shoulder or guardrails. The only issue we had was on the descent, where at the mandatory brake check around 11,000 feet ours measured 600 degrees.
    We used low gears to help in slowing the vehicle on the drive down but the eTrek is a heavy vehicle and we needed to pull off and let it rest for a half hour. So did lots of others in cars.
    I used the downtime to take Tai for a walk and he chased up a couple of mule deer. He thought it great fun and had a sparkle in his big brown Elkhound eyes that lasted the rest of the day.
    The top of Pikes Peak offers dramatic, craggy windswept views, though we all felt a tinge of dizziness and queasiness, a touch of altitude sickness. Tai loved it at the summit, as did son Jeff’s dog, Sequoia. The temperature up top was 48 degrees. Down below, it was in the nineties.
    Pikes Peak is rich in history and was the symbol of the 1859 Gold Rush to Colorado with the slogan, “Pikes Peak or Bust.” Today, where pioneers and native Americans used to walk, a 19-mile long highway makes its way to the top, carrying half a million visitors each year. It’s a beautiful drive through alpine forests, mountain reservoirs, and rugged rockface beyond the timberline.
    Wendy, Dan and the girls didn’t make it to the summit. Wendy felt ill about the 8,000 foot level and they instead hung around at lower altitudes, hiking and taking photos.
    Off the mountain, we all rendezvoused and visited the spectacular 300-foot tall red rock formations at Garden of the Gods. Several large male mule deer posed for my new telephoto lens. We never would have spotted them had not Tai, his nose already tuned into deer scent from our adventure on the mountain, caught a whiff of them atop a hill at the base of one of the large red formations. We couldn’t figure out why he was so tugging at his leash until someone looked up and shouted “deer.”
    Our base camp for this part of the trip was the pristine Cheyenne Mountain State Park, located just south of Colorado Springs on the eastern slope of Cheyenne Mountain. The park is clean and new, opened in October 2006 and comprising 1,680 acres. Out our west window is the mountain itself. Out our east windows is a stunning overlook of the plains of Colorado and, at night, the sparkling lights of Colorado Springs.
    Literally under us is an amazing military complex, a fortress designed during the height of the cold war to withstand a 30 megaton nuclear hit and allow heads of government from the President on down to live in comfort and run the affairs of the country during an emergency. Today, it remains a very active worksite and houses elements of the U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force Space Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Missile Defense Agency and the Federal Aviation Authority, among others.
    That’s hard to tell in our camping spots here. But we know we are near a military installation. At 10 PM the last two nights, we heard a bugler sound taps, its clear, plaintive sound echoing up from the green-roofed military buildings down in the foothills. This morning, we heard reverie as the sky turned pink. And we’ve seen helicopters doing flight training several times, as well.
    The park is one of the nicest we’ve stayed in anywhere. There are 20 miles of hiking trails, though dogs are not permitted because of wildlife. There are black bears, cougars, coyotes and other critters. The prairie rattlesnake frequents the rocky areas. And a tent full of four young girls near us who are here for a weekend marathon had a scorpion crawl in.
    We’re about 6,500 feet high at our campsites. Days have been in the nineties, with low humidity. Nights delightfully cool to the low sixties.
    Wednesday morning we pack up once again as the Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2014 continues and we head off to the Four Corners region and Mesa Verde.
    As I type this lateTuesday night, Jen and I are tucked into the eTrek and the rest of their family aleep in their RVs – Jeff and Aimee and Sequoia in a borrowed Roadtrek SS generously provided by some Roadtrek friends; Wendy, Dan, our granddaughters and their dog, Charley, in the Amerilite travel trailer we just bought from American RV in Grand Rapids and are towing with our Roadtrek eTrek. We wish we had another day or so here. There’s lots more to see in this area.
    I better be careful what I wish for.
    Wendy and Dan, following our RVs in our car, report that it’s been making a funny but intermittent squealing noise. I took it for a short test drive but didn’t hear a thing out of the ordinary. I pronounced it just fine. But Jennifer says my hearing isn’t as keen as it should be. So we’re debating whether we should have the car looked at before we continue on.
  18. Roadtrekingmike
    Taking “selfies” and sharing photos and videos with our smartphones is worldwide phenomenon these days and there are lots of apps available to help you take them and share them. But one in particular stands out to me for RV use.
    It’s called Voyzee and as you can see in the accompanying video, it lets you select your photos and videos, edit them together, add music as a soundtrack and titles to your images. You can even do your own voiceovers. Then, you share it on social media. You can do all this through your smartphone – be it an iPhone or and Android.

    Voyzee is free and very simple to work with.
    RVers could use it to document a trip, or to share the fun they had at a rally.
    I did a version of this story for my NBC-TV “PC Mike” segment that featured several apps. But since Voyzee is so applicable for RVers, I thought I’d do a roadtreking.com post on just it.
    I do weekly reports on cool apps for NBC stations across the country. And as I find apps that would also be good for RV travelers, I’ll offer them here, as well.
    Hope you enjoy this.

    Voyzee is very easy to use. Just select your photos and videos, write captions, record a soundtrack and you are ready to share.
  19. Roadtrekingmike
    The active RV season in the north is on limited time as the cold weather approaches, but before many of the RVs are put to bed or in storage, many RV parks around the country are hosting special Halloween get-togethers and site decorating contests.
    And the parks are filling up.
    At the Addison Oaks County park near our Michigan home, where we walk our dog several times a week, the Halloween weekend turns into quite a spectacle, with contests, trick-or-treating and prizes for the best-decorated RV. They call it the Boo bash and once it ends, the park shuts down for the season.
    RV Halloween weekends are being held all over this year as the concept has spread across the county.
    I know of no park, though, that is into the spirit of it all like the Lake Rudolph Campground & RV Resort in Santa Claus, Ind., which is planning seven – count them, seven – consecutive Halloween-themed activities this fall. “It’s the most popular thing we do,” said Dave Lovell, the resort’s director of marketing. The park hires professional story tellers for Friday night bonfires. There are haunted hayrides, costume contests, scary movies and a dance-until-you-drop sound and light show.
    As an indicator of how popular it is, reservations start rolling in a year in advance. The last event this year is Oct. 25-26. The 2014 Halloween weekend schedule is already up on their website.
    The Lake Rudolph folks are not alone. Most Jellystone Parks around the country now offer Halloween themed activities, while more than a third of KOA’s nearly 500 campgrounds offer Halloween themed activities and so do many privately owned campgrounds.
    If groups and lots of fun and activities are your thing and especially if you have young kids or grandkids, you might one to try one of these Halloween gatherings.

    The Lake Rudolph RV Resort in Santa Claus, Ind., hires professional storytellers to tell ghost stories around a bonfire.
    These sites might be of interest to you:
    Yogi Bear's Jellystone Parks - Halloween weekends
    Go Camping America - fall and pre-Halloween activities
    Kentucky State Parks - Halloween events
  20. Roadtrekingmike
    Upgrading your RV to solar power
    Advances in power management and solar power have made big news in the RV world of late, especially with the new eTrek and CS-Adventurous models built on the Mercedes Sprinter chasis by Roadtrek Motorhomes. New and efficient power control and management systems have put these advanced new Class B motorhomes on many a wish list [...]
    Roadtreking - A Journalist takes up the RV lifestyle - People and Places Encountered on the Open Road


    <a href="http://Roadtreking.com/upgrading-your-rv-to-solar-power/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=upgrading-your-rv-to-solar-power">Source</a>
  21. Roadtrekingmike
    Two-and-a-half weeks of the Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2013 in two-and-a-half minutes – that’s the just-finished movie version (see below) that highlights the recent Roadtreking caravan that was our family vacation to Colorado this summer.
    We traveled in four vehicles: My Roadtrek eTrek pulling a 21-foot travel trailer, followed by a Roadtrek SS driven by my son and, following us all, my daughter and her family in an SUV.
    We made a great circle tour of Colorado. Here are some of the highlights of our trip out and back: climbing Pikes Peak, visiting Garden of the Gods, Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, the Colorado National Monument, Glenwood Springs and the Rocky Mountain National Park.
    And don’t forget that nine feet tall Iowa corn!
    Can’t wait for next year!

  22. Roadtrekingmike
    Since I released the post on the 10 lessons we’ve learned in our 75,000 miles of RV travel, several readers have asked for another installment.
    So here it is. This one, though, has 12 things we’ve learned from the road.
    1) GPS units are all unreliable – If you rely totally on GPS to get you somewhere, sooner or later you’re going to miss your mark and be lost. In my role as a tech reporter for NBC affiliates, I’ve tried them all – Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, Rand McNally, the GPS apps, Google, Verizon, the GPS apps offered on Android and Apple devices and, of course, the built-in Clarion system that came with our Roadtrek Etrek. They all fail. They all are incomplete. Maps differ between them and there are GPS dead spots. A GPS transceiver needs at least four satellites to get any kind of a fix. Even on flat ground with a clear line of sight there can be dead spots. In order for your GPS transceiver to detect a satellite, the signal from the given satellite must be strong enough for the transceiver to pick it out of all the background noise. According to the website Richard’s Mobile Blog, the way the GPS transceiver detects a signal is by detecting phase shifts in the satellite signals. Too many satellite signals canceling out or distorting or too similar to each other will make it hard for the transceiver to know what satellite is what. So, the transceiver just gives up as if there were no satellites were there. The solution: Carry paper maps. We have a shoebox full of state maps. We now use them more and more.
    2) You really can overnight in a rest area – Well, at least you can if you don’t set up camp early in the afternoon, put out the lawn chairs and string those obnoxious twinkle lights that some RVers insist on using outside their rigs. Rest areas are to rest. Pulling in after dark and leaving in the morning after a night’s sleep is not going to get you in trouble, unless you make it look like you are spending the weekend. It helps being in a Class B.
    3) Stay away from trucks when overnighting – Whether a Wal-Mart or a rest area, steer clear of trucks. They run their engines all night long. They pollute everything around them. They are noisy. On a lonely stretch of US Route 212 in Montana, we looked in vain for a national or state campground one night this summer. There were none. Most of the area belonged to the Crow and then the Cheyenne Indian Reservations. Finally, about 11 PM near the town of Broadus, we found a state rest area and turned in. We even saw another Roadtrek parked there, along with a handful of trucks. We awoke at 1:30 AM to the sound of rumbling engines and the smell of diesel fumes. The place was bathed in light. Besides running their engines, many trucks keep their lights on. Every inch of space was taken up by trucks. There was no more sleep. We left and drove all the way through into South Dakota, finally finding a KOA near Spearfish a little after 3 AM. It was not a good night. We’ve had variations of that experience at many a Wal-Mart and now know… stay away from trucks.
    4) We do not need campground electricity – In fact, with our Roadtrek Etrek and those eight coach batteries, the 250-watt solar panels that keep them topped off and the 5,000-watt inverter, we actually have more power in the unit than we do from plugging into a campground’s 30-amp service. So unless I will be running the power-hungry air conditioner for 12 hours straight, we seldom plug in these days. There’s no need to.
    5) Campground Wi-Fi is a joke – Don’t even bother. Unless you are the only campers around. Otherwise, the guy three units down streaming Netflix videos has gobbled up all the bandwidth. Campground Wi-Fi is shared. That means s-l-o-w. We carry our own Verizon Mi-Fi data card to create our own network. But maybe I should quit talking about that. Because we noticed this year that in many a campground, so many other people are now doing the same thing, that often even the cell service is so maxed out it is almost as slow as campground Wi-Fi. See why we like boondocking?
    6) Fall is the best time to hit the road – The RV boom has its down side. This was a very busy summer. Crowds at campgrounds and national parks were overwhelming. The absolute best time to hit the road is mid-September. Just about everywhere has great weather this time of year. In the north, fall colors are starting. In the south, the sniffling heat of the summer months has eased and the snowbirds have yet to arrive. Nights are cool and comfortable. Next year, we will plan our long trip from September through November.
    7) Winter is also a great time to RV – I am always amazed at how many people reject winter camping. I’m not talking about heading to Florida or Arizona. I’m talking abut Northern Minnesota or Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Winter wonderland comping. We always do a winter trip. This year, it will be to Michigan’s UP and Tahquamenon Falls State Park, where the DNR always keeps a few spots plowed. The only thing different about winter camping s that you keep your heater running all the time and you flush the toilet with antifreeze. You take bottled water because the pipes in your RV are winterized. But the scenery is spectacular. If you dress warm, hiking or snow shoeing or cross country skiing are great. And sitting around a blazing fire with two feet of snow on the ground is awesome. Oh yeah, the stars are brighter in the winter, too.
    8) Pay your bills online – We have now enrolled for automatic and/or online bill paying for all our credit cards, our sticks and bricks house utilities and are able to handle our personal and household finances from the road as easily as when we were at home. We’ve learned that every bank will let you draw cash on a credit card. We use one designated credit card for all food, fuel, campgrounds and traveling expenses. This gives us a detailed record of our spending that we can use for budgeting and planning and we don’t have to worry about carrying lots of cash.
    9) Join a national health club chain – You need to work out. You really do. Walking around the campground is not working out. We picked a national chain – Anytime Fitness. We have found places all across the country and really love this chain because they have very nice, clean and private bathrooms and showers. We also belong to the YMCA, which has branches across the country. Every other day, we try to plan our overnight stops in cities that have places to work out. This is Jennifer’s hard and fast rule. She gets very cranky when she misses more than a couple days of working out and I have learned, well… happy wife, happy life.
    10) The RV lifestyle can be very unhealthy – Related to the above is something I hate to say but I think it needs saying. So I will. Food and drink consumption need to be controlled. We spent a week this past year on a very nice campground (I won’t say where) in which every day was themed to some event that involved alcohol. It started with Sippin’ Sunday, Margarita Mondays, Tipsy Tuesdays, Wild and Wet Wednesdays and so on and on. There were parties and happy hours every night and the place, made up mostly of seasonal RV residents, seemed to be stuck in the Sixties. The music around the pool played non-stop oldies and it was like these seniors were on perpetual spring breaks. It would have been amusing if it were not so sad. There were people whizzing by in golf carts that should have been pulled over for DUI. The only good thing was these were, after all, seniors, and by 9 PM, they had all gone to bed. We’ve seen this in different degrees at other places and have had other RVers tell us they have noticed the same thing, too. So there. I said it. Lets move on.
    11) Staying connected online with RVing friends – I am amazed at the friends we have made from the road and online and how easy it is to stay in touch with them and feel connected through our Facebook Roadtreking Group. Many of us have met in person across the country on various trips. We communicate daily through this group. We have planned our own very low-keyed rallies and have asked questions and received help and we kid each other, encourage each other and are inspired by each other – just as friends do. When we travel, we share photos and its like we’re all traveling together. W e are all very different people individually, but we’re bound together by our love of RV travel and have created a community that is simply amazing. Who’d think such friendships could develop online?
    12) Re-Read the RV manual – When we first got our RV, we devoured everything we could about it. I remember staying up all one night, like till 3:30 AM reading every manual back to back. Then I put them away. Early this summer, I sat around under the Etrek’s awning on glorious June day overlooking a Cape Cod beach and re-read the manual and learned stuff that either didn’t register the first time or that I totally missed. If your RV is a Roadtrek, you can download the latest manuals here. If it’s not, dig out whatever you got when you purchased it and keep it handy. I have downloaded our manual, printed it out and keep another copy electronically on my laptop. I may never be a mechanical expert like Campskunk but the manual at least gives me the confidence to know what I should be doing. If not, I can always ask Campskunk and other on the Facebook Group.
    Wow. That’s 12 more lessons. Added to the first 10, that’s 22 lessons.
    I think there’s still more I could do.
    Later. Maybe.
  23. Roadtrekingmike
    Anticipation, they say, is half the fun.
    I think there’s a point there. Thinking, planning, dreaming and looking forward to the next trip is indeed pretty exciting.
    And as Jennifer and I look at the calendar, we have a lot of miles we’ll be traveling in some pretty diverse places.
    Here’s what’s on our Roadtreking road map for the next month:
    Northern Minnesota – A Jan. 23-29th winter camping trip to Duluth, MN via Michigan’s UP from, and then north to the Canadian border as we do reporting for the annual 400-mile Beargrease Dog Sled Marathon. It’s going to be cold and snowy. Already they have three-foot-plus on the ground up there. But who says you can’t camp in the winter?

    Punxsutawney, Pa. – From Jan.28-Feb 2, our Roadtrek eTrek will take us to Gobbler’s Nob in the tiny town of Punxsutawney,PA to witness if Phil the Groundhog sees his shadow on Feb. 2 and whether we will have six more weeks of winter. This is an elaborate event and I’ve always wanted to see this, ever since I saw the Bill Murray movie. So this year, we’ll be there.

    West Virgiania and Ohio – From Feb 3-5, we have stories to do about technology and the Internet in West Virginia and southwest Ohio. I’ll let you know the specifics later but we’re taking the Roadtrek. Then it’s back home for a few days

    Mississippi – We’ll be in Gautier, MS Feb. 21-24 enjoying SMOKIN’ ON THE BAYOU, a special pre-Mardi Gras Roadtreking event organized by Paul Konowalchuk Pogorzelski, who promises some great Bar-B-Que with a group of other Roadtrekers, They tell me the whole region down there in bayou country celebrates Mardi Gras from late Feb through the official March 4 big day in New Orleans and Pogo has a bunch of activities planned. You can find him on our Facebook group if you want details.

    Florida or Texas – As Bob Seger sings in Roll Me Away, after Pogo’s gathering , Jennifer and I could go east (to the Florida sun) or west (towards the Texas Hill Country). It’s all up to us to decide. We haven’t figured out which way or for how long we’ll go…. only that we’ll go.

  24. Roadtrekingmike
    Last night in Iowa, I was complaining abut the gnats.
    Tonight in South Dakota, it’s the Frankenbugs.
    The bugs have only gotten bigger as we’ve moved west
    Honestly, I dont know what they are. Way bigger than a gnat. Some are beetles, or what we used to call June bugs. But there are so many and they are so big that as we drove down I-90 in South Dakota, they hit the windshield with an intensity that sometimes sounded like hail.
    Jennifer said it was a bugout.
    You can see from this photo and the video below what it was like:
    Today was one of those awesome driving days. We took our time, stopping in Des Moines to workout at a health club and then heading on through Iowa, Nebraska and into South Dakota. We dodged storms in the morning but otherwise had near perfect weather, bright blue skies with puffy cotton candy clouds and lush green prairieland.
    At sunset, we were treated to a jaw dropping South Dakota sunset of fiery oranges and reds and pink pastels.


    Then it got dark. And the attack of the Frankenbugs began.
    We pulled off at Mitchell a little before 11 p.m. and washed off the windshield.
    There were several truckers and a guy in a fifth wheel doing the same thing.S
    “Something hatched,” said the trucker next to me. “Ive never see them so intense.”
    Inside the station, the clerk was chuckling “Worse than a snowstorm,” he allowed.
    Exactly. A bugout.
    We’re spending the night in a packed Cabela’s parking lt. There are 14 other RVs here, Class As and Cs and a couple of fifth wheels.
    Inside my eTrek, I’m running the air and we’re snug as…. dare I say?… a bug.
    http://youtu.be/gDzQTjuQKpQ
  25. Roadtrekingmike
    The Morefield Campground at Mesa Verde National Park is nestled into a scenic canyon some four and a half miles off US 160 from the park entrance. With 267 sites, it seldom fills up. That’s because all but 15 are for dry camping only and of the 15 with full hookups, none accomodate RVs over 45 feet in length. The Class A congestion that turns so many other campgrounds into “tinominium “complexes is refreshingly absent here.
    Each site has lots of space between its neighbors and native Gambel oaks, tall prairie grasses and wild flowers and make for a spectacular wooded canyon that abounds with wildlife.
    At least two young black bears, two year olds recently kicked out on their own by their mother, are frequently seen. One, cinnamon colored, is called Brown Sugar by park rangers. The other is dubbed Mohalk for the band of light fur along his back.
    Campers are told at check in to be sure and put everything away at night, especially and including the white water hoses those in the full hookup sites use. “Their mother taught them if they bite into one of those little hoses, they get a nice drink of water,” said Janet, one of several women who staff the registration desk. “We had one camper who didn’t follow our suggestion and awoke the next morning to find that his water hookup was now a sprinkler hose.”
    There’s also lots of deer in the park who wander freely amidst the campsites.
    I set up the travel trailer for my daughter and my son’s borrowed Roadtrek SS in full hookup sites. In our eTrek, Jennifer and I set up across the street, dry camping.
    The key attraction here at Mesa Verde are the amazing archeological cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here between 600 to 1300 in structures built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs. The ruins are the largest archaeological preserve in the United States, scattered across 81.4 square miles. The park was created in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt and there are lots of spots to see them and even crawl through them.
    No one knows why the ancestral pueblo people settled here, in an arid and hot high desert. More mysteriously, no one knows why, after centuries of living here, they suddenly moved. But the sandstone dwellings are amazingly well preserved and the U.S. Forest Service does a great job explaining everything.
    We did the tours in shifts because of the dogs. I dozed with them in a shaded picnic area while the others toured. Then it was our turn and they watched the dogs.
    This is a huge park. To get to the cliff dwellings, you drive 23 miles up a winding mountain road, climbing to about 8.500 feet from the 6500 at the campground level. There are several great hiking trails, too, for all levels.
    Sunsets are spectacular. And sunrises are peaceful in the clear, clean mountain air. With a cup of coffee and your dog by your side, as seen in the photo of my son, Jeff, it does’t get much better…anywhere.
    Wear lots of sun screen up here. The air is thin and the UV rays really strong.
    We’re due to stay here through the weekend, heading to Telluride Sunday.
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