There is not a lot new to learn from this article other than what its title states - a Roadtrek has to be driven. Like any car, van, or truck if it is not driven it will not run well especially when you are ready to head off on a long trip.
This winter the weather here has been a steady weekly snow storm - some small, some large and a lot of salt put down on the roads and the road salt is not something that you want to drive your Roadtrek over as it collects on the bottom of the chassis and will corrode what is under there. (There is a way to deal with this but it takes to waiting until the Spring and warm weather as it involves cleaning off the bottom of the chassis with a garden sprinkler placed under the chassis - between the middle and the front - let it run for a half hour or more, then move it to between the middle and the back of the chassis and let it run another half hour or more to clean the salt - but if it still going to freeze outside you don't want to turn on the water for the outside of your house.) So what I have been doing each week - and I do this all year around is start the Roadtrek sitting on the driveway and let it run for half an hour. I sit in it the whole time and read a book. Generally this happens on Sunday afternoons. This not only runs the engine but the engine battery keeps the Roadtrek house batteries charged. In good weather we take the Roadtrek for a long drive. That has not happened in months - until this past Sunday.
In the past few weeks I have been noticing when starting the Roadtrek that it is getting hard to start. There is a hesitation between turning the key and the engine catching and starting. Usually, it starts right up. So I have been getting concerned. My plan had been that a week ago Sunday we would take it out for a drive - but a week ago Sunday it was pouring and not a good day to drive the Roadtrek. I figured OK the next week the long range forecast was good so we would take the Roadtrek out then.
When we take these drives I want to drive for at least two hours and drive as close to one hundred miles as I can. We live on an island. The island is 100 miles long end to end, west and east and 23 miles wide, north and south. We are closest to the south shore and about 80 miles from the eastern most end of the island. The island is well developed and a mix of suburban and country. The drive we take is usually the same - 50 miles east which takes about an hour with the 55 mph speed limit and 50 miles back west for about another hour. There are only two limited access roads that the Roadtrek is allowed to drive on due to its height. The height limit on "parkways" here is 7 ft 10" - the our Roadtrek is 8 ft 10". On the limited access roads we cannot go on there really are low overpasses. (More about this later.) One limited access road goes south to north. The other limited access road goes along the north shore west to east. So this was the plan for Sunday, March 10th! At least until we heard the news on Saturday that the high winds we were experiencing resulted in brush fires on he East End that was burning in four different areas - and moving. In fact, it was burning very close to where we would be heading. So we started figuring out an alternative destination and back that would cover almost 100 miles of driving - and would likely take longer than the usual two hours.
Any time we have to back the Roadtrek out of our driveway it can take a half hour. We live on a suburban avenue with two lanes each way - which is located just past a curve in the road north of us that is just past a traffic light. This avenue is a very busy avenue any day and any time - and many cars like to drive it as if it was a practice run for the Indy 500. 😉 Meryl stands in the parking lane (which is in addition to the four driving lanes - one parking lane on each side - with a walkie talkie and I have a walkie talkie in the Roadtrek. I turned the key to start the Roadtrek and it hesitated again and then started. The engine sounded a little rougher than usual and I was hoping that good long drive would get it back to its steady and strong engine sound (which during the trip is evened out to normal). I backed down the driveway to almost the sidewalk and wait for her to say, "IT IS CLEAR NOW - GO NOW!!!" . To which I hit the gas and get into the street and hope I don't hit the car that parks too close to our driveway cut from the house next door. This was a particularly busy Sunday on the avenue we live on and it took about 20 minutes to get it into the street and another 10 waiting for it to clear again to get into the lane and drive. This is one reason why we don't take the Roadtrek out more often and use it locally.
SO we drove east on the nearest avenue that heads eat to the north/south expressway, got on there and headed north to its end. It was quicker than I had figured it would be and did not put many miles toward the hundred into the trip We then headed east on a four lane road that goes from commercial to country and back to commercial. We got to a main north/south road - and I did not want to head north as that would take us toward the direction of the fires which people were saying a number of miles from the fire zone the smoke was coming into. So we headed south which was far enough west from where the fires were burning. People in the fire zones were being told to evacuate. The wind was strong - even as we were driving I could feel the Roadtrek being pushed from the side by the wind as I drove - two hands on the wheel and attention to keeping the Roadtrek straight and not moved by the wind. We got to about where the miles driven were about 30 and I knew we were going to have to repeat the trip twice to get near 100 miles all together. As we got further south the sky which was bright blue everywhere else we had driven was a brown color from the smoke which was many miles to the east of of us. I pulled into a Walmart parking lot and turned around and headed back the way we came. Because we were driving on commercial road and there was traffic we had driven at that point almost two hours. We went north to the road we got of the expressway to, got back to the expressway and got on it going south. At where we got on when we stared, we got off and I said "ONE MORE TIME!" and I turned toward the expressway north entrance and got back on and drove the whole thing again! When we got back home - after almost four hours of driving - we had driven just under 88 miles - not 100 miles but good enough. On the news the three of the fires were out but a fourth was only half under control.
As to what happened with the fires - 600 acres were burned, one fireman injured and taken to the hospital, two businesses burned to the ground, no one else hurt, no other property damage. An investigation has found that the fires started when a family was int their backyard making s'mores and the wind took the flame and set the ground and trees (which have been very dry due to lack of rain here - snow we get - rain not enough) on fire and the wind spread the fire. There was a fire alert warning put out by National Weather Service for the island.
The Roadtrek used about an 1/8th tank of gas on this trip and had used 1/8th tank of gas running the engine every Sunday afternoon so I stopped for gas before we took it home. While I am putting gas in, a man from the pump on the other side of us came over and said. "Where do you drive that?" which we were not quite sure what he meant. We asked - you mean today? No, he said, "Where can it be driven?. OK - odd but I smiled and said "Anywhere one wants to drive it!" which I realized later is not really true as around here there are many roads that you cannot drive it on and if you need to park it, it is too tall for any indoor parking garage. Anyway, he kept asking - what's inside - I don't know why I was not giving straight answers - but around here one is safest if one does not provide too much information to anyone you don't know (I call this "healthy paranoia") - so my answer was "Everything is inside!" --- he asks - "a bed?" - "Yes and more!" Then he is looking all around it - where do you get one - is it custom built?. I told him that there is no place on the island to get one - we went to Pennsylvania to buy it. He asked how much - i said now they are a lot more than when I bought it and that they are no longer built on a Chevy chassis. And told him it is a Roadtrek (there is no Roadtrek name on our Roadtrek) and that he can find them online and if he searches Class B RVs he will find several makes and models. By this time the woman in the car behind us at the gas pumps wanted to leave and I was blocking her in so we had a convenient way to end the conversation and we got into the Roadtrek and left. And since I had not tried to start the engine since we left on this must drive the Roadtrek drive - when I turned the key the Roadtrek started right up and the engine was steady, strong, and sounded as it should sound!
So - you came along for the ride on this trip! How exciting! Sometimes it is more fun to write an article like this than the usual "how to". What you should take away is not the trip but the need to take these trips when the Roadtrek has been sitting. The van has got to be driven to keep it in good condition to be able to take you on the real and important fun trips! I do plan on getting two cans of Seafoam and putting them into the gas tank to keep it running strong. While the temps have been good this week here. just a week ago they were freezing at night and in the 30s during the day - and that is likely to happen again before the weather stays warm! (Seafoam - one ounce per gallon of gasoline - one can is 16 oz. The Roadtrek gas tank is 31gallons. The extra ounce won't hurt.)
Ah yes - I said more about the roads here the Roadtrek can be driven on. During the trip we saw a sign at a parkway entrance we have never seen before and then we saw more of them. It said "NO, BUSES, TRUCKS OR RVS ALLOWED ON THE PARKWAY" - usually there is a sign that says "No Commercial Vehicles" and the height limit. It seems that in New York they are cracking down on RVs getting on the parkways - and the Roadtrek is an RV - is not allowed on the parkways! So it is Expressways only.
ADDENDUM:
A few days after we took this trip, we drove our car to the route that we take to leave the island with the Roadtrek. This includes a parkway that has had only a posting about no commercial vehicles and not even a height restriction. This parkway is run by the city and not the State so we always felt it was OK to take the Roadtrek on it. There are no overpasses that are posted at the Roadtrek's height or lower and we have always been fine - and even have been past by highway police that just go by. What we found when we got to the entrance that we take was that same sign we saw on Sunday. "NO, BUSES, TRUCKS OR RVS ALLOWED ON THE PARKWAY". Now we cannot take any chances any longer going on there. The alternative route is on the north shore of the island which is often busier in the mornings with truck and car traffic but also will add about 45 minutes or longer to just the part of the trip that gets us to "the mainland". Ugh!
