Winnie Views

Taking a Run to the Border

2012-01-29T11:02:00.000-06:00

At the rally last weekend, Steve from Tucson recommended I take a trip to explore Patagonia Lake State Park about 70 miles south of Tucson near the Mexican border. What a great idea!

I was able to reserve a nice paved site with hookups overlooking the lake and after finishing up work each day, Millie would get a walk down to the boat ramp at the lagoon to go swimming. She was in full approval of this park!

The lagoon has an interesting arched footbridge that we walked over and happened to get a cool shot of a family on their fishing boat as they passed beneath us:

On Saturday, we headed out to explore the dirt Forest Service roads that lace the Patagonia Mountains just east of Nogales along the Mexican border.

The mountains in the distance are in Mexico!

Of course, lots of Border Patrol agents on these roads as well. No illegals spotted today!

It was a perfect “hang your head out the window” sunny day for Millie!

The last couple of miles before the actual border, the mountains recede into an interesting grassy savannah that almost looks a bit like Africa (except we’ve got cattle and horses instead of safari animals!)

We drove west into the town of Nogales (Arizona side) to get gas and see the actual border crossing, but didn’t have enough time or nerve to cross today.

Instead, we headed back to the Lake for a sunset paddle in our Sea Eagle FastTrack kayak. Lots of interesting birds on the lake, but I only had my point-n-shoot so didn’t get zoomed in as much as I wanted.

A great relaxing weekend was had by all!

Weekend in Quartzsite

2012-01-23T23:25:00.000-06:00

When I thought I’d be spending the winter in Chicago, one of my biggest regrets was not being able to attend the annual View-Navion Rally at Quartzsite. It was a fun rally last year in a really unique place (the town of Quartzsite becomes the third largest city in Arizona during the month of January each year due to all the RVs that converge there for rallies and the RV show & flea markets).

So, when I learned I’d be working in Tucson, a weekend trip to Quartzsite was a must! But first, I had to make a pit stop to the Mercedes dealer in Tucson to get the View’s oil changed. Incredible place—not only free wifi, free beverages and snacks, and comfy chairs in the waiting room but large picture windows overlooking the shop which, itself, featured spotless white floors.

I seriously wondered if the mechanics there ever got grease on their hands! With all these amenities, I thought for sure I’d be “paying” for it with the repair bill, but surprisingly, the cost here was $75 less than my Dodge dealer had been charging me in Chicago! Wow!

We arrived to Quartzsite after dark and, thankfully, saw the same rally signs as last year pointing our way to the gathering of View and Navions. The next morning revealed a spectacular Quartzsite sky:

And our View parked on a nice level spot in the desert with about 30 other Views and Navions!

My blogging friend Evelyn and her husband Steve (of Travels with Evelyn and Steve) arrived and parked their View, Tulip, next to us

I took them out for a quick little offroad drive in the Tracker to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, a few miles south of Quartzsite. They live in Colorado and are considering getting a Tracker of their own.

In the evening, we had a nice impromptu wine and cheese party around the campfire and enjoyed yet another gorgeous sky at sunset:

The next day, Evelyn, Steve and I walked up to the RV show and flea markets to check out the latest infomercial and RVing gadgetry. The only thing I ended up buying was a $3 Coke (yikes!), but Evelyn and Steve found a few good deals on RV items they were needing.

By afternoon, winds began to blow the slow dust into a heavy-duty dust storm, so the evening campfire had to be cancelled as everyone rode out the winds inside their rigs.

I took advantage of the calm and sunny weather the next morning to head back to Kofa NWR to drive the Queen Canyon 4WD trail and look for big horn sheep. This trail was about 15 miles south of Quartzsite and a nice easy ride with gorgeous views (but, unfortunately, no big horn sheep were spotted).

Back at the rally, I got a parting shot of Evelyn, Steve, and their dog Molly in front of Tulip. Note on the side all the country flags of where they’ve been with their View! Tulip was certainly the “most traveled” motorhome there!

It was great fun finally getting to spend time with them in-person!

I also enjoyed meeting a few other WinnieViews blog readers including Ed from California, and Steve from Tucson. The weekend was over far too quickly and I really had wished I could have stayed a few more weeks. Guess there’s always next year! Thanks to Byron for putting together such a fun rally!

First weekend in Tucson

2012-01-16T00:27:00.000-06:00

I setup camp for the weekend at my favorite place in the Tucson area, Gilbert Ray Campground on the west edge of town in the Tucson Mountain Park. Just love the Sonoran desert here:

Even though the sun struggled to come out on Saturday, I wanted to get the Tracker back onto a nice off-road trail somewhere, so I headed off to the trail called the “Back way to Mt. Lemmon”

It started out as a pretty fun little trail, but after a few miles, I saw a sign saying that the top 5 miles of the trail were now closed for winter (making it impossible to reach the summit and the paved road that leads back into the city), so I had to turn around and head back down.

We spent the rest of the weekend investigating potential RV parks nearby my client’s office. None of them ended up thrilling me all that much, so I decided to go with “Plan B” and stay at a nice pet-friendly hotel during the week. Millie is thrilled to have a King sized bed to stretch out on!

The Beautiful Birds of Bosque

2012-01-13T23:44:00.000-06:00

I loved the few hours I spent at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge last winter (and got some great photos that day), so I was eager to return again this year. I had hopes of spending more time there this time, but had too many work obligations to tend to, so could only spare a couple hours away one afternoon. What an afternoon it turned out to be though! Again, some wonderfully photogenic birds greeted my camera lens.

The snow geese crowded themselves together again on a pond just outside the refuge road.

Hoping someone can tell me what kind of hawk this is—sure was a pretty one!

Next up, were the signature Sandhill Cranes that Bosque is known for. There again did not seem to be huge numbers of them here (mid-January is a bit past their peak), but there were plenty of them strutting around waiting for their photos to be taken!

I then stopped at the duck pond to get a few shots. I recognized the Mallards, but couldn’t quite identify the others. Judy Bell—can you help?

Another incredible day at Bosque!

Escaping Winter Once More!

2012-01-12T23:05:00.000-06:00

So, as you might guess from the title, the work gig in Tucson got finalized and I hastily packed and readied the View for Season 2 of snowbirding in the Southwest. I was able to make a quick appointment at the commercial truck tire shop to get my new Bilstein shocks installed, and decided to go ahead and get a set of new tires as well. The View only had 32,000 miles, but the tread on the OEM Continental tires was looking so bald, I didn’t relish the thought of winter driving on them!

By the way, the Bilsteins are indeed an improvement! They don’t completely eliminate the “rock and roll” (when going over curbs slowly for example), but they considerably reduce it without making the ride feel stiff or harsh. So, a very worthwhile upgrade for about $200 installed.

Millie and I finally got packed up and on the road late Saturday afternoon and made it to our familiar, trusty Wal-Mart parking lot in Litchfield, IL for our first evening of free overnight parking. We had spent New Year’s Eve here last year on our way down to the Southwest, and an even more bitterly cold sub-zero night here back in 2007 in the T@B. This year, thankfully, our travel coincided with a brief stretch of unseasonably warm and dry weather with overnight lows only into the low 30’s.

We divided our time between Wal-Marts and Flying J truck stops. Sure love free overnight parking after a long day of traveling! Last year, I had just about abandoned Flying J when their prices seemed much higher than local stations, and they began charging for more RV services. Well, this year, it seems like they’re trying very hard to get back in “good graces” with the RVing community. I got an email last week saying they’ll now be giving 6 cents off per gallon for Good Sam members and, following the example Wal-Mart started last year with it’s Murphy Oil promo, Flying J is offering 10 cents off per gallon when using their new Flying J credit card.

We stayed at the Joplin, MO Flying J the next night and I was eager to drive thru town the next morning to see how the recovery was progressing from last Spring’s deadly tornado.

Joplin is a decent-sized town, so by no means was it entirely wiped off the map (like the small town of Greensburg, KS had been a few years ago from its deadly tornado), but the Joplin tornado was certainly quite large and ripped a path over a mile wide and a few miles long of complete destruction--

Some businesses, like this American Mattress store, seemed completely untouched from the day the tornado struck--

Yet, many others, like this Pizza Hut, were well on their way to recovery. The people of Joplin are moving forward.

After another Flying J night in western Oklahoma, we made our way across the Texas panhandle. It always feels like my gateway to the Southwest when I start seeing those big skies and wide-open vistas--

and magical skies of New Mexico!

After a quiet night at a Walmart east of Albuquerque, we headed south to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near San Antonio, NM. No truck stops or WalMarts there, but a nice couple of nights at the Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, run by a fun-loving, free-spirit elderly lady named Jackie, and her middle-aged son. (more Bosque photos in the next post!)

I spent most of the next day catching up on work, and then hit the road again for the final leg into Tucson. We crossed the border into Arizona greeted by the most amazing sunset… Home, sweet home for the next 2 months!

Wow, 2012 is off to a flying start!

2012-01-04T22:03:00.000-06:00

I got an email earlier this week from my fellow View-owner friend Evelyn (of Travels with Evelyn and Steve) that both of our blogs managed to make it onto HitchItch.com (an excellent collection of notable and notorious RV travel blogs…guess WinnieViews falls into the latter!).

Well, what a thrill and an honor! thank you very much HitchItch, and welcome to the new friends who are now finding us!

And, speaking of hitch itch…

After settling in for what I thought was going to be a long, cold quiet winter of “hitch envy” blog-reading here in Chicago, I may now be headed to the Southwest this winter after all (a work assignment that might lend itself perfectly to a snowbirding opportunity)! Should know more tomorrow, but I may now be needing to get the View packed and ready to roll very quickly (within the next few days)!

Ever feel like someone just strapped a jetpack on your back and flipped the switch?!! Hangin’ on tight for 2012’s ride!

What I did on my Winter Vacation

2012-01-01T11:30:00.000-06:00

For a variety of reasons, rather than take off for a snowbird escape right after Christmas to a warm and sunny destination, I had to stay home for my winter vacation this year. But I got a lot of miscellaneous stuff done and got to play with some new Tech toys in the process!

The View is finally home!
And, thankfully, not covered in snow like it was two years ago when it spent the holidays in the driveway. For most of the past 3 months, the View had been in the shop for a nagging and mysterious generator problem.

This past summer, the generator began “acting up” by not starting. The starter panel would always come on like normal, but when the start button was pushed, some days it would start right up just fine, and other days it would completely ignore the request (absolutely no engine sound or attempt to start).

The dealer’s first fix was a new Control Board (“only” $800 installed, yippee!). On my next camping trip, when the generator began it’s tricks again, back we went to the dealer for a second fix—this time, a new Remote Start Panel, which was looking like it’d be another $800 fix until the nightmare got worse.

The new starter panel still didn’t fix the issue (thankfully, the View never left the shop when they realized this). So, it then took another 2 months of back and forth between the dealer, the Onan distributor, and Cummins Onan themselves to figure out problem and who would pay for it.

Thankfully, all ended well. Cummins Onan offered to pay ALL generator-related repair costs…even the initial $800 repair I had already paid! The culprit was a $5 set of wires deep within the engine assembly that had been misrouted and badly crimped when initially assembled at the factory. Over time, the crimping had corroded the wires to where they’d no longer transfer 12v power to the starter properly.

Of course, in the meantime, my electric step motor decided to conk out and my fridge went into a blinkedy fit again, so I ended up paying some repair bills afterall, but thankfully, the really expensive generator work was covered. So, fingers are now crossed that the View’s “terrible twos” are behind us and 2012 will be a better year.

I finally ditched my PC for a Mac!
Speaking of “terrible twos”, the fancy Sony Vaio PC I bought 2 years ago had been slowly frying out for the past few months as well. When it started continuously pretending to press keyboard keys, I had had enough…time for a new laptop! Off I went to the local electronics store to look at the current crop. The thought of spending another princely sum to get just “more of the same” low quality plastic parts, and a desktop loaded up with “bloatware,” was not winning me over though. So I headed over to the Apple Store to check out the Macbook Pros again. Previously, when I’d looked at them, I guess they hadn’t been configured the way I would have wanted (screens could never go “full-screen”, and mouse clicks always required pressing down and clicking the trackpad rather than just tapping). But after spending a bit more time with the new Lion OS, I saw that it now could do all those things and much more. So, I decided to go for a 15” model with the high-res anti-glare screen (better for photo editing).

Macs are still a lot more expensive than PCs, but with a bit of online shopping and simple DIY installations, I managed to save $850 vs. the local Apple Store! I’ve used B&H Photo for my photo gear purchases for years, and now that they sell Apple, they were a no-brainer to go with. While their laptop prices were the same as the Apple Store, B&H also threw in Parallels 7 (the software that lets you run Windows from a Mac) for free, and a 3-yr Apple Care warranty for less than 1/2 price.

I knew I wanted a faster “solid state drive” (my work laptop has one and they are AMAZING!) and wanted more RAM, but rather than pay the inflated Apple prices to get these pre-installed, I bought the components from OWC and Newegg and installed them myself. If you can use a screwdriver and watch a few videos, you too can easily do these kinds of upgrades as well!

The OWC website has excellent videos and even provides the tiny magnetic screwdrivers that make the process simple. OWC will even let you send back the original components for a small rebate if desired. I decided to buy their Data Doubler, so that I could move the original 500GB drive over to DVD’s drive bay, and then put the DVD drive in a USB external enclosure should I ever need it again.

The new Mac is amazingly fast and yet, built like a tank. The Lion OS has obviously taken some getting used to, but just about everything I could do in Windows 7, I can do with Lion and more. And if I ever get stuck, a quick internet search usually finds me the solution (and if all else fails, flipping over to my Windows 7 instance running on Parallels will bring me right back to my comfort zone).

Best of all, the new Mac works seamlessly with my iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Steve Jobs might have been a real SOB to deal with as a person, but I’m so glad he stood his ground and pushed so hard for product quality and integration. I can’t believe I waited so long to finally make this jump!

A Gift of Faith

2011-12-30T00:15:00.000-06:00

My post today has nothing to do with RVing, but celebrates the 100th anniversary birth date of my grandmother, Lockie, and the gift she ultimately gave me of finding everlasting Faith.

I’ve never been a very religious church-goer in my life, but like many others drawn to the outdoors, I often experience the greatest sense of spirituality when out in nature. I feel much more connected to God on a Sunday morning when paddling a quiet pond or watching a magical sunrise, than praying from a church pew. But it wasn’t always that way.

My grandmother was born in 1911, the youngest of 4 girls in a deeply religious Baptist family. They moved to Augusta, Kansas when she was still a child, and it was there in the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, that she met my grandfather, Ray, who ran the portrait photography studio in town and preached at a small church out in the country.

They were an inseparable team for nearly 50 years, spending much of that time in Kansas City, where they raised my mother (their only child) and grew a large congregation at the Hyde Park Christian Church. He was the inspirational preacher, and she, the devoted preacher’s wife who sang in the choir, taught Sunday School classes, and organized countless church socials and pot luck suppers.

My earliest memories were of the summers with my grandparents in the late 1960s and early ‘70’s. My grandmother would often sing and play hymns and Broadway show tunes on the piano. When I was old enough to learn, she first taught me one of her favorites, “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music. For years afterwards, whenever we’d hear that song on the radio or TV, she’d say “they’re playing our song, honey!”

After my grandfather died in 1979, I had a hard time finding as meaningful a connection with any church or minister as I had felt when listening to him preach. My grandmother tried relentlessly to get me to attend church more otten—“You can meet a nice young man there!” she’d often say. But, by then, I was a young adult with my own ideas, and being an obedient young church girl was not one of them!

By 2000, when my grandmother was nearly 90, I moved her up to a retirement home near my mom’s house in Chicago. By then, dementia had began ravaging her mind, and the religious pleadings had subsided. Despite the circumstances, we had some wonderful times together in those final years and I got to see my grandmother much more often than I had in years past.

I also started ever so slowly to re-examine my skepticism towards Faith. There had been a couple of small coincidences and little miracles that my logical secular brain simply could not provide a rational explanation. I was drifting closer towards God, but wasn’t 100% convinced just yet.

Then, on one sunny December morning in 2005, my grandmother helped provide the final leap of Faith that I’d been needing. My mother and I had been at the nursing home all night long holding my grandmother’s hands as she peacefully slept in her last few hours of life. Christmas music blared over the loudspeaker continuously, and it honestly got a bit annoying at times.

About 30 minutes after my grandmother passed, my mom and I began gathering a few of her things to take to the car. As I walked down a long hallway of the nursing home, I suddenly heard music over the loudspeaker that could not have been more crystal clear a message to me—this song was no ordinary Christmas Muzak from the night before. Out of the millions of songs to be playing that morning, it was “Edelweiss,” indeed, our song!

My Faith has never waivered again since that day. It was my grandmother’s last and most precious gift to me.

Holiday Happenings

2011-12-22T11:30:00.000-06:00

Millie the Jingle Dog in 2008

I posted these photos on my T@B blog a few years ago, but they're still some of my favorites of Millie celebrating the first snowfall of 2008 out in the backyard.

This winter has been a bit more challenging for Millie. She had surgery last week to take care of some minor things, and the vet discovered a cancerous tumor on her rear paw that could not be completely removed.

So, it looks like Millie will have to endure a few more visits to the vet in the coming months as we figure out the best treatment plan. The good news is that it doesn't appear to be the very worst kind of cancer, so the odds look promising.

In the meantime, Millie is enjoying all the extra treats and toys she's been getting lately, and is looking forward to this season's first big snowfall in the backyard!

While I may not have any travel posts for the next few months, I do plan to get more tech and general RVing posts completed. Tech changes so quickly, that the posts I did last winter on Mobile Productivity are now getting pretty outdated, so lots of new toy and app discoveries to share with you soon!

Just noticed today that we're now up to 50 friends following this blog...wow! My deepest thanks to everyone for all the kind and helpful comments you've made. It was also great fun to finally meet some of you in-person this year and I hope more of us can meet up next year as our travels align.

Wishing everyone a very enjoyable holiday season & a joyous new year!

A Girl’s Guide to RVing with a Toad

2011-11-19T16:57:00.000-06:00

Ever notice that many solo women RVers do not have towed vehicles (or “Toads” as they’re affectionately called)? Seems like almost all of us start out with an aversion to towing a car—“keep it simple” we say, “don’t want to overly complicate things.”

Certainly, towing a few thousand pounds behind your RV does add some complexity and limitations to your routine. The biggest drawback: you can never back up without unhitching the toad first. While this can be a major limitation with longer motorhomes, I’ve found that with my 24’ View, I’m still able to U-turn out of most situations and navigate smaller gas stations almost as easily as when not towing. I do have to avoid small parking lots that only have 1 entrance/exit though.

Hitching and unhitching a toad can be done in less than 5 minutes once you get the hang of it. There are a variety of towing solutions and a variety requirements for each particular tow car, so some of the steps below may not apply to your setup, but in general, these are the main ingredients and steps I follow.

The RV-side:

Tow bars either usually stay on the RV or stay on the toad. Many RVers like the former as you can collapse and cover them when not in use, while leaving the front of your tow car free of any large, heavy towing equipment (but the car-side tow bars are certainly quite cheap!).

Many RV hitch receivers are higher than most small tow cars, so a drop hitch extension is needed (the black thing under the license plate that the silver tow bar attaches to). I also have 2 hitch locks to keep deter theft—one locks the drop hitch to the RV, and the other locks the tow bar to the drop hitch. The tow bar weighs about 40 lbs, and drop hitch another 15, so I usually just keep it on the RV all the time rather than fool with removing it (I do unplug and stow the blue power cord – those things are easily stolen if not watched!)

The Car-side:

Ok, forgive my tow car’s dirty bumper! Click this picture to view larger. I’ve got a Blue Ox baseplate with a ReadyBrake braking system. The black baseplate as well as it’s 2 black receivers are concealed behind the bumper and nearly invisible when driving around town. Some other baseplate systems, such as Roadmaster, only mount their receiver components to the car and have their main horizontal bar out in front of the bumper. While some folks (or some vehicles) find this more preferred, I didn’t want to fool with a heavy long bar to attach/remove and store, so chose Blue Ox instead.

The Silver and Red Loops are part of my ReadyBrake system. There are a dozen different braking system designs for towing cars—some tap into the car’s brake system to activate it’s hydraulics, others are portable “lunchboxes” that you place on the floor between the driver’s seat and brake pedal. These boxes have an arm that clamps onto the pedal to activate the brake.

Since my Tracker requires that I run the engine and put the transmission into gear every 200 miles of towing, I knew the portable box system would not be practical, so thought the ReadyBrake would be the least intrusive and easiest system to go with. It basically is a small cable that runs from the silver loop you see pictured to the back of my car’s brake pedal. When the tow bar’s surge mechanism compresses (i.e. when the RV starts braking or goes down a big hill), it pulls on this silver loop to pull the car’s brake pedal. Simple, and no electric, air, or hydraulics required.

As an added safety precaution, a secondary brake cable is installed (the red loop) which will activate the car’s brakes if it should ever “break away” from the tow bar and RV.

The final car-side component are towing lights. Here, too, there are a variety of solutions available. For my car, the installer put a secondary bulb into each rear tail light housing and ran separate wiring between these new bulbs and the 12v plug on the front bumper.

The Goodie Bag:

For all the small connectors and tools, I keep these in a zippered canvas tow hitch bag. This bag stays in the car all the time and keeps things from getting lost.

My hands used to get dirty when hitching up until I started using a pair of cotton garden gloves. Duh! Also, the first time I went to unhitch my car and found the bent pins hard to remove (which hold the tow bar to the car), I realized I needed to also carry a rubber mallet to give those stubborn pins a whack. All of the other items shown came with the Baseplate or Tow Bar.

Hitching Process:

1. Prepare the RV-side for towing:

The vinyl tow bar cover just has a Velcro flap and is easily removed to reveal the tow bar and various cables. I unwrap the cables to free up the bar, and then tilt the bar upward and spread it’s arms apart.

2. Prepare the Car-Side for Towing:

I get my Goodie Bag out of the car, put my gloves on, and take each of the large Blue Ox attachment tabs and insert them into the baseplate receiver holes. The tabs are very heavy-duty (about 5 lbs each), and simply twist and lock into place.

I then drive the car into position behind the RV. I’ve become familiar enough now to know when I see the front hood of the car showing right below the RV license plate, that I’m close enough for the extendable tow bar arms to reach the car.

3. Extend the Tow Bar Arms to rest on the Baseplate tabs:

Now if I’ve positioned the car right, the tow bar arms will be able to rest on top of the silver baseplate tabs protruding from the car. Notice here the car is at a slight angle to the RV because one arm is extended further than another. This is why you want to pay more to buy a tow bar with adjustable extension arms—no need to be super precise when positioning the car!

Note also that the red levers on the tow bar are in the out position to allow the arms to extend freely.

4. Connect the Tow Bar to the Car:

Now I take the small connectors out of my goodie bag, and connect the arms to the silver attachment tabs using the bent pins.

Once the bent pins are in place, I put a hairpin cotter on each bent pin to keep it locked in place.

5. Connect the Cables:

Now that the car is attached to the tow bar, it’s time to connect all the remaining cables.

I take the pair of carabiners to attach the emergency break-away cables together:

Then clip the carabiner from the black brake cable to connect the ReadyBrake surge mechanism to the car’s silver brake cable loop.

I next plug the blue 12v power cord into the 12v plug on the car’s front bumper (to power the car’s tow light bulbs with power from the RV).

And, finally, connect the 2 coiled black safety cables into the 2 connector holes extending from the baseplate. These safety cables keep the RV and Car connected to each other if the hitch or tow bar connections should ever fail.

When everything is finally connected, it looks like this:

Notice now that I turn the red arm levers forward. This will prepare the arms to lock in place once they fully extend. Eagle-eyed observers will see that I don’t have my safety cables “cris-crossed” beneath the tow bar. While this would be the recommended way to connect them (so that if the tow bar ever fails, it will be “cradled” by the cables and won’t scrape the ground), my cables are still new and rather stiff, so I prefer right now just to connect them in parallel. There is a metal loop beneath the center of the tow bar, that I feed the blue power cable through to keep it from drooping on the ground. I’ll eventually use it for the safety cables as well once they stretch out more.

6. Ladies (and Gentlemen), Start Your Engines!:

Now it’s time to get the toad ready for “free wheelin’”. Each vehicle is a bit different on how to do this. Many cars just have you place the transmission in Neutral, but READ YOUR CAR’S MANUAL before ever attempting to flat tow it behind a motor home! Otherwise you’ll be buying yourself a new transmission!

My 4WD automatic transmission 2003 Chevy Tracker has a Hi/Low Transfer Case, so in my situation, I start the engine, put the Drive Transfer case into Neutral, and leave the Transmission still in Park. Although this sounds completely crazy, you’re able to hear and feel the Transfer Case disengaging the drive shaft from transmission, so once you let up on the brake pedal, the car’s wheels are now free to roll.

With the Transfer Case still in Neutral, my car’s manual instructs me to put the Transmission into Drive, rev the engine to 2000 rpms for approximately 2 minutes, and then return the Transmission to Park. This step allows all the critical parts to get lubricated before taking off down the highway. I must repeat this step every 200 miles (which happens to nicely coincide with gas station or rest stops anyway).

Once finished with that step, I turn the engine off and put it into the “1st Accessory” position and leave the key in the ignition (this allows the steering wheel to stay “unlocked” and front wheels to turn side to side). I had a spare key made just for this purpose so I could carry the remote lock keyfob with me to lock the car. I also put a sunshade up to keep the car interior from getting too hot and to further visibly show the car is being towed.

7. Final Inspection
Once the toad is ready to roll, it’s time to start up the RV, check the lights, and re-check all towing connections.

It’s ideal if you have a second person to stand behind the toad and confirm that each turn signal and brake lights work, but since I often travel solo, I turn the RV’s hazard lights on instead.

Notice my Tracker’s amber turn signal lights do not light up—only the dedicated secondary tow light bulb (in the lower red casing) does.

I drive the RV forward a few feet and then give everything a final inspection, making sure that the tow arms have now fully extended and locked into place.

Back in the RV, I turn the rear-view camera on (and keep it on) to ensure that there are no problems (i.e. tire blowouts on the toad, disconnected cables, etc)

Ready to roll! I assure that it’s now taken longer to read this post than it actually does to perform these steps!

Disconnecting The Toad:

So, now for a few parting tips on how to disconnect your toad properly. You’d think it’d simply be a case of reversing the steps above (and indeed it is), but be sure to remember 2 important tips (learned the hard way from Yours Truly)!

Before unhitching, remember to put the car back in gear (or set the parking brake). Yes, I made this dumb mistake one day. Thankfully, my driveway only has a slight slope and my driver’s door window was open, so I was able to run and reach in to pull the parking brake to halt my runaway Tracker! Gave my neighbor quite a good laugh with dumb move!!!
Turn your toad’s ignition off if staying parked and hooked up for an extended period of time. I once came home from a trip so exhausted that I left the toad hitched up to the motorhome for a couple of days before unhitching it. Big mistake! By leaving the key in the toad’s accessory ignition position that long, I had managed to suck all the power out of the battery and it wouldn’t start! Thankfully, I was home and could charge it up again, but it was certainly another bone-head move on my part!

Can I Tow a … With a …?

Legal disclaimer section!

Before towing anything with your Motorhome, check it’s weight/capacity stickers to confirm your Towing Capacity, Hitch Capacity, and GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating) to ensure it can safely handled your car’s weight. Check the weight sticker for your car too!

Just because your car’s weight might be fine, that still doesn’t give you the green light to tow it. In fact, fewer and fewer modern cars these days are able to be “flat-towed” or towed “4-wheels down” (meaning all wheels rolling on the pavement rather than via a car trailer or towing dolly).

The best references to check whether or not your car can be towed this way are as follows:

Your vehicle’s Owner’s Manual (the definitive source above all others)
Motorhome Magazine’s Annual Dinghy Towing Guide (published each Spring for that particular model year)
Remco Towing’s Application Charts (Remco makes Lube Pumps that allow certain vehicles not listed on Motorhome Magazine’s guide to still be flat-towed if their Remco pump is installed).

Also, it’s wise to read towing-related posts on popular RV’ing forums (such as the Dinghy Towing forum on RV.net) and ask fellow RV’ers you meet about their first-hand experiences towing your particular model vehicle. A few newer-model Fords recently had some problems with transmission failures when being flat-towed (Ford has been addressing them). But while Ford’s Owner’s Manual, and both guides above showed these vehicles to be approved for flat-towing, actual owner experiences posted on forum sites such as RV.net revealed some major problems. So, do your homework carefully and thoroughly before making the investment and hitching up!

How Much Does it Cost? What’s the Impact to MPG?

Two of the most-common questions I get!

Cost-wise, most dinghy towing setups (parts and installation labor) typically run in the $3000 – $3500 range, about half the cost will be parts and other half labor. This can be higher if you buy your parts retail from an RV dealer (rather than online), or choose the most expensive tow bar and braking solutions.

MPG impact has been amazingly minimal for me. When towing the Tracker through the flat Midwest, my View’s MPG is only minimally reduced when towing (less the 1 MPG difference for the 3000 lb Tracker). In the Rocky Mountains this past summer, my climbing speeds were obviously slowed with the added weight, but even at this extreme, the MPG difference was minimal (perhaps 1.5 MPG) because every hard uphill climb had an effortless downhill coast.

Toads are Fun!

So sure, the above toad is a whole lot cuter, cheaper, and easy to hitch onto the back of an RV than another gas-guzzling vehicle! But I like all the terrific places my little Tracker has been able to get me to (where my RV alone could not). Toads are fun!

A few more "favorite things"

2011-11-17T19:52:00.000-06:00

Ah the holiday shopping season is here again! I've been noticing the UPS man starting to make daily stops to the cul-de-sac this week (or, as my brother likes to call him, "Brown Santa") -- a sure sign that the annual shopping frenzy has begun. Have all the good little RVing girls and boys made their holiday wish lists for Brown Santa yet this year?

I treated myself to the newest craze on the Skinnie Winnie Yahoo Group site-- a pair of Bilstein shocks! (something seriously demented about a middle-aged woman dreaming of filling her Christmas stocking with...of all things...heavy-duty shock absorbers!)

But the men on the Forum all seem to rave about how well they eliminate the "rock and roll" a View typically makes whenever it drives slowly over a curb, so I can't wait to get them installed and give them a try!

Last April, I did a Favorite Things post of my fabulous folding leather ottoman, my full-bed sized camp mattress, and my bargain $7 Crock pot. Recently, some readers have been asking to see some of the other favorite things I've commented on, but have yet to post pictures of. So, here's my next round of "favorite things"....just in case you need a little something else to add to your wish lists!

LED TV with Clamp Mount Arm

I hated the 19" Jensen LCD TV that came with my View. It was heavy (29 lbs) and mounted at an angle that only worked well if you were standing to watch TV (and who does that?!!). So, when the Jensen died a quick death last year, I bought a great super-thin Vizio 22" LED TV ($249, and only 8 lbs!). I had an old Ergotron clamp-mount computer monitor arm, so initially used that:

While that solution was rock-solid and gave me the dual option of mounting it to the dinette table to use it as a laptop monitor while working, the arm was too heavy-duty for such a lightweight TV. I liked that the TV could now tilt and swivel for better viewing angles, but it still seemed too high up to view comfortably (especially when seated at the dinette).

So, I then found a lighter weight Ergotron arm that could also be used upside down. This also came with a clamp mount, but I found that it's grommet screw fit right into one of the screw holes from the original Jensen TV mount, so I decided to mount it that way instead. This solution, not only lowered the TV to a comfortable viewing angle, but it now allowed the shelf to be used for holding my Dish satellite TV receiver!

An added bonus, is the ability to swivel the TV around so that it can be viewed out the dinette window from the outside-- instant outdoor movie theater!

In travel mode, I store the Satellite receiver in the cabinet next to the shelf. I keep the TV mounted on the arm, and simply wrap a couple bungee cords around it to keep the arm from extending. Now over 5,000 miles of travel-- so far, so good!

I love that the TV also has Internet apps and a built-in Wifi receiver. From my 3G Mifi cellular hotspot, I can watch a Netflix movie, a Flickr photo slideshow, or listen to Pandora and Rhapsody music services through my TV connected to my RV speakers. Geek out!

Table-Mate Folding Table:

When I showed my ottoman in the April post, I forgot to show the folding table I often use with it-- the Table-Mate Classic ($45). Ok, granted, the plastic "fake woodgrain" top looks a little cheezy, but this thing is super strong, lightweight, folds flat, and has no sharp corners or edges. Best of all, you can prop your feet up when using it. The perfect tray table when doing laptop work from the reclining swivel seat. So comfy!

Sodastream Soda Maker:

I've never been a coffee drinker, and always used to hate dragging those big 2-liter pop bottles from the store (especially when camping). So, when I discovered the Sodastream home soda maker ($99) a few years ago, I was thrilled! In addition to their online store, they now sell these at Bed, Bath, and Beyond stores, and other retailers, making it fast and easy to get refill carbonator bottles and soda syrups in what ever metro area I happen to be driving through.

This is an ideal system for RVs. No electricity required. No heavy bottles or cans to store (just the small syrup bottles and the 1-liter soda bottle), and lots of interesting flavors besides the traditional Cola, Root Beer, 7up, and Dr. Pepper choices. Best of all, you'll always have freshly carbonated soda-- no more "flat" stale pop!

This summer, I was hooked on their Strawberry Kiwi Green Tea and mixed it with just regular (rather than carbonated) water -- very refreshing! I like that their soda mixes have a lot less sodium than traditional sodas. It's also fun to create your own more natural mixes, such as carbonating some fruit juice. If you like sodas, treat yourself to this tasty system!

So what's on your RVing "Wish List" this holiday season?

Recent Enhancements to the Blog

2011-11-15T07:01:00.000-06:00

If you read Winnie Views from an RSS Reader and have not visited the blog’s homepage recently, I’ve added a few new features and links. Frankly, I stole these ideas from some of the other great RV blogs I read, so figured I’d better give thanks appropriately where it is due.

First, I’ve added new About Us and Our View tabs at the top of the page. Ever since seeing these a few months ago on the my friend Evelyn’s blog, Travels of Evelyn and Steve, I’ve been meaning to create similar tabs here.

I used to have one of those pictures on my blog with all the states and provinces colored in of where we’d been with the View. Quite colorful for sure, but it didn’t help me remember all the good places I’ve stayed or had parked overnight. Then, I saw Judy over at Travels with Emma, add a terrific Google map to her blog of all the places she had stayed and hiked. What a terrific idea! I had long been using the My Places feature of Google Maps to create my own custom maps whenever I started planning a big trip—noting all the photo and camping locations I might want to visit. But, I had never thought to create a map after the fact of Where We’ve Stayed, and link those places back to our blog posts and/or website of the park.

Full-time RVers Fred and Jo Wishnie have a great link on their blog, The Wandering Wishnies, to all of their campground reviews posted to RVParkReviews.com. I, too, have used this site for years to post feedback on all the parks I’ve visited and it’s a terrific resource to get true, honest, opinions from fellow campers. So, I’ve now added a link on my blog to all of my RVPark reviews as well.

This past weekend, I finally figured out how to create a Winnie Views Facebook page for the blog. While many folks are comfortable using an RSS reader or the Follower feature of Google Blogger to be notified of their blog updates, there are others who prefer to just get their blog news and friend updates all rolled into their Facebook feed, so we’re now doing that…neat that we already have 11 people that “Like” that page in the first two days. Cool!

I like the way Cherie & Chris from Technomadia keep their Facebook page updated—not only do they re-publish their blog posts there, they also use it to post short little updates, thoughts, and questions in between their posts. It’s also a nice way for friends to post their ideas and feedback as well.

So, hope you find these updates useful. Now, lets all start some conversations!

What I like about my View & What I wish it had

2011-11-06T20:10:00.000-06:00

One of this blog’s readers, Lady Vagabond, asked a while back what I liked most about my RV. The last post answered why I chose a Class C motorhome, so this post dives a bit deeper into the specific things I like about my View (as well as some things I wish it had).

First off, it bears repeating whenever considering an RV purchase: “There is no perfect RV!” Every RV is a complex set of compromises—each vehicle excels at some things and misses the boat entirely for others. That’s why we usually buy and sell them so often .

Right now, I like most things about my Winnebago View and can live with most of the things I don’t like. But that’s not to say that in a few years, I might decide a Class A would make a better full-time home…and that will come with a whole new set of compromises. Again, no perfect RV!

Overall Size:

I really like the View’s overall width, height, and short wheelbase. It’s a foot less wide that most other RVs, and that comes in very handy when parking in a normal parking space, driving through construction zones or on curvy, narrow mountain roads. On the inside, though, it’s pretty cramped for me and the dog to move around if I don’t extend the slide-out.

The View’s short 170” wheelbase makes it very nimble to maneuver through small campground loops, crowded gas stations or do u-turns on most 2 lane roads (even when towing a car!). If I were driving a longer RV, I’d have less turning radius and would be more limited in which gas stations, restaurants, strip malls, or campgrounds I could get into.

On the flipside though, if my View were even just 5-8 feet longer, it could have a real bedroom in the back, more living room space, and more storage—all things I dearly miss at times in a short 24’ RV.

Engine/Chassis:
Ever wonder why there are so many Sprinter-type vans on the road? You see them everywhere! FedEx, DHL, and numerous small businesses use them for their fleets because they get good gas mileage, and have a very reliable, long-running Mercedes-Benz turbo diesel engine. FedEx Sprinters regularly go into the 500,000 mile range, so I’d never shy away from a used View with, say, 70,000 miles on it—it’s just getting started!

My View gets about 13 mpg in most conditions when towing the Tracker going highway speeds (i.e. doing 70 mph out West). While that’s not the 15-17 mpg advertised, it’s better than what Class C gas engine units get, and much better than any Class A.

The diesel engine has sufficient torque and power for most conditions except when pulling a tow car up a steep mountain, and in that situation, it still manages to do the job, just at a bit slower speed than if it weren’t towing. Overall, I’m much more comfortable with my View’s engine and transmission than I used to be with my Subaru towing a small T@B trailer.

Many Class C’s use the Ford E-series chassis and F450 V10 engine. That too is a very solid combination, and highly serviceable by thousands of dealers. It’s also a very easy unit to drive, but for me, I’ve liked the Sprinter’s larger windows, the various storage areas in the front dash and above each visor, and the more open cab area. I like the additional leg room and not having to squeeze around the center “doghouse” engine compartment (like in the Ford) if trying to move between the cab and the coach.

The downside of my particular model year (and earlier Views) is the 3500 lb towing capacity. Newer Views and most Fords can pull 5000 lbs giving you more “toad” options.

Additionally, my View (and most Class Cs) have limited CCC (Cargo Carrying Capacity) of 1000 lbs or less. They’re designed for short vacations, and not for bringing all your worldly (and heavier) possessions.

Exterior:

My View’s external cargo capacity is at the minimum limit of what I’d consider usable. My rear storage contains my BBQ grill, a 9 x 12 patio mat, awning lights, an LP campfire unit, a 10g LP tank, a small folding table, and various odds and ends. My pull-out slide compartment contains 2 large ramps and (4) 2 x 10 wood planks (used for leveling the RV), a telescopic squeegee, and jug of windshield washer fluid. A smaller side compartment holds extra quarts of special motor oil that the View’s diesel engine takes, a small air compressor for inflating tires, and a spare battery charger. On the driver’s side, there’s a large utility compartment that carries (2) 25’ water hoses, a 15’ sewer hose and various fittings, 25’ of TV coax cable, and 50’ of 30amp electric cable plus my Surge Protector box. I don’t know where I ‘d put this stuff if that compartment were as small as some of the View Profiles or Via/Reyo units I’ve seen!

I’ve got sufficient room for all important items that I need to keep outside, but could still benefit from additional external storage. Right now, I must carry my folding lawn chairs inside the RV, and prior to getting a toad, I also had to carry my inflatable boat inside the RV, and carry bikes on a bike rack.

If I had a taller/wider Class A motorhome, I’d have more external space to carry these items. It’d also provide larger fresh water and holding tanks than what I have now allowing for longer boondocking time between dumps.

Living Area:
My View’s 70” long sofa is nice for stretching out on to watch TV—I’d not want a sofa any shorter than that! It’d be even nicer, though, if it were a few inches deeper and a bit less firm. To overcome this, I use a few rectangles of 2” memory foam that fit inside of pillowcases. These easily store in the overhead bunk area when not in use and make the sofa much more comfortable.

One unique thing about Views, up until around model year 2010, is their large skylight hatches in the living area. I absolutely love being able to let the sun shine in on a cold winter day when snowbirding, or being able to open the hatch (along with opening the bathroom fan) to let lots of fresh air flow through the coach while leaving the windows/doors locked. Really sad that newer models did away with this feature!

The dinette is functional and has a good-sized table. It’s fine for 2 people or 2 adults and 2 small kids to each meals at. It becomes a bit more challenging when trying to sit at it all day as a home office desk.

When at home, I plug my laptop into a large 24” computer monitor for detailed project work. I also have an ergonomic full-sized keyboard and a rocking/swiveling office chair. I’ve tried a variety of solutions in the RV to mimic this environment, but haven’t quite found anything ideal yet.

One option has been using my 22” TV in the RV as a computer monitor. Another has been to sit on a folding rocking lawn chair or on the swivel/reclining cab passenger seat rather than at the dinette. Neither are as ideal as my home office, though. I’d dearly kill for a comfy, rocking/swivel Euro recliner, or at least a dinette with free-standing chairs that could be swapped out for my office chair. Just not enough room in the View for either of those options.

Kitchen:

The View’s kitchen is one area that I’m most pleased with. I love the large round sink that easily fits plates and large pots/pans for washing. I also like that all the cabinets and drawers are just the right size—there’s a large drawer beneath the stove that holds all my nested pots/pan set and some baking pans, and the bottom drawer of the drawer stack is tall enough to fit all my small appliances—a toaster, coffee maker, and crock pot. The drawers are also wide enough to fit most Rubbermaid silverware divider inserts and other organizers, and the top overhead cabinets are roomy enough for all my dishes, cups, and food storage containers.

I bought a stove cover which adds more countertop space and provides a backsplash when cooking. I’ve also really enjoy the convection oven feature of the microwave. It cooks a pizza absolutely perfectly, and does fine with small baking and roasting as well.

Perhaps the most-beloved feature of my kitchen, though, is the pantry closet. I’m often amazed that many RVs don’t have these and force you to stuff food into any overhead storage compartments you can find in other rooms of the rig. It’s so convenient to be able to quickly turn around and grab something out of the pantry when cooking. The shelves are deep and hold a lot!

Now that I’m used to the View’s 2-door Fridge/Freezer, I’d not want to go back to anything smaller. It provides plenty of room for a week’s worth of food.

Bath:

I really enjoy the open feel of my model’s full-width bath with it’s large rear window. When sitting in the swiveled passenger seat and looking to the rear, I have nice views out all directions. The bath also has a good sized closet so you can get dressed in the bathroom if traveling with others. I also appreciate the generous storage space in the medicine cabinet and sink vanity.

The shower is good-sized. Cozy, but not cramped. I also really love the shower’s frosted skylight—why aren’t home showers as nicely illuminated? When traveling, I put a towel down on the shower floor and store large items such as dog food bags, spare water containers, or excess shopping bags. I’ve heard of others keeping their kitty litter boxes there too.

Bed:

It’s nice to be able to sleep up to 5 people in the View when needed. Many folks with my model sleep on the pullout sofa, on the overhead bed, or both. But I typically use my overhead bunk area purely for storing lightweight bedding items and duffle bags of clothes or other gear. Since the View’s jackknife sofa is not that comfortable on it’s own, I use 2 camping mattresses velcroed together along with a double-wide Travelsak sleeping bag and pillows. I keep all of that stored in the bunk area during the day so it can easily be moved to the sofa at night. If guests come along, I bring extra Travelsak bags and pillows and keep those up there as well.

While the camp mattress and bedding solution for the sofa is fine for a few months, I’d dearly love a real bedroom with real bed mattress if living in the RV any longer than that. RV bedrooms also usually have larger closets and drawers for additional clothes (I currently need to use hanging organizers in the closet for my non-hanging clothes).

Other comforts of home:
When returning home after a few months of travel in the View, there are a few things I dearly look forward to. If I were full-time RVing, I’d want to try and get solutions for these inside my rig:

Besides the recliner and real bed mentioned above, I’d love to have an onboard washer/dryer. I hate having to lug piles of clothes to Laundromats!
While I enjoy my outdoor LP campfire when camping (as I’m a complete klutz at trying to make a real campfire), it’d be nice to also have a small electric fireplace/heater on colder days. Having a real table lamp is also something nice to come home to.
A piano! I don’t play it as often as I used to, but do enjoy it. I’d love to have enough storage to bring an electronic keyboard with me when traveling.

A Girl’s Guide to Choosing an RV– my story

2011-10-29T20:00:00.000-05:00

Meeting Suzanne at the Hershey RV Show last month reminded me of just what an overwhelmingly difficult process it is to determine which RV is “the right one” to dump much of your life’s savings into. One of the salesmen told her that 90% of all 1st-time RV buyers end up with a different RV within 3 years. Unfortunately, he’s likely pretty correct.

It’s rarely possible to take a potential RV out for a few nights to “test it out” before buying, so unless a similar model is available as a rental, one usually must buy their RV without sleeping or living in it first, and without much of a test drive.

I’ve certainly been one of the salesman’s statistics. In 2004, after a summer of cold and rainy tent camping in Canada, I decided to buy my first RV. Meet my 1st RV-- a Starcraft 2406 pop-up tent camper!

It was relatively inexpensive (under $10,000 new), was lightweight enough for my SUV to tow, and could sleep up to 6 people so I could bring lots of friends or family along. I loved the openness and all-around views it provided:
and loved the idea of having my own toilet/shower combo without having to be near a bathhouse.

The first few trips with the new pop-up were great, but I soon began feeling like it wasn’t right for me. All the setup and tear down took a lot of time (and was miserable to do in the rain), there was very little storage available when it was in travel mode (and no way to access the fridge or bath when the roof was down).

You also had to take your shoes off every time you used the toilet unless you wanted mud and scratches on the wet bath floor. The 20 gallon water tank (and no built-in gray tank), meant that using the shower was cumbersome (and insufficient if more than 1 or 2 people were needing it over the weekend). Towing was also not a very pleasurable experience—the camper swayed excessively if I ever drove above 60 mph, and my electric brake controller would either brake way too much or way too little.

Finally, it was not an ideal RV for the colder climates I liked to camp in—true, it was warmer than a tent, but if the outside temps dropped below 50F, the furnace had to cycle on/off almost constantly all night long to attempt to keep warm air inside the drafty tent walls. Friends and family came along for a couple of trips, but it was usually just me camping in it, so it also felt bit too big for just me.

But the deciding factor to trade it came one night while camping in a rather deserted campground in rural Kentucky. A group of hunters had gotten lost in the night and nearly walked right into my camper! It was an innocent mistake on their part, but the experience scared me half to death (imagine being awakened in the middle of the night to sounds of men and dogs, and seeing flashlights and gun barrels coming towards my bed…the only thing protecting me was the flimsy canvas and vinyl window, and a small steak knife I’d managed to pull out of the drawer when I hopped down onto the floor!).

After that experience, I decided that I wanted and needed a hard-sided trailer with a door that could lock (not only more peace of mind from lost hunters in the night, but better for camping in bear country where pop-ups were prohibited). But I still wanted something that could still be towable by my SUV, and something that could be expandable when I wished to bring guests along.

My dealer had just started carrying a line of super-cute teardrop trailers called the T@B, and I instantly fell in love with a T16Q model that my dealer gladly let me trade my pop-up for a few thousand dollars more.

The T@B had a combination dinette/bed with a kitchen, large flip-out windows on 3 sides that provided great views of the outdoors, a porta-potti, and an air conditioner. It also had a terrific screen room tent attachment that could double the living space when needed for extra guests. It towed like a dream compared to the pop-up, and best of all, seemed to attract smiling, curious “T@B Gawkers” where ever we went!

As a weekend camper, it was a wonderful RV. I also loved the active owner community and met many folks at T@B rallies who continue to be good friends. When my first T@B was destroyed while being transported by a trucking firm cross-country in 2007, I replaced it with another nearly-identical unit and took many more great road trips around the country (see my T@B blog for chronicles of those adventures).

With improved 3G cellular service and campground wi-fi, I began working from the road during extended month-long T@B trips around the country. It was thrilling and liberating to be so mobile, and by 2009, I wanted to take even longer trips, and even try snowbirding all winter away from snowy Chicago. Only one problem-- the T@B was just not going to be comfortable or big enough for that long of a time period, and without a full bath and larger holding tanks, I’d be limited to just camping in RV parks with bathhouses. So I had a big expensive decision to make—get a motorhome, or trade my Subaru in for a pickup truck and buy a bigger trailer.

Of course you know which way I went on that decision!

I had narrowed down my choices to a small motorhome or an Airstream trailer. I didn’t want a traditional “rectangular boxy RV” and wanted something as stylish as the T@B’s interior. I wanted something small enough to get into most campgrounds, but bigger and more comfortable than the T@B. Most importantly, I wanted a real bathroom with shower and large enough holding tanks to be useful.

I decided that, as neat as the Airstreams looked, I just didn’t want to have trade my car in for a big truck to pull one. I also didn’t want to struggle with towing and constant hitching/unhitching. So, I began focusing in on motorhomes.

In 2005, I had a wonderful week in Alaska renting a 25’ Class C motorhome from Great Alaskan Holidays. It was quite a luxury from my pop-up tent camper, not only for the onboard generator, but the ease of having an instant climate-controlled rest stop or diner whenever I happened to pull off the side of the road (bathrooms and restaurants in Alaska are far and few between!). I also loved being able to just drive right into a campsite, turn off the engine, open the door and be camping within 2 minutes…I could definitely get used to this!

I attended a few RV shows and visited a number of dealers. Class B van motorhomes looked the least intimidating, were certainly easy to drive and got great gas mileage. But the interiors, to me, felt even smaller and more cramped than my 12’ T@B! Most had tiny fridges and tiny holding tanks too, which would mean more trips to the grocery store and dump station—2 tasks I do not enjoy. Finally, most new Class B vans were more expensive than any Class C I looked at, so that ruled them out for me.

On the flip-side thought, Class Bs did seem to be the safest of all motorhomes though as they were built as strongly as a passenger van. Also, if I were focused on “stealth urban camping,” a Class B van would be at the top of the list as it most easily blends in well with other vehicles in any parking lot or residential street.

Class A motorhomes (the big rectangular boxes on wheels) or a Conversion Bus might one day be in my future as a full-time rig, but they just seemed was too big a leap and too cavernous to migrate to from my tiny, cozy T@B. These units certainly had all the comforts of home though, and tons of storage and holding tank capacity.

Finally, I focused in on 2 class C’s—the Winnebago View and the Winnebago Aspect. Both had different pros and cons, but either really could have worked. The Aspect was on a Ford gas engine chassis and had a bedroom in back but no cabover bed up front. The View had just the opposite and was on a shorter, narrower, Mercedes diesel chassis. In the end, I chose my View because it was a new prior-year model that was $20K cheaper than current-year Aspects, and had more external storage space than an Aspect.

I’ve now owned and lived in my View longer than any of my previous RVs. Is it perfect? No. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that after a few months on the road, I really do look forward to returning home to my real mattress bed, comfy recliner and sofa, big screen TV and fireplace. But for the “part-time full-timing” solo RVing trips I do right now, the View is about as close to perfect as I can get.

The ultimate “work from the road” benefit to a small motorhome versus a trailer, is the fact that I can easily move it. The best/fastest internet and cellular coverage is often closest to highways and towns, while the best campsites are at least a few miles away in the boonies. It’s nice to be able to work in town during the day, and then retreat back to a pretty site in the woods or on a lake when the day is done. It’s also nice to be able to easily drive to a dump station when holding tanks are full rather than have to deal with portable “blue boy” tanks or being restricted to only full hookup sites.

At 24 feet, the View has yet to find a camp site it could not fit into, and the narrow width and short wheelbase has been a blessing on every curvy mountain road, u-turn, or construction zone I’ve ever had to drive.

Is it a full-time home? My jury is still out about that one. It certainly is plenty comfortable for 1 or 2 people for a few months on the road, and I’ve read about a few dozen people who do indeed live full-time in their Views (i.e. no longer own permanent homes). But they either have had to make significant compromises in what they could bring along (due to limited 1,000 lb cargo carrying capacity), or have still had some kind of storage unit or park model trailer keeping all their comfy stuff and heirlooms for post-fulltiming.

As a solo RVer who still has a home base to return to, a small motorhome has been the most-perfect RV for me at this stage of my life….now if I could just get Millie to relax and enjoy the ride. The sofa is too bouncy to sleep on when rolling down the highway, and it’s hard for a dog to get her beauty rest!

Weekend in Door County Wisconsin

2011-10-10T07:18:00.000-05:00

When asked where she wanted to go for her weekend birthday trip, my mom chose Door County Wisconsin as it’s known for some of the best fall foliage in the region, and has plenty of shops, farm markets, and pubs to also enjoy.

Door County is the peninsula in northeast Wisconsin separating Lake Michigan from Green Bay that starts at Sturgeon Bay on the south end and extends about 50 miles up to Washington and Rock Islands on the north end. There are numerous small arts-and-crafts kinds of towns on the coasts of the peninsula, with farmland and orchards occupying the interior land. There are also a half dozen gorgeous state and county parks.

We stayed at Tranquil Timbers RV Resort in Sturgeon Bay, another of the Encore/Thousand Trails parks on the ReadyCampGo program. The trees throughout the park were at their peak and just gorgeous.

It was also a perfect Indian Summer weekend with clear blue skies and temperatures in the 70’s each day. Millie and Mom soaked up the sun late Saturday afternoon!

After slowly crawling out of the Friday afternoon congestion of Chicago and Milwaukee, we finally made it up to the campground just after sunset. After getting parked at our site, it was off to the first of Mom’s favorite Sturgeon Bay restaurants—Neighborhood Pub & Grill.

The place was packed and we had to wait a few minutes for a table. The crowd also seemed to be intently watching the ballgame on the various big screen TVs. Within 5 minutes, everyone in the bar let out a huge roar and one of the bartenders even set off a small firecracker. We then realized what everyone was so excited about—the Milwaukee Brewers had just won their playoff series and were moving on to the NL Championship series!

With the game over, some tables opened up and we ordered dinner. It also happened to be their Oktoberfest weekend, so we ordered some of their German specialties with excellent red cabbage, spaetzel, and spiced apple sauce.

On Saturday morning, we drove up to Sister Bay to Mom’s favorite farm market, Seaquist Orchards. We were a bit early for the bluegrass concert in the Apple Barn, but there were plenty of pretty fruits and pumpkins to enjoy, and Mom loaded up her shopping basket with apple cider, donuts, cherry pie, and other goodies to bring home.

On the way out, I spotted this pristine vintage Winnebago Brave being driven by a poodle. Apparently, Millie is not the only dog who likes to drive her Winnebago!

We then drove up to the northern tip of the peninsula to take some fall foliage pictures. Lots of folks riding their motorcycles on these roads and enjoying the warm sunny day!

We zig-zagged our way back down to have lunch at Wilson’s and enjoy the pretty harbor at Ephraim.

and then made our way down to Jorn’s Sugar Bush to buy some fresh maple syrup (is it obvious yet that my mom had a major craving for sweets this weekend?!!).

After returning to the campground to rest for a few hours, we headed out Saturday night to first visit Pooh’s Pub in downtown Sturgeon Bay (actually named Poh’s for the owner’s George & Kim Poh). Kim is my brother’s roommate’s sister, and this bar has been run by their family for years. We happened to arrive just as George and Kim were finishing up the day shift, and Kim’s other 2 sisters were starting the night shift! After hearing so much about this pub from my brother for so long, it was great to finally stop in for a visit and meet the family.

We then made our way to Mom’s other favorite Sturgeon Bay restaurant, The Nightingale Supper Club. This place looks completely unchanged from the 60’s/70’s and had a bar almost a big as the restaurant itself. Good thing, too, because we had to wait 1 1/2 hrs before being seated for dinner. But the atmosphere and food were both very enjoyable.

Sunday morning, we headed up to Jacksonport, where Mom recalled a small town park that allowed dogs on the beach of Lake Michigan. Millie got in a quick fun swim before we had to head back to Chicago, so a great time was had by all!

Overcoming Dumpophobia – A Girl’s 12-step Guide to Dumping RV tanks!

2011-10-02T15:58:00.001-05:00

When I was camping at Assateague last month, a man walked up to me and said “Can I pay you a compliment?”. “Sure,” I replied. He said he had watched me come into camp the night before and was just amazed that I could drive my own motorhome and unhitch my toad so easily. He then was amazed to see me the next day as I paddled in to shore, deflated and packed up my Sea Eagle FastTrack kayak into the back of my Tracker. He finished by saying “you’re one gutsy lady!”

While I know the gentleman meant well, and I politely thanked him for his compliments, I felt like saying “What alternative do I have? Sit at home waiting for some man to come along? And miss out at being able to camp on the ocean shore and paddle this beautiful bay?!!!” But I kept my mouth shut, smiled, and walked away.

My brother and I were raised to be independent and self-sufficient (perhaps to a fault!), but I was never told I couldn’t/shouldn’t do something just because of my gender. While I envy my RVing friends who have husbands to travel with and help them with the more unpleasant and dirty tasks of RVing, I’ve never had that luxury.

So, what’s a girl to do….stay at home? Never! I’d just have to learn to do those “manly” tasks myself. Now that I’ve been RVing a few years and doing them, they honestly aren’t hard or unpleasant. Even if you have a nice spouse who’s doing them now for you, it’s always good to learn these skills yourself in case of an emergency.

So on to the 1st and perhaps most feared of all female RVer phobias—dumping the tanks!

There are a variety of products available and methods to tank-dumping, so my way outlined below might not be the way you (or your spouse) prefer. But, so far in 3 years, it’s a method that has worked well for me, and the supplies all fit nicely in my RV’s water/sewer compartment. So, let’s get started:

The Tools I Use:

The brown hose with orange fittings is a RhinoFLEX kit. Clicking the link will take you to a great little video on how to use this product. The kit is very reasonably priced at less than $30 on Amazon. What I like about it most besides the ruggedness and durability of the hose, are the end caps and robust fittings. While some old timers might recoil in horror, I store my sewer hose next to my fresh water fill hoses inside my RV’s utility compartment (because there are no other good external places to store these).

A few important things to note, though—the RhinoFLEX is always rinsed off and capped with caps facing away from the hoses. The fresh water hoses are always connected end to end and stored with their connectors up away from the Rhino hose. I additionally use an external water filter that is stored with caps on both ends of it to provide secondary filtering to all drinking water for the RV (the other filter is inside in the RV’s plumbing line).

The black contraption to the left of the RhinoFLEX in the first photo above is called a Flush King. It allows me to back-flush my tanks with either gray water or water from a hose to ensure anything inside the tank still stuck on the walls or bottom are flushed out (and thus eliminating potential problems with faulty tank level readings later on). Here’s a link to a copy-cat product by Camco that has a short video of how this process works. I like the Flush King better because it has an angled connector that’s easier for the limited clearance I have with the View’s sewer pipe.

The final item in the first photo above is a pack of disposable gloves to use while handling all sewer-related items. These aren’t required, but do help keep germs minimized before washing hands later.

My RV Dump Process Step-by-Step:

Because I back-flush with every dump, my process involves a few extra steps that you would not need to do if just using the RhinoFLEX directly. But here’s how I do it:

1. Ensure both Black and Gray valves on your RV are pushed fully closed (in). You don’t want any surprises greeting you when you open your RV sewer drain cap!

2. Unscrew the RV’s sewer drain pipe cap. The seal might be a bit “gritty” and hard to turn, so give it a good strong grip and turn it clockwise. Note that mine seems to release a few cups of gray water when I do this (so be sure your gloves are on!). I likely have a small gap or particle in my gray tank release valve seal right now that’s causing it to leak slightly. Ah, the joys of RV ownership…always some small thing to get fixed!

3. Attach the Flush King to the Drain Pipe Bayonet. (Skip this step if not back-flushing). Twist the Flush King counter-clockwise until the 4 little plastic prongs on the RV’s Drain Pipe click into the 4 little C-shaped tabs on the Flush King’s connector. Make VERY SURE that all sides are secure and fully “clicked” into place. The Flush King’s clear pipe should feel like a solid extension of your RV’s drain and should not wobble at all on the bayonet.

4. Remove the end cap from the RV-side of the RhinoFLEX. Twist the cap to unclick it from the hose’s bayonet fitting.

5. Connect the RhinoFLEX to the Flush King. This is the exact same bayonet fitting as in Step 3, so follow the same process to connect it, again being sure that all 4 prongs are securely clicked all the way into the C-shaped grippers (if not back-flushing, you’d simply connect the Rhino directly to the RV drain connector).

6. Remove the black end cap from the Sewer-side of RhinoFLEX and attach the orange threaded fitting. This is a bayonet-type fitting as well. There are 4 small tabs on the hose end that fit corresponding notches on the inside of the end cap or threaded fitting to twist and lock these onto the hose. Whenever possible, it’s better to actually screw the orange threaded fitting into the dump station’s drian pipe and THEN connect the RhinoFLEX to the fitting. But at some dump stations, the drain pipe is unthreaded and just has a metal flapper cover (like this example), so in this situation, I attach the threaded fitting to the hose first.

7. Open the Dump Station’s Sewer Drain Cover. At a dump station, you’ll usually see a metal cap with a little foot lever to open it. At a full hookup RV site, the sewer pipe will usually be a white PVC screw-off cap with a sqaure grip on top.

8. Extend the RhinoFLEX hose and secure it into the Dump Station sewer drain. Again, if the sewer pipe has threads, screw your orange fitting into that first. If the pipe is unthreaded, be sure something heavy rests on top of the Rhino’s white elbow to keep it securely in the sewer drain.

NEWBIE TIP: I once thought that if the sewer pipe didn’t have threads, there’d be no need to connect the orange fitting to the Rhino, and I simply had the white elbow placed directly into the sewer drain. As soon as I release the black tank I realized my error as the hose jumped out of the sewer and spewed my black tank waste all over the dump station. What a mess that was to clean up!

9. Bombs Away! Release the Black Tank contents into the sewer. This is the moment of truth that will confirm whether or not your connections were all securely fastened! I first pull the Black tank valve handle all the way open (out). When I see the tank contents fill up the clear pipe of the Flush King, I then pull open the FK’s valve to let them proceed on to the sewer.

NEWBIE TIP: Keep your hand on the valve and watch the hose/sewer when you first release. If any sign of problems, immediately push the valve closed again. I made the mistake once of opening the valve and walking over to the sewer to watch progress there (remember the tip above about the orange fitting?). Well yep, when the hose jumped out of the drain, my shoes got splashed and trashed, and it seemed like an eternity to get back over to the valve to close it again! Take your time, stay close to the valves and away from the sewer, and don’t let anyone or anything distract you while the valves are open!!!

10. Once the Black Tank is done, Drain the Gray Tank (and back-flush if you are using a Flush King). Now if I didn’t have my Flush King in place, all I’d be doing is rinsing the Rhino hose with the gray water when it drains into the sewer. I’d not have any easy way to rinse the black tank. But with a Flush King, I can back-flush gray water into my Black tank first before sending it down the sewer hose. This cleans out the “leftovers” on the bottom of the black tank before they have time to harden and cause blockages inside the tank later on.

I do the following “dance of the tank valves” sequence to back-flush the black tank. It reads much more complicated than it actually is…trust me!

1. Keeping the black tank valve open, I close the Flush King (FK) valve.
2. I then open the Gray tank valve which fills the FK clear pipe then begins backing up into the open black tank.
3. Once I hear it stop moving, I close the Gray tank valve.
4. I then open the Flush King valve sending the backflushed black tank contents on to the sewer.
5. Once drained, I repeat these 4 steps again to push more gray water over to flush the black tank until I see clear water draining from the black tank (via the Flush King’s clear pipe).
6. I finally close the black tank valve, open the Flush King valve, and then open the gray tank valve to send it’s final contents on their merry way.
7. Once the gray tank is empty, I close the gray tank valve and keep the Flush King valve open another minute or two to ensure everything has drained from the RV drain pipe. I then close the Flush King valve and tank dumping is complete.

NEWBIE TIP: A few times a year, if I want to get my black tank really good and flushed, rather than do the dance of the tank valves with gray water flushing, I hook up a garden hose (NEVER a white fresh water fill hose!) to the hose fitting on the back of the Flush King, and rather than back flush the black tank with gray water, I back fill the tank with water from the garden hose and get the tank filled as much as possible. I repeat this process a couple of times to ensure that the side walls of the black tank are good and clean. This process is easiest performed while at a full hookup campsite where the water spigot and sewer drain are fairly close to each other.

11. Disconnect, drain, & rinse off the RhinoFLEX and Flush King. Stow everything back in the RV and re-attach all caps. Once all valves are closed again, I disconnect the Rhino hose from the Flush King/RV and hold it up directly over the sewer drain. If I have access to a non-potable water supply (most Dump stations have a water spigot like this painted in red and/or has a non-threaded hose attached to it near the sewer drain), I’ll rinse some of this water down the hose into the sewer drain, then I’ll disconnect the orange threaded fitting and Flush King and rinse those items off as well. I’ll then reattach the Rhino end caps and the RV’s drain cap and stow all items back in the RV.

12. Rinse the dump station down, dispose of your gloves, wash hands, refill your black and gray tanks slightly, and be on your way! Proper Dump Station etiquette is to take the non-potable water hose and rinse off the area around the sewer drain and beneath your RV’s drain pipe.to ensure the station is clean for the next RVer to use it. NEVER use this water supply to fill your fresh water tank. There will usually be another water spigot further away for that purpose.

Once the Dump Station is back in order, come into the RV to wash up and refill your tanks with a gallon or two of water to prevent the tank bottoms from drying out (run the kitchen faucet and toilet sprayer a minute or two).

If there are line of RVs behind you, you’re best best is to skip the Flush King back-flushing process, quickly dump your black and then your gray tanks, and save the back-flushing for another day.

Sewer Hose Usage at Full Hookup Sites – the great debate!

Some folks think because they have a full hookup site, they must drag out the sewer hose and connect it as soon as they arrive. I suppose if you’re planning to stay at in-place for over a week, that might make good sense, but otherwise, keep your hose packed away from the harsh sun and only bring it out when you need to dump. My RhinoFLEX is now 2 years old with no signs of pinhole leaks or other problems due to exposure to the elements.

NEWBIE TIP: If you do plan to stay at one site awhile and hook up your sewer hose, do NOT keep the black tank valve open! Not only will you get some pretty strong sewer smells whenever you flush your RV toilet, you’re also very likely to develop a dried up “pyramid” at the bottom of your black tank due to insufficient liquids to keep things afloat.

Now I guarantee that you’ve just spent more time reading this lengthy post than it will actually take you to dump your tanks! But after dumping a few times, you’ll have the process down. While I’m not sure any RVer ever comes to love tank-dumping, girls that dump their own tanks certainly will feel a sense of accomplishment and independence! Go ahead, give it a try!

Taking the Lincoln Highway home

2011-09-25T22:34:00.000-05:00

In keeping with my desire to travel the backroads rather than Interstate highways whenever possible, I decided to take the Lincoln Highway (US Route 30) most of the way back home to Chicago.

The Lincoln Highway through Pennsylvania is a wonderfully “authentic” road with many of the farms, forests, and small towns virtually unchanged since the road was new nearly 90 years ago. It was foggy in some of the higher elevations, and fall colors were beginning to show on the foliage.

As I got closer to Pittsburgh, the sun peeked out from the clouds briefly to create this pretty rainbow over a Lowe’s store.

I’d never been to Pittsburgh before but it looked like a really interesting town. I was losing daylight by the time I’d cleared the traffic jam into downtown so could only catch a few shots as I drove through.

By the time I reached the tiny panhandle section of West Virginia, it was dark. I continued on to my stop for the night—a Wal-Mart in the central Ohio town of Coshocton.

The next morning, I passed through a few Amish farms in central Ohio. This was an interesting placement for a buggy warning sign (beneath an electric tower!)

But soon enough, I saw a few buggies on the road on with folks coming and going to the bustling town of Mount Vernon. There was a farmer’s market in the town square that I would have loved to go to… if only I could have found a parking space for my own little motorhome buggy!

It rained buckets during my drive along US 30 through Indiana, so no pictures there. But, as I rolled through downtown Chicago, the sun came out again… Hi-dee Ho! Sweet Home Chicago!

Visiting the Flight 93 National Memorial

2011-09-23T22:03:00.000-05:00

I had recently read about Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama visiting the new Flight 93 National Memorial during the park’s dedication on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and had watched a couple of movies during the 9/11 anniversary weekend about the passengers of Flight 93 who fought back against their highjackers and averted them from their likely target of the US Capitol. Since I was planning to travel across southern Pennsylvania on the Lincoln Highway, I decided to make a stop at this newest national park site.

Flight 93 crashed in a farm field in the Laurel Highlands area of Pennsylvania near Shanksville. The land of this small valley is now entirely owned by the Memorial Park with the exception of one hilltop where the previous owner’s barn and home are located. The park is still so new, that the front entrance sign was still being painted when I arrived.
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Only the first phase of the park’s construction is complete, but it achieves it’s goals quite well already. it’s a solemn, reflective, and yet very powerfully moving place. There is currently an entrance plaza area with a building that features a small enclosed room with two large covered areas on either side.

Inside the enclosed room is a bulletin board where visitors can leave handwritten messages pinned to the wall.

Beyond the building is a long solemn black granite walkway that flanks the actual crashsite on one side, and the large open rolling hills on the other. At the end of the walkway is a long row of tall marble slabs with the name of each passenger inscribed on each slab, appropriately called the “Wall of Names”. A large wood gate allows family members of the passengers to walk out to the crash site itself. No other visitors are allowed on that ground. Various personal memorials that family members had left from the recent park dedication ceremony on 9/11 were still present reminding us that these names on stones were husbands, daughters, mothers, and brothers to the many people who still love and miss them.

On the entrance plaza are a series of signs that explain the events of this fateful flight and it’s passengers.

There is still much more to be constructed at this park. Fifty percent of the funding is relying on private donations. To learn more, visit: http://www.honorflight93.org/

Assateague Adieu

2011-09-22T23:39:00.000-05:00

On our last day at Assateague Island, the sun finally peaked out a bit briefly just after sunrise as Millie and I took our morning walk along the beach overlooking the Atlantic.

Millie enjoyed romping around and dipping her toes in the surf--

We returned to the RV for breakfast and to work the rest of the day. Ah, work is so much easier when doing it from the beach in my favorite lounge chair!

I kept my eye on the weather throughout the day and by late afternoon, a flash flood advisory had been issued for the island, all of Delmarva, as well as the Baltimore-DC area. A very large group of storms to the south were planning to dump up to 3-4 inches of rain on the area overnight. Since I was camping without hookups anyway, I decided I had better not stay the night and had better leave before dinner to make my way inland before the storms arrived.

I got the rig packed up, toad hitched up, and we made a brief stop at the dump station. The ponies had not been through the campground all day, but they instinctively trotted into the dump station as if to tell me farewell and happy travels.

On my way out, I stopped in Ocean City for dinner and lucked into a wonderful place called Waterman’s Seafood Company where I had a delicious, traditional Maryland dinner of Crabcakes and Hush Puppies. Honestly the best crabcakes I’d ever had in my whole life!

It started raining as we left to drive across the Delmarva peninsula. The long Bay Bridge that connects Delmarva to the landlocked side of Maryland near Annapolis was something I was very glad I drove across at night—it was a number of miles long, and except for the tallest portion (which was a suspension bridge with concrete guard rails), the rest of the bridge just had open metal guard rails…yikes!

We made our way through Baltimore and spent the night at a Wal-Mart in Frederick, thankfully out of much of the storm’s path.

Paddling with Ponies

2011-09-21T22:29:00.000-05:00

Remember the movie “Dances with Wolves” about the guy who lived surrounded by wolves? Well, my couple of days living on Assateague Island surrounded by wild ponies seemed like a similar experience. This island is certainly theirs and we humans must abide by their rules! But in return, they’ll let us camp on their island, use their beach, paddle their bay, and take lots of pictures of them!

The road to Assateague Island was tree-lined and curvy:

The bridge over the bay is the only way to get on/off the island other than via boat.

The island is home to a Maryland state park as well as the national seashore park and a small herd of ponies greeted us immediately as we reached the island:

I also spotted two miniature deer that looked very similar to the Key Deer I’d seen on Big Pine Key in Florida last winter:

We had a spectacular campsite right on the ocean beach at the National Seashore campground. No hook-ups, but since the temperature was in the low 70’s and upper 60’s each day, we didn’t need heating or cooling. To top it off, I had great cell and internet signals from here so it was a great place to work from the beach!

But first, Millie had to walk the boardwalk and check that beach out! She doesn’t like to swim in oceans, but she certainly likes to run in and out of the waves!

We enjoyed a pretty sunset sky on our first night on the island.

With no electricity, it got very dark on the island at night. I took Millie out for her final walk before bedtime and used my big flashlight. As we walked the camp road, I saw a small white object crawling sideways across the road….it was a crab! I must have scared it half to death by pointing a flashlight at it! Millie was rather curious too--- never had seen a crab on her evening walks before!

It rained most of the second day we were on the island, but there was a brief reprieve in the late afternoon, so I decided to get quickly over to the bay to go kayaking before the next wave of rain came in. Only one problem…a herd of ponies decided to come visit the campground and were determined to block every single car in the campground from leaving! (they actually were so fun to watch no one wanted to leave).

This little gal decided to call my campsite home for a while:

Finally, I decided I had to make a run for it. I started the car and began to back up. Ut oh, rats!, blocked by a pony behind me!

Ok, well I’ll just drive forward to get out of here….neyyy!!! Think again yellow car!!!

These ponies actually seemed to be laughing at me… ha ha, camper, we own ya now!!!

Well, after this bit of horse play, they finally let me go on my way. The bayside boat launch was wonderful, and Millie and I were on the water fairly quickly to go check out another herd of ponies grazing on a small island.

These ponies are good swimmers too and think nothing of swimming over to another island if the food looks more appealing.

There were lots of egrets enjoying the marshland as well:

The clouds began to roll in so we had to paddle back to shore and call it a day, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable hour on the water…and very glad the ponies allowed us to do so!

49 states in 49 years!

2011-09-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

While the two main reasons for my quick trip out East were to see the Hershey RV show and to camp at Assateague Island, my third reason was to visit Delaware for the first time (my 49th visited state!). So now, only one more state to go (and hoping I’ve saved the best for last!)… Hawaii. I’ll save that for next year to take the gloom off of turning the big 5-0

Before getting to Delaware, I spent a few days getting to know Pennsylvania better. I’d experienced the “edges” of this state a number of times (Philadelphia for business a few times, visited Gettysburg as a kid, and drove the toll road along the Lake Erie shore), but had never driven and explored the broad interior of the state before. I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed!

I drove to Hershey via the northern East-West route of I-80 and then turned near State College (home of Penn State) to drive through the mountains and along the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers into Harrisburg and over to Hershey. Even though it was a cloudy day, the hills, rivers, and farmlands made for a scenic and tranquil drive!

I camped a few days at the Hershey Thousand Trails Preserve RV Park. I’m not a Thousand Trails member yet, but my emergency road service, Coach-Net, offered a discount deal if I purchased a ReadyCampGo card through the company that owns Thousand Trails and Encore resorts, ELS. For a $25 annual fee, I get 15 nights of camping at an ELS resort at a discounted rate of $25/night. A great no-risk way to test out ELS parks to see if I might want to buy one of their broader memberships in the future. While a number of these parks also participate in the discount camping program I already subscribe to (Passport America, which offers 50% off the nightly rate on typically weekday and/or off-season stays), the ReadyCampGo card will offer a discounted rate for the times when the PA-rate is not available(weekends and in-season).

Hershey Preserve had just been flooded the week before by the torrential tropical storm rains that impacted much of the region, but fortunately, all except for one road within the park were now fully recovered. That one closed road, though, made it very challenging to get to this site!

When you make a reservation at Thousand Trails, they don’t assign you to a campsite, but rather just tell you how many campsites remain. As I was arriving on a Saturday, I knew that first night only had between 1-19 sites available. When I arrived to the front gate, the park rep gave me a map and said I could go pick out any open site I wished. While this normally is a great system, it’s not so great when there’s only 1-19 open sites in the huge park of 200+ sites, one of the main roads is closed, you’re towing a car and can’t back up, and the gate agent gives you absolutely no clue where the 1-19 available sites might be located……get a clue where this is going yet?

Yep, I finally experienced getting stuck in a spot for the first time where I couldn’t turn around and needed to un-hook the toad to back up. Of course that happened just as it also started to pour rain! So, let’s just say that my first impression of a Thousand Trails park was not very favorable

Fortunately, I had brought my little Dahon folding bike, so I just parked the toad where I unhitched it, put the bike in the motor home to go find the ever elusive available open sites, and once finally found, road my bike back to pick up the toad—fortunately, by then it had stopped raining!

After getting a good night’s rest, the park looked much more pleasing in the morning, and I actually ended up liking the park. Sites were fairly big, there was a nice pond and walking trails, and oodles of amenities that I unfortunately didn’t have time to enjoy. I also, unfortunately, didn’t have any time to explore the town of Hershey and it’s many tourist attractions after spending all day at the RV show, but it certainly looked like a pretty little town with lots to see and do. I’ll need to plan a longer visit here next time!

Lots of Canada geese call this park home as well!

After working a few days from the RV, I drove to my next destination of Assateague Island, Maryland, where I planned to work a few more days from there. The drive took me through a number of small towns in southeast Pennsylvania. The towns all seem to have houses that are built similar to businesses and come right up to the sidewalks.

I also drove the backroads of Lancaster county where many Amish farms are located. Lots of horse-drawn buggies on the roads, and a few even had turn signals!

You can tell you’re approaching an Amish farmhouse when you see the laundry out drying on the clothesline!

After all the interesting scenery of Lancaster county, the drive through Delaware was much less memorable. The large peninsula known as “Delmarva” (Delaware/Maryland/Virginia), is fairly flat with coastal beaches on the Atlantic, numerous marshland coves on the bay side, and mostly farmland in between.

The biggest thing in Delaware (that I saw, at least) was Dover Air Force Base. It’s huge, and home to the biggest transport planes in the military--.

Dover also serves as the main mortuary for troops killed overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan before they are returned home to their families. An excellent movie, Taking Chance, featured some of the dignified work the personnel at Dover do to ensure each fallen soldier is prepared impeccably for their final trip home.

Delaware is only about 100 miles long, so in less than 2 hours I was now entering Maryland for the final leg of my trip to Assateague Island.

The Sweetest Place on Earth–Hershey RV Show!

2011-09-18T23:50:00.000-05:00

Hershey, PA is not only home to America’s largest chocolate maker (thus, the town calls itself the “Sweetest Place on Earth”), but it’s also home to America’s Largest RV Show. I had watched the annual special on HGTV called, RV 2011, RV 2010, etc. for a few years and always wanted to come see the show “live” in September (rather than have to wait until January for the TV show to air!), so with my trip out East already planned for Fall, I decided to make Hershey a stop!

This is indeed a massively large RV show! It runs 5 days, takes up a large stadium and much of the parking lot around it, and has many smaller RV manufacturers in attendance who don’t normally go to the other RV shows around the country. So, it was a great show to see some new and different things!

I had hoped to come a week early to attend the RV-Dreams Rally, but my work schedule was not going to be able to swing the time off. I still decided to stay at the park where the rally had been held, Thousand Trails Hershey Preserve. I wanted to try and meet Howard & Linda, but my timing was a bit late as I watched them roll past my rig this morning on their way to their next destination.

But, I did get a great opportunity to meet another travel blogger today, Suzanne (who also reads my blog). We met up at the show to peruse Winnebago’s many RVs on display. Suzanne is hoping to full-time soon and is shopping for her 1st RV. What a dizzying array of choices at the show for her to consider!

I have no idea what models the upcoming HGTV RV 2012 show will feature, but here are the ones that I found most interesting:

Small Travel Trailers:

The manufacturer who recently purchased and revived my beloved T@B brand, Little Guy, did not attend the show. Little Guy is currently only making one of the T@B floorplans, leaving those wishing for the old T@B clamshell model out of luck. But never fear, the new-aged retro trailer brand, R-Pod, now has a clamshell available…and it even has a slide-out as well as a full bath on the inside! Pretty nifty:

Travel Trailers:
I’ve not seen Airstream attend an RV Show in over 5 years (apparently, they don’t think they need to), but there’s a new competitor aimed to give them a run for their money, Element RV. Priced similar to Airstream (i.e. “expensive”), the Element uses modern materials and technology throughout it’s 24-26 foot designs. No wood is used in the trailer at all, and the interiors are as “Euro” as I’ve ever seen for an American-made RV.

5th-Wheels:
There were plenty of boring white box 5th-Wheels on display with boring conservative interiors, but a few started to break the mold. Among these, this Elite Suites model featured windows that were not only flush-mounted, but “skinned” in the same paint scheme to become nearly invisible!

The interior of the Elite Suites was fairly conservative except for the neon blue accent lighting!

But, without a doubt, the most innovative 5th wheels on display were those from Open Range. Here’s their 39’ model that has usual TV and fireplace, but also has a patio door leading to a large fold-out balcony!

The bathroom is innovative as well—a glass vessel sink!

And in the kitchen, a center island with a twist—it’s on wheels, and easily moves to where ever you want it!

Open Range did a very neat thing on one of their shorter 5th Wheel models. They put folding countertop panels on the rolling island and made it double as the dinette! Ingenious!

Class B and B+ Motorhomes:
The usual camper van manufacturers were there, such as Roadtek and Pleasure Way, but a few “B+” manufacturers were there as well, namely, Coachhouse Platinum and Born Free. The Coach House 261XL CL on display was very intriguing for a “work from the road” RV’er—one of the benches of the dinette had been replaced with a free-standing dinette chair (which could easily be removed and replaced with an office chair if desired. Finally! Someone “gets” it! Only problem was this coach was $135,000!

Born Free had some nice units too—exceptionally sturdy construction, but rather limited in interior décor options.

Class C Motorhomes
Of course, my vote here goes to the Winnebago View! It still was the highest-quality construction of any Class C’s I saw. But for most outrageously innovative Class C? That winner would be this Super C model with it’s own garage for your Nascar racer, and a balcony on the roof to watch the race from! Insane!

Class A Motorhomes:
Tiffin and Winnebago had some very nice, high-quality Class A’s on display (I liked the interior décor of the Winnebago better, though). If I were wanting a giant motorhome to replace my house, the Winnebago Journey 40U would certainly be on my short list!

But for pure design innovation, the Monaco Vesta was quite different looking on the outside. Unfortunately, the interior was not as efficient or innovative.

Park Models:
The largest units of wheels look more like mini-mobile homes and are meant to be semi-permanently parked at an RV resort. I really liked this unit by Fork Creek. At $79,000, it wasn’t much more than a 5th Wheel, but had vaulted ceilings, a full sized kitchen, a computer desk nook, and a neat mirror in the bedroom that allowed the TV behind it to project through the glass!

After a long day at the show, my feet were sore and it was a long walk back to the parking lot. Where, oh where, did I park my car?

I really love having my little yellow Tracker!!!

Revisiting Summertime Scenes of My Childhood

2011-08-20T23:33:00.000-05:00

After my long drive across Kansas, stopping for the night in the small town of Iola would seem like an unusual destination. But actually, it was my main reason for routing home through Kansas in the first place!

My new ReadyBrute towbar with built-in surge braking, just didn’t feel like it was kicking in very much when I was descending steep passes in Colorado. Yes, the little dash light was coming on saying that the surge mechanism was activating, but I wasn’t feeling much of a difference in braking. My dealer had admitted they’d never installed a ReadyBrute/ReadyBrake system before, so I decided to have my setup inspected by the experts themselves—the folks who make ‘em, Night Shift Auto (NSA RV Products) in Iola, Kansas.

It just so happens that the little town of Iola also had a nice, quiet and CHEAP campground (Passport-America rate of only $11/night for full-hookups, wow!), so it was a very RV-friendly town to spend the night..

I arrived at the NSA “corporate headquarters” just after they opened in the morning:

The supervisor on duty came out to the parking lot to see my setup and turned right around to get a few hand tools. The surge brake cable had indeed been set too loose by my dealer and was not activating the toad brakes at all. He also noticed some clamps had been installed on the wrong side of the cables and corrected that. Within 5 minutes, he had everything adjusted properly and showed me how to do it. I offered to pay him for his time, but he humbly refused.

It’s so refreshing to see an honest company making a solid product, selling it at a decent price, and then standing behind it with excellent service! I’m so glad I purchased this towing system versus some of the bigger corporate brands. If you’re ever considering towing a car behind a motorhome, check out all the positive comments about Ready Brake on RV.net and other forums. Highly recommended!

After leaving Iola, I took a brief drive through Fort Scott, Kansas. Very neat historic town, but I unfortunately didn’t have time to stay long:

It was then on to the state I was born in, Missouri. Continuing along Highway 54, the hills began to get a bit bigger as I got into the Ozarks.

My earliest childhood memories were of the family driving along these rolling hills to and from my grandparents’ house at Lake of the Ozarks for summer vacations. My grandfather spent a number of years building their retirement house at the end of Lookout Point. He built a long deck that wrapped around 2 sides of the house and overlooked the first long stretch of the lake near Bagnell Dam.

We all used to sit out on the deck in the summer watching the sun set over the lake and listening to the big tour boats go by—The Tom Sawyer, the Larry Don, and the Commander. For a few summers, my grandfather owned a motorboat and would take us cruising on the lake. At lake-level, those tour boats seemed massive, and the waves from their wake were the biggest and most-feared on the lake (especially the Commander’s!).

I was eager to see “the Strip” again, where my grandparents would take me and my brother for countless hours of fun at the arcades, the go-kart track, the bumper cars, the fudge shop, and various other tacky tourist shops. The old Frosty root beer stand, where we used to get root beer floats in big frosty glass mugs, had closed years ago when the 4-lane bypass highway was opened. The Ozark Opry, where we’d go to hear a cheesy country musical show kind of like “Hee Haw” was also long gone. But, there were still some familiar sites along the Strip that were still going strong, now almost 40 years later (ugh!)…. Dogpatch was still the same:

I used to spend hours there playing skee ball to exchange my long strands of tickets for desirable prizes such as plastic rings, yo-yos, or rubber snakes!

The go-kart place was still going strong as well:

My little brother used to always beat me racing at this track. He still beats me today when racing our Subaru Outbacks too…must have been that training he learned here!

The tacky tourist shops were changed a bit, but the buildings were still the same

And the old bumper car place was still there too!

I was amazed to see the little church my grandfather had preached at for many years, Lake Ozark Christian Church, now expanded to triple it’s original size!

As I got to Bagnell Dam, I was saddened to see that most attractions there were out of business (on the positive side, it did make parking my View with tow car much easier).

All 3 of the big tour boats were still docked at the end of the Strip, but upon closer inspection, they didn’t look as if they’d sailed in a few years (perhaps the Tom Sawyer still is, but it was closed on the day I was there in the prime of August summer season, which did not seem to be a very good sign).

The Larry Don and Commander looked in far worse shape:

But curiously, it appeared as if their dock area was being renovated and railing was freshly painted. Perhaps a rebirth awaits these 2 old boats next summer??? I do hope so!

The Dam itself seemed completely unchanged—still as narrow as ever to drive across, and I was thankful to do it in my “Skinnie Winnie” rather than a big Class A!

My grandmother sold the house at the lake in the mid-1980s to move back to Kansas City after my grandfather died. We knew the people who purchased it had planned to add on to it and make some big changes. Seems like many people were starting to do that with the original houses along the lake at that time, and new construction was absolutely insane during the 1990s and early 2000’s. So, I was a bit apprehensive as to what I might find when I drove down their old street to see our old house.

The top of the street and most non-lakefront houses all looked amazingly the same:

But my grandparents’ house and the house next to it at the end of the point were completely unrecognizable. My grandparents used to have a white ranch house with a front yard, little vegetation, and no garage. In back, my grandfather had cleared the trees on 2 sides of the house to get large lake views from the deck. The new owners, however, seemed to have gone an entirely different approach—no front yard at all (consumed by vegetation and a large 2 car garage), and prime lake views out back now appeared to be completely overgrown. Strange, very strange.

In the cove across from my grandparents’, used to be a cute little motel called “The Lighthouse”. It was low-key, surrounded by lots of trees and nature, and quiet. Well, the condo boom of the 1990’s seemed to eliminate that kind of thing. Now the view of the quant, quiet cove had a massive condo building with huge boat docks.

There seemed to be monster condo buildings and big boat docks at the end of every cove along the lake, and while boat traffic on the lake always seemed to be busy in the summers I was there, it now seemed unimaginably congested with the advent of cheap jet skis. Certainly no longer a soothing, peaceful place to spend the summer. They say “you can never go home again” and in this case, the saying seemed painfully true.

I was very glad I’d decided not to spend the night at the lake, and instead head on to Jefferson City. But before I got there, I took one final detour through the little town of Eldon, Mo—the one and only town my grandmother ever learned to drive to after getting her drivers license at the chipper age of 65! She was forced to learn to drive after my grandfather had died, and she did learn how to slowly drive her big Olds 88 sedan with a V8 engine up to Eldon every few days to go to the grocery store, the drug store, the bank, and the beauty shop….no other driving destinations than those!

Back then, most shopping was done along Eldon’s main street, and I was happy to see it looking pretty much unchanged:

In the 1970’s, Eldon was one of the first places I remember ever seeing a Wal-Mart. They were small stores back then, and Eldon’s Wal-Mart still continues to be on the smaller side as Wal-Marts go:

I arrived at my campsite at Binder Park in Jefferson City around dinner time. Nice little city-owned park with a nice lake that Millie, of course, had to swim in!

After dinner, we took a quick drive downtown to see the Capital. In Missouri, you can still drive up pretty close to it:

The next morning, one of my old college radio friends drove down from Columbia to meet me for breakfast at this great little diner, the Towne Grill. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly 30 years, but due to Facebook, got reconnected a few months ago, and our conversation seemed to pick right up where it’d left off without missing a beat!

Mary is one of only two I know from our class of Communications majors from Stephens College that has managed to stay employed in the industry all these years. She’s currently a news reporter for the state-wide radio network and is still passionate for the pursuit of knowledge and unbiased journalism. What an energizing way to start the day!

After breakfast, I returned to pack up camp and hit the road to head home. It was a fairly long, boring drive along old, familiar roads. We crossed three big rivers—the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Illinois

Saw a neat courthouse in the town of Pittsfield, IL:

and finally ended our 6-week roadtrip with a nice sunset!

Driving across Kansas on “the Family Highway” 54

2011-08-19T16:56:00.000-05:00

From the time I was a kid, I learned of my grandparents’ strong connection to US Highway 54. They both grew up in small towns along this highway in Kansas. When they got married in the summer of 1935, they drove hours along this highway (in their un-air conditioned Model T Ford!!!) to get to the bigger highways that would take them east to Niagara Falls. Many years later, when they retired to Lake of the Ozarks, Mo, Highway 54 was right there with them—as their daily route over Bagnell Dam into town. Coincidentally, my grandmother’s 3 sisters happened to also retire to a Highway 54 town (El Dorado, Kansas).

Visiting my grandparents every summer at the lake as a kid, I’d driven along Highway 54 in Missouri many times, but I had never been west of Wichita on this route, so was eager to explore it.

There were two towns in particular that I was most interested in seeing on this western stretch—my grandfather’s hometown of Kingman, and the little town that literally got nearly wiped off the map a few years ago by a massive tornado, Greensburg, Kansas.

Hundreds of small towns in Kansas look very much the same: a Main Street downtown of a few blocks of old buildings, a few streets still paved with bricks rather than asphalt, large shade trees lining the streets, and a variety of pre-WWII modest wood-framed houses of various shapes and sizes. That these towns have managed to stay relatively intact over 100 years while being in the “Tornado Alley” portion of the Great Plains is quite amazing. Greensburg, Kansas used to be one of these towns.

Four years ago, an EF5 tornado destroyed 95% of the town leaving it to look like this. In the face of such devastation, the city decided to rebuild as a “green” city requiring all new buildings to meet LEED standards and making substantial use of Wind and Solar energy.

Today, the town is strikingly unique. A new main street--

with modern, “green” buildings:

New subdivisions with newly planted lawns:

And, even 4 years later, the rebuilding still continues:

But small pieces of the older buildings and branchless trees still remain as a reminder of just how far they’ve come:

Another 100 or so miles east of Greenburg, was my grandfather’s hometown of Kingman, Kansas. He was the 11th of 12 children who were all expected to drop out of school after the 8th grade to work on the family farm full-time until they were of legal adult age.

My grandfather was born in 1897, so little chance of locating the family farm on this visit, but I did find that this prominent downtown building (now the town historical museum) happened to also be built in 1897.

If my grandfather were still alive today, I’d bet he’d still feel right at home walking in downtown Kingman. The brick-paved roads and many buildings from his time are still there:

and even the Drug Store still has a soda fountain!

My grandmother grew up east of Wichita in the small town of Augusta, Kansas. She was the youngest of 4 daughters to a railroad man and his piano teacher wife. My grandfather moved to Augusta just as my grandmother was finishing high school. He was a number of years older and had managed to spend time outside of Kansas (after leaving the farm) catching up on his missed education (graduating from high school as well as college), working in Washington, DC, and starting two career paths—as a portrait photographer, and as a minister.

He opened a photography studio in downtown Augusta and was hired to take my grandmother’s senior class photo—he always said she was the prettiest girl in the class! A few months later, my grandmother’s oldest sister began working at the studio and officially introduced them.

There’s still a photography studio in downtown Augusta today!

and an art deco movie theater from my grandparents’ time:

Millie liked seeing this Drive-In with her name on it:

and Augusta also had a brick-paved downtown:

as well as it’s old-fashioned drug store:

After seeing downtown, I headed to the town cemetery where my grandmother, her sisters, all their husbands, and their parents were laid to rest. On this extremely hot and humid day in August, there was a soothing breeze beneath the shade trees and the smell of cedar from the evergreens lining the long driveway. A nice place to remember loved ones.

The final town visited was El Dorado, about 10 miles east of Augusta, where we often visited my grandmother’s 3 sisters who had retired there. On one visit, they proudly took us to the new Chinese restaurant in town. As Asian waitresses were rather hard to come by, a few blond haired Kansas farm kids served up our Chinese lunches accompanied by garlic bread as an appetizer!

My aunts would be amazed that today, the Chinese restaurant has been remodeled into a trendy PF Chang-ish bistro!

But the Braum’s Ice Cream shop across the street is still the exact same as it was 20 years ago. Downtown El Dorado looked pretty much the same as well.

A few miles north and east of El Dorado we drove through the pretty Flint Hills before reaching our campground in the small town of Iola, Kansas.

Getting the heck outta Dodge

2011-08-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

After my wonderful time in authentic Old West towns of Colorado such as Silverton, I was expecting Dodge City, Kansas to also have quite a bit of it’s Old West heritage preserved as well.

Unfortunately, not so much.

Sure, there was Wyatt Earp Drive (the main street through town), and Boot Hill, but the Old West buildings there were a bit too new and perfect-looking compared to the more authentic ones I’d just seen in Colorado:

Or maybe it was the fact that they built a modern Applebee’s restaurant right next to this attraction, but I decided to not pay to tour this place and moved along to see other the other sites.

They seemed to have a pretty good-sized downtown

But there is no doubt that the main industry in town these days is meat packing, and it’s quite a production. Much, much larger than the so-called “Beef Capital of the World” (Hereford, TX) that I passed through last February.

This slaughterhouse was one of a couple big ones in town. Hundreds of trucks coming and going. The night before, I had noticed a lot of cattle trucks on the road. Seems like they make the rounds to all the cattle feed lots mainly at night, and by the next morning, nothing but a few hundred mundane-looking refrigerated trucks wait in the parking lot. Dodge City seems ideally located for this kind of operation—way off the beaten path of Interstate highways and far away from view of suburbanites gobbling up their $1 Happy Meals without a care in the world. Somehow, I think the cowboys of the Old West would be appalled by this.kind of corporate hyper-automation. No more “Home on the Range” herding grass-fed cattle across large expanses of open range land…unless you happen to be in New Mexico!.

Riding along the Santa Fe Trail

2011-08-17T23:41:00.000-05:00

While driving down some of the steep passes in Colorado, I noticed that my toad brakes didn’t seem to be coming on unless I really stepped firmly on the motorhome brakes. The ReadyBrake system is a mechanical surge brake, so it should certainly be activating automatically when descending a steep hill (similar to how the surge brake on my T@B trailer did).

I noticed ReadyBrake was located in Kansas and called to see if they might be able to inspect and adjust my setup and they were more than willing to. So, I planned my return route home through Kansas and thought I’d try staying off the Interstates and seeing some more backroad scenery.

I’d driven a short bit of the Old Santa Fe trail while in Santa Fe, and thought it might be fun to take that route from New Mexico into Kansas and set my first day’s destination for the old Wild West town of Dodge City.

To get there, I first needed to cross over one last range of mountains via the curvy downhill turns of Highway 64 east of Taos. The drive was relatively uneventful up to the town of Eagle Nest, but skies were growing darker..

Still, it wasn’t raining so we continued eastward into the final range of mountains.

As the road became curvy again, it began following a mountain stream that looked like it might make a pretty lunch spot. By the time I found an area to pull off, the skies were now getting pretty dark. I went back to start making my lunch, and not two minutes later the skies opened up and it began hailing and raining something fierce! Now, other cars were pulling off the highway as well. I was SO thankful I had pulled over when I did!

It poured for nearly half an hour before we could safely get on the road again. Fortunately, nothing got damaged, and we stayed inside the RV and dry the whole time. By the time we reached Cimarron, it had stopped raining entirely and never rained again on us the rest of the day.

I had thought the town of Cimarron would be more touristy as it was an important historical town along the Santa Fe trail, but other than a few large commemorative signs of the famous cowboys such as Kit Carson, there was really nothing at all to see—the town was run-down with no real businesses or attractions.

As we got past Springer, NM, the landscape really began to open up. Mountains were now behind us and nothing but 500 miles of prairie ahead of us. I can’t imagine what the pioneer wagon train families must have gone through to drive this trail. But I was sure glad my little Conestoga wagon had air conditioning, a fridge, a potty, running water, and could travel this route in hours rather than days!

There were still some signs along the New Mexico portion of the trail, that the landscape had not changed much since the wagon train days:

There were still a few real live cowboys (galloping along on horses rather than ATVs no less!)

and a few old buildings that looked authentic:

and cows roaming home on the range.

As we crossed into Kansas, we drove through countless small dilapidated towns that seemed to be hanging on by a thread:

But nearly every one of them had a large grain elevator:

And miles of grain growing in the fields surrounding each town..

The evening skies of Western Kansas weren’t quite as dramatic as Taos, but they were pretty close!

We rolled into Dodge City just after nightfall and made our way to the Wal-Mart where we spent a hot but uneventful night.

The other sites of Taos

2011-08-16T21:25:00.000-05:00

The super friendly owner of Taos Monte Bello RV Park pulled out a local tourist map while I was registering and gave me a full run-down on all the sites to see—the downtown plaza, the Pueblo, the churches, the Rio Grande bridge, and even the shortcut routes the locals take to get around the daily traffic jam downtown!

So during my time before and after work, I tried to do a few quick tours to see a few things. The Rio Grande bridge was just a couple miles from the RV park and incredible to think that what looked so narrow a river here was so wide next to the river road I’d taken to get up to Taos!

I quickly toured around the downtown plaza one night before all the shops closed:

Also downtown is Kit Carson’s house, but unfortunately it was already closed for the night:

Of course, what trip to Taos would be complete without a trip through Julia Roberts’ neighborhood! Julia has a 100-acre ranch here, but sadly, she was out of town so I wasn’t able to bump into her at the organic grocery store!

I didn’t have enough time to visit historic Taos Pueblo (they also wanted a pretty hefty photo fee to do so), so on my last morning in Taos, I visited the church at Ranchos de Taos that Georgia O’Keefe had painted and Ansel Adams had photographed, San Francisco de Asis Mission. Wow!

The buildings in the plaza surrounding the church are also on the National Historic Register and were just a vibrant:

I really hope to return here again soon some day to spend more time in this wonderful place!

The Magnificent Skies of Taos!

2011-08-15T22:40:00.000-05:00

Every time I start to grumble a bit about my job, I think about the flexibility it allows me to work from magnificent places such as Taos. For as stressful and demanding as a “virtual office” workday might be, at day’s end, I can shut down the laptop, walk out the RV and take a sunset stroll in the desert.

Our campground, Taos Monte Bello RV Park, was located outside of town on the mesa top with nothing around to block the 360-degree views of the the skies and mountains. I lucked out with a site at the end of the park—a front row view of the sunset each night!

and the sunsets were indeed….glorious!

The afternoon light before sunset was also pretty amazing in Taos. Must be something to do with the mountain backdrops, but I couldn’t help hang my camera out the car window as I drove past some of these scenes!

One night, as if Taos was trying to “one up” itself for the “Best skies in America” designation, it pulled out all the stops and gave me this wonderful little rainbow to enjoy. Taos, New Mexico is indeed the “Land of Enchantment!”

Down to Santa Fe via Four Corners

2011-08-14T21:59:00.000-05:00

I had never been to the Four Corners before, so since I was only about 45 miles away, I decided to swing by to see it on my way to New Mexico.

Just west of the large mesa where Mesa Verde is located, the landscape immediately begins looking like all those old western cowboy movies and TV shows. Flat, dry valleys with a few large buttes in the distance. I kept thinking I’d see a stagecoach roll by! But I did see some tumbleweed roll across the road.

The Four Corners monument is on Navajo land, and since they’ve made quite a tourist attraction out of it, they wanted an admission fee of $3 per person. No big deal for a solo traveler, but a large family might re-think the value of stopping here. It was basically a concrete plaza with markers showing each of the four state boundaries (Arizona, Utah, Colorado & New Mexico). There were a number of benches, but tourists were mainly just coming to take their pictures at the marker itself. Surrounding the plaza were vendor booths where tribal residents could sell their wares. There didn’t seem like much to look at or to buy.

It was pretty amusing to see how creative each person wanted to get with their photo pose—some got down on all fours with their butt sticking up in the air! Others did the backbend gymnastics move (stomach up). I decided to just go the lame boring route--- sorry folks!

I had hoped to get a shot of Millie on the corners, but discovered that dogs are not allowed on the plaza, so Millie had to stay with all the other dogs in their motorhomes.

So, within about 15 minutes, we were on our way again and had “been there, done that” with the Four Corners Monument!

The drive to Santa Fe was long and fairly boring, with the exception of the large rock formation called Shiprock, which could be seen for at least 60 miles!

I originally thought I’d overnight in a Wal-Mart parking lot just north of Santa Fe, but when I parked and went to start up the generator it would not start—no sound at all. So, on to Plan B and trying to locate a campground at 6:00pm on a Friday night!

Fortunately, I had good cell service and my trusty iPhone/iPad app called Camp & RV to quickly locate and call nearby campgrounds.

This app is a “must-have” for every RV’er! I don’t like to make advanced reservations that often, so I use this app nearly every day when traveling to find my best overnight option—be it a Wal-Mart parking lot or a campground. If you don’t have a Apple device, it’s also available for Android phones, or for free via any web browser.

Side Note: A few days later when using this app, I happened to submit feedback to the developer (there’s an easy link in the app to do so). He responded right away and we had a nice email chat. Turns out, he’s also a View owner and happens to live in Santa Fe! Too bad I didn’t realize this when I was there, but Adam seems like a great guy and very dedicated to making the data in his apps as current and accurate as humanly possible. Thanks for the app, Adam!

Ok, back to our originally scheduled program . I called and found a nice campground to stay at for the weekend, Rancheros de Santa Fe, so with reservations now made, I could now relax and enjoy the evening again!

With all the driving we did on Friday, we spent most of Saturday resting around the campsite. However, Millie did need a quick shopping trip to Petsmart to get more dog food (and of course, plop her paws up on the checkout counter to get her free dog biscuit!). I also had to get my fix for some wonderful southwestern food that always seems to taste better in Santa Fe (yummy blue corn enchiladas!).

On Sunday morning, I ventured out to revisit historic downtown Santa Fe. Not much has changed since I last saw it about 10 years ago, which is just fine—it’s a great place to stroll around and check out artwork and museums.

Sunday afternoon, we left Santa Fe to drive up to Taos (a town I’d never been to before but had been eager to see for a number of years). There are 2 roads to Taos, so I took them both! —the low road along the Rio Grande river (and, yes of course, Millie went for a quick swim in that nice river!)

and the scenic “High Road to Taos” through the mountain forests and small native farming villages:

When driving the river route, the road climbed from “river level” to “mesa level” up on top. It was a good place to stop and to start enjoying the incredible skies of Taos!

Mesa Verde National Park

2011-08-11T22:39:00.000-05:00

I’d been wanting to visit this national park for a long time but this area of the country is far from any major Interstate, so you really need to make it a destination unto itself.

At the start of the day, I thought the park seemed a bit overpriced and underwhelming compared to other major national parks. There was a $15 admission charge to get in, a 45-minute drive up to the mesa top before you started to see anything, and you had to go to the Visitor’s Center to buy additional tour tickets if you wished to see any of the cliff houses up close. Man, you really have to want to see this park!

But by the end of the day, I was exhausted and exhilarated. It was a very unique, historical, and captivating place. Certainly worth it’s price and it’s national park designation.

Driving to the cliff houses on top of the mesa, there were a number of areas where fire had consumed the evergreen fir trees. It made for an interesting landscape:

Most of the cliff houses were located a few hundred feet below the mesa. This is the biggest one—Cliff Palace. I signed up for a tour of this for the end of the day.

In the meantime, I headed to Spruce Tree House, the one cliff house available to self-guided tours. After a pretty steep path down into the canyon, you crossed a small bridge and creek to walk back up to the cliff house. Even though there were tons of visitors, the rangers guarding the site made sure that everyone stayed on the safe viewing platforms and walkways to not cause any harm to the dwellings themselves. As one ranger told us “think of this as your 800-year-old grandmother and handle her gently!”

Not only are the adobe bricks original, but so is most of the wood. Amazing!

At Spruce, there’s one underground room available for visitors to explore. As I was waiting to get a good shot of the ladder by itself (1st photo above), I had fun watching all the kids play who had come down into the little room with me!

After enjoying the coolness of the underground room, it was time to hike a few hundred feet back up the canyon….ugh! Afternoon temps were in the 90’s and a far cry from the cool mountain temps of the Alpine Loop at 12,000 feet! But I finally made it back to my car and on over to Cliff Palace in time for my tour.

Our ranger, Marianna, was fun and educational.

She told us that the Ancestral Puebloans built Cliff Palace around 1200 AD. It was the largest of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde. The Puebloans farmed the land on top of the mesa. There are many theories as to why they built their houses beneath the mesa— safety from predators and other tribes, better insulation from temperature extremes, water storage in the rocks, and the ability to keep as much land on the mesa top available for farming. They believe drought and stories of more easily farmable land along the Rio Grande valley a few hundred miles east led the Puebloans to finally abandon the cliff dwellings.

Even with our modern conveniences of stairs and ladders, these dwellings were quite a challenge to get to and from! Can’t imagine the hardships of living here.

There was a great sunset and full moon rising as I drove out of the park to head back to the RV. Capped off by a neat thunderstorm in the distance. Great way to end a great day!

A couple days in Cortez, CO

2011-08-10T21:39:00.000-05:00

While Silverton was glorious during the daytime, it was dipping down into the 30’s at night since it was so high in elevation (9300 feet). I was not really wanting to run my ceramic heater every night in the middle of August! So, I decided to take a route home that would get me to some warmer weather and lower elevations, while still stopping to see some new sights along the way.

One place I’d yet to see was the 4 corners area and Mesa Verde National Park. Cortez, Colorado is only about a four hour drive from Silverton, but it’s a completely different place. It sits on more arid land beneath a large mesa (where Mesa Verde is located). No 1800’s miners here. This land has been home to numerous Native American tribes for centuries.

When I checked into my RV park in Cortez, the Native American desk clerk gave me a tourist map and pointed out a number of things to see and do in the area. One that seemed like a quick and easy thing to fit into my evening errands, was a trip to the Native American Cultural Center downtown for their free nightly Indian dance presentation.

It wasn’t a huge extravaganza, but it was a very enjoyable and educational hour-long presentation by 2 Native American grandparents—Norman was a Sioux originally from South Dakota, and Ramona was a Navajo from New Mexico.

Both changed their outfits a few times for the particular dances they were doing:

Norman was also an amazing flute player. I’d never heard a flute play multiple tones at the same time and it was very soothing to listen to. He was also a terrific dancer, spinning up to 7 hoops in his final dance.

For the final dance, they invited audience members to join in a circle dance finished off by everyone drawing in close together to let out a loud Indian “WHOOP!” What a great way to bring the various cultures together and end the evening!

Final Silverton 4WD trail– Red Mountain Pass

2011-08-09T22:50:00.000-05:00

For the next few days, I stayed in the motorhome to work while Millie discovered a cool new place to nap--- underneath the motorhome!

On our final evening in Silverton, Millie and I did the southern half of the Red Mountain trail that we had missed a few weeks ago when doing the northern portion. It was a fairly quick and easy trail, but beautiful San Juan mountain scenery like usual!

At the end of the trail were a few more old mines

We then drove across the street to the infamous Black Bear Pass trail. This is supposedly one of the most difficult trails in the San Juans, so I certainly did not attempt to drive my Tracker on the whole trail, but I did do the easy first mile of it to feel like I’d come close!

I will really miss these wonderful trails. I fear I’ve just done the “cream of the crop” in terms of 4WD trails in America, and that all other trails are likely to be a letdown after this, but no worry….these are certainly worth returning to again and again!

If anyone else with a 4WD vehicle is interested in driving these trails, here’s the guidebook I used. Apart from a few spots, the ratings and trail markers were very accurate, and the maps and photos in this book were very helpful in planning my trip. The authors have created books for Utah, Arizona, and California as well. Check them out at funtreks.com !

Busy final day of vacation– 4 trails and a train!

2011-08-07T22:19:00.000-05:00

For the final day of my vacation, I decided to do 4 short 4WD trails near Silverton. As I got back into camp the night before, I also heard the train whistles meaning that the trains had started running again so I also wanted to be back in town mid-day to see the trains coming and going. This made for a pretty busy day, but lots of amazing sights!

I started the day with a 4WD trail to Clear Lake, a turquoise lake up above the timber line at around 11,000 feet. My guide book said this trail was steep with a number of switchbacks, but easy. Well, not sure about that last part! A large boulder had fallen onto the easier part of the road at one of the switchbacks and the only way to get around it was to drive near vertically over a large exposed rockface. I attempted driving it at a slight angle and slid backwards. So, I then tried stacking some smaller rocks to make it less vertical. Of course, there were now a few other Jeeps behind me waiting! But, finally, that did the trick and I was able to continue.

Near the top of the trail was a narrow ledge road that also happened to have a large boulder blocking part or it’s road. The only way around it was to carefully drive around it on the outside edge of the ledge. So nice to have a smaller, more narrow vehicle in these situations!

We finally made it to the top of this “easy” trail, and took a nice hike around Clear Lake. Millie, the polar bear dog, also took a very quick swim into the frigid waters.

Thankfully our descent was a bit easier than the climb and we made it back into Silverton for lunch and in time for the trains. One train was parked near the Visitor’s Center so I got a few up-close photos of each of the cars:

I eventually made it back up the mountainside road to get some shots from above as the trains were repositioning. It was fascinating to watch them connect and reconnect the engines to each set of train cars to move them around.

Finally, the train blew it’s whistle and headed back out toward Durango. Looks like a fun train ride to take the next time I’m in town!

After a short pitstop to the motorhome, we were back out to our final adventure of the day— 3 interconnected trails over Hurricane Pass just north of town that started at Highway 550 and ended at Animas Forks.

My guidebook had rated Corkscrew Gulch as “Easy”, but it was much harder than Ophir Pass that had been ranked “Moderate”. I suppose every rating system can be debated endlessly, but Corkscrew started out as very steep and stayed that way practically the whole trail. On a few switchbacks, I had to actually pivot turn and back up because the switchbacks were so steep and tight! But there were some awesome views of the Red mountains, and it was a very fun trail to drive.

Before coming out to Colorado, I had packed a “survival bucket” (a storage bin of supplies to carry in the rear of the Tracker should I get stuck overnight). Part of that was a toiletry kit. I thought surely there would not be any proper bathroom facilities out on these trails…well, think again!

I’m not sure who maintained them, but just about every trail had at least 1 nice outhouse. And not the old stinky outhouses, mind you, but newer eco-friendly ones with minimal smell and plenty of rolls of toilet paper! Amazing!

After the pit stop, we began climbing up Hurricane Pass. Lots of ledge roads and switchbacks, but absolutely gorgeous. As we reached the top of the pass, there was still well over a foot of snow in some spots. Good thing we didn’t try this trail earlier in the summer!

As we came over the pass to head towards California Gulch, I literally screamed “WOW” as I first set eyes on the stunningly turquoise waters of Lake Como. What a treat!

After a quick photo at California Pass, it was time to head down the other side into California Gulch towards Animas Forks. I heard a strange sound on one of the hillsides and realized a huge flock of sheep were grazing above me!

Waved to another marmot, and then it was on to see some of the abandoned mines and mills around Animas Forks.

Stopped by the old Eureka townsite on my way back to the RV park. Eureka is east of Silverton. Another old mining town, it now is BLM land that is popular for RV boondockers with ATVs. There were nice level sites there along the Animas river, but no cell phone signals, and a long 12 mile drive down a gravel road to reach it. Still, you can’t beat the nightly rate…FREE!