A Pre-Season Opener For My Roadtrek

It has been a very long and difficult winter in the Northeast this year. My Roadtrek has been winterized since mid-November and it has only been off my driveway for a single day - there and back the same day - trip in early December.  We enjoyed that trip in December and since then have been looking to do it again.

We usually take these one day trips in the car, but with the car being a little uncertain for long distance trips, we have decided that we might as well take the Roadtrek and put some driving hours on it rather than it just keep sitting on the driveway. Using it just to drive around town is not easy here as just getting it off our driveway and into the steady flow of traffic at most hours of the day can take up to 30 minutes to safely have a clear enough opening to back it out and get it on the road. We had hoped to be able to do a repeat trip in January. The weather was not cooperating. Despite some warmer days in February, that month did not work out. We were sure that when March came we were going to be able to do it and we had four Nor'easter snow storms in March with no hope of going anywhere - including one on the first day of Spring. With April coming we were really hopeful and until just now, April has been cold and raining - too cold to even consider de-winterizing. But then there was a forecast like no others in the recent past - it was going to become suddenly warm and not raining - maybe even hot - not necessarily here where the ocean influences the temperatures this close to the coast, but inland. Inland was good - inland was where we would like to go. This sudden gift was only to last two days because following this phenomenon the temperatures would drop again into the 40's and perhaps lower once again with a two day rainstorm. Circumstances here - as they often do - were not going to let us take advantage for more than one single day. It would be out and back in the same day - as it was in December - but one day was good. One day was wonderful considering!

We knew where we wanted to go - one of our favorite haunts in Pennsylvania which to most would make them wonder why - but during those snow storms and those cold days and nights, if someone asked me where would I rather be - it was there. It was outdoors. It put me in the middle of people that I very much like interacting with and being around. We were going!

We left at 9:30 in the morning- to avoid the heaviest of Metro NY rush hour traffic - and off we went. Getting out of the driveway only took ten minutes after a steady stream of cars whizzing by. I had plugged the Roadtrek into the outside house outlet two days before and let it sit for 24 hours plugged in so that the batteries would be fully charged and there would be no problem running our Roadtrek's compressor fridge on batteries for the trip. There were plans to bring back some foods that are not available here. After an hour and a half this fridge reaches temperature.

As always, traffic getting out of NY was heavy but at least moved. The trip should take no more than three hours - but it generally takes four to four and a half hours - not counting the time to get out of the driveway. As I have written in the past, the trip is bang, bang, vibrate on the roads in New York. Once into New Jersey the ride gets noticeably better. In Pennsylvania with a newly repaved PA Turnpike it gets much better. The PA Turnpike - I suppose because of its new road surfacing -increased the speed limit for most of the part we drive on to 70 miles per hour. The 6L engine in my Roadtrek 190 Popular handles that speed very nicely - in fact it is too easy to get to 80 and not realize it - and it handles that speed nicely also , but I am never comfortable driving it at that speed and pull it back down. One thing that is odd, however, on the PA Turnpike with this new speed limit is that some cars and trucks do not want to drive at it. In fact they are driving below 65 - and more like 60. This was not making me happy. With one day and the long a drive to get there, I wanted to be at least the speed limit. Where I live the speed limit is 55 mph. At any time of the day or night local drivers see that sign and see 65 and faster. Most of the roads here are not made to go that fast but fast most go. I try to avoid having to keep up with that at times here can be more dangerous than not - and I not just in the Roadtrek. But here I was with a legitimate 70 mph speed limit which if it was ever to be the speed limit here would translate to 95 or 100, and I was sitting behind 60 mph drivers. It was not just the time of day because the same happens when we head home - and we travel later at night most trips when we are heading home.

When we arrived it was after 1:30 pm and it was 82 degrees outside. Oh my! The sun was shining. The place we were going was hoping and I was looking forward to a wonderful day - which we had. The trip down, at least past NY, the Roadtrek rode smoothly. Parking is in a large gravel and grass parking lot and we usually head down to the farthest section where it is open enough to park even a larger RV - and there are always a few RVs parked there - and there is no concern of being boxed in by cars or the narrow lanes that the rest of the parking lot has.

As we roamed around I realized that I have been in the house too long this winter and what is generally not tiring was really tiring me out after about two and a half hours. Not good - and I had to readjust to what it is like to be in over 80 degrees. I did find a bench and sat down and listened to two gentlemen talking about hunting and their tales of learning to hunt from their fathers. These are things one does not much get to hear being discussed where I live - and while I was not involved in this discussion at all, I did enjoy it. It was only fifteen minutes or so later that I was ready to leave the bench and get back to Meryl and keep going. (If you are waiting to hear of some catestrophe that happens on this trip - there was none.)  This was a nice slow day with me trying to pack in months of not being there. Overall we were at this one location for over four hours. Nothing important to do. Nothing spectacular to find or even seen. As a mostly city boy, I have always had a special place in my heart for sprawling farm land and things that are basically plain - and this all is all around people that are, with no negative connotation, "The Plain People". Beaches don't interest me. Mountains only marginally appeal - and generally don't more than do. This is where I need to be to really relax  and it has been for many, many years. And there I seek out being away from the tourists and get to be among the locals, and especailly the Amish and Mennonites of this area. I have met some. I am never intrusive. I don't gawk as some people do there. Any interaction and I am especailly respectful. And I am grateful that my good wife recognizes this in me and enjoys it as well.

Past 5 pm we headed to a favorite restaurant - again not a fancy restaurant but one that is really only known by the locals - and had a great dinner. After dinner I was not really ready to leave, so we started out the long way back. We drove past the campground we usually stay at. We even stopped at a store before we actually were on the road to go home. It was past 1:30 am when we arrived home. There was no traffic coming home -in fact some roads were surprisingly empty - yet we still found ourselves behind slow drivers with the road empty in front of them - and again, I don't mean slow because they were just at the speed limit - but well below the speed limit. I was in no hurry to get home but the last thing I like have happen in the Roadtrek is for anyone behind us to think it is us slowing them down - and resulting that  - they speed around us and cut in too close.

Last Spring I took the Roadtrek for a ride to the East End of Long Island to get it on the road. I realized after that it would have been so much better had we come to this area instead. Eight plus hours of round trip driving plus multiple bridge tolls and turnpike tolls - almost a full tank of gas - and it was all worth it.

The Roadtrek did not balk the whole time. This is not always the case, and surprises no matter how minor are more the norm than the exception. I think it liked its drive. Had it not been for the past weather, it would have been on several more trips like this.

I am still not sure when I will dewinterize. Most years I would have done it already. Since I am hearing low 40s or colder in the forecast, I am not running to do it. One of the advantages of even a single day trip with the Roadtrek is having a bathroom along for the ride, I figured that were we in need, we would just use it and not be that concerned. I could always through more A/F down into the black tank when we got home.

So this was not a real - sleep in the Roadtrek trip - but we did most everything we would do if we went there to stay overnight for two days. What I knew before but this trip made me more immediately aware of was that the CO Detector has expired and needs to be replaced - which we will do when we dewinterize. That the Roadtrek Roadside Assistance policy needs to be renewed - and we have not heard anything from them about it. That we discovered after our last regular RV season trip was that our walkie talkies no longer worked and we needed to replace them which I put off until we were ready to start traveling again. We use the walkie talkies to get the Roadtrek out of the driveway and into the street in front of our house (Meryl "OK it is clear RIGHT NOW - GO QUICK!!!") and when backing into a campground site, Meryl guides me in using the walkie talkies. I know which I am going to buy and we will be doing that pretty soon!

So thanks for rambling along with me. Nothing exciting - but isn't that nice!

HOW TO SWIVEL THE FRONT SEATS IN A CHEVY ROADTREK

The question of how to swivel the front seats has come up a lot about Roadtrek 170, 190, and 210s. Meryl is a master at it and I asked her if she would write an article about. Instead of her writing it she told me to watch and take notes as she did it one night on our recent trip. She makes it so easy and if you follow these steps you will be able to do it easily too - and you won't have to open the doors to do it! She starts with the passenger seat and there is a reason - so start with the passenger.


EACH SEAT NEEDS TO BE UPRIGHT ALL OR MOST OF THE WAY. DO THIS BEFORE YOU START!


SWIVELING THE PASSENGER SEAT:


 1. PUT THE WINDOW VISOR OFF THE CLIP AND DOWN TOWARD AND AGAINST THE WINDSHIELD.


2. CLOSE THE FRONT WINDOW CURTAIN. (Unhook the curtain straps and slide it around the passenger side window to the middle of the dash board.) Do this now if you had intended to do it later.


3. PUT THE RIGHT ARM REST DOWN IF THE SHOULDER BELT IS CAUGHT ON THE ARM.


4. RELEASE THE SEAT SLIDE UNDER THE FRONT OF THE SEAT AND SLIDE THE SEAT ALL THE WAY FORWARD.


 5. LEAN OVER THE SEAT TO THE SWIVEL RELEASE AND PULL IT UP and HOLD IT - ONCE YOU START TURNING YOU CAN LET GO OF THE RELEASE.


 6. TURN THE SEAT ALL OF THE WAY AROUND TOWARD THE MIDDLE ALL THE WAY TO FACING TOWARD THE REAR.  (Counter-Clockwise). YOU MAY NEED TO MOVE THE SEAT SLIGHTLY FORWARD OR BACK AS YOU TURN IF IT GET CAUGHT ON ANYTHING.


DONE!


SWIVELING THE DRIVER SEAT:


1. PUT THE WINDOW VISOR OFF THE CLIP AND DOWN TOWARD AND AGAINST THE WINDSHIELD.


2. CLOSE THE FRONT CURTAIN. (Just as you did for the passenger side.)


3.  RELEASE THE SEAT SLIDE UNDER THE FRONT OF THE SEAT AND SLIDE THE SEAT ALL THE WAY FORWARD.


4.  LEAN OVER THE SEAT TO THE SWIVEL RELEASE AND PULL IT UP and HOLD IT - ONCE YOU START TURNING YOU MAY RELEASE IT.


5. START TURNING THE SEAT TOWARD THE MIDDLE. (Clockwise)


6.WHEN THE SEAT HITS THE MIDDLE HUMP - GLOVE COMPARTMENT - STOP.


7. RELEASE THE SEAT SLIDE AND PUSH THE SEAT PARTWAY BACK. 


8.  NOW TURN TO THE MIDDLE.


(THE SEAT CANNOT BE TURNED AS FAR AS THE WALL OF THE WARDROBE. THERE IS NO WAY TO NOT DO THIS. THE SEAT WILL BE AT A SLIGHT ANGLE TOWARD THE MIDDLE AISLE - WHICH IS JUST ABOUT RIGHT TO SEE THE TV OR USE THE FRONT TABLE.)



 DONE!
Once the seats are swiveled you can slide them forward or back to where you like them. It is not hard to do IF YOU FOLLOW THESE STEPS IN ORDER. Just reverse the process to put them back facing front!


Even I can do it now and without opening the doors!  I had intended to take photos but it is just too close to get any meaningful photos of the process - but with these simple instructions you should not need photos.


THANK YOU, MERYL!

NEW COPILOT REALLY RV SPECIFIC GPS APP PART 1

Right here at the start of this article I want to make something to my readers very clear and be right up front from the beginning. I have received this app without charge for the purposes of reviewing it here on this site. When I was offered the app for free, I told the company rep that contacted me that if I accepted the app for free and I reviewed it, my review would not be influenced by the manner in which I received the app - I told her that on this site I tell it like it is and don't hold back. I have never taken anything in return for an article on this site in the past and this is a first, and it will not become a habit or the norm here. Some will understand very clearly why I am going on with this explanation. I will also share with you how this all came about. I received an email at our Meryl and Me Hit the Road email address a few weeks back from the  Copilot US rep about their new RV specific GPS app - at a cost of $59.99. Two things went through my head reading this - 1) $59.99 is a lot of money for an app - any app and 2) Did this mean that the CoPilot regular USA app was no longer going to have an RV mode profile setting?.  I replied to the email - which also thanked me for the article that I wrote here in May 2014 about the CoPilot US car GPS app with RV mode included. So evidently, the article had been noticed by the company. My reply expressed my two concerns above - lots of money and what about the current app. I received an answer (which I actually did not expect to receive as so many companies don't want to hear the problems as they are launching something new) which said

"as of right now CoPilot has remained the same with the basic RV functionality" and the offer of the app was made so that I would install it, try it first hand, and review it here. So - "as of right now" tells me maybe in the future, if you want RV mode with Copilot USA Car app you either don't update the version anymore or you move to the RV specific app.  I will also add - which has nothing to do with this app - that when I received this email I was within a couple of weeks of getting a new cell phone, replacing the one that I have been using since just before we got the Roadtrek in 2011. (No contract cell phone plan that requires you buy the phone.)  So, I waited to get this new phone to download the Copilot GPS app and I have been learning the ins and outs of the phone as I have been testing this new app. But this is a good thing because I can also relate some of the differences with this app over the Copilot USA Car app in how it relates to a phone with Android OS 5.1.1.

Unfortunately, I have to also tell you something else before I start this article in regard to my testing of this new Copilot RV GPS app. I have been testing the app since early April. My intention was to post this article for you to read two weeks after I started testing, but I was finding a very significant problem with the app, that never occurred in my two years of experience with the Copilot USA Premium car app. I even installed Copilot USA Premium to my new phone to see if it was the phone or the Copilot RV app. Copilot USA Premium worked on the new phone as it always has on my former phone with no problem. That and the testing of two other GPS apps in the new phone did not result in the same problem the Copilot RV app was having. WAZE and Google Maps Nav worked perfectly.

Here is the problem. If a destination is put into the Copilot RV GPS app and calculated by the app inside a structure - in this case inside my house (as opposed to outside including out of any structure and being in the RV or a car) - when the phone is taken outside to start driving a trip, the app does not re-establish the GPS signal that the app had when the destination was set into it inside my house or a building, and when we started driving, the app did not detect any movement - at all. The screen icon that shows the location of the RV which is a solid red circle when stopped and becomes a red arrow when the vehicle is moving - showed the red circle at the initial position as stopped as it showed when it routed and that screen never changed. We did tests in which we drove for ten minutes and the screen never changed - and the app was not navigating as we drove. For a GPS app this is very serious. It is its main purpose. And it happened intermittently. Same circumstances repeated would not always result in the same thing. Sometimes it worked and navigated, but most of the time it did not. I looked at many different variables, tried different settings - thought for a few days that I had found the correct settings to resolve this - but no, then it happened again, and again and again. NOW - if you are outside or in the RV or a car and you always turn on the app there for the first time for a routing, set in your destination, and start to go, the app works as it should - about 97% of the time. BUT - there have been many times with the Copilot car app that I have set in my destination in the house the night before or even that morning before we leave and the next day, turn on the app as we are heading out the door, and tell it to continue the route it established when I set it, and it always worked. This new app does not. With the Copilot car app, if the app has a route calculated in it,  you could shut off the app for days - even shut off the phone -and when you got into the car or RV with the app and turned it on, it found the GPS signal and picked up the route exactly from where you are at that moment - instantly.  I even downloaded a GPS satellite app that locates all of the GPS satellites overhead and shows how many GPS satellites the phone is connected to at that moment. Inside my house there were over 13 GPS satellite connections. Outside that only increased to 14 or 15 satellite connections. The phone's GPS was locked onto satellites with a "3D" GPS fix. The phone's GPS is functioning normally - and as I have already said, it works just fine with the CoPilot USA Premium car app in the new phone. At that point I decided that I wanted to be fair to this company and contacted the person at Copilot who first contacted me and was then put in contact with a tech. The tech, who is on the app's development team, took all of the details that I had of what was occurring including a screen photo, and was going to consult with other techs. A few days later I was told that they were going to obtain the same phone that I am using with the same Android 5.1.1 OS and see if they could duplicate the problems I was finding. I told the tech that if I was informed of no resolution to this problem and what to do to fix it - or if there was to be no app update to correct this in the next two weeks when this article was rescheduled to be released, I would release the article noting this serious problem. Here is the article with no resolution yet. As you read the article I will detail some other problems encountered.

OK - here we go. This app is available for Android phones (all the way back to Android 2.3) and also IOS  (Iphone 3Gs or later and IOS 6 or greater). It is purchased at Google Play or the Apple App Store. The price for the app is $59.99 and at this moment, the app is discounted to $49.99 as an introductory offer and I do not know how long that offer will last. The app includes one free year of a subscription traffic service which will then cost $10 per year which is the same as is offered with other Copilot apps. Traffic is powered by INRIX which is apparently a big deal in traffic GPS services. To use traffic when traveling you do need an active data connection. From my experience with the Copilot car app on a four hour trip with the traffic service turned on very little data was used.

The Android app installs to your phone in a matter of a few minutes and can be moved to your SD card. In my Android 5.1.1 phone that means the external SD card which is a function of the OS and not the app. You start the app and go right into set up of the app which includes submitting an email address and password which is used for an included backup feature should you decide to move the app to another device and don't want to lose some - not all - settings. You are then asked to download maps. Maps are FREE just as they are in other versions of Copilot. This RV app includes maps of the US and Canada. You are downloading the maps to your phone so that you need NO data to use the app while on the road to navigate. Set the maps right off to download only using wifi. These map files are very large files and will use a lot of data to download should you use your data plan to do so. This is no different from the other versions of CoPilot - there is ONE very major difference. At the top of the maps list it says - Download to Device/Download to SD card!. This is something that Copilot users have been asking for for years. It was not included on the last update that I got of the car Copilot app. I decided to download - at the moment - only the Eastern states map which includes Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia. This was a 430 MB download. I did not install the Southern States that includes the rest of the East Coast. That would have been an additional 700 MB download. From here you could also install - any or all - Midwest, Plains and Rockies, Southwest, Northwest, Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rick. You can install the entire US all at once if you want with one click. or all of North America. All of North America is 2.36 GB, all of US is 2.14 GB, and all of Canada is 386.9 MB. With the ability to put these on the external SD card with a 32 or 64 GB card you are not going to be overwhelmed if you want them all. I checked after installing the maps and they are in a folder on my external SD card. Perhaps this is because Android 5.1 allows this - I don't know. I do know that there is no such choice in the Copilot car app. You can add or remove any maps at any time. There are map updates during the year - and these are free. You can also submit map corrections through the app.

You will now want to set up an RV profile which is easy to do - and you can set up several different ones if you wish - each able to be saved with a different profile name. I named and saved mine as Roadtrek. You will go to this screen and select Vehicle Routing Profiles.

Next on this screen - select RV and then at the bottom of the screen select "VIEW/EDIT" and you will come to this screen -

You can see here the settings you have to enter. You can display Road Restrictions on the map - either all or only those pertaining to this profile based on your settings or none at all. This is a feature of this RV app.  I will talk about these further in this article. Enable Active Routes that you see on this screen will work with the Traffic feature. I will also talk about this further on when I talk about traffic routing. At this point the app is very close to the Copilot car app settings when setting up a profile for an RV - but instead of having only two height restriction choices you now have an entire screen of RV specific settings.  

What you see in the photo above are the default settings for the RV profile. You can change every one of them. Total weight is has a MAXIMUM of 26000 pounds. I read a criticism of this from someone BUT I have to wonder what RV is over 26000 pounds. Perhaps the largest class A. If you are reading this and own an RV over 26000 pounds you cannot set he weight any heavier. For most of us however, this should not be a problem. I filled in these settings with numbers that applies to my Roadtrek. My Roadtrek is 8' 10" tall. I like to keep at least one foot over that for any overpass I am going to drive under so I set this for my Roadtrek to 10 feet. I used the specs from Roadtrek for my 2011 190 and entered the rest of the numbers. 

As we are are going through this - see the left pointing arrow on the top left of the photo on the display. Only use that arrow to go back to a screen before or back in the app. If you use your phone's back button, you will get a screen that asks if you want to close the app. This is something that Copilot added in their apps since I first got the car app. It is a good thing as before this, if you needed to close the app you needed to scroll through screens on the app to find an off button - now there are more of those and all you really have to do is go to your phones back arrow and shut off the app. If you shut off the app, when you turn it back on it will go to an opening screen that will say "Continue driving" or "New destination". You will go right back to the current route. And this works even if you shut the phone completely off. 

So go back with that left arrow and you come to the screen two photos above again for RV settings. What is not visible in the photo is a selection at the bottom that says "ROAD PREFERENCES" which takes you to this screen. 

Above you see what is on that screen and the screen scrolls down further to show "Local Roads". With these settings you get  - strongly favor, favor, neutral, avoid, strongly avoid - and this will be taken into account when you are being routed. Never want to go on a freeway - if it is possible to get where you are going without one, set it to strongly avoid. I like freeways so I set this to Favor.  You have to try these settings for each road type yourself and find the combination of avoids and favors or neutrals that you like.

These are all of the RV settings. There is also a Car Profile - yes you can set this RV GPS app for a car - which is very good if you are towing a trailer and want to then use your car when you get to your destination or if you are towing a car and will be using your car to get around. There are also a Motorcycle, Bicycle, and Walking profiles that you can set up and select.

What the RV settings do not have that some other RV GPS stand alone units have  - there is no setting to avoid or not avoid sharp turns or to avoid or not avoid steep inclines or declines. HOWEVER - the RV routing does take these into account and will route around them on the Copilot RV GPS app. It does not warn you that there are sharp turns ahead or a steep incline or decline ahead. I tried to test this on one of my test trips. The route that the app set for me to drive routed around an area that I knew had sharp curves. I turned down that road anyway. It did not warn me - and there was no way off this road without going through more sharp turns so it kept me going to the main road that I knew was at the end of this area. Was I going around hairpin turns - no. The road was posted with curves ahead. Interestingly, I have discovered that there is a European version of this RV app - or rather in Europe it is called a "Caravan" app ("caravan" is RV or Travel Trailer in Europe) and that app does have settings for sharp turns and inclines and does warn when you are coming to them. The European app is not on Google Play and it is only mentioned on a chart comparing Copilot apps on their own website. When this app is updated, hopefully they will add these alerts to the North American version also. For the time being, follow the route that it tells you to take and you will not be on a route with sharp turns or inclines (unless there is no other way to go).

There are other non-RV settings. There are several map styles - day and night to choose from. You need to select the voice that it will use to tell you turn by turn directions using street names. You first select your language and then that takes you to voice selection. Choose your phone's own voice for turn by turn with streets spoken directions. If you choose one of the other voices you will get only turn by turn directions with no street names. This is common to all GPS units - not all voices speak street names. Tweak the phone in your phone's own settings - you can also choose other voices there if your phone's manufacturer provides them or install a different voice engine to your phone for other voices. You can also set the distances you want to be alerted to turn. Go through the menu for various other settings.   

With your RV profile set you are ready to hit the road. Before you start routing make sure that GPS or "Location" is turned on in your phone BEFORE you start routing - and also when you are traveling using the app.  You can route by address you enter, points of interest,  places that you have saved, addresses in your phone's contacts, by selecting a point on the map, or by entering coordinates. With
"My Places" which is places you have saved, it puts them into one of two categories of your choosing - one is HOME and the other is WORK. You can have several in each of these categories. It really is not like a "favorites" list in structure but it functions as one.

Routing and Points of Interest -

I have had problems overall with searching for points of interest and with some of the routing that this RV GPS is doing. When you select Points of Interest this is the first screen that comes up - 

The scroll lines are camera artifacts from the phone display. Here you see Truck Stops, Campgrounds, and RV Services.  If you want the other standard POI categories that are not RV related select More Categories and they will all come up. I have looked in areas that I know the campgrounds and all have been on the list that comes up. I did the same with RV services and here there was a problem. My Roadtrek comes from a large RV dealership and service center in Souderton, PA. - Fretz RV. It is not on the list! Not good. Another RV dealership in that town does come up and it is just down the road from Fretz. I tried this - I entered Fretz RV into Search All which searches all categories - and there is was! I don't really understand this and it is listed under auto dealerships. I don't know who controls what POIs are included or what categories they go in. It may be done by the map service company that supplies the maps or it may be Copilot. This is an RV specific GPS app and it needs to be as complete as possible in its RV POIs.  I tested routes to several local places that did not come up on the POI listings which surprised me. We were going to a COSTCO store in the next county. This is one of the oldest COSTCO stores on Long Island. It did not have this specific COSTCO included in the POIs. I searched COSTCO in the town it is located and it did not come up on the list. Every other COSTCO for miles and miles around came up. I looked at the map at that location - not there. OK - simpler. I went to the Municipal categories - entered our local post office - not there. Other post offices came up all around this town. Not this one and it has its own zip code.  I went a step further and pulled out my old phone with the Copilot car app on it still. I searched POIs for this COSTCO - there it was, but the Copilot car app has been updated and now the POIs that are missing on Copilot RV are missing on CoPilot USA Premium as well.  I did the same for the post office - no post office prior to the update on the car app. There was also no POI for a popular children's amusement park on Long Island - Adventureland in Farmingdale, NY - it is a small park but an attraction here for families. It does also does not know a large county operated museum village restoration which is one of the few attractions and well known museums in this county. I also did a test drive with POI alerts set to tell me that gas stations are coming up. On a main road we past ten gas stations that were not shown on the map and therefore no alerts. On another more major road we passed four gas stations and no alert with no POI shown for those gas stations. On another major road we did get gas station alerts for 2 out of 3 stations that we passed. I realize that it cannot know all local gas stations, but it seems to know every little cafe we pass - all shown with POI icons on the map. POIs are lacking. Some of the categories POIs that are there are odd.  If this is determined by Copilot they need to adjust some POIs - especially the RV services and add some. If something is found in the same category on the car app, if it was the map company's fault it would not come up on the maps in the other CoPilot app.  I do not see a way to add POIs to a category yourself. You can make a My Places listing if it is someplace not in the POIs. You could also add it to your Contacts with the address on your phone. This is only fine if you know of the POI to add it in advance. If you are traveling and need gas, you need to know that there is a gas station coming up and from my test, it may or may not be there on the map. You can also add POI categories full of POIs of your choosing through third party POI websites - poifactory is a good one and they have directions there on how to add POIs to Copilot. You can set the map to display POI categories of your choosing and you will see icons on the maps for locations of those categories. There is a way to set alerts to POIs ahead at a specified number of miles. One problem is that the alert says "Point of Interest" instead of "Rest Area Ahead" or "Gas Station Ahead". It does now show the POI icon on the upper left of the screen for the alert. I asked Copilot on their website forum for this to be changed a couple of years ago for the car app and they said maybe. So far it is the same, though now with the RV app there is the Icon. Why is this important" If you only have one POI category alert set, it is not a problem as you know whenever it says "Point of Interest" there is a Rest Area coming up - if that is the POI you have set to alert, but if you have more than one POI set to alert you to you will not know which one is coming up - unless you look closely at the screen to identify the Icon - which is a VERY dangerous thing to do while you are driving. One other thing to be aware of is that there is a Speed Camera and Traffic Light Camera combined POI but it is greyed out in settings and this apparently is specific to USA installations. When I asked Copilot about this with the car app I was told that it is not legal for them to include this feature on USA maps. I was surprised at that then and still am, as all GPS US units have this feature - some charge extra for it and some include it. You can download traffic light camera and speed camera POI files from, poifactory for free IF you participate in their forum for a specific number of posts and discussions.

One other thing about POIs and this app - when you get to the POI screen of POIs AFTER you select a category. If you just search you are searching locally and what you see when you get to that screen are local POIs where you currently are per the GPS. At the top it says "Search Nearby". If you click on that you will see a list - pick "In another city" - and enter the zip or town name and state. You will then be searching in that location. 

You can also set up a trip with up to 50 stops - or 50 places you want to travel through on one trip with one routing. This sounds great - just like the big RV GPS units have - but getting a setting for a route is a little tricky. The first stop that you set on this app is the current location that you are in. On the original Copilot USA Premium car app with limited RV mode, the first stop that you put in is your first stop and the GPS automatically starts from wherever you are. This does not seem to do this. You have to add that or it starts from the actual first stop you want to stop at. It does not take you there - at least in my tests it has not. You can add up to 50 stops all together. If you click on options you get a menu that lets you load a route, save a route, or optimize the stops. If it optimizes the stops it will take you to stops in distance order rather than the order you may want to go to them in. You can also tap on each stop on the list and another menu comes up on the screen allowing you to re-position that stop to whatever order you would like to move it to or if you wish delete it all together. You can also change a stop to a waypoint - meaning that you will be routed to pass by this stop rather than stop at it. If you do not plan to actually stop and go right to the door of the location you have put in, make it a waypoint. Be alert to this when planning a trip. Also, always remember to save and name any route that you put in. I did a few test drives with routes planned.

I made several test drives with routes planned. On one, I started driving and it was sending me to Walmart which was the first actual stop I wanted to go to. I did not set this to a "waypoint" - and perhaps I should have.  Once I got to the Walmart parking lot I turned where it told me to turn to get into the parking lot and it started directing me out the exit. It wanted me to go around and come back in again. I did not drive up to the door of the Walmart and it did not know I was there. I decided to follow what it wanted me to do - perhaps it was now directing me home. I followed its first two directions and as I past the Walmart entrance where it had told me to turn in to Walmart the first time, it now directed me to go in again. I gave up at that point and decided to proceed to the next stop which was my home. I passed that entrance to Walmart and figured that the route would now move on to the next and last stop - home. It kept telling me to turn around. I kept going toward home. At every street I passed it was telling me to head back to Walmart. I pulled over and shut it off and went home on my own. I repeated the planned trip again, this time setting Walmart to a waypoint - no need to stop - and when I got into the parking lot it started all over again telling me to go around, come back in, the whole bit it did the last time - but this time I drove through the parking lot - passed all of the parking spaces and drove up to the front door of the store. At that point it finally recognized that I was at Walmart and it started to route me to the next stop - home. I have never had a GPS with a planned route do this. They always recognized any place in the parking lot or the property as the destination. This is something that happens other than with planned trips. You destination is reached in a specific spot that it decides is the end of the trip. For most places, you know you are there, stop, get out, and clear the route, but with this, if you don't clear the route it wants to keep going to get you to that unknown exact spot. While a 50 stop trip planning and trip editing feature is good to have, this app needs some work in how to plan a trip and how it actually gets you to those stops.

Using normal routing, you enter your destination to where you want to go, it will find it and then you will see Go - there may also be up to three alternative routes to choose from. This is important because it may like to go in a way that you may not want to go. Each alternative route will be one based on your settings as well as the original is. Here is my test - take me from Long Island to Lancaster, PA. For some reason, RV and truck GPS devices want to take a route heading north off of Long Island and into the Bronx and then into New Jersey. Perhaps this is the shortest route, but it is not a way that I want to go. I want to avoid the New York City as much as possible. I like to go by the Long Island Expressway if I am in the RV to the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway (yes, in the city but familiar - and there is no way off Long Island without going through some part of NYC) and then over the Verrazano  Bridge, through Staten Island and over another bridge into New Jersey onto the NJ Turnpike. One of the alternate routes went just that way! I selected that and I had a route I liked much better. You can also go to the route map and it will say Drag to Edit. Zoom in close to where you want to change the route and put your finger on the current route and drag it to a road you want to use. It will recalculate the route that way. Also - if you look on the list of directions you can click on any one and say avoid - and it will calculate a route avoiding that part of the directions.

Another test - above is what the route screen looks like before you accept it and tell it to go. I put this route in to Charlottesville, VA on Meryl's suggestion. At the very end to get to the campground, the campground website says not to come in onto the road the campground is located on from the west as the section of that road on the west end is very curvy. Frankly, we have been on that road from both directions and it is curvy but not terrible - at least for the Roadtrek. Perhaps it was taking the Roadtrek's settings that I put in into account but the route RV Copilot routed brought you in from the west. I looked to see how to prevent this and the way that I could do it was to drag the route to the east end of that road and it then took a completely different route down in this area to the campground road so that you can come in from the east. I tried resetting routing to the default RV settings - it still went from the direction that the campground says not to take. Again, a sharp turns setting would be valuable for this app. This combined with incline/decline warnings would be an important update.

When you have a route in, you can see your route by tapping on the lower left corner of the screen where you see six blue squares. With a route set, you will see a place, "My Route", to click to view the route  on a map as shown in the photo above. You will then see the entire route on the map. With this there is a GO on the bottom that takes you back to the main screen and the road you are on. There is also a place on that same menu to see all of the directions along your route - all of the turns from start to finish. Click on any turn and you can tell the app to avoid that and it will send you around that. Here is a problem with going to the Directions screen - you can't go back to the main driving  screen unless you click the blue boxes on the bottom again, go to that same menu that took you here and then click on "3D map" to get back to the driving screen. Too many steps when a simple MAP button on the top of this display could take you back to the driving map. This MAP button is on many other screens BUT not this one! Minor annoyance but it took me ten minutes to figure out how to get off that directions screen.

Map view can be turned off and you can have the list of directions with the next turn shown bold and large if you don't want the distraction of the moving map. You can also freeze map motion if it distracts you. There is also a choice of 2D maps or the usual GPS display of 3D maps.

While you are stopped you can do local searches through the app to Yelp, Wikipedia, or Google. While driving it is best if a passenger does this for you with the app. You can also access local weather reports. It will also find nearby parking, but not necessarily RV parking. These all do require that you have data service. How could they work otherwise?

Some of this app's routings are marginal. It will get you to about the correct place but then will tell you to turn left when the destination is on the right. I never encountered that with the Copilot USA Premium car app before - but while testing this RV app, I loaded that on the new phone and downloaded maps - and the POIs that were there before on the last map on the car app are not longer there on this one - just like the RV app - they would have to be the same maps and POI listings. Copilot gets its maps from a know GPS map source and they should be better than they suddenly are. In the past they have always kept up with road changes and new additions. A navigation GPS app is only as good as its maps and Copilot's have been excellent in the past. I do not recall any trip with Copilot USA Premium telling me our destination was somewhere other than where it actually is.

Routing is also a big issue, especially with an RV specific GPS app if it is sending you somewhere incorrectly or in the wrong direction. On two tests the app was sending the RV to a location that is reached on a large local road. Both times I was directed to "Turn right on "ramp" to X Avenue" (which is the road that the destination is on but not the road we needed to turn on to get there). It was sending me onto an entrance ramp for a local parkway - which happens to be a ramp that has two exits from it not onto the parkway, but still not to "X Avenue". And that parkway ramp is clearly marked NO Vehicles Over 7'10" and "X Avenue" is never mentioned on the sign. The road we should have been directed to turn on comes right before that ramp and runs parallel to the ramp. This is all happening with the app set to RV profile! I knew enough - because I live nearby - to not get on there with the RV - BUT I did repeat the routing in RV profile while driving the car and followed where it was saying to go and what it was saying was so confusing as nothing mentions "X Avenue" until you actually get onto the Parkway itself - and then it was too late since as soon as I got on had I been an 11 foot tall RV I would have ripped the roof off on the 11 foot overpass that was right after that entrance. Bang! I am sure that the app did not intend one to get on the parkway itself, but it never identified either of those two ways off that ramp correctly - and those two exits never intersect "X Avenue" but take you to the road that I would have turned on to begin with. With any GPS and especially an RV GPS one cannot always know the area that it is routing on or through. I know what to avoid here because I have been there before. You are not supposed to have to know every area and road you will get on that the app is sending you on. And if you need to check each turn it is taking as you drive with a map, just use a map and forget the app. I well understand when using any GPS be aware of the route before you start - but this takes that to too much of an extreme.


END OF PART 1
PART 2 IN TWO WEEKS...

Never a Dull Moment Part 2

Welcome back! In our last article - Never a Dull Moment Part 1, we never actually got to the article that I sat down to write. We took a meandering path to why we were going to a new campground in an area where we have had a favorite campground for four years. Well we are back now to what was to be a one part article about our October trip.

The Roadtrek was packed the day before. Two days before that water went into the fresh tanks. We saw on the weather ahead that there might be some cold nights - nothing below freezing but just in case, Meryl suggested that we isolate the interior (rear) fresh water tank and use the water in the exterior tank first. This is easy to do with the various settings on the 190 and the 210. (See our Summer Mode/Winter Mode article for specifics on how to do this.) Of course, the bed was already made when this was decided so Meryl crawled under to the cabinet with the water valves, I held up the mattress so that she could get the door open and she made the adjustments to the water valves.  When the night temperatures got cold- which was to be almost the end of the trip, the exterior and larger fresh tank would be empty or near empty and we would switch over to the interior tank which is much more protected inside from the cold. We were ready to go.

We got out the morning we were leaving at about 9:15 am. If you read this site regularly I have mentioned that we live on a very busy four lane suburban avenue and while everyone should already be at work at 9:00 am, there is a constant stream of cars and trucks going past our house well after 9 am. The first thing we do when we get into the Roadtrek to start a trip is turn on the compressor DC/AC only refrigerator. All that is involved is putting the Roadtrek battery switch on and turning the thermostat inside the fridge up from off - to about mid-way which should get the temp inside up in about a hour and a half. The only thing inside the fridge is my spare insulin pen which must be kept at a temperature between 36 - 42 degrees F. After the pen is started for use it cannot be kept in a refrigerator and must be as near to room temperature as possible (more about traveling like this in a future article). So I had the pen in use with us inside one of the cabinets and the spare in the fridge - at the time - in a cold bag with two ice blocks also inside - just to keep it cold until the temperature goes up in the fridge. We are in, I am behind the wheel with the engine started, and Meryl is setting up the fridge. She pushes the test button on the Roadtrek monitor panel after the fridge is on - and she says - "We have a battery problem!" OK - what? The battery LEDs with the engine on - for every other time like this - usually shows all LEDs to the top lit indicating that the engine is charging the batteries. The lights are now down to the bottom two LEDs. Not good! The batteries are low - and apparently too low for the panel to indicate that the van engine is charging them. We discussed what to do and decided to shut off the fridge. With that the LEDs still did not go up to indicate charging but now went to G - the third LED from the top of the four. At worst we would lose the pen, at least worst we would have to start the countdown of days the pen can be used out of the fridge much sooner than we would like, at best the batteries would start to charge as we were driving. Of course, this is on my mind as we finally get to pull out into the street - which took about twenty minutes for there to be a break in the traffic. We started out with the idea that we were leaving "early" - at least for us. It was after 10:00 am and we were just turning the corner from our house.

As I am driving, I am thinking about the batteries and the refrigerator. We decided that the pen would hold up in the cold bag for several hours, but I kept wondering if the battery panel would ever show that they were charging. This has happened with the generator when the batteries are low - and it takes about a half hour for the Charge LED to come on. To get to a limited access road it takes us just about a half hour from the house. Just before the highway entrance came up I pulled over into a shopping mall and we checked the LEDs - Charging! Good. One less thing to think about. We left the fridge off and decided we would wait until we stopped at a rest area for lunch to put it on. The start of this trip was certainly not dull - nor was it relaxing. Maybe I am expecting too much to relax on a trip...

Traffic to Pennsylvania was not bad - at least once we left New York State. We bounced and banged on what were supposedly recently newly paved roads - none of which actually looked like they were newly paved - or at least had, already, splits and large holes in the pavement. Not unusual - the trip out of NY and back in is always - bang, rattle, shake, bang. We stopped for gas in New Jersey - a must, as gas in NJ is about 40 to 50 cents a gallon less than where we are in New York and about 20 cents a gallon less than in Pennsylvania. We paid $1.97 a gallon. I know that gas is a lot less than this in other parts of the country, but it has not gone near to be below $2 here where we are in NY at all this year.

The "new to us" campground has a 2:30 check in time and while I did not expect it to be crowded or full, since this was our first time here we did not know what reaction we would get if we arrived there early As it was, it was 2:10 pm when we pulled up in the lane to the office. There was a big trailer in the lane in front of us. We went inside the office and we were greeted by a woman who was working with a man behind the counter who was getting the trailer registered. Each was very nice and we were welcomed like old friends. (More about this in our review of the campground in two weeks.) I did make a point of telling her that we come to Lancaster regularly and are hoping that we will be staying with them for now on - again, mentioning why. She also was not surprised like the Amish woman working here mentioned in Part 1. She gave us our site number and our key card. She said that she would open the lift gate the first time in and then you must use the card to enter after that. The gate opens automatically - same gate - same lane - when exiting.

We drove through the gate and after passing the site, not seeing it, we had a little tour of the roads through the campground to get back to it. Our back in site was closed in on three sides by large rocks that created a wall about a foot and a half to two feet high. The site looked narrow and had a picnic table taking up a corner of the rear of the space. Up from the rocks was grass mounded up around the site. It was next to a road on one side and nothing but grass on the other with the next RV site about 50 feet away. The site angled into the road. I backed in hoping to find that it was level and not have to bother with the leveling ramps. Often with a Class B you have the room to move around in the space until you find the right level area. This site was not cooperating and we were winding up off level in all directions - front low, side high. It took almost a half hour until I hit a place that was close enough. It involved being in the space diagonally and at the same time avoiding the picnic table - which had it not been there, I still think I would have found a level spot much faster. OK - get out to put down markers to find that exact spot again and test the electric box. I opened the driver's door and Meryl said "Wait!" but too late. The corner of the door hit one of the wall rocks. I sighed as I looked around at all of the other sites- most of them vacant with nothing around them but flat grass...  Electric box tested good. The markers were placed next to the tires (I have to say that sometimes getting back to where the markers are exactly is like finding a needle in a haystack - and on this trip - which has never happened before - we never did get close each night when we got back and wound up finding level all over again each night. I actually discovered one night that if the front of the van stuck out into the road (which it should not) the van was perfectly level.) We got into the Roadtrek and headed over to Roots Farmers Market for what was left of the day.

That night when we turned on the water pump it ran but little water came through the toilet or the sink. Oh boy, now what?!? I turned the pump off and then back on and turned on the sink. The water ran slow and then ran with regular pressure and stayed that way. I wondered if this happened because it was colder outside than it has been when using the water. I had the water running fine at home when I tested it before the trip so that we would have no surprises. The water ran fine that night and up to the last night when it was really cold out - mid-30's at night and it did it again. Well, whatever it was it worked itself out - and before I winterize which will be soon, I will check the water pump filter to see if there is anything in there that is slowing the flow that had to shake loose to run steady. 

I knew in advance of the trip that the next day was supposed to rain - just rain. We have found places to go and things to do here in the rain before - all too often - and I figured we would get past the day and onto what was forecast as good weather. During the day it rained heavily on and off - and even more off than on as it got into the afternoon. I was thinking how great it was that the rain would just pass, but weather on the radio was still talking about heavy rain that night. Fine. What we did not know is what was about to come.

We went to a restaurant not far from the campground that night. I felt it would be better than driving a distance on already dark roads with the rain expected to start and fog being talked about. After dinner we should have just headed back to the campground, but it was early - for us -, it was not raining, and I decided to make a stop before going back just to kill some time. By the time we were back in the Roadtrek to go back to the campground, it had started to rain. It was a steady rain but not a hard rain. We had the radio on to a popular local country station and in the middle of a song, I heard something that I have only heard in tests (and having been in major hurricanes I had never heard this for any of those) - the emergency broadcast tone. This was not a test. It was an emergency broadcast by NOAA and it named the counties and towns that a severe storm was heading for. The warning said that there would be 60 mile per hour winds and that anyone outside should take shelter in a strong building. One of the counties listed was Lancaster and one of the towns included was the one the campground is in. They gave a time frame for when the storm would reach us and when it would pass. We already in the rain and that was starting to pick up. The winds were yet to come. We got back to the campground and pulled up to the gate. I discovered quickly one of the drawbacks to campgrounds that have gates and keycards to open them - you have to lean out of the window to get the card in when it is raining. The box from the Roadtrek window was a stretch and I had to take my seatbelt off to get far enough out the window to reach - hoping the whole time that I would not drop the card. (I tend to drop things at the most opportune moments.) I got the card in the slot and back out and the gate lifted. I tossed the card to Meryl and we drove in to our space. It was raining and the wind was starting to pick up but not to any extreme. Unfortunately, backing into this site required assistance from someone outside so as to not hit the picnic table. Well, I was driving - and Meryl got out. We were both getting out eventually anyway to hook up. In the time that it took to get into a spot on the site that we were close to level and then hooking up the electricity and cable in the rain - it is very exciting plugging into 30 amps when soaking wet - we both did get wet. While we were out there, I looked right behind us and up to see the electric pole that was there with its wires going right over the top of the Roadtrek - and it occurred to me that this was not a great thing to have right behind us and over us in a 60 mph wind. There was not much we could do about it now - and it, I reasoned, that it must have weathered other storms and was still standing - and it had large and long guide wires holding it in place. I also looked at the rock wall on three sides of us and imagined the rain building up into a pool that would surround us in this site. We were still out there getting wet - it was time to get inside. We had rain jackets on - and hats - but that just meant that we had wet jackets and hats to deal with once we got inside. Meryl put down some plastic covers and put hooks up on the side ledge in the front of the Roadtrek and hung up the wet jackets. While she was doing this, I went to one of the cabinets and got out our NOAA emergency weather alert radio. I plugged it in and pulled out the antenna. It had been awhile since I used it last and it took me a little while to remember how to get it to broadcast. We heard the same alert we had heard over the van radio. It also indicated that the storm was getting closer. I wondered to myself if when they say if you are outside you should get inside, if that meant standing or walking outside - or if you are in a car or - say an RV - if you should be getting the heck out of it and finding a building. The only open building here was the restrooms. In there we would not know what is going on with the alert or if the alert would be extended past the time predicted that the storm would pass. I did not say anything to Meryl and she did not say anything to me - as she was thinking the same thing. She was already planning if we could fit under the bed if need be - away from what she decided would be breaking glass from trees crashing through the Roadtrek's windows. I looked out the window at the several RVs and trailers that were near by.  They were all occupied. No one was running for cover. Foolish as it might be we stayed inside the Roadtrek which is a heavy van. Out on Route 30 that passes the campground nearby, I could see trucks and cars driving along. A bit nervous, we sat down in the front seats and put on the television. I started my laptop and looked at weather radar maps and saw projected paths of the storm for were we were sitting. At about the time the warning said the winds would arrive we could both hear them and feel the van being shaken side to side. Were we having fun yet? This certainly was not a dull moment - and I certainly was not relaxing. I thought of long past trips when we would be in a hotel and it would rain. You stayed inside and did not give much thought to it other than you were limited in what to do going outside. We were once in a hotel in a hurricane - and the electricity went out and was not expected back on for days. We stayed one night like that and found another hotel that had power the next day - walking our luggage down the staircase from the fourth floor to the car requiring several trips. Even that was not quite like this. I guess feeling vulnerable to the elements is part of the RV lifestyle... Well, if you know this site from the beginning of the articles you know why we do this now and will never go to another hotel - so it is this or stay home.

The storm did pass just around the time it was predicted to leave the area. Things got quiet outside and the van was nice and steady as the wind was gone. I was going to keep the NOAA alert radio set to broadcast if there was another alert- this one works that way, but we decided to pack it up and put it away. We did hear on the television that another part of the storm was coming late in the night - around 3:00 am or so - and sure enough, the rain started hitting the roof about that time and we fell asleep to the sound.

Well, just like the songs lyrics - "the sun will come out tomorrow ..." and "There's got to be a morning after..." - the storm was gone the next morning. The sun did not come out until later in the day but there was a morning after and all was fine. The grass was wet, but the gravel was fairly dry when we unhooked for the day to go off doing the things we do when we come down here.

The last night we saw that the front exterior tank was just about empty and Meryl went into the cabinet to isolate the front tank and turn on flow from the interior tank. Good timing as the temperature was dropping and this was what we planned for when we set the tanks at the start of the trip.

That last night it got colder than the heat pump will handle (40 degrees and below) and while we should have just gone outside and turned on the propane valve to run the furnace and heat the inside up nicely, I decided that we would just pull out the electric space heater that we brought with us - just in case. Finding a place for the heater was the first issue. There is the kitchen counter - full of things we use to go to bed and when we get up. There is the floor. We started with the kitchen counter, moving everything aside. That did not really work out. The temperature where we were sitting was getting really hot - but away from that it was cold. It was a continual dance of getting up to turn it down, then getting up to turn it back up - as the the thermostat on this space heater does work - but it is made for a much larger space and not intended for a six foot open box in front and another six foot open box behind. I tried it on the floor. Here the air was getting warm from waste height up but because it was in line of the cold from the floor and the door, it was never turning off. This was where we left it - eventually setting the thermostat on it to 51 which was the highest temperature that it reached at the floor - at least it turned itself on and off at that setting and I could fall asleep not thinking that it would burn itself out - or worse while we were sleeping. From now on - cold weather trips - we will not bother with the electric heater (we may bring it as a backup in case there the furnace does not work) and we will just turn on the propane. Propane is something that we don't really like but will use if we have to - which so far has been rare.

So there you have it. I have to say that we did enjoy this trip overall - but there was really never a dull moment. We did things we enjoy doing on each of the days - even when it was raining. We could have done without the "big" storm. It would have been nice to be able to relax more in between the fun.

Was this the last trip of the year? Well, it is with running water on board, but we are not sure if there will be a cold weather, winterized trip coming or not. That will depend on a few things yet to be seen. On the last day we emptied the black tank and the grey tank - and I did not add the usual water into the black tank to prevent it from going dry. There will be antifreeze in it very shortly. Oh, and did we love the new campground - it has its pluses and minuses. A review will be coming up very soon - with photos.

Never a Dull Moment - Part 1

There is a superstition that if one starts out the day saying that it will be delightful and carefree, this almost assuredly guarantees just the opposite. Well, I was looking forward to our October trip to be just that - delightful and carefree. Silly me! We had to cancel a two day trip in September because we had not made reservations at a campground in advance. For the past two years we have been waiting to a day or two before planned trips to call to make reservations. This seemed to have been working - no risk of paying a canceled reservation fee - as much as a night's stay at some campgrounds - when at the last minute the weather would be terrible or unexpected things at home demanded our presence. I had not even thought twice about not doing the same for this trip at the end of September. We were going to a Quilt/Fiber Sales Show near Philadelphia and then planned to spend the next day at Green Dragon Farmer's Market in Lancaster the next day and home at night on the next day. A nice three day business/pleasure trip.  Well, there were no campsites to be had in any campground that we called - even a few that I would not normally consider staying at. The Roadtrek had been packed the day before - the bed was made - all was inside - our clothes and necessities for three days. And it did not happen. We did go to the Quilt Show - by car and home in one day the next day. So as that trip did not happen I was really looking forward to this October trip!

I made the reservations for the October trip right after this all happened in September. We were going to stay in a different campground in Lancaster County - not the one we have been staying in for the past four years. A coming article will be a review of the "new to us" campground. Why we were not going back to Old Mill Stream Campground is a tale in itself. Old Mill Stream raised its rates two years ago and there were signs that things would be changing. All of 2014, things were somewhat as usual - though they no longer accepted charge cards when making reservation by phone and required a check be mailed to hold a reservation. The couple who have run the campground for years and years were not always around. This was not a good sign. They were made this an exceptional campground - beyond a good campground. Our first trip there in 2015 in May, these people were nowhere to be found. Things were becoming more "corporate". This campground had been owned privately and then by the Hershey corporation (along with the children's amusement park next door - that this campground has been a part of). Just after we started coming it seems that a European corporation bought out the amusement park and the campground - but there has been no evidence of that until now. When we arrived for five days for July Fourth this year - there was a great deal of change in customer relations and particularly in the revision of the campground entrance - and not for the good. Let's start with the entrance - and exit. It was being changed so that anyone coming into the amusement park and also the campground had to enter a single lane entrance that split off into three lanes going into three parking booths. The right hand booth and lane was for RVs going into the campground - but this did not mean that cars going in to park for the amusement park did not get into that lane as well. Busy amusement park - lots of people with small children coming in (this amusement park is focused on young children) - and big RVs trying to get in to get into their space. One would think that at 2;00 pm when the campground starts check-in that this would not be much of a problem - but it is. To make it even more exciting the entrance lane at the corner of busy Route 30 is alongside the exit lane and cars pull into the entrance lane to exit - while you and your RV is out in the road trying to get in. We saw this happening that Fourth of July week. We discovered that week, that to exit the campground you now followed a sign that led your RV into the parking lot for the amusement park - and as you tried to make your way though the narrow aisle - narrow even for a Class B - you came upon moms and dads walking their toddlers by the hand through the lane - oblivious to the RV behind them. We saw a few close calls. By our trip there in August, the parking lot changes were complete and the situation getting in or out was even worse. Now, also in July and August we discovered that the last row of the campground - which just happened to be where our preferred for four years site was (next to the bathhouse) - was located right where the "overflow" parking on the grass for the amusement park starts. We woke up one morning to some odd sounds and looked out the window to see cars being parked behind us. (Just what you want for security in a campground - people who don't belong in the campground getting in and out of their cars all day - and into the evening, right behind your RV.)

OK - that is just the getting in and getting out. The people working in the campground and in the office were different. In July, there was one woman who we recognized from before. I spoke with her about the changes that we were seeing and her answer was that the corporation decided it all and no one asked them for any opinion or consultation in planning. It was very evident that the corporate people were taking over. This campground always books solid for Fourth of July weekend and it has always been policy that a reservation cannot be made more than one year to the day in advance. We were told when we first came there that if we wanted to come for Fourth of July weekend we had to make the reservations a year in advance and we have been doing that - every year, despite our not making advanced reservations for other trips. When we checked in I told the woman behind the counter that we wanted to make next year's reservations right then starting on that same date. It has been custom here to give whoever is in a site regularly, preference for that site when making that year in advance reservation. We asked for the same site for next Fourth of July week. The woman at the desk is flipping through papers and calendars and says - "OK I can make the reservation for you - BUT not for that site. It is taken." What?!? We were polite - we exclaimed our disbelief - how could this be? It has always been policy to not make a reservation for a site until one year to the day - and we walked in to the office at exactly 2:00 pm at the very start of check in for this day. When was the site reserved - "several days ago". What?!? "Sorry, it is now first come first serve." Oh yeah?!?  We made the reservation (which can be canceled with no penalty) at our second preferred site. We knew that our favorite campground was not going to be a favorite any longer. We had to find another campground that we would like. The problems were mounting up. The final straw was in August - we went back just for convenience. We had the site for four days and decided that we wanted to stay another night. We got another night but in a different space which was understandable and fine. The morning that we were going to move. We were getting dressed inside the Roadtrek at 10 am and there was a bang on the Roadtrek door. I looked out the window past the closed curtain and there was a man outside. He looked like he belonged to the campground - there are lots of men in tee shirts working now in the campground from the amusement park. Official checkout time at the campground is 11:00 am. It used to be 1:30 pm. It was an hour before that. I open the door and he says we are supposed to be out of the site! I tell him that checkout is an hour away. There is a trailer in the entrance road. Remember - check in is at 2:00 pm - it is 10 am. He gives me a look. I told him that we were moving to another site and when we were finished doing what we were doing we would be moving over there. He went off in a huff. What the heck is going on here?!?

So in August on a rainy afternoon we headed over to a campground that I had seen good reviews for and that is owned by one of the large local companies that has hotels, restaurants, and bake shops and all are family owned and run. It gets great reviews. My hesitation with it in the past was that it has a traffic gate that requires a key to open. Never having been in a campground with a gate - and our usual schedule of arriving late at night on some trips and getting in past office closing. We had to know what the story with that gate and our late arrivals would be. We parked the Roadtrek outside the office and went inside. There was an Amish woman at the desk. Interesting - and nice. We explained that we were just in for information - that we were regular visitors to the area but were in need of a new campground - mentioning some of the problems without saying any name - and she smiled knowingly. The gate key card would be no problem. As long as they know that you are coming with a reservation, they will leave the card and the site number for you outside the locked office. Wonderful! We tried to walk around to look at the campground but it was pouring. From what we could see it looked nice. The next trip we would try it - which was supposed to be the September trip, and I have already said what happened with that. The October trip would be our trial stay.

Wow! All of this and we have not even gotten to the start of the October trip yet. Maybe it is best that we end here and make this Part 1 and the article that I set down to write this afternoon will be Part 2. Sometimes when you think, let me tell you this before I tell you that - well, it can take some time, but we try to keep the path interesting and entertaining as we go meandering along.

So - end of Part 1. Part 2 in two weeks...

Colonial Williamsburg Revisited

I have been going to Colonial Williamsburg for over 50 years and have seen many changes over those years. Meryl and I started going to CW - as called by those who work there and those who have a special relationship to Colonial Williamsburg - when we were first married and have gotten there almost every year since. We had not been able to get there last year and I have not written about it here since the first year that we had the Roadtrek. Things have changed since then and it is time for another article.

From where we live - by routings - the trip should take eight hours including stops for lunch and dinner. With construction and traffic the trip can take almost 12 hours and while we have done this straight through it is not the best idea to do. A stop in PA and move on the next day for the rest of the trip. I take what many would consider the wrong way to go. We go on 95, around Baltimore to avoid propane restricted tunnels - which some claim you can go through and some claim you cannot - so we just go around and take the bridge - if we are not stopping in PA first. Then it is 95 to the Capital Beltway and around DC back to 95 and straight down until the Richmond bypass and then onto Rt. 60 which takes you right to CW and the campground that we prefer. We have rarely gotten stuck around Baltimore and we have never had a problem around DC. The problem comes in before Fredericksburg and approaching the bypass around Richmond. Many have shared what they feel are better routes - all of which take one way around and way out of the way - and when looking at travel times for these routes come out to be the same time as dealing with the traffic - but you are moving along through the many more miles. Anyway - the unpopular 95 has worked for us before and since the Roadtrek. It also brings us to a gas station that has always had the lowest price gas of any in that area or any other that we go through - both traveling and at home. I don't know why this is with this station but it has been this way for years. We paid $1.94 here in August when gas at home was still near $2.60 and was not much better anywhere else that we traveled through. Hmm... wondering what it is right now - quick check with Gas Buddy and its $1.88 (Oh my!). (This is at the time of this writing 9/30/15.) Here it is still well over $2.00. (I get real excited when I see low gas prices!) So moving on - cheap gas that actually lasts and is not gone after 100 miles - to getting to the campground.

We stay at American Heritage campground in Williamsburg, VA. It is reasonable and is the nicest campground of any that we have ever been to. Every site is a paved, level site. The cable television selection is better than most and the wifi is very good. We don't use it but there is a swimming pool and also sports fields and a hiking trail into the woods. It is situated off the road and you do not hear the road noise.

So, on to Colonial Williamsburg. If you have never been there or don't know at all what it is, CW was built in the 1930s with Rockefeller money. Rockefeller was enticed to spend his wealth by the pastor of the local and historic Anglican church who had a vision of restoring a sleepy college city back to what it looked like in the 18th Century. Many of the buildings remained. Well, Rockefeller with the help of Rev. Goodwin's influence bought the whole town - well just about the whole town as there were a few holdouts and they were just built around. They created Williamsburg as it was with archaeologists and researchers and specialist architects and did so with 18 Century building techniques. What you see today is coming on 100 years old on its own in a not a very long time. What you see, go into and are surrounded by are restored or reconstructed homes, public buildings, and trades shops populated with people of the past - living history interpreters that bring the city of the 18th Century back to life. It is all around you and if you let yourself be drawn in, you are part of it. It is time travel - and for the serious visitor - meaning not the family or couple who come in for the afternoon on their way to the amusement park, walk the streets and don't buy a ticket to experience what goes on inside and areas outside not on the street and look and leave - it can be an experience like none other.

In CW you will encounter every day people of the past, trades and workmen - men and women, and some people who you may recall from history lessons long ago - Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington - to name a few. These are not people in costumes walking around as in Disney parks - these are historians who have taken their interpretations to the highest levels of research and will convincingly portray these people of the past so that you will come away believing that you have met the real thing.

Since my last article some things have changed. I spoke then of the Revolutionary City program which at that time was spread over three days. Since that program has gone from three days to two days to now a part of one day. These are scenes of events that took place in the city of Williamsburg in various years during and before the American Revolution. The focus this year has been 1781 - the year leading up to Washington's victory over the British at Yorktown, Virgina just several miles from Williamsburg. The year will change next year, and the next year, etc. Added in the day in the afternoon were outdoor,  staged programs about other events that took place in the city - most on a more personal basis between people who lived in the city in the 18th Century.

There has been some construction going on as research showed that a "Market House" existed on a stretch of property that has been left open. The CW team of archaeologists did a dig and found traces of the posts that supported this open air structure along with a small building that was also found in the research. It has taken three years to complete the research, build the buildings using historic tools and methods and it is about to open to the public this Fall.

This is where people would go to do their food shopping - no, not everyone grew their own. There was a market place that would open early in the morning and some would have stands inside the Market House structure and others would sell from blankets around the outside. You would go to buy vegetables, fruits, fish, and meats. One needed to get there early to get the best cuts and the best choices. When opened it will be interpreted both as an historic site and also be used as a sales site.

This is the newest - some of the photos below are the oldest. The Capitol Building - the building that housed the legislative body of the House of Burgesses where Washington, Jefferson, Henry all served as Burgesses. The Capitol is a reconstructed building built on the original foundation.

Duke of Gloucester Street - the main street of the colonial city - full of trades shops, taverns, and residences.

A tavern in the 18th Century is not only a place to go to enjoy a rum or punch but also is a place to dine and/or sleep.

You will also find the homes of some patriots who were very famous in their time but little taught in history books today - unless you live in Virginia. This is the home of Peyton Randolph - the President of the First Continental Congress and the President of the Second Continental Congress until his death while in Philadelphia at the beginning of the proceedings. He was highly respected  throughout the Colonies and would have been, it is felt, the first President of the United States had he lived.

In the trades shops and yards you get to see and interact with those everyday people who helped make things happen. This is the yard of the Wheelwright's shop.

One of the staged programs - this looks at a serious situation of a woman about to be married who realizes as we watch the short encounter with the aunt of her fiance that she will not be able to bring both her personal servant (slave) and that servant's child with her to her marriage. There are many programs presented that make very real to us the realities of life in this time.

For us this is always a great trip. We had the pleasure to be able to talk with old friends who work at CW who we have met over the years and we also met, by surprise, friends from home that were there visiting as we were who are fellow members in our reenacting unit.

If you have an interest in history this is a must visit. When you arrive buy a multi-day ticket. It is now good for any number of days from the date of purchase to the end of the calendar year. It takes a minimum of three days to see enough of Colonial Williamsburg to come away with an appreciation for it. Less and you barely scrape the surface. There are also many other historic places to visit in this area and I will write articles about our visits to those soon as well. We spent 9 nights and ten days here this year. We have stayed longer. It is open all year. From January through February there are fewer programs but all buildings remain open. There is RV parking at the Visitors Center and shuttle buses or a walking trail to the historic area . I have a secret parking place to park the Roadtrek that I am thinking now I better keep to myself...

Colonial Williamsburg

MAKE IT DARK...

We are "night" people. It is just how we are. We go to bed late and tend to get up later in the morning, even when traveling, unless there is somewhere that we plan to be that we must be at early. For some time now, I have been trying to find some way to block out the morning daylight that comes through both the Fantastic Fan cover in the roof and the spaces around the poorly fitting and warped night covers over the three "opera" windows in the front ceiling.The windows all around are pretty well covered by both the curtains that came with the Roadtrek and the insulating Reflectix bubble foil that I fit into the inside frames of some of the windows.

This article will focus on the light coming through the Fantastic Fan, as we have still not come up with an effective way to deal with the three ceiling windows, which Meryl and I are still working on. When I first started asking around the forums about what others do, the first suggestion was a commercially sold foam insert that goes up into the vent frame - and I bought one of these, even though I knew that on the Fantastic Fan with its control knobs shallow to the frame it would not work. Several said, "Oh yes! It works!". It doesn't. This insert is made for a vent with no motor which has a frame that is much deeper than the Fantastic Fan. That went back the next day.

Another suggestion was to cut a piece of Reflectix and use small bungee cords to hold it in place inserting the small wire tips of the six inch, thin cord, bungee cords in between the edge of the frame and the padded ceiling. This actually worked, but I cringed every time I pushed the wire tip of that bungee cord between the frame and the ceiling.  I even covered the wire with heat shrink tubing but even with that there was still a point and I was certain that doing this every night in the RV, sooner of later it would cut into the padded ceiling and the ceiling would rip. This was only a temporary solution.

I started to design a foam insert of my own design. We bought foam and took measurements, drew a pattern, test fitted the paper pattern and cut the foam. The foam was an inch thick and the knobs and controls come down less than that. I cut around the knobs to friction fit the foam up into the frame of the fan - it stayed up for about ten seconds and then came down. The foam had no support to keep it up and anything that might be added to support it would make it too heavy to stay up.  No this was not going to work - good foam cut for nothing.

I went to arts and craft stores looking for something that would work. There is no metal on the frame that attracts magnets. Even the screws were not going to work with magnets. What would work with magnets was the shower curtain frame on the ceiling that widely surrounds the fan. I started looking at ways to put something up around the frame - cloth, a quilted cloth, a piece of foam board that would sit inside the frame. All ideas that had their faults when examined closely. I was not giving up and I kept the idea of using the shower curtain track in some way in mind.

Now, a curtain hung from the track to the floor on the side of the track facing the bed would not work - it would not only block getting out of bed, it would also block getting to the toilet. In the middle of the night when you gotta go, you don't want to struggle with a curtain in your way when you are half awake. That idea was considered and dropped.

What would work? I had one of those "ah ha!" moments walking around a store when I saw the pop up fabric trash cans and clothes hampers. The wire in these to give them support and allow them to fold up flat would work fit inside the shower curtain frame with fabric fitted tightly around it. The wire would hold it in place on the frame and the fabric would stretch around the wire and not sag blocking all light coming through the fan in the middle. I wondered where one would get such wire - and then on our first trip of the season, actually saw it for sale in the surplus and hardware shop at Green Dragon Farmers Market. If there is something that is hard to find, this shop usually has it. They had piano wire in various thicknesses. This was a possibility taking shape - but buying fifty feet of piano wire on a maybe idea was not something to jump on. The idea needed to brew and perk a bit more. We had to know how the fabric would be fit and what fabric would block the light. We passed up the wire - it would be there next time, if we had an actual potentially working design. But the idea continued to perk...

That night in Walmart we are walking around the store - again, late night people sometimes look for places to be out late and a 24 hour Walmart in many places is easy to find (again, to those who are astonished - to each their own - this is "our" own), I pass in the auto aisle windshield covers that are just about what I am thinking about making. Would these fit? I took down the measurements (28.5" x 31.5" and considered "jumbo size" on some of these and "standard" on others) and when we got back to the campground and were settled in for the night, I measured the dimensions inside the entire shower curtain track. It was about 28.5" square - though the track goes off square on the shower side of the aisle slightly. It seemed like this might work - and we did not have to create anything or reinvent the wheel. The next night, back to Walmart, we would find out if this would work. We bought a pair - they are sold in pairs - for less than $10. The one we picked was silver fabric on one side and black on the other. The best part about Walmart is that one can return just about anything - open or not, as long as it is in the same condition as when purchased. If it did not work, it could easily go back - to any store - there or at home.

Back at the campground, I took the circle of folded covers out of their package and they popped open into huge potato chips. I took one of the pair and fitted it up into the frame. It was a bit tricky to get it in and it took the two of us to keep one side up in the frame while the other side went in.  Because the frame does go in deeper on the shower side, one side and that the cover is three inches in length longer than the dimensions of the frame, one side of the cover was going to curl, but it stayed close to the ceiling, was not in the way of any cabinets or the bathroom door, and most importantly, it stayed in place - even with a little coaxing to come down. Huzzah! It looked like it was going to work. That night we left it in place to see what we would see - or not see in the morning when the sun came up.

That next morning I would say that 90% of the light was blocked. It was not blocked completely as there was a grey, dull light coming through the cover around the fan opening. Not really a problem, the idea was working. That night I had the idea, that since we had two, if one worked two would work even better. I put the two together - black fabric side down and thicker silver fabric side to the fan - and the two of us fit the pair in place as one - just like the night before - with the curl on the kitchen cabinet side, which seemed the better side for it. The next morning - darkness. No light was coming through the fan vent opening. This was it! This works!

There are instructions attached on one of the pair to fold them together back into a less than one foot in diameter circle. "Put your thumbs here. Fold inward like a taco". Heck if that didn't work.

So if you are tired of the light streaming in from the Fantastic Fan in the morning when you really would like to sleep some more, this will do it!  Take your own measurements in case your shower track is different.

Fits nicely!

Folded for Storage