Old wo-Man Winter-izing

November has arrived, and I’m still in Chicago so that can only mean one thing….the View must be winterized and taken to the storage lot (No RVs allowed on driveways in our town after Nov. 1st).

After making a few flubs in past seasons, I decided to take pics of the process to share here (and to remind myself next year) of what to do and not do!  Every RV is a little different, so do read your rig’s manual.  But this is the process for me and my H-model View.

After giving the rig a good Fall cleaning inside and out, removing all food from the fridge and pantry, and defrosting the fridge, it’s time to get down to the tanks, water lines and “pink-stuff” business. 

1. Make sure your hot water heater is turned off and water from both hot and cold taps runs “cold”.

2. If your RV has an inline water filter—be sure to remove it BEFORE sending pink stuff thru your lines! (I forgot this step one year and destroyed a $90 filter than was only a couple months old…argh!)

Locate your screw-in filter plug (I keep mine in a drawer next to the sink), turn OFF your water pump, and place a rag or sponge beneath the filter.  Now twist to unscrew the filter from the plumbing and catch the extra drops of water with the sponge/rag.  Screw the filter plug into the fitting where the filter was, turn the water pump back on and ensure there are no water leaks.  Put a cap on the filter and store it in your home fridge until next season (or else throw it out if it’s over a year old).

3. Drain all fresh water from you water lines. 

If you have city water connected to your RV, disconnect it.  If you’re getting water from your fresh water tank, either open your water tank drain valve to let the water pour onto the ground, or else run each of your RV faucets until they run dry.

4. Now it’s time to turn the winterizing valves on (Turn your Water Pump OFF before doing this).

My View came pre-plumbed with a winterizing hose and hot water heater bypass valve, however, Winnebago did not label the valves for my particular model. After getting totally confused the first year when I tried to de-winterize, I since have marked these lines with a black Sharpie pen so I’ll always remember which direction to turn the valves—when the valves are in the same direction as the arrows, one means that the water lines are now bypassing the 6 gallon Hot Water Heater tank, and the other means that the siphon tube (used for sucking “pink stuff” into the View) is now active and ready for “sucking!”

5. Now it’s time to fill your water pipes and drains with the Pink Stuff!

Some folks don’t like using RV Antifreeze and prefer to blow air thru the plumbing lines (by using an air compressor and a special fitting that attaches to the city water connection).  I don’t have an air compressor, and don’t really mind the pink stuff, so use the antifreeze approach instead.

RV antifreeze (“pink stuff”) does take a few dozen gallons of water to flush the weird taste out of the water lines come springtime when you’re de-winterizing, but other than that, it’s safe and easy to use.  If you happen to drink a small amount, it won’t kill you.  But never EVER use automotive (i.e. yellow/green) anti-freeze in your RV water lines—that stuff is indeed toxic and lethal.

Once I open a jug of the pink stuff, I place my siphon hose into the bottom of the jug.

6.  Now I turn the Water Pump ON, and open the hot and cold handles of my first RV faucet just long enough for pink water to come out, then immediately turn the sink off and repeat with the next RV faucet.  You’ll want to ensure enough pink stuff has filled the P-trap in the drain below (takes just a few seconds).

Don’t forget to run some of the less obvious faucets and drains in your RV—for instance, the shower, flushing the toilet, the toilet sprayer, and an outside shower faucet if you have one.

My RV usually takes about 1 1/4 gallons of pink stuff to fully fill the water lines and drains.  So, if you plan to take a trip south during the winter, plan to buy a few extra jugs to have on-hand to re-winterize before you get back home.

7. Now it’s time to address the black/gray tanks.  If they’re both already empty, then a good precaution is to pour the remaining pink stuff from your jug into each tank (via the toilet and the shower drain if you’re not sure which drain uses which tank).  It’s not required to do this, but if you think you might start using the tanks again during the winter (i.e. driving to Florida, for instance), then it might be wise to have a little pink stuff in the tanks to discourage freezing. 

Since I drained my fresh water into these tanks in the steps above, I’ll want to dump my tanks before doing this step.  I could drive to a local RV dump station, but I’ve got a better solution--- dump those few gallons at home with my Flo-Jet portable macerator pump!

I don’t use it that often, but it come in quite handy when I do! Being able to still use the RV toilet and sink on a long drive back home from your last campground is quite a luxury knowing you can dump that small amount once home. (Note that dumping full tanks and/or really black sewage might easily overwhelm your home sewer cleanout drain—and some towns even prohibit it, so this approach is not something I ever rely on as a substitute for using a true RV dump station).

The Flo-Jet comes in it’s own little case and requires a strong 12v power source (just plugging into a 12v socket won’t work, so I keep an extra 12v AGM battery on-hand at home).

The Flo-Jet has 2 garden hose fittings—the small black one on the right disposes the waste, while the larger green one on the left allows you to connect a water hose to back-flush the tanks once they’re dumped (if you wish). A long power cord with large pushbutton is connected to the bottom of the unit.

Once the alligator clips are attached to the battery and connected, it’s time to attach the Flo-Jet to the View’s dump valve. Here, I’ve just got a hose attached to the waste outlet.

The other end of the hose goes into my home’s outside sewer cleanout access drain (making sure the hose is well inside the drain pipe a few feet).

Once back at the View, I open the black tank valve and then press the Flo-Jet’s power button to start “sucking” the tank contents thru the macerator and hose all the way up to the drain.

The Flo-Jet is not speedy, but that’s a good thing (as you certainly don’t want to overload your sewer cleanout drain!). It seems to process about 1 to 1 1/2 gallons per minute. Once the tanks are empty, the sound of the pump changes to a higher-pitched tone to tell you it’s done.

After disconnecting the hose from the Flo-Jet, I bring it over to my house water outlet and run fresh water thru the hose to rinse the sewer pipe and then the hose itself--

8. The final step of my winterizing process is to ensure that the hot water heater tank is empty.  I never seem to be able to get the tank to completely empty when running the faucets in the steps above, so do this step to be fully sure it’s empty. 

My water heater has a white plastic drain plug that’s at a peculiar angle for a crescent wrench to get to.  So, a few years ago, I found this excellent flat wrench that not only works on the 15/16” water heater drain plug, but also the 1” oil drain plug for my Onan Diesel Generator as well.  It also stows easily and makes for a good self-defense “club” if I ever need to fend off an attacker in the night!

 

The wrench easily gets to the drain plug and the excess water can soon be released.

Once drained, screw the drain plug back in, and you are now done with all water systems!

Some folks have various routines they follow for preparing their rigs for winter storage.  I used to store my T@B trailer out in the country on a grassy lot, so I obsessed with ensuring that field mice would never make my trailer their winter home (ie. using Bounce dryer sheets, etc).  But since I store the View at a paved lot in town, I don’t worry about mice as much.

Now, I mainly want my rig to start when I go to retrieve it!  So, I ensure my coach batteries and rig battery are fully charged and I also fill up on diesel right before I arrive to the storage lot. 

Next, I make sure 2 battery switches are in the right place — 1. activating the Coach Battery cut-off switch (next to the coach door in my H-model) to turn off all 12 volt coach accessories (furnace, lights, pumps, etc) and ensure that these items don’t drain my coach batteries all the way down.   2. Make sure the dash toggle switch that allows the dash radio to be powered by the chassis or house system is turned to “House” (in other words, I want that radio to be fully shut off and have no LED display visible when I turn turn off the coach batteries above.  This will prevent the radio from sucking power from the rig’s starter battery (the “chassis” battery).   There is also a disconnect switch for the chassis battery as well (located next to the gas pedal), but I’ve never needed to use it.  As long as the radio is always just pulling it’s power from the House, and never the Chassis, my rig battery seems to do fine.

One thing I do religiously, though, is to always visit my RV and run the engine and generator once a month when it’s in storage (this allows both rig and coach batteries to recharge a bit, and also moves oil and fuel thru both engines to keep fluids from getting too stale and hard to start.

p.s. Winter is also a great time to take the rig in for service (last year, I saved a full month of storage fees by doing this creative scheduling trick!), and depending on your rig’s size, it might also make an excellent day-trip or Christmas shopping vehicle to let it get some exercise around town during the winter months.

Surfing & Sunsets on Lake Michigan

For the final week of our summer road trip, I wanted to enjoy the spectacular sandy beaches of western Michigan.  There are a few really nice State Park beaches in Michigan, but their campsites are usually cramped and they don’t allow dogs on the beach.  But a few weeks ago, I read a few glowing posts from WatsonsWander about a relatively unknown township campground they had stayed at that had a dog beach their chocolate lab absolutely adored.  Good enough recommendation for us!

Claybanks Township Park (about 30 miles north of Muskegon) indeed seemed like a little-known secret campground only frequented by the locals. A few of the last “weekend warrior” partier camping crowd were pulling out with their jet skis as I arrived on a Sunday afternoon (Jet Skis are allowed on this beach as well as dogs).  I doubt I would enjoy this park on a weekend!

 

The hosts were very friendly, though, and let me drive around the park to select what site I wanted.  Most of these grass sites were rather un-level, so I’m very glad I was able to pick one myself!  Most seemed to be tent and trailer campers here.

Our site was near the stairs that led down to the beach.  Once set up, Millie was rarin’ to go for a swim!

We quickly got into a routine each day after I finished work to zip down the stairs to the beach for Millie’s daily swim.  The large beach was virtually empty each day we visited—only a few people and usually only 1 other dog. 

Even with only modest winds, the waves here were usually about 2 feet high.  In past years, Millie would have been too scared to swim out over those kinds of waves.  But not this year!

This little cancer-survivor dog is now fearless!  She would jump over the waves to get her toy and had a blast letting the waves roll her back into shore.  One very VERY happy dog!

Missing a toe sure hasn’t slowed this dog down!

The other great benefits about enjoying Lake Michigan from the Michigan side were being on the edge of the Eastern time zone (meaning really late sunset times in the summer), and being able to watch those sunsets over the water. 

Claybanks had a lovely large viewing deck overlooking the beach, but sadly, Millie could not come along:

It seemed like all the women in the campground gathered at the deck each night to watch the sunset.  Not sure where all the men were, but we sure enjoyed the views!

Claybanks turned out to be a delightful, laid back, quiet place to enjoy the final days of summer.  We will certainly return!

A Vegan Vacation Weekend to Traverse City

Livability.com ranked Traverse City, MI as it’s #1 Foodie City in the U.S. and it’s not hard to see why.  While the farmland around my home state of Illinois only seems to have vast “Big Ag” corporate farms churning out tons of government-subsidized corn and soy, the farmland in the rolling hills of northwest Michigan contains a delightful mix of small family farms, fruit orchards, and vineyards—all producing a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and wines.

When I last visited in 2010, my brother took us to meet a ski buddy friend who happened to run his family’s cherry orchard on the Leelanau peninsula during the non-winter months. Cherries are the region’s biggest crop and Traverse City hosts a great Cherry Festival each June.

But on this visit, as a recently-converted vegan, I was most looking forward to the Saturday morning farmers’ market.  The markets in suburban Chicago had been a huge disappointment for me this summer—more vendors selling candles, flowers, and dog treats, than actual farmers selling heirloom and organic fruits and vegetables!

The farmers market in Traverse City was overflowing with fresh and beautiful produce.  Not quite as big as the massive Madison, WI market, but excellent quality offerings and lots of variety.

I wished I could buy it all, but had to be carefully choosy to ensure it would all fit in my RV fridge.  Here’s the bounty I ended up selecting – everything was delicious!

Traverse City has some wonderful “farm-to-table” restaurants and wineries, but I decided on this trip to eat my fresh produce and spend more time out and about.

There were plenty of sailboats out in Traverse Bay on this warm and sunny day:

The little downtown area of Traverse City is also delightful—I love the little canal that flows behind Front Street:

And Front Street itself was drawing quite a crowd of shoppers, diners, and even a small happy group of Occupy protestors!  My kinda town!

The great summer music camp, Interlochen, was less than 10 miles from my campground, so I decided to attend a free faculty chamber music concert.  The campus is located in a pine forest and they’ve tried to maintain as many trees as possible

Wish I could have recorded the concert, as each of the pieces were wonderful, but pretty rare 20th century chamber works.  A delightful evening.

The next afternoon, Millie and I took a drive around the Leelanau peninsula exploring the small farms:

We ended up at one of Millie’s favorite dog swimming beaches at Glen Haven in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  She managed to pace herself and swim for a full hour, and was one very happy (and tired) dog!



In 2010, we stayed at the state park right in town.  Convenient, but ridiculously tiny sites, overly-crowded, noisy, and smoky from all the campfires in such close proximity to each other.  It was also rather expensive by the time we paid for daily vehicle entrance passes for both cars (on top of the nightly camp fee).  So this time around, arriving for a warm summer weekend with no advance reservations, I now knew of a better place to go—the Northwestern Michigan Fairgrounds!

Only $20/night and just 5 other campers in the whole place!  Fairground RV parks are a great alternative to kid-packed, overpriced commercial campgrounds (and state parks too!) during busy “high-season” weekends.  Nice monthly rates (and 4G cell service) here too, so I may very well spend a month here in a summer to come—Traverse City has got everything a vegan tech worker and her dog could ever want!

From the U.P. to the L.P.

It’s amazing to think that the Mackinac Bridge, the 3rd largest suspension bridge in the world, has only been around for 55 years.  Prior to that, travelers going between the Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan had to portage across the 5-mile straits of Mackinac via ferry.

On a warm, sunny summer day, crossing this bridge is a carefree diversion.  Certainly being 200 feet above the cold waters of Lakes Michigan and Huron gets one’s attention, but usually in a pleasant way.

Try this crossing again on a windy, stormy day (or worse, in the dead of winter with snow and ice), and you begin to truly appreciate the engineering and human fortitude that was finally able to get this bridge built! 

I knew this was going to be a rain day when I prepared to leave Munising.  The morning had a few breaks (when I was able to get Millie out for a walk and do most of my outside departure tasks getting the View and Tracker ready to roll). By the time I pulled into the dump station, though, it started to rain again.  “No worries, that will just eliminate the need to hose everything down afterwards!”

By the time I progressed out of the campground and into town to fill up with diesel, it was now pouring buckets of rain.  Sure is nice to travel in a motorhome in these situations!  After filling up, I easily changed out of my wet pants and shoes, hung them in the shower, and put on some dry clothes!

I stopped into Muldoon’s for one last Veggie Pasty for lunch (gosh, those things were good!), and finally hit the road to make my way south and east across the U.P. to the Mackinac bridge.  About mid-way was the pretty and peaceful Seney National Wildlife Refuge.  I had spotted a couple sandhill cranes earlier in the drive (and the day before up near Grand Marais)  and thought I might see more along the refuge’s nature drive.

After getting the Tracker un-hitched, I was on the nature drive less than 10 minutes before the rains started again.  So, other than a few swans, one heron, and a bunch of Canada geese, that’s about all I got to see on this visit.  It still is a delightful place (and free admission too!).

As we made our way down to the U.P.’s southern coast along Lake Michigan, the torrential rains continued!  I pulled into a rest area to check availability of campgrounds in St. Ignace (the small town on the U.P. side of the bridge), thinking that I should hold off on crossing until the next morning when it’d be clear.

But just as we rolled into St. Ignace, the rains subsided briefly.  Since I really just wanted to park overnight (and not have to unhook the toad again), I decided to make a run for it and cross the bridge now to continue on down to Petoskey.

 
It was raining as we pulled into the free overnight RV lot at the Odawa Casino, and I again was so thankful to have my View where I could just turn the engine off, put my little slide out, and be ready for the night without having to get out into the elements!

The next morning was dry and a bit colder, but also with very gusty winds.  I now was REALLY glad I had decided to cross the bridge the night before!  Millie and I found a nice rest stop on the shores of Lake Michigan just south of Petoskey where we stopped for lunch and a little walk along the shoreline.

The short drive from Petoskey to Traverse City was delightful, as always.  A mix of great water views of Lake Michigan and other inland lakes, as well as rolling farmland and orchards, with numerous roadside fruit stands along the way.  No better place for a vegan to be!