The Roadtrek has a propane hot water heater to heat your hot water and a six gallon hot water tank to hold that water and keep it hot. Inside you can see the tank inside one of your cabinets - mine is in the first cabinet on the driver's side under the bed. You will know it is your hot water tank because it is covered in white foam. This is the tank from the inside of the Roadtrek. The hot water heater and tank are actually accessed from the outside of the Roadtrek on the driver's side.

In the middle of the driver's side of the outside of the Roadtrek you will see a panel with a mesh screen in the upper right corner and vents next to that. In between the screen and the vents there is a little ring. The ring is the latch that holds this panel tight to the body of the Roadtrek. By flipping that ring up and turning it so that the ring is vertical, the panel can be pulled out from the top edge and the ring will slip through a slot that is behind it. When you open this panel, put the door in a safe place. You have now accessed the water heater and the water tank.

What you see in the photo above is the hot water heater and behind that is the tank that you saw inside. You can access the heating element and the interior of the hot water tank through this panel compartment.

You can access the heating element and the interior of the hot water tank from this access panel comparment. Here you will find access to the heating element and at the bottom, right in the
middle - the anode rod which also serves as the plug for the hot water tank. You can see it in the photo - it is what looks like the top of a hex head bolt.

Roadtrek installs a SUBURBAN hot water heater. I capitalized Suburban to emphasize that this is important to know. There are, from what I have learned, two types of hot water heaters for RVs, named for their manufacturers - Suburban and Atwood. They are different in what they are made of and they take different Anode Rods. It is important to check the anode rod at least twice a year - though the manual says four times a year - and that would not be a bad idea.

It is the job of the anode rod to corrode and it does this to prevent your hot water tank from corroding. Don't ask me how it does this - but it has something to do with a slight electric charge that passes through the rod and attracts the minerals in the water that would damage the walls of your tank - instead of damage to the walls, the rod self-destructs. How nice of it! Each time you check the rod, it will be getting thinner and thinner. It must be replaced when it has corroded 75% - I am told this is about the diameter of a pencil.

To remove the rod - just like when winterizing - you use a ratchet wrench and a one and 1/16 inch socket. Unscrew the head of the rod and it will loosen just like a bolt. When it is out of the threads, pull it out by the head and a long rod will come out, along with a lot of water. BUT WAIT!FIRST MAKE SURE YOUR HOT WATER HEATER IS TURNED OFF. THEN - Never start to remove this rod with the water heater still hot or with hot water in the tank. Let the water heater and the water cool down to cold. THEN before touching the anode rod head to unscrew it, pull the pressure release handle at the top of this compartment. It is a little pull handle connected to a water faucet. Pull that handle up and step back - water will come rushing out of that faucet and this is water under pressure. When no more water is coming out, that is when you take your ratchet wrench and socket and start to unscrew the anode rod. Again, when that rod is out, a great deal of water - up to six gallons of water will come rushing out. As the rod gets loose, step aside. Many have experienced the remaining pressure in the tank shoot that rod past them!

Once the rod is out, you are draining the hot water tank. Place the rod on something clean. Despite how it looks, this is in your clean hot water which will go on you and possibly into your mouth. So, put it in a zip lock bag or someplace clean until you are ready to put it back into the tank. Water will continue to flow out of the hole where the rod used to be. When the water stops there will still be some water in the bottom of the tank. If you are just checking the rod, or you are winterizing, this little amount of water does not mater.

But hey, the title of this article is "Flushing the Hot Water Tank". Have you flushed the tank yet? No.

As the anode rod corrodes it leaves behind sediment and large white and grey flakes of minerals, etc. in the water and this settles to the bottom of the hot water tank. It is important that twice a year you flush these out - or you will discover that by some magic they will find their way into your hot and cold water lines. Don't ask me how the hot and cold water lines can cross but the Roadtrek specialist at dealer service told me that somehow they do. I found this out the hard way when I saw these particles coming into the toilet when the toilet was flushed. And then we checked the sink (without the filter on) and found grit coming out of there too. This was the other problem that I mentioned in a recent article that we took to dealer service. The fix is to flush the hot water tanks.

On a previous trip, I had purchased from the dealer's RV supply shop a gizmo called the Tank Saver. This is a thin plastic wand with a bent tip that attaches to a hose and is used to clean out and flush the hot water tank. How prophetic of me to think to buy this before I needed it! It has a valve on the end to turn on and turn off the water. It acts like a little pressure washer to agitate all of the sediment in the bottom of your hot water tank and flow it out of the drain hole as the water that you are shooting into the tank comes rushing out.



I connected this to a fresh water hose. You want to use a fresh water hose because you are putting water into a fresh water tank (the hot water tank is a fresh water tank). I turned the water on the house outside faucet to full. I put the wand into the tank and I turned the valve on the bottom to on and water shot into the tank. Moving the wand all around the tank, I immediately saw large chunks of sediment - some over two inches - rush out the drain hole with the water. The instructions for the Tank Saver say it only needs two minutes to clean the tank. I stayed at it more than ten minutes - until I saw nothing more coming out with the water and the water was clean. On my driveway under the hot water tank, there was a pile of sediment and large chunks that were white and grey. The tank was thoroughly flushed.

Before screwing the anode rod back in, it is recommended that you put teflon pipe tape around the screw threads of the rod so that the rod will not get stuck in the tank. Wrap some pipe tape around the threads and put the rod back in the drain hole. Screw it in with your fingers and then use the ratchet wrench and socket to get it in and tighten it down. You do not want this to leak. Fill the tank with water and check for leaks outside at the anode rod head.

It is recommended that you flush the tanks at least TWICE a season.

Above is a picture of a new anode rod for a Suburban hot water heater. The Suburban rod is longer than the Atwood rod. It is made of either magnesium or aluminum. I am told that the one that comes in the hot water heater is magnesium. The magnesium rod and the aluminum rod are both supposed to work the same. Of course, the paper and the rubber band come off before it goes into the hot water heater. You can purchase these at any RV supply shop. This one came from the shop at my Roadtrek dealer. It is something that you should buy in advance and keep a spare to save a trip to find one when you need to change the one in your hot water tank.

In this article we are going to talk about the pleasant subject of dumping your waste tanks. Some of what I will tell you about applies basically to all RVs and some applies only to Roadtreks since Roadtrek added the macerator dump system as standard equipment in all models. I will first start with the basics.

The Roadtrek has two separate waste tanks. One is called the Black Tank - and has "black water" in that tank. This is the tank that is connected only to your toilet. Everything that goes into the toilet is dropped down into the Black Tank. The other tank is called the Grey Tank and has "grey water" in it. This is the tank that is connected to your sink drain(s Roadtreks that have the enclosed bathroom option also have a bathroom sink) and your shower drain. This is water will be clean water that has flowed down the drain and also water from washing your hands, washing dishes, and taking a shower. This water is likely to have soap mixed in. The Roadtrek has a 23 gallon grey tank and a 10 gallon black tank - yes, the black tank holds only ten gallons of water mixed with waste. The grey tank size will vary with model. All models except the 170 have a ten gallon black tank (the 170 black tank is only 8 gallons).

Once those tanks fill up you need a way to empty them and that is called "dumping" your tanks. The traditional RV has a gravity dump system. With this system a three inch wide hose is connected to a connector that is part of two valves that open and close the tanks. The other end of that hose is put into a hole in the ground that leads to a sewer and by gravity, when the valves are opened one at a time the waste and water flow out through the hose from the tanks and go down into the sewer. The process can take a bit of time and requires that there be sufficient height from the bottom of the tanks where the valve enters each tank for gravity to be able to work to carry the waste and water out. Older Roadtreks have this system. Newer Roadtreks do not.

Newer Roadtreks have a MACERATOR. A macerator is an electric pump with a grinder attached. It is very much like a sink garbage disposal system. The macerator is connected to two pipes that each are connected to a valve that goes into the black tank and the grey tank. Inside the macerator is an impeller that spins pumping the water from the tank into the macerator and also a pair of stainless steel very sharp cutting blades. All of the waste the comes into the macerator with the water is ground up into liquid by the spinning cutting blades - think of a blender or food processor. That thin solution is then pushed through a flex hose that is about one inch in diameter and out a nozzle into the sewer hole. The process is quick and relatively odorless - unless you stick your nose into the sewer hole. There is a momentary switch that turns the macerator on and off - push the switch - on - let go of the switch - off. This switch is located inside the driver's door and on the newer Roadtreks it is a red button on the frame of the driver's seat facing out the door. The macerator enables the Roadtrek which is close to the ground to pump the waste and water out of the tanks with little gravity and it can even push the waste uphill if that is where the sewer hole is. Roadtrek felt that this is the better system for a Class B that is so close to the ground on the bottom.

Which system is better? There are a lot of strong opinions on this. There are positives to be said for both systems. The one reason that makes sense more than others about the traditional gravity system being better is that since it is not mechanical in any way, there is very little that can go wrong with the system. You don't need electricity (the macerator will work with either the coach battery(ies) or 120 volt hook up). Not much can clog a three inch hose. And you can always add a portable macerator to the end of a gravity hose to do the same job as the built in Roadtrek macerator. More importantly, you are not dealing with a motor that can break or an impeller that can get jammed from waste or hair that may have gone down the drain. It may sound like I don't like the macerator in my Roadtrek - and that is not true. I like how fast it empties the tanks and I also know that the way some campground sewer connections are and some dump stations can be, the fact that the macerator can move the water without gravity can be an advantage. I am not going to go into the things that people say about the macerator system in general. I will tell you that the macerator's number one enemy is HAIR. Put good hair screens on all of your drains and do not allow hair to flow down the drains. Think of a vacuum cleaner whose rotating brushes pick up hair on the floor and twist that hair around the brush until it cannot turn any more. This is exactly what hair COULD do to a macerator impeller. If you are careful you are fine.

It is important to understand one other thing that the difference between a macerator system and a gravity system effects. With a gravity system you could connect your dump hose to the sewer connection at the campground and open the grey valve (it is generally recommended not to do this with the black valve for the black tank) and let all of the grey water go into the tank and then right out again into the sewer. This permits endless showers, washing, etc. The grey tank never fills up and it empties all of the time when water goes in and you are hooked up. You will see RVs do this all the time at campgrounds. YOU CANNOT DO THIS WITH THE ROADTREK MACERATOR SYSTEM. With the macerator the tank only empties when you push and hold in the button. No water will flow through on its own. So you must rely upon your tank to hold the water that goes down the sink and shower drains and then empty it when it is full.

OK - now the fun part - the how to do it. Well, you know how to do it. You have been doing it since you were born. Now you will learn how to get rid of it in a Roadtrek.

Before you can dump the waste tanks, each tank must be at least 2/3 full. The 2/3 indicator for each tank is on the monitor panel inside your Roadtrek. It is the next to last light from the top - the top light is full (which is OK to dump at too). If you want to dump and you don't have that much in your tanks, put some more in. Open the faucet and let the water run into the grey tank and flush the toilet until you have enough water in the black tank. I use a gallon water jug that we carry and I go out to the hose faucet on the campground site and fill it and dump it down the toilet until we reach 2/3 or full. Once you get enough into the tanks you can start to dump them.

First, you must have electrical power on - either your coach batteries or 120 volt power (hookup or generator). Make sure your Battery Disconnect switch is ON - red light is lit. If I am not connected to 120 volt power I like to start the van engine just to give the macerator motor a little extra umpf to work.

Open the side compartment where your macerator is located. On my 190 it is a lift up door for the side storage compartment. Also open the door - on mine - next to the storage compartment to the front of the van - to access the grey and black tank handles.

You pull the hose out of its compartment, nozzle first. It has worked best when the entire hose is removed from the compartment until it reaches its full length. This hose is connected under your Roadtrek to the macerator. Don't pull once the hose stops coming out! In the photo above you see the green hose with the white and grey nozzle. The black handle on the top is a valve to stop the water from coming out of the nozzle. Open the driver's door to get to the macerator power button.

The sewer connection is a four inch pipe in the ground - usually plastic pipe - with a screw on cap. Always keep a box of latex surgical gloves (or the non-latex gloves if you have an allergy to latex). You can get these in boxes of a hundred in many places. Put on a pair of the gloves - remember what you are dumping through that hose that you will be holding. If you don't have a sewer connection at your campsite then there will be a dump station at the campground (or at various other places) for everyone to use. Usually there is one - and you can expect to wait in line for your turn. At these there may be a large metal plate in the ground covering a large open hole. Don't fall in. (You are laughing but in the next county to us there is a free public dump station at a sewage disposal plant, and there are large open manholes in the pavement to dump into - and one wrong step and you are down and dirty and likely to drown or wish you did.) The sewer connection at your campsite is much safer and much more pleasant. It is well worth the extra few dollars a night to have a site with your own sewer connection. OK - go over to the sewer pipe, unscrew the cap, and put the cap on the side. Remember what everyone else has been pouring around this hole and mind where you step (at least be aware of the possibility that it is not necessarily the cleanest spot in the campground).

Now, it gets really fun. Go to your Roadtrek and open the black tank valve by pulling the black handle - a newer Roadtrek will have color coordinated handles. I have heard that there are some older ones that have handles that have no difference in color - both black, both grey. The handles are easy to change and you can buy ones in black or grey at RV supply stores. A newer Roadtrek also has a label printed next to each valve. So easy. Below is a photo of our valve compartment.


What you see in this photo is both valve handles open. I will explain this later. Now, you only want to pull the black handle to open the black tank. YOU ALWAYS DUMP THE BLACK TANK FIRST - no matter if you have a gravity system or a macerator.

Dumping a Roadtrek with a macerator is a two person process. I will explain how one person can do this later. For now let's assume you have a partner to do this. This is one of those togetherness things that couples enjoy. And in the tight quarters of a Class B RV you have a lot of togetherness moments.

One person is now going to take the nozzle connected to the green hose (some older Roadtreks have different color hoses and those hoses had problems breaking - Roadtrek has since about 2008 replaced the hose with a durable hose) and bring it over the the sewer hole. Hold the end of the nozzle into the hole - you do have to bend to do this (can't bend - don't worry - I can tell you what to do). Turn the black handle on the nozzle so that it points to the opening of the nozzle - open position - look at the photo a few paragraphs back to see the nozzle in the open position (we keep ours that way all of the time - I will tell you why later).

You now give your partner the GO signal that you are ready for the sh.. I mean waste to start to flow and your partner will press the red button that is inside the driver's door. Push and hold that button - for now.

The motor of the macerator will start and you will see the hose contort a bit as it fills up and then it all flows out the end of the nozzle into the hole - hold it down enough into the sewer hold to avoid splashing on you. (I know you are saying ycch! Really, it is not bad at all if you do it correctly. We really were pleasantly surprised the first time we did this. ) You will get a full flow at first - and generally it is almost clear water and then the water turns dark brown - you really don't have to look.


Here is Meryl with the nozzle in the sewer hole. Yes, this is her job. I am at the button. She is holding the nozzle a bit high and this is JUST for the photo so that you can see what to do. See, she is wearing rubber gloves. She also has on her "OK to get wet" shoes though she really does not want to get them wet here doing this. Keep the button pressed until only spurts are coming out of the hose. At this point the black tank is as empty as it needs to be. Roadtrek and the macerator company say that you will hear a change in sound made by the macerator motor when you should stop. It is supposed to make a high pitch whine - a change in tone from the regular sound. We don't really hear that. We have been told that it is definitely different in tone. As soon as water is down to those spurts stop. At this point we have been letting go of the button and then pushing it again and another stream of water will come out - but we have been learning that this is not a good idea - so AS SOON as you see the water flow slow down to spurts, STOP. If you run the macerator motor when it is dry you will burn it out! You have now emptied the black tank - one more tank to go!

The rest is simple. Have your partner at the button pull out the grey handle. There are a lot of varying opinions about closing the black handle now by pushing it back in, leaving it open while you dump the grey tank, or opening the grey handle, allowing a little water from the grey tank to back flow into the black tank and with the soapy water cleaning that tank a little. We have tried it all. At the moment we are leaving the black handle open (pulled out) while we are dumping the grey tank (grey handle pulled out). This is a common suggestion in this process and unless we encounter some problem after having done this for a year now, we will follow the common trend. Basically, you can dump the grey tank with or without the black handle open.

The reason that you are dumping the grey tank last is that you do want that soapy water to follow that black water and clean out the macerator and the hose - and almost three times the amount of water is going to come through the grey tank and out the hose.

With the grey handle pulled out - repeat what you did for the black tank exactly the same. Nozzle into the sewer hole, push the red button, and the grey water flows out into the sewer. The grey water looks either clear or grey depending upon how much soap went down the drain. It can also be bubbly from the soap - but not always. Again, hold the button down until the water starts to spurt and then stop. The grey tank is as empty as needed.

At this point push in the grey handle and push in the black handle. Your waste tanks are empty. But that is not always the end of the process I am sorry to say. You can stop here if need be. This is what the problem COULD be. The tank monitor sensors are notoriously inaccurate. They can be made inaccurate, particularly in the black tank if something has caught on one of them - like toilet paper and causes it to make incorrect contact and result in reading as if there was water on it and the tank is full to that level. You could have an empty tank that still reads 2/3 or even Full. You know it is empty - you just emptied to the point of nothing more coming out. But that monitor panel is saying something else. What a pain!

Here is what you can do - which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't and is recommended anyway. You are going to flush the black tank with clean water and empty it again. I have done this two ways. One way with my gallon jug and I fill and dump ten gallons of clean water down the toilet letting it rush into the toilet hole with a little force from gravity (it will splash a little as you do this). I also purchased a tank cleaning wand - for the Roadtrek you must have one with a FLEXIBLE HOSE END - that is a rigid wand with a flexible hose at the end about two feet long and the end of that has either multiple small hose for water to come out or a spinning brass end that swirls water around. You connect this wand to a garden hose - you can see my olive green coil hose in the first photo in the compartment (sold at all of the home stores and Walmart in the summer). NEVER USE A FRESH WATER HOSE FOR THIS! There is a shut off valve on your end of the wand. Turn the hose water faucet on full, wand valve OFF, and put the end of the hose into the toilet. Open the toilet valve with your foot and BE CAREFUL NOT TO LET THE TOILET VALVE CLOSE ON THE WAND OR YOU WILL DAMAGE THE TOILET! Snake the end of the flex hose all the way down into the black tank. Yes, when it come out it will not be very pleasant and you need to wear latex gloves for this job and have disinfectant cleanser and paper towels on hand to clean this wand before you put it away. The wand acts like a pressure washer and you move the wand around so that it gets to every part of the tank - up and down, around and around. Anything clinging to a sensor or the tank walls will be knocked off - and all of the water going in is clean. You want to fill the tank with this now until it is at least 2/3 full. When it is full completely, you will see water come up the drain pipe toward the toilet. Stop by shutting off the valve on your end of the wand. Get the wand outside to clean it so that you don't mess up anything inside your Roadtrek.

Now, go back outside and dump your black tank only all over again. Just as you did before. Roadtrek does recommend flushing the tank every time you dump it. When you are done, and you allow the tank to dry out a little you will actually see the monitor panel read empty - if you are lucky.

Now, it is time to put away your macerator hose and finish up. First, close the sewer hole by screwing the cap back on. Keep those gloves on! Next, leave the nozzle valve OPEN. This is to allow air to escape from the macerator hose when you bend it and cram it back into its compartment. This compartment is a TIGHT fit. A few more inches would have done wonders. Push the hose back in - back end first and just keep pushing and fitting the hose in until it is all inside. Now, take the nozzle and push that in with the nozzle opening facing UP. At this point you could turn that black nozzle valve closed, but we have found that it fits inside much better with the nozzle valve handle straight to the nozzle and not across as it is in the closed position. It is also much easier to get out this way. Clean your wand and put it away - ours is in a large plastic bag in the side storage compartment and it is a pain and always in the way- but this is the best place so far we have found to keep it.

You are almost finished. Go inside the Roadtrek and pour a gallon of clean water into the toilet and let it go down into the black tank. You might add the deodorizer/digester chemical of your choice to the water now too. YOU MUST ALWAYS HAVE WATER IN YOUR BLACK TANK! You never want it to dry out or you will have big problems. When it comes to your black tank, water is your best friend - and plenty of it. Now, you are finished. The whole process can take us about 45 minutes and that is only because of the time needed to flush the black tank. If we are not flushing - like at a public dump site - it takes us about 15 minutes to empty both tanks - or less. It really goes fast.

Now - some extras!

You say - "I don't want to stand and look into the sewer hole holding the nozzle!" or you say - "I can't bend over the hole to do this!" or you say - "I am all alone, now what do I do?!". Well you have a solution - the same one for all three - you use two donuts.

Uhhh? I eat two donuts and this solves all the problems. No. An RV donut is a small rubber plug with a hole in the middle. You can buy these at RV supply shops or ... yep! Walmart. You need two different sizes and Roadtrek is nice enough to include one that fits their macerator hose nozzle with your new Roadtrek. This is a hard rubber plug. The problem though, is that the one that comes with the Roadtrek is too small to fit into the usual sewer pipe opening. The one in the stores fits these sewer pipes perfectly. The one from Roadtrek fits inside that donut perfectly. I did find that once joined together it is hard to get them apart. You don't need to get them apart but you cannot fit the nozzle back into its compartment with one or both of these attached to the nozzle. The easy fix is get some KY jelly - a water soluble lubricant at your pharmacy or pharmacy department. Put a little on the nozzle and a little around the Roadtrek donut and then put the Roadtrek, smaller donut into the hole of the larger donut, and then put the nozzle into the center of the Roadtrek donut. Now, push the larger donut into the sewer hole - no lube needed. It should stick in easily and NOT fall in. Now, you can walk away from the sewer hole with your macerator nozzle attached to it and go push the button yourself. You are not near the sewer hole. You can't smell the sewer hole. You can't see into the sewer hole - which can be a good thing but is also a bad thing because you now have no visual on the water stopping when the tank is empty. Now, you must rely on the sound. As they say, a change to a high pitch whine and it is empty. You will just have to accept that. Once the donut comes out of the sewer hole, disinfect it with a disinfectant cleaner. Put it into something that will keep it away from your fresh water hoses. We have a plastic box for the "dirty" things that we want to keep separate in that side compartment. By the way, there are some campgrounds that require that you use a donut when dumping. It is simple to use - as I have described and you should always have one in your Roadtrek that will fit the standard dump pipe, in addition to the smaller one that Roadtrek gives you. (If you lose that smaller donut or need to buy one you will find them at shops at dealers who sell Roadtreks but they are not cheap. The larger one is just a few dollars. You need BOTH.)

OK - what can go wrong? A macerator is a machine and like any machine, some can come out of the factory defective, some can break down, and some last forever. There are some Roadtrek owners that report many problems with their macerators. There are many more Roadtrek owners who never have a problem at all with the macerator. I have spoken to Roadtrek-trained technicians who have said the problems that they see with macerators are the result of hair being caught in the impeller or people who have not put enough water into their tanks. But what happens if something does go wrong. First, there is a manual crank for the macerator that will unstick something that may be stuck inside that is keeping the impeller from turning with the motor. There is a handle that is located below the Roadtrek chassis - on mine it is below the driver's door. The handle is connected to a long bar that goes into the macerator. To use this handle you must go under the Roadtrek to get to it and to turn it. You push it in to engage a screwdriver type blade on the end into a slot inside the macerator's shaft. You then can turn that shaft to free it if it is stuck- you must always ONLY turn to the right.

I recently emailed Roadtrek customer service about something unrelated to the macerator and in the reply I was told that to keep the macerator in good working condition, the manual crank should be turned BEFORE EVERY DUMP to make sure that the impeller and shaft are turning freely. This is very likely a good idea, but this added step to dumping the tanks would require one to crawl under the Roadtrek and get to that crank handle each time you are about to dump the tanks. We have not yet done this - but we may. A little prevention may mean saving a lot of inconvenience. I did check about this with the service tech at our dealer-service and he did agree that it is a good idea. If you know that the shaft is turning freely, you know that there will be nothing that could jam and burn the motor.

There is also an emergency clean out on the macerator. This is a cap that must be opened (unscrewed) - again underneath the van - and then when you open the grey and black valves the tanks will gravity dump out the clean out. This can be very messy as it just dumps the contents of the tanks down on the ground below it - there is no way really to get this over a dump hole. Someone that I know with a Roadtrek has invented a way to connect a traditional gravity hose to this clean out, but the connections come too close to the ground and they cannot be permanently attached. This is a temporary solution only, but one that will allow a traditional gravity dump into a sewer hole in an emergency. It is nice to know that this is possible. Some people will not put toilet paper into their toilets believing that it is the toilet paper that jams the macerator. The company that makes the macerator insists that it can grind much more than toilet paper. Of course, you always must use toilet paper that will dissolve in water to a slurry in a very short time. Take a piece of toilet paper and put it in a glass of water. After a minute or less, swirl the water around and the toilet paper should be gone into miniscule shreds and then gone all together. You can use RV specific toilet paper which is expensive or you can use any toilet paper that passes the test that I have described. We use Scott single ply household toilet paper and it works fine. I did not pay what I paid for my Roadtrek not to put toilet paper down the toilet and to collect it in a bag hung on the bathroom door. Remember, as I said, use plenty of water in your black tank. Of course, there are things that cannot go down the toilet - leftovers, sanitary napkins, tampons, condoms, paper towels, sanitary toilet wipes, paper napkins - use common sense. If it does not dissolve it cannot be flushed.

That now is really all there is to it. It is a nasty job but it must be done. BUT it is not so nasty with the Roadtrek macerator. Oh, and when you are done. Throw away the gloves and wash your hands - really, really well.

I wrote what follows on a forum in response to a fellow Roadtrekker who was having problems getting the water to work on a Roadtrek 210. While it seems that the layout of plumbing is different on several of the Roadtrek models - and through the years on the same model things seem to change, the basics are the same. It is a simple and complete explanation of getting the plumbing on your Roadtrek to do what it is supposed to do - get the water flowing.

The Roadtrek 190 has two fresh water tanks - one in the front located outside under the driver's side and the other is inside in the rear of the passenger side (you cannot see the tank it is not in the living area). The Roadtrek 210 has the same two tanks. The Roadtrek 170 and the Roadtrek's built on Sprinters have one fresh water tank and these are tanks outside the van like the front tank on the 190s and 210s. If your Roadtrek has only one tank, as you read through this disregard what I write that involves the rear or interior tank. The water capacity of the two tanks together is not larger than the capacity of the one tank models. The water is just split between the two tanks. The purpose of this is to enable water use in freezing weather if only the interior tank is used and the inside of the van is kept consistently above freezing. This would also involve putting anti-freeze into the two waste tanks so that they would not freeze. When the Roadtrek is set up for use only with the rear, interior tank - this is called "Winter Mode". When the two tank Roadtreks are set up to use both tanks - this is called "Summer Mode".

I am going to step through all of this so that you can get the water all working. Keep in mind that even though you may have a different plumbing layout, the valves are all the same but in different locations.

First - we are going to focus on getting everything flowing with your tanks. Outside at the city water valve - turn that down pointing to the ground. If this is open you will draw air into the system so you want it closed. Then - The so-called summer mode requires that two valves be open - one is the red handle valve inside and the other is the small black valve that sits next to it. The little black valve sends water from your rear tank to your front tank. The red handle selects which tank the water is coming out of and you want the water to come from the outside (front) tank. So this handle must be turned so that the handle is inline with the pipe (and not across the pipe). The black valve handle needs to be in line with the pipe also - so that that water from the rear tank flows directly into the front tank. With this you are now set to run water from the two fresh water tanks to all of the faucets and the toilet.

Next - let's get your hot water tank set up. You must have all valves pointing toward the aisle - they look like they are all pointing the same way - though actually the top and bottom one are open and the middle one is closed. Yes, it is confusing. The top and bottom are open for the water to go into the hot water tank and come out of the hot water tank and the middle one is closed so that water does not flow between the top and bottom pipe (which you only want to happen when the hot water is bypassed). If you read our article on Winterizing you will see what you do to BYPASS the hot water tank for the winter.

You should now be ready to get water through your tanks. Fill your rear tank and your front tank through the door frame holes. Just for the heck of it, make sure your exterior drain valve is closed just to make sure water will not pour out of the tanks when you put water in. My Roadtrek does not have a valve, but has a screw cap. Take off the screw cap and the water in the tanks pours on the ground. My drain is located right under rear corner of the driver's door underneath the Roadtrek. I understand that some Roadtreks have an actual valve to turn -and not all models have the drain in the same location. Look at your panel monitor and you should see two full tanks. You are now ready to go.

Go inside. Turn on your battery disconnect switch - make sure you have battery power because you are going to need it. Turn on a light just to make sure or you can just push the test button on the monitor panel and you will see the battery level. When the battery disconnect switch is ON there is a red LED light on the switch that comes on.

TURN ON THE WATER PUMP - switch is next to the Battery Disconnect Switch. A light should show that it is on.


Go outside and turn on your Propane. It helps to light the stove for a minute just to see that propane has filled the lines.

Now, open the kitchen sink to cold water, a lot of air will come out and you will hear the water pump start. The hot water tank should fill itself using the water pump and that pump will remain on until it is full even if the sink is off. Give it sometime - it is six gallons going in. After a short amount of time, if you turn on the hot water on the faucet you will get more air and then water coming out - cold water. Do NOT turn on the hot water heater switch YET. Only do so
when the hot water heater is full of water. You will know it is full when the water pump stops running. (You can also know if it is full by going outside, opening the side panel of the van for the hot water heater, open the pressure relief valve on the top (it is on what looks like a faucet pipe) by pulling the silver handle gently towards you and stand back when you do this. IF water is in the top of the tank it will start pouring out. Close the valve right away or you will lose all that water. The pump will come on and refill what you let out. Close the side of the hatch outside the van. Go back inside. If there is this much water in the tank, you can turn on the hot water heater switch - BUT first, turn on your propane (and keep your battery on). You should see the red light next to the switch come on - and it will go off shortly after. If you go outside to that hatch you will hear the burner running and heating the water - this get real hot so don't touch. Even the vent screen outside gets hot.

It takes awhile for the water to get hot - you are heating six gallons of COLD water. Come back in fifteen minutes and you should feel a difference now between the hot and cold water in your sink - even if the hot is not yet really hot. You now have hot water!

And you have cold water. Flush your toilet. Turn on the shower - inside and outside if you want. Water should flow - hot and cold. Try the sink in the bathroom (if you have one - I don't). All should be flowing water on both the hot and cold handles. This is a properly working water system and yours should be working as it is supposed to.

NOW - if you want to run the city water with a hose at a campground. First - TURN OFF THE WATER PUMP. Leave the electric on as you need this for your hot water heater. DO NOT TOUCH THE CITY WATER VALVE OUTSIDE - ITIS IN THE POSITION THAT YOU NEED TO HAVE WATER INSIDE FROM THE HOSE.


NEXT - connect a water pressure valve to your fresh water hose, connect that to the water source - house or campground. DO NOT CONNECT TO A HOSE FOR A CITY WATER CONNECTION WITHOUT A WATER PRESSURE REGULATOR. This is something that is standard to all RVs and I am not sure why RV plumbing does not come with one built in at the City Water connection. You can purchase one for less than ten dollars at any RV supply store and Walmart sells one in their RV section. These limit water pressure to no greater than 40 to 50 psi. There are simple water pressure regulators for sale and their are ones with dials and adjustments. I am sure these more sophisticated ones are better than the simple ones, but the simple ones - just connect the end of the hose to the outflow of the regulator and the water faucet (or anywhere in between if you have other hoses connected to reach your Roadtrek) . The end of the hose that is past the outflow of the regulator is the end that gets connected to your Roadtrek.

You connect the other end of the hose to the Roadtrek city water intake connection. (We use the quick connect that Roadtrek supplied on this connection but you can just screw the hose directly on.

Turn on the water at the campground faucet to full or almost full pressure - the water pressure regulator that you put on the hose will protect your plumbing (again, never connect to city water without one when connecting the hose to the city water inlet).

I have recently learned that inside the Roadtrek in the cabinet where the water valves and hot water tank are located there are two other valves - mine are at the top rear of the cabinet. These shut water off to the outside shower. I have been told by the service tech at the dealer that we should never touch these - and leave them as they are. I have learned that if these two valves are CLOSED no city water will flow into your plumbing! How nice to learn this and now I know why I was told never to touch these. Just leave them on - we winterized with them on and had no problems.

Next - LEAVE THE WATER PUMP OFF - turn on the sink. You should have running water everywhere. If you start with empty water lines you will again get air coming out. If there is no water in the hot water tank it needs to fill again. It will do so from the water pressure alone.
It will fill much faster this way. Again, the water needs to heat so make sure to wait patiently for hot water. Make sure to follow the same directions as above to have hot water.

REMEMBER - that city water valve outside is only pointing in line with the pipe when you want to use it to fill your fresh water tanks. Basically - forget about it. Set it pointing down and leave it that way and fill your tanks with a hose put into the holes in the two door frames. There is a way to fill your water tanks with the city water hose connected to the same place by turning that valve but it is just as easy to fill your tanks one at a time through the holes plug in the door frames. Every time we have tried to use the city water inlet to fill the tanks we have had problems.

This is it. If you follow these steps you will have flowing hot and cold water when you need it.

The title of this article is an expression that I am using a bit differently. Fourth of July - and the days before and after this year in the Middle Atlantic states - were hotter than a fire cracker. Temperatures were over a hundred and we were traveling in Pennsylvania in our Roadtrek.

I made the reservations for Fourth of July at the campground - Old Mill Stream Campground in Lancaster, PA - three months in advance. When I made them, I had not been able to make reservations for Memorial Day weekend in any campground in Lancaster, and decided that I would make this Fourth of July trip for four nights and five days. Then, as you know, if you have been reading along, I got last minute reservations in Lancaster for Memorial Day - the only reservations that I could get anywhere. So our trips to Lancaster were coming close together and this is something that I try to space more apart. But there are things to do in this area of Pennsylvania around Fourth of July. As we did last year - and every year since I was a boy - we go to the Kutztown Pennsylvania German Folk Festival - or the Kutztown Folk Festival as it is now better known. This takes place from the full weekend before the Fourth of July to the full weekend after the Fourth of July in the town of Kutztown, Pennsylvania. People come from all over the country to attend. So, Pennsylvania over Fourth of July is a given for us.

Fourth of July fell on a Wednesday this year and that posed a question as to what was Fourth of July weekend - which actually created a problem for many tourist oriented places this year. Was it the weekend before leading up to the Fourth or was it starting on the Fourth and leading up to the next weekend. Many chose the first weekend. Some the second. We went during the week. We left on Tuesday and stayed through Friday night, driving back at night on Saturday. The campground was busy throughout. They had reservations for the weekend before, during the week, and the next weekend.

I was able to reserve a site that we have been in before that is easy to get in and out of. I have been uncertain about this site because it has not always been level. There have been a time or two that we were in this site that we could not find a level spot. But it is a very convenient spot - on the end of a row off the main entrance and exit - and we have been requesting this space. And for this trip I was able to get it. More about the space later.

Before we left, we received our Easy Pass statement. Easy Pass is the electronic toll transponder that automatically charges your charge card when you drive through a toll booth. It is in NY and several other states including Pennsylvania. For the past year we have been comparing the tolls paid on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for the Roadtrek and for our car. They had not seemed any different, but suddenly on the past two statements the Roadtrek tolls are higher. There is a higher toll on the PA Turnpike for heavier weight vehicles and apparently with Easy Pass they have started to enforce this. There are a few ways to go to Lancaster. Using the PA Turnpike has been how we have gone for many years, but the GPS is always trying to send us off the PA Turnpike around Valley Forge to take two limited access roads to Lancaster County that would take us more directly to Old Mill Stream Campground. We decided on this trip that we would try that route.

We headed out early - around here early means as soon as after rush hour as you can without still sitting in stop and go traffic. We did encounter the usual construction traffic through Brooklyn getting to the Veranzano Bridge to take that over Staten Island - which is also under road construction and over the Outerbridge Crossing into New Jersey to the NJ Turnpike. Interesting side note - the Outerbridge Crossing is not named this because it is an outer bridge. It is named for Mr. Outerbridge. Anyway, the TomTom calls the Veranzano Bridge the Veranzano Branch and the Outerbridge Crossing is called the Outerbridge Creek. So much for Tom Tom.

It took us the usual delay times to get to the New Jersey Turnpike which also is completely under construction and that to the PA Turnpike which was not completely under construction but just in varied locations. We decided to take this "new" way to go and pulled off at Valley Forge and headed to Route 202 which lead us to Route 30 - which once you get into Lancaster becomes a local route and is the road that the campground is on. It seemed to make sense. The problem was that both roads were also under construction - major construction - even on the day before the Fourth of July and the road surfaces were completely broken up and in some points temporary lanes were formed on the sides to bring you around the work being done. This all added about an hour to the trip - which was delayed from all of the other construction. It did save us several dollars in tolls. My opinion on going this way again is still out - when the construction is finished it will be great - but until then, I am just not sure.

We arrived at the campground and checked in. I don't think I have ever told you about checking in at a campground. It really is no different from checking in at a hotel. You pull up close to the office and out of the way of other RVs and trailers that may need to drive through. Inside there is a desk and someone, hopefully, with a smile that will register you in for the days you will be staying. Unlike many hotels, you pay in full up front. If you will be there for four days, you are asked for payment in advance for all four days. You are then told your site number and given a map and that is it. Unlike a hotel, you do not check out. When you leave, you just leave. There is no need to go into the office to say you are "checking out". I did not know this last year and they looked at me strange at a campground when I did this.

When we were checking in on this trip we were asked if we wanted to reserve the site for next Fourth of July. I first said no because I was not sure when we wanted to come down for Fourth of July a year from now - but we were told if we did not make the reservation now, there was someone already asking for our site for next year - and if we took it, it would have to be for the corresponding days next year - and not the Saturday at the end as the space was already booked. The one thing I like about this campground is that you can cancel right up to the day before. I was tired from driving and I just looked at Meryl. She said, "take it" - so we took it. This is a very popular area and even with the many campgrounds that are there, holidays book solid way in advance.

We then did our usual routine as I have written about before. We went to the site and backed in. I was amazed. When I randomly stopped the two levels in the front of my Roadtrek were on level. Wow! There has been some work done on this site. It was level - and I found level spots to stop on the site the whole four nights.

End of Part 1 - Part 2 is next week.

I left off in the last article with the arrival at the campground. We wanted to get out of the campground as quickly as possible and get over to Roots Market, the local farmer's market that I wrote about a year ago when I detailed last year's Fourth of July Roadtrek road trip. This was Tuesday and Roots (pronounced Ruts by the locals) is only open on Tuesdays. There is not much to say that I did not tell you about last year, so I am not going to repeat myself.

The weather reports for this entire trip were a little of everything and they included excessively high heat warnings, severe lightening storms, rain downpours, and a mix of sun and clouds - take your pick. We had places that we wanted to go in Lancaster and had to decide day to day what we would do when to maximize the weather. Two of our days would be dictated by what is open and Roots Market is the Tuesday place to go and Green Dragon Farmer's Market is the Friday place to go. We also were going to Kutztown Folk Festival and we planned two days, one of which would be the Saturday we were leaving for driving through the Amish farms and visiting local sites and shops. The one thing that would be consistent about the weather was the heat - and as I titled these articles - it was not only hotter than a firecracker on the Fourth of July but it was hotter than a firecracker each day of the trip - excessively hot.

So how did the Roadtrek do in the heat?

Last winter we put a commercial product called Reflectix in some of the windows in the Roadtrek - and have left it there. This is a foil/bubble insulation that is sold in home centers and is easy to cut with a scissor and fit into the window openings. In the winter, this helps keep the heat in the Roadtrek. In the summer, it helps reflect the heat away from the windows and is supposed to help keep the inside of the Roadtrek cooler. Many RVers use Reflectix. We have it in the two side rear windows and in the window over the sink. We have pieces that we carry that we can place this at night into windows that we need visible while we are driving. The Reflectix was put to the test on this trip.

Temperatures outside were in the high 90's and went into the low hundreds. The 2011 Chevy has a thermometer on the dashboard that shows the temperature outside - which I have at times been doubtful is accurate, but on this trip it was close if not matching to thermometers we were passing on the road on business signs. We also have a thermometer inside that has a remote unit that we have placed inside the refrigerator to keep check that the fridge is keeping properly cold. That thermometer is kept up front with us and also reads the temperature around it. On one of the days, the Roadtrek was parked in a lot while we were at a local attraction. When we got back to the Roadtrek after about three hours, the temperature inside the Roadtrek was 114 degrees F! This was the Fourth of July. The dashboard A/C brought the temperature down - and was cool blowing directly on us as we drove off, but it took awhile for the inside temperature to come down into the 90's and eventually lower. So much for the Reflectix... But I must say that we were not really uncomfortable - as long as the dash A/C was running.

Twice during this trip we decided that we would have lunch inside the Roadtrek. Once at Green Dragon where we bought very good sub sandwiches from a popular stand called Raub's Subs, and the other time at Bird-in-Hand Farmers Market where we bought cold cuts at a meat counter. We took it all out to the Roadtrek. I started the generator and turned on the Roadtrek A/C. It was hot when we got into the Roadtrek - the temperature inside was over 100. The Roadtrek A/C took a little while to get things cooled down, but by the time we settled to start eating, it was comfortable. This is one of the great things about having the Roadtrek. You have your "home" and all of its comforts with you everywhere you go. We had an air conditioned dining room to have lunch in - the front seats of our Roadtrek with pull out table.

One afternoon we decided to go back to the campground and spend some time before heading out to a restaurant for dinner. We backed into our site, hooked up the electric and the cable, and turned on the air conditioner and sat in comfort watching early evening TV. Outside this site is one of the bathhouses and recreation rooms. When we got to the site there were cars parked across the front of the building. There was just enough room for us to back the Roadtrek into the site. Had a larger RV come back to do what we did, it would have been difficult getting in with these cars there. There was a large group of people inside the open building - no A/C - playing bean bag toss. Meryl asked me what they were doing. I explained to her that this seems to be the national pastime of RVers - bean bag toss. I have read about playing this game at campgrounds on just about every RV forum and here it was. We were comfortable inside and I doubt these people wanted to be intruded upon. It seemed to me that they all knew each other well and it was a private party.

As I said, the reports of the threat of severe storms were constant - but happily they never came. We did, though, not go to Kutztown on the Fourth of July as we had planned - and as we always do - because the reports were certain that day of storms. We spent that day driving around the countryside - visiting towns like Bird-In-Hand and Intercourse. The storms never came. We went to Kutztown on Thursday instead. It was just as hot but the weather threat reports were not as urgent.

Kutztown was emptier than usual. For one it was not the Fourth of July, during which we were told it had been more crowded with people, though not up to expectations. The other problem was that the Fourth was in the middle of the week. We found this everywhere we went this week. There were not the usual crowds, except at the campgrounds, which seemed to be full. This is a full day outside. There is one place of cool refuge and that is inside the quilt exhibit building which is air conditioned. This year there was another cool place to retreat to - though most of the day there were lines to get in. This is the 150th Anniversary cycle of the Civil War - or as it is known in the South -the War Between the States. In recognition of this, the Pennsylvania 150th Civil War Commission had a special exhibit inside a trailer of artifacts and story boards about the Civil War in Pennsylvania and this trailer was air conditioned. We spent the entire day - heat and all. We had lunch at our favorite stand run by a local Lions Club that serves PA Dutch sausage sandwiches cheaper than any other booth at the festival. We brought our own cans of soda cold from the Roadtrek fridge. At the Kutztown Festival there are lots of crafts demonstrated and for sale, entertainment, and lectures about the local life of the Amish and Mennonites and their culture. This year they added lectures on the Civil War in Pennsylvania and there also was a small encampment of Civil War reenactors. We stopped to chat and commiserate about the heat. One difference between reenacting the Civil War and the Revolutionary War is that you can wear linen for the Rev War period - Civil War soldiers wore wool. Try going outside in wool on a 100 degree day. These guys do.

I want to share how we were inside the Roadtrek at night with this extreme heat. While it was not in the 100's at night it stayed in the high 80's and low 90's. This was hotter than it had been last summer when we were in the heat of southern Virginia. I have commented how cold it can get inside our Roadtrek with the air conditioner running. On the nights of this trip, the A/C was on set to low fan and auto - as we always keep it. It kept the inside of the Roadtrek comfortable with no problem at all. It was not super cold up front as it has felt on less extreme nights but it certainly was cool and we did not feel the heat that was outside at all. The CoolCat - yes, this is the model name of the Chevy-based Roadtrek air conditioners - did a great job. Now, I did notice something that had me concerned. When the air conditioner ran for awhile there was a noise as if something was flapping around inside. I only heard this when the a/c was on at night - never during the time it was on in the morning when we were getting ready for the day or during the few times during the afternoons that we had it on. I began to think that perhaps at night, without the intense heat outside but with the moisture that was still heavy in the air, that ice particles were forming inside the air conditioner. We have had this happen to air conditioners at home. I looked inside of the grill behind the air conditioner on the roof of the Roadtrek and there was nothing caught inside that would make any noise. The only difference between running the air conditioner in the night and the day was the intense heat outside during the day - and no ice should be forming then. I did see inside the Roadtrek looking at the air conditioner's filter that it was thickly packed with dust. It needed to be cleaned. We decided to leave that task until we got home - which we did. I will write a separate article about this at some time in the near future. Be aware that this filter needs to be cleaned at least once a year.

In our model Roadtrek and in similar Chevy-based models there are two vents on the ceiling over the bed - which is actually under the area that the air conditioner is in. These can be directed forward and back and in combination and direct air conditioned air down upon you in the bed. We slept very comfortably in nice cool air each night.

I am not going to go day by day on what we did. We had a great time each day - despite the heat. But, we had a new experience at the campground in our Roadtrek. No, not something bad. We met our neighbors.

Since before we got the Roadtrek we were told by RVers and I was told on the forums that everyone is friendly. Everyone comes to say hello or wave. Everyone will want to see your Roadtrek. A Roadtrek and all Class B's, at least where we have gone so far, are unusual to see. We did see one other on this trip parked in a diner parking lot. There were no others in the campground. I told Meryl about how friendly everyone is and we tend to be shy people - Meryl is less so than I am. Well, when we pass anyone in a campground Meryl will make a point of waving and smiling. RARELY, does anyone ever wave back. She always then looks at me and says "I thought you said everyone is friendly?" I just shrug. Maybe it is not an East Coast thing.

There was a trailer in the site next to us every day of the trip at the campground. There seemed to be a couple similar in age to us there. They were out a few nights sitting under their awning when we came back in. Remember, we go out in the morning and come back relatively late at night when we travel. So if we are going to encounter anyone it is at night when they are sitting around their fire pit or in the morning when we are unhooking and getting ready for the day. We started out the trip with some water in our waste tanks left from testing the repairs to the leak that I wrote about several articles back. The tank monitors started to read full way before they should have and I was not taking any chances so I decided that we should empty the black and grey tanks on Friday morning before we set out for the day - and replenish the water in our fresh water tanks which did seem to be getting low. So, we went out in the morning to dump the tanks. While we were setting up to do this, Meryl was outside and I was still inside pouring water down into the black tank through the toilet to make sure there really was enough water to dump. It turned out from doing this that I found out the tank was only half full - but at that point it was full and we had to dump it. When I got outside, there was Meryl talking to some lady. It was the lady from the trailer next door. She was asking about the Roadtrek as they had never seen one up close before. She said that others in the campground had been curious about the Roadtrek also. We told them all about it and the conversation got to RVing in general and she shared some concerns and I offered some of my stumbled upon wisdom as I share with you here on this site about ways to deal with what she was concerned about. Then she called her husband over and we all got to talking. We spent over an hour talking - we had intended to get away for the day sooner - but this was great. Our first neighbors that actually talked to us. I don't think they ever saw anyone dump with a macerator before so they watched. It went without a hitch or a splash...

Day to day, as I say, there were storm warnings. They never came until Saturday evening. We were driving home that night. We always drive home at night so that we can enjoy one more full day of the trip. We stopped at a favorite restaurant - Shady Maple Smorgasbord in East Earl, PA which is both a local favorite and a popular tourist restaurant that is off from the main tourist area. As we were heading there the radio was now pinpointing storm hits and the sky was getting darker when it should have remained summer late afternoon bright. We got to the parking lot of the restaurant and it was full of cars which is not unusual for a summer Saturday night at this particular restaurant. There was no place to park the Roadtrek as the few spaces remaining in the main lot were too tight together with cars on each side and no place to pull into two spaces front to back for the added length of the Roadtrek. There is a lot on the far side of the restaurant that had open spaces and spaces that I could park over a curb of grass which makes it easy to park a Roadtrek without sticking out into the lane behind. We parked. Meryl asked if we should bring umbrellas and I said, "Nah, too much bother."

It was crowded inside the restaurant and we were seated in a small dining room off from the main dining rooms. There were no other open tables. It happens that these side dining rooms which can be used for private parties have windows - and no place else in the restaurant can you see outside from your table. We were not even started with dinner when the rumble of thunder could be heard. Then the flashes of lighting and the bolts could be seen and the skies opened up and all of the moisture that had been collecting for days and days came down to the ground. Oh boy!

Driving in the rain is not one of my favorite things and driving in the rain at night is way at the bottom of my list. I watched as it poured. I did not need this with what I wanted to be an end of the trip relaxing dinner. But almost as suddenly as it started, within a fifteen minutes, the rain stopped. The black sky turned light the evening sun could be seen through the clouds. How nice. So the threatened storms and rain did make one appearance and it was just long enough to be noticed. We drove home on wet roads but with clear skies.

There will be more trips to come this summer. We may try dry camping for a night but that depends on a few things. We will also be out for an extended trip of almost three weeks and you will come along for the trip.

To be fair this is not just about Roadtreks but motorhomes in general. One of the things that is attractive about a Roadtrek is that it can be parked in any surface parking lot. It drives the same as any van so it can go on almost any road. You can go anywhere in a Roadtrek. This is true - but what happens when you get there?

That is what I have been encountering planning trips now that we are comfortable enough in our Roadtrek to head off to more of the places that we have always liked to go and new places as well. Here are some examples.

In the city of Richmond, Virginia there is a museum called the Museum of the Confederacy and next door to that museum is a building named, "The White House of the Confederacy" which was the home and office of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. Parking for this museum is either on a busy Richmond street or in a tiered parking lot at the hospital next door. When we had visited these museums years ago, we parked our car on an upper floor of the hospital parking lot. I have been thinking that these museums would be nice to return to. Exhibits have changed and we enjoyed these sites when we were there years back. I contacted the Museum of the Confederacy to ask about parking a vehicle that required a height clearance of 8 feet 9 inches. I got a prompt response back that it would not be possible to park in the hospital garage because of the height of the vehicle. I was told that there is valet parking at the hospital and they could possibly park the van outside. I thought to myself when I read this that there was no way that I would have a valet come into the Roadtrek to take it somewhere to park it and hand over the keys with all of our belongings and valuables inside. So this was out of the question. There was still street parking but it was unlikely that spaces would be available. So, there was no way to visit these museums with the Roadtrek.

I encountered this even greater in a more significant destination - Washington, D.C., our nation's capital and one of the most visited destinations in the United States. There are few campgrounds around Washington, D.C.. The most popular one is some distance outside of Washington in College Point, Maryland. If you ask on the RV forums where to stay if you go to Washington, D.C. with your RV, the just about everyone will tell you Cherry Hill Campground. Now, for most people this campground is ideal as it has a metro bus stop on site at which a bus comes hourly and will take you to the nearest metro train station to travel into Washington, D.C. The bus ride is about a half hour. The metro ride is also about a half hour. But it is possible to leave your RV safely at the campground and go to see D.C. About a year ago, we saw representatives from Cherry Hill Campground at the Hershey, PA big RV show. Meryl went over to talk to them about alternatives to the bus. I have a problem. Since I was very young, I experience motion sickness. If I am driving I am fine. If Meryl is driving, I can - sometimes - tolerate the trip. But more often than not, I cannot. I have to drive - and there is no way, of course, that I can drive the bus. So, I have a problem. This is my problem and has nothing to do with the Roadtrek - but I know I am not the only one with this problem. Meryl asked what can be done to avoid the bus. She was told by the people from the campground that on weekends the metro parking lot was free and would have many spaces available. All that would be necessary would be to take the train - which I can manage, though a half hour ride is about my limit. Fine. We could go to Washington, D.C. and I very much would like to go back to Washington, D.C.. It is my most favorite city for things to see and do. I actually made reservations for three days in Washington at Cherry Hill Campground for this summer.

Waiting for the trip, I started to check out the metro parking lot and getting information necessary to take the train. I stumbled upon a reference to the safety of parking in this parking lot. There were many comments about how it was not a good place to leave a vehicle especially on a weekend and that there was no security. Vehicles were broken into and stolen. Oh boy!. I contacted Cherry Hill Campground and asked them directly if it was safe to park in that lot for the day with the Roadtrek. I got back an answer that said, "No, do not park there due to security issues." That was that. I could not risk losing the Roadtrek. No trip was worth that. I cancelled my reservations at the campground the next day. Again, this is my problem and not due to the Roadtrek - but it is another place I am not going with the Roadtrek. Looking at other campgrounds which are further away in Virginia, the metro parking lots were all garage parking with the exception of one that again, posed security risk.

It is not just these places. I looked North to visit Boston. I have not been to Boston for many, many years - it got too expensive to stay in hotels there. The nearest campground is miles away up to the northwest of the city near Lexington and Concord. To get to Boston from the campground you can either find a commuter train and take that to the city or you can drive into the city but as far as I was able to find there is only one outdoor parking lot in the city and that is at the expo center which has parking available only when there is no events taking place. For the time being, we have crossed Boston off the list.

Then there is the lack of campgrounds in areas that one would figure are prime places for campgrounds. I am continually surprised to look at a site that I would like to visit and then look for a campground to stay in to go there - and find nothing at all. Evidently, camping and campgrounds are few and far between in some areas - and plentiful in others.

So, not to be discouraging, there are plenty of places to go and see in your Roadtrek - but don't be surprised that if you look to visit an attraction, you may not find a way to do so with your RV.

Of course, there is a solution. It is possible to tow a small car behind the Roadtrek and this resolves all of these problems. Maybe, someday, we will.

Most Roadtrek models have four methods of bringing electricity into the coach:

Battery
"Shore Power"
Inverter
and
Generator (optional)

The batteries supply 12 volt DC power. "Shore power" or hooking up to an outside electric outlet supplies 110/120 volt AC power. The Inverter has several functions but for now, the inverter changes 12 volt DC battery power into 110/120 volt AC power. The generator, which is noted optional, because you must purchase the generator as an option, creates 110/120 volt AC power with an engine.

I have noticed that there is a lot of confusion about the electric system from new owners. I have had several readers contact me with questions and questions come up on the forums. I am going to explain very basically the electric system in the Roadtrek. I will do this in separate article - each on one of the above sources of electricity. I am seperating it all for simplicity so that if a reader needs to come back to find out about one of these it will not be necessary to wade through an entire article about all of it.

The first place I am going to start is to share a link with you. This is the LINK to the Roadtrek Electric Simulator. This is a wonderful thing put together by a Roadtrek owner with a great deal of talent. It is a visual and working Roadtrek electric system - for each model and year Roadtrek. It is complete with all of the switches and options of running power in a Roadtrek - and they all work and show you exactly what happens in combination. The one thing that is essential to do when using this is to go down the left hand column and find the drop down menu for year and model and make sure you set in your exact year and model. It starts with models in 2000 and goes up to 2010. The 2010 models are the same as the 2011 models and likely the same as 2012 and the newest 2013s. You will find at the top of the simulator page a link to NOTES. Click on that and a PDF file will open with detailed explanations about the system - and this was recently updated in November 2011. The simulator is fun to play with and will help you understand things like what happens if I don't push this button but I do push that - or - what if my engine is running and I don't have the battery switch on. There are so many combinations.

The next article will be all about the batteries.

I had originally thought that I would run each electric system article one week after the other, but I have decided that that may be just too much electric system. What I will do is spread these articles out - and after they all have been posted add links so that they can be read in sequence if anyone would like to do that.

I am going to start right off saying that I am not an "expert" in vehicle or RV batteries. I do know what I have learned from others before and after we got the Roadtrek about the batteries that the Roadtrek uses. I also know how they work in our 2011 190 Popular.

First, the simple - there are either two or three batteries in your Roadtrek. One is the engine battery just like in your car. This is a wet cell (maintenance required or maintenance free) vehicle starter battery. It is different from the battery(ies) that you have in your coach - those that run everything 12 volts inside your Roadtrek. Current model Roadtreks have either one or two "coach" batteries. These one or two batteries have nothing to do with starting your engine and in most, if not all, Roadtreks there is what is called an Isolator in the engine that separates the vehicle battery from the coach batteries so that if one drains it will not pull power from the other. You would not want to not leave in the morning because you ran down the coach batteries the night before.

My 2011 Roadtrek 190 Popular has TWO coach batteries. When we were buying the Roadtrek every salesman we encountered told us that this is a feature of the 190. It turns out that the current Roadtrek models of 190 and 210 and the Sprinter models have two coach batteries. I have been told by owners that not all of the older models do and many have just one.

Coach batteries must be what are called "deep-cycle" batteries. This means that they are not designed for short burst starting like a vehicle battery does but that they are used much like the batteries in a flashlight that provides steady power over time. This is a very simple explanation - so the electric engineers who would like to comment with detailed and scientific explanations please do, but for the everyday Joe Roadtrek owner this is enough to understand. There are many types of "deep-cycle" batteries and when you look at battery displays to purchase these they are often labeled as Marine/RV batteries. In the 2011 models, Roadtrek started to use AGM deep cycle batteries. They use two six volt, AGM, deep-cycle batteries. The AGM batteries do not have "wet" cells". There is no water inside the battery cells. These batteries will not boil over because there is no water inside. If overcharged, a wet cell battery can boil - if there is not a special circuit to prevent this. The two AGM batteries that Roadtrek is using now have 220 amp hours. I will explain this more later.

Besides not boiling out, there are advantages to AGM batteries. They hold a charge longer. They deliver more amp hours. They do not need maintenance. And they do not need to be vented which means that they can be installed in an enclosed area without causing any problem. The wet-cell batteries do need to be vented which means that the compartment that they are stored in must have access to fresh air - and this should be outside the coach. Roadtrek still installs these batteries outside the coach. I will get to where the batteries are installed soon.

I said that I have two six volt AGM batteries - why not one 12 volt AGM battery or two 12 volt AGM batteries. I will share what I have been told. Two sixes give more amp-hours than one twelve or two twelves together. Don't ask me why. Again, this is for the engineers out there.

I have also learned that one cannot/should not - likely cannot - mix AGM batteries and wet-cell batteries in the same system. Now this does not include the engine and the coach but if one coach battery is AGM then any other coach battery or batteries added must be AGM.

I also know that you should not let your batteries go below half power without recharging them to full power. This is something to consider when looking at how long you can go just using your batteries.

Again - basics. No science. I leave that to the many engineers that know RVs and batteries.

In 2011, Roadtrek changed the storage of the coach batteries. The first time that I saw this was the day I took delivery of my Roadtrek. Every Roadtrek 190 that I saw before this - and I had never seen a 2011 model - had two battery compartments. One was above the back passenger wheel and accessed by a locked compartment door from the outside. The other was a large compartment with a locked door on the side of the van in front of the rear passenger wheel. That compartment has a sliding shelf inside that would pull out so that you could easily access the battery there and its connections. This made it easy to check the water in the battery and test the voltage with a meter if you wanted to. In 2011 - on the 190 - that rear over the wheel compartment was gone. The compartment in front of the wheel remained, BUT both batteries are now there and there is no longer any sliding shelf. The only way to access the batteries is to lean in to a very small and not really lean-into-able space. For the most part, I would need to reach in and unhook the connections on the batteries and pull them out. These batteries are EXTREMELY heavy. I know this because I saw an AGM battery display in a store and I tried to lift one and it did not move. (No, it was not held down in any way.) I can open the compartment door with the key and look inside and that is as far as I have ever gotten - and to me there is nothing to see that I can do anything about.

As I have said, older models and model to model things change. You may have one battery or you may have two. If you have a 170 you have one battery - that I am sure of. I know a 2005 190 owner who has one battery. With Roadtrek things change from year to year and model to model - and sometimes even mid-way through the same year. Roadtrek does have two model years per year - for example, there is a 2011 on a 2010 Chevy chassis and there is a 2011 on a 2011 Chevy chassis. I have a 2011 on a 2011 chassis.

Now, you have battery basics. What do these batteries run? Inside your Roadtrek you have overhead lighting fixtures -large and small lighting fixtures spread all over the coach. These are 12 volts and run on the batteries. The water pump runs on 12 volts. The 3-way stock refrigerator has a mode to run on 12 volts. The hot water heater runs on 12 volts. The fan for the furnace runs on 12 volts. The ceiling exhaust fan runs on 12 volts. The macerator in the newer Roadtreks runs on 12 volts. Older Roadtreks have 12 volt outlets in the coach that you can plug 12 volt things into - just like the cigarette lighter outlet on your dashboard. My Roadtrek has NO 12 volt outlets. To install one, it would be necessary to tap into 12 volt wiring going to a light fixture. Older Roadtreks may have a 12 volt TV set - they do exist.

Now, I am going to explain amp hours. As I said, my coach batteries provide a total of 220 amp hours. Every appliance or light or whatever electric uses X number of amps per hour. Many appliances will have this labeled on them somewhere. You can also test how many amps something draws with an amp meter. The Kill-A-Watt meter found at home stores has this function along with many other functions. I will talk about this more with other parts of the electric system. With the batteries - if something draws one amp that means it needs one amp to run for an hour. You have 220 hours of power. Run two things that each need one amp and you have 110 hours. Somethings use a fraction of an amp - somethings use a lot of amps. Some things like motors - fans, etc. draw a lot of amps quickly and these will run your batteries down fast. I understand that the furnace fan drains the batteries quickly. So if you want to know how long you can go without having to charge the batteries, you need to add up the amps in each thing you have on and compare that to what the capacity of the batteries is - and remember not to let them discharge to less than half. Again, this is a simple and basic explanation of detail electrical principles. When we get to the section on 110 volt power, I will talk more about this and share with you the Green Acres TV show (from the 1960's) method of understanding how much is too much.

Alright - this is your battery system. Your batteries will recharge when you drive your Roadtrek. Your batteries will recharge when you are plugged into 110/120 volt shore power. Your batteries will recharge when you run your generator. Your batteries will DISCHARGE when you run your inverter. Roadtrek says that it takes 12 hours for the batteries to fully charge. I have been told that driving the van will charge the batteries faster.

I am now going to share with you the most important thing to understand about the battery system and this applies to the entire Roadtrek electric system and I will repeat this in each article.

See the rocker switch on the right. It says "BATTERY" next to it. See the little LED light to the left of it that says "ON" under it. That is the light that tells you the Battery Disconnect Switch is on. Yes, it is called a Battery "Disconnect" Switch and this is the same for all RVs and trailers. It is the most mis-named thing. It CONNECTS your batteries - turns them ON. Shut it off and it disconnects your batteries. If you want to use your batteries- IN FACT - if you want to use ANY electricity in your Roadtrek (except vehicle electricity coming from the engine battery) this switch MUST be ON. There is a sticker in my Roadtrek on the wall adjacent to this panel that says this. The sticker may not be on all Roadtreks. Make yourself a label if you need reminding. This switch is key to all your power. If you go to the simulator that I linked in the first article about the Electric System in general, turn off this switch with all other combinations and watch what happens.

One last thing about the photo - see the panel above the switch. The last column of LEDs on the right will tell you approximately how much battery power your batteries have. The C on the top stands for charging. If that light is on when you push the TEST switch, the batteries are charging from one of the sources I listed earlier that charge the batteries. After a long charge, that light may stay on even when not charging (when you push the test button). It will not come on in a day or so - or less. The G is "good" - basically there is full battery power. The F is "Fair" and the "L" is Low. Charge the batteries before you get to the "L". This panel is not absolutely accurate but it is good enough as long as you stay on top of keeping your batteries charged.

When we leave on a trip we turn on the Battery Disconnect Switch and it is not turned off until we get home.

When your Roadtrek is at home and you are not using it, shut off the Battery Disconnect Switch. While it is on, it will drain your coach batteries as there are a few 12 volt devices that remain powered on when it is on such as the propane alarm and the carbon monoxide alarm. If you are not in the Roadtrek between trips there is no need to have these running. Another good thing to know is that while you are driving, with the Battery Disconnect Switch OFF - your Roadtrek batteries will still charge from the engine running.

The next article coming in the electric system series will be 110/120 volt shore power.

At home you turn on your TV and sit down and watch. You can do this in your Roadtrek also, BUT there are a few things that you have to do first - in each new location you travel to.

Roadtreks have always included televisions. In some models the TV has been an option, while in many the TV is standard equipment. Without getting into details of the entire entertainment system (I will get into that in another article), you now get a digital HD television, a rooftop television antenna, and an antenna booster. Your television can be connected to the antenna on the roof or a cable connection to the campground. The cable connection is outside just to the side of your city water connection in a little box with a flip up lid. Open the lid and you will find a standard cable screw on coax connector - exactly like the cable connector you have on the back of your TV or cable box at home.

You must be connected to 110 volt power either by electric line, generator, or inverter to have power to the TV system in the Roadtrek.

The antenna set up can be confusing, because, frankly, the new digital transmissions are confusing to those of us - most of us - who are just used to connecting an antenna wire and turning on the TV. I will talk about the antenna first - step by step. (I am talking here about the system that is in my 2011 190 Popular which will be similar to most of the newer Roadtreks.)

1 - In the front of your Roadtrek on the ceiling there is a crank. Around the crank is a disk with a triangle on one end. That triangle lines up with a mark on just in front of it. When the antenna is raised, this disk rotates and turns the antenna. That triangle must always be pointed to the mark on the front when you raise or lower the antenna.Unfold the crank and start turning. When it stops your antenna on the roof has fully raised straight up and the large wing that is attached to the top of the antenna unfolds. You have just raised your antenna. But this is JUST the first step.

2 - You can now turn the triangle around with the disk. The direction it points is the direction that the antenna will point. Digital signals are directional and if you want to receive them you need to be pointed in the direction of the signal tower. Just reach up and turn the disk.

3 - What direction you will need to turn the antenna changes with your current location. There are websites that will tell you what direction the channel signals are. There are also apps that do this. Without anything else, figure out what direction the nearest large city is in and most likely you will connect with channels.

4 - Go into the cabinet above your TV. There will be an A/B switch inside. A or B is determined by which side the installer connected the wires from the antenna and the cable system. My cables were marked by Roadtrek. Push the button for the antenna wire.

5 - Look above on the ceiling of that cabinet and you will see a wall plate with a little green led button in the middle. This is your antenna booster switch. It should be lit green which means it is on. I just leave mine on all of the time.

6- Turn on the TV. Go to the settings menu. Choose Signal Source and pick Antenna.

7 - Turn your antenna to the direction you need. I have a compass so that I know which direction I am turning the antenna. Get it to approximately where you think it should be.

8 - Go back to your TV settings menu and find "SCAN CHANNELS". Click that and this will take several minutes to scan and lock in digital channels. If you have only a few channels lock in after this finishes, it means one of two things. Your antenna is pointed in the wrong direction OR there are only those few digital signals in this area. I have been to areas with more than 40 channels and other areas with four or five. If you get no signals, your antenna is pointed in the wrong direction or you failed to do one of the steps above. This is often an trail and error - and timely process. Don't blame the equipment or Roadtrek - blame Congress for deciding that television had to be all digital. This is the nature of digital antenna television - even at home.

9 - If you have a lot of channels you are done setting the antenna. And you only have to do this again if you travel to a new location. As long as you stay where you are the channels will remain locked in.

Turn off the settings menu on your TV. You will now see a picture on your TV. If there is no channel on a number you should get a blue screen. If the signal is weak you will get a picture broken up into small boxes.

Now, you may not have any sound. Roadtrek has wired the TV sound into your Home Entertainment Center unit. Turn that on - there are TWO switches to turn it on - POWER and STANDBY. Set the mode to AUX (this may vary depending on how the connections were made - the home entertainment unit display screen is hard to see anyway so just push the mode button until the TV sound comes through) and you should get TV sound coming out of most of the speakers in your Roadtrek - but not all the speakers. I will get into this in another article as this is a bit complex. The two or three speakers that have sound now are more than adequate. Also be aware that in that same cabinet where the antenna booster and the A/B switch is, there is a turn knob with three positions on the ceiling of the cabinet. One position is to put the sound from the dash radio into the RT speakers. The opposite position is to connect the home entertainment unit to the speakers. I have no idea what the middle position does. Make sure this is switched to the home entertainment position.

I decided that I did not want to use the Home Entertainment unit for the TV sound. Why have to turn this on when the TV has perfectly good and likely surround sound speakers built in? All I had to do was go to the side of the TV and find the headphone jack. In that jack was a plug that came from the wires coming to the TV from above. I just pulled the plug and let it hang down and - PRESTO - sound from the TV speakers. No need to turn on the home entertainment unit. If I want to have sound from the Roadtrek speakers all I have to do is plug it back in. Simple. Easy.

Next - cable TV.

1 - Buy a standard cable TV coax cable long enough to reach from your Roadtrek to the campground cable connection. Go outside and connect your Roadtrek cable connection to the campground connection which is on the pedestal near the electric box. Just screw an end of the connector on to each connection. Twenty five feet should be a long enough cable. (A tip- you can get a cable with or buy adapters to add on - to make the screw on connections to push on connections and these are much easier to deal with.)

2 - Inside, go to your A/B box and select CABLE.

3 - Turn on the TV and go to the Source menu. Select "CABLE".

4 - Go to the Channel Scan menu and scan for channels - yes, you must do this also for cable.

5 - The TV will scan for all available cable channels and lock them in. In most campgrounds you are locking in ANALOG channels. We were in only one campground so far where there was a mix of both analog and digital channels coming through the cable.

6 - When finished turn off the menu and you should now be able to see the cable channels provided by the campground.

You do not have to do this again until you connect to cable at another campground. If you also scanned with your antenna and then connected to watch cable - AT THE SAME LOCATION - your antenna channels will still be available if you switch back - so you can switch back and forth as long as you switch the A/B box and the TV source menu.

Campgrounds use various providers for their cable TV. Some use a cable company and some use a satellite provider. So that you don't need a cable receiver box for a specific cable company in your RV, the campground gets the signal where it comes into the campground and converts it electronically to analog which will then play through your TV without a special and specific tuner box from the cable or satellite company. The cable channel selection, of course, varies by the campground and they usually give you a list of the cable channels available and their corresponding numbers on the back of the campground map - or in the literature they give you when you check in.

And you thought it was easy to just sit down and watch TV! After the first night at the campground, it is, but this process needs to be done at each campground or for antenna at each place that you stop for the night.

Some say "campers should not need TV". I like TV and so does Meryl. We look for campgrounds with cable connections.

Jim Hammill is the president of the Roadtrek company. Recently he has taken up residence on a Roadtrek Facebook fan page and has been responding to Roadtrek owners, answering questions, and helping to resolve problems.

There are three Roadtrek pages on Facebook. One is the Roadtrek corporate site and then there are two that have been in existence for some time that owners of Roadtreks have come together to share experiences and ask questions of each other. Mr. Hammill selected one of these pages - not the Roadtrek corporate page - and joined and became very active in the discussions. He has, through what he has written in some of his posts, invited Roadtrek owners to interact with him - not only on this page but through his email address as well.

When word got out about this, there was a sudden flurry of new memberships, which made the page owner wonder what was going on. Once she was told what was happening she seems OK with his being there and the page suddenly becoming very popular.

Mr. Hammill (Jim) is very gracious and very open. He also seems to be a very down to earth guy who cares about his company, his product, and his customers. He has announced new work in progress. He has asked for suggestions. He has gone out of his way to find sources for parts and help for Roadtrek owners with problems, including older models.

Mr. Hammill is not alone in this idea. On the RV.net, forum, which is run by the Good Sam RV Club, though it is not Good Sam specific, the president of Good Sam, Marcus Lemonis, has been present on a special Good Sam forum section - open to all - to answer questions and complaints. It is good that these two top RV corporate execs have made themselves available to their customers.

If you would like to become a member of the Facebook page with Mr. Hammill - and Mr. Hammill has made it clear that you can still contact him through his email or get help from him at Roadtrek even if you don't want to belong to Facebook - and many don't - but if you do - here is a link:


You need to register for Facebook before you can join any Facebook page.

School has started and many returning scholars have had to sit down and write an essay just like this one - "How I Spent my Summer Vacation". We'll I spent my summer vacation in a Roadtrek. We were away for 16 days and 15 nights in August. We went south again this year to Virginia with a stop on the way home in Pennsylvania.

My original plan for this vacation was almost three weeks - 20 days out. My original trip included Washington, D.C. and I had reservations to stay in Cherry Hill Campground which I am told is a very nice campground in College Park, Maryland about 25 miles outside of Washington - and, pretty much, the only private campground around if you want to visit the nation's capital. I wrote about why I cancelled my reservations there in my recent article, "A Roadtrek Can Go Anywhere - Almost..." . I won't repeat what I wrote there and you can follow the link and read about it for yourself. Again, nothing wrong with the campground - it was my problem and not theirs. Anyway, before I cancelled those reservations I had an alternate plan to be able to visit Mount Vernon in Arlington, Virginia (George Washington's home) that involved booking one or two nights at a Virginia regional park campground. About three weeks before the trip I called the park in the morning to find out if there were sites available for the days that I wanted. I was told yes they had a site for me. I should have taken "a site" literally. I wanted to be sure that I could cancel the reservations at Cherry Hill before I made a commitment that had to be paid in advance and was not refundable. So, I hung up with the park and called Cherry Hill. There was no one answering the phone and I did not want to do the cancellation by voice mail so I hung up and called back a couple of hours later. There was no problem cancelling my reservation at Cherry Hill and I got my full deposit returned. When I called the park back and asked for the site, I was told IT was gone. There had been only one. We did get to Mount Vernon and I will write about that in its own article. We went on the way back north and did not stay overnight but continued along to Pennsylvania that night.

As I was re-planning the trip after I had made all of the reservations, I decided to change another piece of the trip. We had reservations to spend two nights near Petersburg, Virginia touring the battlefield there and then moving along on the part of our trip that would be now heading west in Virginia to follow the route that General Lee took his army in an attempt to get away from General Grant. This is known as the "Lee Retreat Route" and ends in Appomattox. This involves a number of back roads and stops along the way at history markers. I re-thought that idea at the last minute and cancelled those reservations too - I will not name the campground, but from its reviews, description, and my conversation with the lady there while making the reservations, did not come across as very desirable. Things were now set. We would stop first outside of Richmond, then travel on to Charlottesville, Va. with a stop on the way to Charlottesville at Appomattox to see a new museum that opened there just a few months ago and see, if we had time, the National Park site of Lee's surrender.

For a few weeks before we left on this trip, the weather report every day was this - "Isolated Thunderstorms or Scattered Showers". I am not quite sure what the difference is and exactly what is "isolated" and what is "scattered" to a weatherman. All I know is that it was cloudy every day before we left and on some days it rained and other days stayed dry. The reports continued this way - every day - and the day we were leaving on our trip, the same report was given. I checked what the report was for NJ, PA, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia and it was exactly the same. I also looked at what the predictions were ahead and each day for the number of days that they would commit there guessing, the report was the same - "Isolated Thunderstorms or Scattered Showers". That morning it was cloudy and looked like rain. Meryl wanted to know if she should wear the shoes she has for when it rains. My answer to her was that it was anyone's guess. She could easily flip a coin, as it seems the weather men do, and be just as correct as they are. As we drove along from state to state, it rained, was dry, was cloudy, and somewhere along the way the sun peaked out momentarily.

I will not go on and on, as I have sometimes done, about the traffic. Traffic and road construction in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states is just a given now. The trip to Washington, D.C. should take six hours from where we live. We left at a bit before 10:30 am. We stopped on the NJ Turnpike for lunch and it was after 1:30. We were not going to avoid Route 95 District of Columbia rush hour so we just resigned ourselves to knowing that. We actually made it past Washington with few hold ups, but about ten miles south of D.C. we heard on the radio that there was an overturned truck between exits X and Y and those exits were ahead of us. It did not take long for the traffic to back up to us and we stopped moving along with everyone else. We followed the progress of closing both lanes, of removing the truck from the road, of opening one lane, and then opening both lanes but still the road was at a standstill. It was a half hour after the radio reported that all lanes were opened that we started moving - slowly along. When we got to where the truck was - now pulled off way off the road - cars and trucks had to slow down to a crawl to see - and then after that, started moving as they should have been. I had thought that this was a NY phenomenon but it seems that it is more important everywhere to get a good look than to get on your way after sitting for hours. The trip to the campground in Ashland, Virginia from our home took us over ten hours including a half hour stop for lunch and an hour and half stop for dinner and gas. We should have been there in just over six hours.

Our destination for the first night was a town called Asland and a campground named, Richmond North/Americamps KOA. I will be writing a report on the campground in a separate article. We were still some distance from the campground and it was well past the time that we would have liked to stop for dinner. I had a place in mind - a Ryan's Buffet Restaurant in Fredericksburg, which I find is one of the better of the remaining Ryan's chain. It is located in a very large shopping center called Central Park just off Route 95 in Fredericksburg. At the exit of that same shopping center is a gas station that consistently has the lowest price gas that I have ever paid. That gas station is always a must stop when we are heading south - and sometimes heading back north. It was almost dark when we got to the restaurant - and this was mid-August, so it was late. It was still cloudy but no rain. When we finished dinner, off in the distance, there were huge flashes of lightening. "Isolated Thunderstorm" perhaps? It was south of us and we were heading that way. We did not want to be outside in a downpour hooking up the Roadtrek in the middle of the night so we got back in the Roadtrek - not stopping in a few stores that were still open that caught our attention on the way in - and got back on I-95 to Ashland. We arrived at the campground with no rain - and no more lightening.

The next article will be about the Richmond North/Americamps KOA campground and then following that will be Part II of How I Spent My Summer Roadtrek Vacation.

Our first night on our trip this August was spent at the Richmond N/Americamps KOA located in Ashland Virginia. The odd name is because Americamps is - was - a campground chain that ran a number of campgrounds. From what I have found out, they seem to go for the "campground/resort" idea of campgrounds. Some of these - perhaps all - became KOA campgrounds - recently. For those who do not know KOA - "Kampgrounds of America" - they are one of the largest chains of campgrounds. This was our first KOA campground. From what I read about this campground, it had been completely renovated in the past year or two - when it became a KOA.

Ashland is, as the name of this campground states, north of Richmond. It is actually northeast of Richmond off I-95. We stopped here because it is a convenient stopping point coming south from New York with approximately a seven hour drive (with good traffic - ha, ha). This is a good stopping point if you are interested in seeing Richmond, Petersburg, or various historic sights related to this area. Patrick Henry grew up not too far from here and there are a number of historic sights related to him in this area. There is also a large amusement park named Kings Dominion just north of Ashland.

To get to this campground you exit off I-95 and the exit is just south of where the campground is located. You come across I-95 if you are driving south and then drive along side of I-95 to the road that the campground is located on - or if coming from the south - just drive along side of I-95. The campground is down a small road that curves around through an industrial area, though it is also a wooded area. The campground is on the left off of this road. Actually, everything is on the left as to the right of this road is I-95. Given the direction that we were driving this surprised me - but the road curved around. The campground is easy to get into and once you exit I-95 and get on the road the goes around (or along) it is easy to find Airport Road which the campground is located on. In the dark we had no problem finding the entrance to the campground.

We arrived at the campground in the middle of the night. Through the entrance there is a building on the left that is the office. There was a "late check in" area on the porch and our site number and a map of the campground had been left there for us. It is common when you arrive at a campground after hours that your site and a map will be left for you posted outside somewhere near the office door. We got our site number and started to follow the map which in the dark was a little confusing. Once past the main entrance, the paved road stopped and then the roads were mixed paved and gravel. There was some lighting in the campground and we were not driving totally in the dark. As we approached where the space should be located, Meryl got out with a flashlight and walked ahead looking for the site number.

We had reserved a back-in, full service site that included water, electricity, sewer, and cable. Wifi is available at all sites. This site cost less than a pull through site with the same full services. There are also sites with just water and electricity and these cost the least. I am not going to say what the sites cost because prices change from year to year and season to season at most campgrounds. The sites are gravel.

Meryl guided me in and I backed the Roadtrek into the space. The space was not very long, and I am not sure how a much longer RV would fit in one of the spaces that we were in. There were long pull through spaces across from us with plenty of room. We were also not far from the space next to us - and we could see into the pop-up tent camper that was there - enough so that Meryl waved to the man inside who waved back. The space we were in was NOT level. I moved the Roadtrek as much as I could around the space looking for a level or almost level spot. I finally gave up and got as level as I could - which means, one side was slightly up and the back was higher than the front. Better to sleep with your head above your feet - so that was where we stayed. We could have gone out with the plastic "lego" type leveling blocks and put them under the tires but I think it would have taken blocks on the back and one side to get us level. This is all done trial and error and we were just too tired - though Meryl offered to place the blocks under the wheels. It was good enough for one night.

We checked the power at the electric box, both for polarity and voltage, and it was good. We hooked up the electric cord from the Roadtrek through our power/surge protector box, connected the cable, and we went inside. I checked the TV signal and it was good. The cable channel selection was actually pretty good, but the numbers that came up on the screen after the scan, did not match the numbers for the same channels that were listed on the back of the campground map. The wifi signal was very poor.

Since it was not raining - as we had anticipated based on our seeing lightening in the distance in this direction while we were coming down to here - we decided we would go outside and explore the campground. We took a flashlight and headed out.

The campground was not empty. There were a good number of RVs, trailers, and tents in the campground. Scattered around there were people sitting outside their rigs, some with campfires. Some waved. Some did not. Some did not respond when we waved. That seems to be the way it is everywhere we have been. We walked along the road through the campground and were heading to where the restrooms/showers/laundry building was on the map. There are actually two such buildings. One is at the front near the office and the other is off to the back. We were heading to the back.

It was clear when we saw the building that it was recently re-done. It looked new and the facilities inside were recently new. We were looking at them late at night and for having gone through the day with use, they were very clean. The facilities get an A.

We walked back to the Roadtrek and spent the night watching TV with ongoing frustration trying to figure out what channel we had on until something would come up and identify it in the broadcast, trying to get email to come in with the poor wifi and then going to bed.

This campground is very close to I-95. We did not hear any traffic inside our Roadtrek during the night. The Roadtrek is built on a van with road noise soundproofing so we do not hear much outside when we are inside the Roadtrek. If someone is here in a thin walled trailer or RV, it is possible that you will hear the traffic on I-95. When we got up the next morning and went outside I could see the cars and trucks driving on I-95 through the trees from our site.

That morning when we went outside we found a printed note on the Roadtrek and there was also a note on the pop-up trailer next to us. The note said that the campground was having chemicals put down on the grass everywhere in the campground between x am and y am and it was hazardous to walk on the grass for an hour after that time period. How nice! We had to unhook from the electric box and be on our way. We planned this as an early departure day because we had sightseeing to do along the way to our next stop. Annoyed, I leaned over the grass - luckily I could reach and grabbed the plug from the box and pulled the cable wire (we use push on connectors to make hooking and unhooking the cable easier). I got both away without stepping on the grass.

Exiting the campground from your space involves driving in a loop around most of the campground. On our way out, we stopped at the office, paid for our night's stay, and we were ready to go. The office is large and has a store inside with souvenirs, snacks, and camping supplies. There is sales tax on campground sites in Virginia (there isn't in Pennsylvania). There is a 10% discount with an AARP or a AAA card. It was easy to get back on I-95 in either direction.


Across from the office there is a small swimming pool. It is on the side of the entrance parking lot across from the building with the office. There is no shade for the pool so if you are taking your kids swimming, where sun block.

We come down to this area often. We were looking for a campground that would enable us to visit the sights here and this was the best of what I found when I was researching what is available in this area. My only real complaint here was the sight being as off as it was. When we got out the next morning in the daylight I looked at the other back in sites around us and they all looked off to my eye. There was an obvious slope to the side and also a slope down from the back to the front. The wifi signal could have been better too - and while it is available to all in the campground you are paying for this in the price - and we were not too far from the building with the office where at least one wifi transmitter must be located. The positives were the location (despite being so near to I-95), the campground was clean, the facilities - rest rooms, showers, laundry room etc, were relatively new, there were no children running around unattended, there was plenty of shade, the campground was pretty easy to get around in (in the daylight) and once you know where you are going, the cable selection was good, and it was not overpriced.

Would we stay here again? When I asked this question of Meryl she said, yes we would. My first reaction was no, we wouldn't. She said that other than the space not being level everything was nice. OK - remember, I once said, "Meryl is always right" If we do come back, I would ask when I make the reservation that we be put in a site that is level.

A short while after we returned home from the trip, I received an email with a survey from this KOA. This is standard to KOA campgrounds, as we received the same email survey for another KOA that we stayed at on this trip. I answered the questions honestly and made a point to comment in detail about the site not being level. I received an email response from the campground that apologized for our inconvenience and offered us a 15% discount on our next stay at that campground. A follow up letter was mailed to us about a week later that stated that if we present the letter on our next stay we will receive the promised 15% discount - and that they are trying hard to improve and make everything good about their campground. This was very nice of them and I appreciate this effort. When we need to stop in this area again, I will stay here again, and we shall see if another site is any better. I will, of course, let you all know.

Here are some photos that I took of the campground -

Continued from Part I

We spent the night at the KOA RichmondNorth campground, as I wrote about last week. That morning we were heading off to do some sight seeing before we continued along to our next campground in Charlottesville, Virginia. We were about to head west into the mountains and into central Virginia. Our destination was Appomattox, Virginia, the site where General Lee surrounded his army to General Grant to start the beginning of the end of the Civil War.

We have been to Charlottesville many times but we have never been there in an RV and we had never taken this particular route to get there. I did a lot of planning of the route to take looking at Google Maps and the satellite views to see what I was taking the Roadtrek into and what the roads would be like that I would be taking the Roadtrek on. Many of the satellite views were nothing more than trees - no road in view that was there beneath those trees. I came up with what looked like a good route. It included going a bit out of the way further west to take a much larger road/highway back north toward Charlottesville, than taking the twenty minute faster route that took us twisting back through mountain roads. We would be taking part of that twisting mountain road to get to Appomattox, but I did not want to take it as the route all the way up. So, after consulting with Meryl, I routed the Tom Tom to go the longer route. I had all of the routing to and from new places completed almost a month before the trip.

Two nights before we were leaving, I decided to look at the website for the campground in Charlottesville. I had been on the KOA website and saw the full description of this campround, but I had not, for some reason actually looked at the campground's own website. I looked at the directions that the website had to get there and then - uh, oh - I saw this:

WARNING:DO NOT take exit 120 off I-64 as some GPS and online maps may suggest. This route (631/Old Lynchburg Rd) is not recommended; it is very narrow and has sharp turns! We also DON'T recommend route 708/Red Hill Rd coming from route 29 if you are driving an RV. IGNORE YOUR GPS!

My route was going exactly how they were warning you not to go! Oh boy. I immediately went out to the Roadtrek, got the GPS out of the dashboard, and started re-routing to the campground. I still did not want to take Route 20 all the way up and I did want to take the longer and straighter Route 29 that I had planned, but I had to make some changes to avoid approaching the campground from the west and come onto the access road from the east (which is basically what they are saying in the warning). This added another ten to fifteen minutes to the route. Lesson to be learned- always check the campground website location and directions page. I have seen warnings like this before for other campgrounds in various places.

So, OK. We were all routed and off into the mountains. With no surprise, the weather forecast was "Scattered Showers and Isolated Thunderstorms". What else was new? It was overcast but it was not raining. The road surfaces were dry and visibility was clear. That was what was important.

I have to share that the Roadtrek handled some steep roads quite well. There is plenty of power in my 6.0L 8 cyl. engine with its six speed transmission. There were a few spots where I had to push the gas pedal a little further down, and the engine would roar a bit, but following a little hesitation the Roadtrek went back up to speed. Of course, on some of these roads we were not driving much faster than 45 mph and on some of these roads where the speed limit was higher, I was not comfortable bringing the Roadtrek up past 45 mph considering the single lanes in each direction and the twists and turns that the roads made. I am sure I was not making some of the little cars that knew these roads well that were driving behind me very happy, but I was going to drive the Roadtrek as safely as I felt necessary.

We made the trip to Appomattox pretty much in the time that the Tom Tom predicted on its screen. As we were driving along, Meryl had the task of checking cell phone signals on the new cell phone that I had got just before we left on the vacation and comparing this new company to her cell phone on the company that we have had as our cell carrier for years. We were driving through areas where cell phone voice, and especially data, signals are weak to poor - for all of the companies. My new phone had service pretty much where her phone had service - and where she did not have any service at all - and there were quite a few places like that along the route - I did not have service either. Along the way we listened to recordings of the old Burns and Allen radio show on a CD and laughed our way west.

We arrived in Appomattox and the first attraction that we wanted to see was the newly built musuem that is an addition to the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond. I will write a separate article about the museum next week. We had to have lunch before we stopped there and the night before we had checked the internet to see where the closest McDonald's was. There generally is a McDonald's just about everywhere you go - and while we could have stopped and made lunch in the Roadtrek, it is far easier to stop for twenty minutes or less and eat and go. We had an address for it in the commercial area of the Town Of Appomattox but we did not look on a map. As we passed the museum, we saw a sign for the road the address was on - but the sign came up quickly and I missed the turn. Remember in the Roadtrek don't try to make any sudden fast turns. I kept going looking for a place to turn around. This is also another not easy thing to do when driving the Roadtrek. I saw a wash it yourself car wash up ahead and turned in. I had not realized as I pulled in that the exit out was very steep. I pulled around the little corner parking lot and was going up hill. The exit dropped off to the road. As I turned out of the exit and onto the street, I could hear a bang in the rear of the Roadtrek. I did a lot of cursing and wondered what damage I did now. We headed back to the road that we missed and got on it and seemed to be driving for a lot longer than the mile that this McDonald's was supposed to be and the road was becoming a limited access road. We pulled off at the next exit and started heading back in the direction we assumed we had to go. That direction was fine and we learned along the way that the road we wanted was the "business" route of the road with the same name and we were on that now. And there was the McDonald's up ahead with a sharp turn through traffic off to the left and into a very small parking lot.

Fast food restaurants do not always have large parking lots and we have encountered several of these in the Roadtrek that really have no place for the Roadtrek to park without sticking way back into the active entrance or exit lane. This was one of those lots. I pulled into a space with the drive through line behind me and hoped for the best while we were inside. Before we went inside, I looked as best that I could under the Roadtrek for the source of the big bang that we had heard when making the turn around. There was nothing obvious - and to date, nothing is wrong - thank goodness. We ate and got back out to go back to the museum we wanted to visit.

The GPS already had the museum as the next destination and it told us to go straight on the road that the restaurant was on and then within a block turn right. OK. I wondered where it was taking us. Well, it took us to the street that we came in on passed the musuem. The same street that the car wash that I turned around at was on, and in fact, there was that car wash up ahead as we turned onto that road. The museum was about thirty seconds further down. Had we stayed on that street coming in, we would have seen the McDonald's as soon as we came to its intersection. And avoided that bang... Oh well.

I will tell you about the musuem next week. I will move along now to the trip up to Charlottesville which was happily uneventful. By the time we came out of the musuem it was too late to visit the actual site of the surrender which is in a National Park right there. We have been to that site before and there is a campground right across the road. When we decide to head back here, we will likely try that campground and spend more time here.

We made our way along the route that I planned and drove in and out of towns - some looking like they have not changed in 75 years, and some looking very much like every other commercial, built up town in the country with shopping malls and lots of retail along the side of the road. As my route got further along, the main route that I decided to travel stopped being a limited access road and became more of a two lane in each direction open highway through towns. And it went up and down the mountains. The big 18 wheeler trucks seemed to do much better going up and down the mountains than the Roadtrek, but the Roadtrek held its own.

As we got close to Charlottesville, we passed the road that the campground was on from the direction that we were warned not to take. We passed it by and continued up and around and back east, and then headed south exactly where the campground directions specified. If this is the better route, I thought, what must the bad route be like? It twisted around and down the mountain. It twisted a lot and the speed limit was 55 mph and the road was one narrow lane in each direction. I was, of course, not doing the speed limit. I was driving between 40 and 45 mph with an eye on the warning signs that would come up to reduce speed down to 35 - which I was sure to do. It was a little bit of white knuckles on the steering wheel for a while. There was, luckily, a sign just before the turn to the road for the campground and the Tom Tom was doing a good job at notifying me of turns coming up. The road that the campground is on was not much better and at one point we came to a sign that said single lane bridge. This is a road that trucks drive on and I was very happy to see the truck behind me turn off. I was not going to miss the campground entrance - who knew where we could turn around and ahead we would be on the part of the road we were warned about. I reduced down to ten miles per hour and we both looked sharp for the campground entrance. It was well marked - and the Tom Tom announced it was up ahead. We turned into the campground - the Charlottesville KOA which is actually the only campground that I could locate in this area and within a number of miles of this area. I will write about the campground in an article in two weeks.

We were heading out for dinner that night to a restaurant that we have been to before in Charlottesville. At the campground I asked the very nice couple behind the desk in the registration office how much worse is the road that they warn about over the road that they recommend. I was told that the warning is really for much bigger RVs and trailers than ours but - there are a lot more twists and turns and some turns are very sharp. When were pulling out for the restaurant I turned to Meryl and asked if we should try that other direction - just to see it. Silly me... Meryl said OK and I made a right out of the campground. At first the road was pretty much OK. There were some houses on the side and a few businesses. Then it started to twist and there were - as warned - several very sharp turns. I drove slow and cautiously. One of those turns sharply curved around what might be called a wooded glade that then looked like more of a swamp. You certainly did not want to go off the edge of the road there. As we came out onto the main highway it started to rain. And then it started to pour. I mean pour like someone opened a faucet and a steady, heavy flow of water came down. Thank goodness the rain waited for us to get out off of that road.

It rained heavily for about an hour. It was actually too early to eat dinner when we got to the restaurant. There was a supermarket across the parking lot and we decided to go in there and spend some time. We put on our rain jackets and went out into the storm. While we were in the supermarket, the sky started to lighten and then as suddenly as the storm started it just stopped completely - and the sun came out. At least, if it stayed this way and did not start raining again when we had to return to the campground, I would not be driving back down the twisty recommended road in the rain - the dark would be bad enough.

End of Part II - see below...

Our story continues next week with an article on the Museum of the Confederacy - Appomattox Annex. The following week will be an article about the Charlottesville KOA campground. Following that will be an article about Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. Part III of this article will continue the week after that.

The place in Appomattox, Virginia that I most wanted to visit was the new annex of the Museum of the Confederacy that just opened in March 2012. The Museum of the Confederacy is a Civil War museum that has been located in the city of Richmond, Virginia next door to what is known as the White House - the house occupied by the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. That building is also part of the musuem. It is difficult to visit the Richmond museum as parking is either on the street or in an indoor garage at a hospital complex next to the museum - and there is no where really to park an RV, even a Roadtrek. This new museum in Appomattox has its own outdoor parking lot with free parking and is an excellent presentation of the events that took place just before and at Appomattox that led to the final conclusion of the Civil War - or War Between the States as it is still known in the South.



The new museum is housed in its own building adjacent to the National Historic Park that is the site of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia by General Robert E. Lee to the Army of the Potomac under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant. This museum is the first to present artifacts of that event.

The museum looks large from the outside but the exhibit area is only half of the building inside. The other half holds an auditorium for programs and conferences. As you enter, the admission desk is ahead of you, the gift shop is to the left, and the exhibition halls are to the right. Admission to the museum was $10 for adults, $8 for seniors 62+, and $6 for children 7 - 13. I hesitate to give actual prices because these are always subject to change. The museum is open 10 am to 6 pm daily. There is a $20 package admission that also includes the Museum and White House of the Confederacy in the city of Richmond, which is quite some distance east of here.

As you enter the first exhibit hall you are presented with what led up to the surrender - the retreat from city of Petersburg, the problems encountered in not finding food that was supposed to be delivered to a starving army, and the battles that took place along the way as the army was chased by Northern troops. All along in the display cases are uniforms of both the officers and the enlisted men and items that they had with them. Much has been given or lent to the musuem by the families of the men who fought for the South.









Most significant in the collection and on permanent display is the sword that Robert E. Lee wore to the surrender. As noted in the musuem, contrary to popular belief, Robert E. Lee did not surrender his sword but kept it. The photo to the right is that sword and its scabbard.

















Also on display is the uniform worn by Robert E. Lee and his gloves worn at the surrender. Shown in the photo on the right.  Lee made sure to wear his best uniform to his meeting with General Grant - who was wearing a dusty and worn uniform - not as elegant as portrayed in portraits of the event.









Perhaps I should note - and not surprisingly as this isthe Museum of the Confederacy, that what is on display in this museum is one sided. You are seeing this event from the side of the South. There were no artifacts of the North on display.It is noted that the terms of the surrender agreement offered by General Grant were far more generous than General Lee expected. And General Grant demanded that the government in Washington following the assassination of President Lincoln honor those terms exactly as offered.

As you go along through the exhibit galleries there are displays of weapons, surrender flags, and remembrances of the event. We spent the entire afternoon at the museum and did not have time to visit the National Park site of the actual house that the surrender took place in, as I had anticipated for the day. We had to be moving on so that we could arrive at the campground we had reservations at in Charlottesville, Virginia while the office was still open, so we left Appomattox and moved on - as I detailed in part II of my article about this summer vacation trip. When we come back to Appomattox in the future, there is a campground right across from the National Park and this museum.

We spent time looking at each display in each display case and reading the accompanying descriptions. If one finds this only marginally interesting, one could walk through the entire museum just glancing at what there is to see in fifteen minutes - but then why would you come here in the first place.

If you are interested in Civil War history, I recommend this musuem. I have also been to the National Park site in the past, and I highly recommend that to see as well.

The Museum of the Confederacy - Appomattox is located at 159 Horseshoe Road, Appomattox, VA 24522. The road that this museum is on is the same road that the National Park entrance is on and is just west of that entrance. The phone number at the Visitor Services Desk at 434-352-5791 or toll-free (855) 649-1861, ext. 201. There is a website.

We stayed for one night at the Charlottesville KOA Campground in Charlottesville, Virginia. When I was planning our trip I did a lot of looking for campgrounds in the Charlottesville area and this one is it! The biggest tourist attraction in this area is Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. The City of Charlottesville is also the home of the University of Virginia, started by Thomas Jefferson. The Charlottesville KOA is not far from Monticello.

I wrote about driving to this campground in a previous article, but this is so important for RVers and Roadtrekers that I am going to repeat it. This campground is located in the woods in the mountains. The campground website has a clear statement of warning about two routes to not take in an RV or trailer when coming to or leaving the campground. Here is that statement right off their website -

View of the Campground sites

View of the Pull Through Sites

We came west in Virginia in our Roadtrek primarily for one reason, to see Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. We have been to Monticello in our pre-Roadtrek travels many times. We have not been there in several years and were eager to see the new musuem complex that was only starting construction when we were there last at least five years ago.

Monticello was built under the direct supervision of Thomas Jefferson on top of a mountain. Everyone at the time thought that this was crazy but if anyone was going to be able to do this feat, it was Jefferson. During his adult life, Monticello was a home always under renovation - add a little hear, change something there. What you see when you come to Monticello today is the building restored completely to as it was when Jefferson lived here.

To get to Monticello, you have to drive up that mountain on a road that is one lane in each direction and it winds up the mountain. You share this road with cars, trucks, and other RVs. Along the way up you pass another historic site - Mitchie Tavern which is a restored 18th Century tavern to tour with a nice gift shop and a southern buffet lunch in a small restaurant if you have time to indulge. The Roadtrek made the climb just fine. This is another of those roads that you just drive up and then later back down at a speed you are comfortable with and avoid coming too close to the edge which in some places is unprotected from the drop down. When you arrive at the turn off to Monticello you are turning right when coming up the mountain, though Monticello is to the left. The right turn brings you into a curved entrance road that is relatively new - perhaps the last ten years and this will bring you into a wooded area and then to the entrances to the parking lot. One of the first lots that you come to is an RV lot with long spaces. We were glad to see this because we recalled the car lots with steeply angled and small spaces. We pulled in and there were just a couple of other RVs parked there. There were no other Class B's.   By the time that we left at the end of the day we were the only RV in the lot, as you can see in the photo.

The parking lot is a short walk from the ticket building and the new museum complex. You are still not at the top of the mountain and the house is still above where you are further up the mountain. When you purchase your ticket you are given a starting time for you tour of the mansion which is shown on your ticket. Our tour would start in about twenty minutes so we walked through the outside of the museum complex and headed for the shuttle bus that would take us up to the top of the mountain. It is possible to walk and we usually walk down, but it is not a climb that I wanted to make in the August heat. It is a small shuttle bus and the ride up is just a few minutes. The bus filled and we were on our way up. You arrive at the top of the mountain just in front of the mansion that is surrounded by large hedges at the edge of the paved bus route. You are told to arrive at the starting point for you tour five minutes before it will start. There is more to see at the top of the mountain than just the mansion and if you are there early you have time to see them - I will tell you about them as we go along. We had just a ten minutes or so, now before our tour and we took a short walk to a small gift shop and then back to the line for the tour.  


This is what you see as you look through the opening in the hedges and start to walk up to the front door with your tour guide. You are told about the house and Jefferson's plans to build it. As you stand on the steps you are told about the single hand plantation clock that sits above the door that is run by two weights that hang from chains just inside the door and enable the clock to run for a week with the height of one of the cannonball type weights showing the day of the week painted on the wall. There is no room from ceiling to floor to fit all of the seven days of the week so you must go into the basement to see those days.

Inside the house, no photography is allowed - and there is a tour guide with you every moment inside the house so you cannot sneak any. There are some very nice books of photography inside the mansion for purchase in the bookshop in the gift store along with postcards of the inside. Inside you will see the mansion as it looked and many of the furnishings are original having belonged to Jefferson. Jefferson lived here with his wife and their children. When his wife, Martha (yes, just like Washington, Jefferson married a Martha), passed away after just ten years of marriage, Jefferson promised her that he would never marry again, and he lived in the house raising his girls. Later when they married, they remained with their families and Jefferson was always surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Entering the house you come into a large foyer which Jefferson used as an exhibit area showcasing items sent to him by Lewis and Clark on their discoveries. This is a museum in itself with artifacts from dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, and native Americans.  This is as it was when Jefferson lived here. As you walk through the house with your guide, you will see the sitting room that Martha Jefferson and later the oldest daughter used as to run the household, Jefferson's library with Jefferson's books on the shelves. Jefferson's office, Jefferson's bedroom with the bed that Jefferson slept and died in, a parlor, two dining rooms. You exit the house through a bedroom that was the favorite for Mr. Madison and his wife Dolly to stay in when they visit and was called, "Mr. Madison's Room" by the grandchildren. You come out of the house onto one of the porticoes on the side of the house.



From here you are on your own to explore. Looking out from the portico toward Charlottesville through a telescope you can see the University of Virginia dome and Jefferson often came out here to watch the progress of his design being constructed. You can walk around Jefferson's garden, tour his kitchen garden, and also see Mulberry Row where the slave quarters are. You can also go beneath the house to see the kitchen, the wine cellar, the clock weights below the main floor,  beer storage and bottling room, and the necessary (outhouse). There are also the house stables and garden room on one side.There is a great deal to see and in addition there are several guided tours around the property outside that you can take that are included in your admission ticket. There is one tour that is not included and that is a lot of money and only takes place on certain days, and that is a tour of the upper floors of the house, particularly into the dome room. Contact them in advance of your trip if you would like to do that - and find out if it is available when you will be there.

After our tour of the house we walked around the grounds, took the Mulberry Row guided tour, and saw all of the rooms below the house. We usually walk back down the mountain and we wanted to be sure to see the new musuem. On the way down we stopped at the family cemetery and looked at Thomas Jefferson's grave and the obelisk that marks it. The walk down is pleasant and through the woods on a path. It is not really steep though if one has any problem with a path like this you can get the bus down either where you got off or at the cemetery gate.

We went directly to the new museum building. In the past there had been a Thomas Jefferson museum with personal belongings and details of the house in a building a few miles away at the bottom of the mountain on Route 20. Our expectation was that they took what was there and added to it. We imagined a very large museum much like the new musuem at Mount Vernon, home of George Washington (I will write about Mount Vernon in the very near future). We walked into a room that was not very large in a much larger building and basically saw what we had seen in the past in the old museum. If you have never been to Monticello then you are going to like this museum, but if, like us you had some hopes about a technology rich and artifact full museum, you are going to be disappointed as we were. In fact, some key things at the old museum were missing from the displays here - one being a book shared between Jefferson and his wife that played a significant part between them at the time of her death. There was more on display about the architecture of Monticello and Jefferson the architect than there had been before. It was just our expectations. I am sure that they feel that they have created an excellent museum. We just wished it to be more. Outside the museum there is a small restaurant with pre-paid sandwiches and snacks. There is also a children's hands on area. There is a theater that runs a continual showing of an interpretive film about Thomas Jefferson. Of course, there is also a gift shop and bookstore.

We spent about five hours or so at Monticello. This is not a place to come and not spend time. What you are looking at is what Jefferson looked at and what he loved. You look out off the mountain to the surrounding country side. You look at what inspired one of the great founders of this country. If you have never been you should go. Before we stopped traveling and before the Roadtrek we went every summer. We will certainly be going back. I have seen it many times, but there is always something new that I learn each time I am there. I love coming here. There is a feeling of serenity that you get when you are here, especially looking out from Jefferson's mountain.

Rear View of the House

Side of the House

Workman's Living Quarters - one of the two original buildings on Mulberry Row

Mansion Kitchen

Garden House - Jefferson would sit here and read

View from the top of Jefferson's mountain

This is all that there was of Monticello when Jefferson brought his bride there to live

Jefferson's Grave Stone- Jefferson wrote what he wanted on his stone and this is what he wanted to be remembered for

Jefferson's Necessary - this is below the house and where Jefferson went to do what is necessary

We left Monticello and started directly for out next stop - Williamsburg, Virginia. Monticello to Williamsburg is a direct route east on Route 64 with a bypass around the city of Richmond on Route 295 and then back on to Route 64. The trip is all of two hours and there is not much of a concern about traffic.

Directly off Route 64 in Williamsburg is American Heritage Campground which is our campground of choice in Williamsburg. I have written about this campground before and there is not really anything to add - though the space that we were assigned was not as level as the other spaces that we have had here in the past. When I backed into the space I found a place on the cement pad that was close, but just off to the passenger side. Other spots on the pad that I tried were way off. Looking later at the cement, it could be seen that it had sunk down toward the left side looking head in. I had an idea to somehow mark the spot that I found that was level - and this should not be hard on the cement.  We put down three twigs as a temporary marking. One at the side of the front driver's side wheel, one at the side of the rear driver's side wheel, and one at the back of that same wheel.That night, I bought a box of sidewalk chalk - which washes away completely with water - or the rain (which we later in our stay saw for ourselves). That night I came as close to the twigs as possible. With the chalk we marked the same locations we had placed the twigs. The markings remained for the stay - until it rained heavily one night toward the end.  The chalk idea works - if you are on a cement or asphalt pad site. It does not work on gravel. (I will share my new and improved marking system in a later article.)

One of the many nice things about American Heritage Campground in Williamsburg is the nice landscaping around the spaces. Spaces also have shade trees - though at this campground you do not get the atmosphere of camping in the middle of the woods. That is fine with us. But many here - more here than the other campgrounds we have been too - do their own decoration of their sites. Some really to extremes. This was the site directly across from us. And you can see in the photo all that he has put out - including a political sign (in August well before the elections). If one is traveling to an area where there is little to do in the way of local attractions, I could understand making a comfortable place to be during the day at the campground, but here in Williamsburg there is nothing but attractions to fill all of your time. At this campground and a couple of others we see people spending the day sitting outside of their RVs or trailers and spending the day there. If they were walking a nature trail or this was off in the forest surrounded by nature, or there were tennis courts or a golf course, I might even understand that - but they seem to spend the day looking at the view - which is the trailer or RV next to or across from them. And the golf carts! In the photo you see off the the left a golf cart. No he did not bring that with him. You can rent these at many campgrounds. This campground is not so large that there is nothing that the campground has to offer that is not within very fast and easy walking distance.  The building behind his fifth-wheel trailer is the bathroom/shower building. So certainly, there was no need for a golf cart to get there. No, you can't take the golf cart off the campground property so there is on traveling out that is possible with it.  I really don't understand the golf carts.

American Heritage Campground Sites

We spent our time here for the most part at Colonial Williamsburg (CW for those who work there and come there often). Because we were were here for ten nights, I had also planned to go to a few other area attractions. As you will recall from Part I - the weather forecast every day though this trip was "Scattered Showers and Isolated Thunderstorms". Each morning it became a routine - get up, look out the window (the Roadtrek skylights in the front make this easy) and check the weather for the day. Each day was overcast. The question was - would it rain. And if it might rain, would we want to go somewhere and pay an admission to an outdoor attraction in the rain. It was one of those trips where you just wanted to yell at the sky and say "I am on my vacation, make the sun come out!" - it  didn't work. We spent each day at Colonial Williamsburg with one day at Jamestowne Settlement. On two of those days at CW, it was actually pouring.

I know of a little known parking area for Colonial Williamsburg that is usually empty and easy for RVs  to park in - even those larger than our Roadtreks. I have thought about whether I am just going to share the location of this parking lot - and I have decided not to. Contact me only by email if you would like to know where it is. On one of the raining mornings we parked at this lot and started out with our fold up rain jackets on. Just because it is raining, does not mean that the temperature is cool and the rain just increased the humidity on this already hot day. As we walked around Colonial Williamsburg, it was just too hot to wear the jacket and just as we were peeling them off - the rain stopped and the sun actually peeked through the clouds. The next time it actually did rain, it was pouring and this time it did not stop. We spent the day inside CW's museum building - after waiting a considerable time for the rain to at least let up enough to go outside the Roadtrek and disconnect the electric  cable from the campground outlet without getting electrocuted. Raining or not - always click the campground outlet's circuit breaker OFF before removing your plug. The circuit breaker is generally right above your outlet and it is marked "30 AMP". Do this also when plugging in - turn it ON only after you have plugged in. There are free lockers in the museum and we stashed our rain jackets there and spent a nice dry afternoon inside. The rain was so severe that day that there was heavy flooding within twenty miles of where we were.

I am not going to go into detail about Colonial Williamsburg but I will say that last year, I was not happy to see the overemphasis on "production-like" programs without any real interaction with the public. This year that has changed - at least a little. And we spent time talking one on one with several "people of the past" during programs. We, actually spent a lot of time attending programs - something that has not been offered as much in several years. Despite the uncertainty of the weather, we had a very good time in Colonial Williamsburg. Here are some photos -

People you might see -

Patrick Henry

Thomas Jefferson

General Geoge Washingon and Staff

British General Benedict Arnold who led the British troops to capture Williamsburg in 1781

Building a mold to cast a brass cannon

I usually don't talk about where we eat when we are traveling but we had dinner in a restaurant in Williamsburg that I just have to share. The name of the restaurant is Pierces Pit Bar-Be-Cue and it is located at  447 East Rochambeau in Williamsburg, Virginia. The food is - barbecue - and I had some of the most wonderful ribs and pulled pork that I have ever had. It is said that really good ribs are fall off the bone ribs - and the bone came out clean from these ribs. The sauce was not to overwhelming or excessively sweet. This is not a waitress restaurant. You order at a counter and wait for your number to be called to pick up your food. There are tables both inside and outside to sit at. There is extra sauce at a counter and soda machines to fill and refill your soda cup.  I have been to regular restaurants for ribs, but these have been for the most part, chain barbecue restaurants. Pierces is not a chain - and everyone local knows about it. Expect to wait on line before you get up to the counter.  It is worth the wait.
 
We left American Heritage on our last day and headed north toward Mount Vernon which was our next attraction stop. We would be not be staying over night there, but would be moving on from there to Pennsylvania for a few days before we headed home. 

As I said, we did go to Jamestown Settlement and I will write about that in two weeks. I will write about Mount Vernon - and our exciting ride in the Roadtrek in a bad storm to get there, after that. Next week we will take a little detour to a mod I made while in Virginia.

When we are in Williamsburg, Virginia, we like to walk around the historic area after dark. It is quiet, peaceful, and history seems to come to life in the shadows. We park in a lot on the edge of the historic area that is very dark. The spaces, while fine for cars, are just a little short for the Roadtrek even if I pull the tires all the way up to the wooden log that serves as a curb for each space. When I looked the back of the Roadtrek was sticking out into the exit lane by the length of the Continental Spare Tire kit on the back. The spare on the back adds about a foot in length to the standard Roadtrek length.

During the day, the Roadtrek is clearly visible to anyone driving past in such a situation, but I noticed while parked here at night that from the side, if driving down the entrance/exit lane, the Roadtrek was almost completely in the dark - and there was the spare tire sticking out into the lane. That night walking around in Williamsburg I kept thinking that this was really not good. There is no reflector on the side of the Roadtrek at all and the only reflectors on the rear are up in the air on the lights that are on the top halves of the cargo doors. I wondered why Roadtrek had not added reflectors to the Continental Spare Tire Kit - and it was certainly shaped to accommodate their placement. I decided that a trip to Walmart was in order. And, of course, we when got back to the Roadtrek that night I headed over to the 24 hour Walmart in Williamsburg.

I was not certain if I wanted to use plastic reflectors or reflector tape. I looked through what they had in the auto department and decided that the plastic reflectors with an adhesive backing would never stay on during all types of weather and temperature. I found the reflective tape and it just did not look reflective to me. You should have seen us walking around the store to where there were lights focusing down to a spot where I could hold the tape package and see how well the tape reflected the light. Pretty much it looked no more reflective than the red duct tape that they had. Then I saw a package of reflective strips intended to be placed on a truck bumper. This was very reflective and combined both red and white foil reflectors in each strip. Cut down this would work perfectly. It installed with an strong adhesive backing and should hold much better than the stick on foam that was on the plastic reflectors. (I did not want to drill holes to screw anything on.)

When I get an idea, no matter what time it is, I have to see it through. We purchased the reflective strips and went out to the Roadtrek in the parking lot where there was plenty of light. I knew that the campground was too dark - and besides, do it now when there is nothing else to do than wait until the morning and take the time for things we had planned. And it was not raining...




We cleaned the Continental Spare Tire cover with household cleaner that we have in the Roadtrek and paper towels. I washed it well and dried it completely. I cut the long strips into pieces and placed the side strips on - which were for the time being the most important. I decided that I would wait until I got home to do any more - but at night with just the side strips we would be fine in the dark parking lot. The large white strip at the top and the large red strip at the bottom are what we put on that night.The dots you see were added after we got home and I punched those from this same material with a 3/4" leather punch. It punched very cleanly.







At home I was pulling into my driveway behind the Roadtrek and realized that I could not see the back of the Continental Spare  Tire Kit at all in the dark. I had the reflector strips so I added the two red strips that you see here on the bumps that are molded into the tire cover.  The s original strip was cut lengthwise in half to fit here perfectly. Of course, everything was cut to matching size using a ruler and when stuck on I made sure with the ruler that each strip was as close as possible in a matching position. The bottom white strip was the last added, because I saw that my small car's headlights were not lighting up the upper reflectors.

I look at this now, and wonder, "too much?" I really don't think so. We are out of the campground a lot at night and the Roadtrek is very dark in a lot of parking lots. This added just enough to make the part of the Roadtrek that sticks out the most visible. Even if they are able to see the side of the Roadtrek - you could not see the spare tire sticking out the back - and if you cut it close, you clipped the spare tire. This is an easy mod and it cost about $8 for the reflective strips (package of four) to enlighten your Roadtrek's Continental Spare Tire Kit.

In the year 1607 three ships full of colonists landed on the bank of the James River in what we know today to be Virginia to undertake a business venture. The settlement that they established was names Jamestown. This was the first permanent English settlement in America and from this group of men, our nation was born.

Today, you can visit two museums that tell the story of Jamestown. One is the actual site of the settlement and what you will see there are archaeological digs, their resulting finds, and the layout of discoveries that continue every day of the settlement. This is run in a joint venture by the National Park Service and the Society of the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. That attraction is called Historic Jamestowne and we visited there in our Roadtrek a year ago.  This year our Roadtrek brought us to the other museum dedicated to Jamestown - Jamestown Settlement.

Jamestown Settlement is a privately run living history musuem. Here you will see the settlement of Jamestown brought to life by living history interpreters recreating life in Jamestown within a replica of the original fort that was built, in the native village of Powhatan, and on the three ships that brought the colonists from England. In addition, there is a large musuem filled with artifacts, displays, and presentations to fully explain life in the "New World".

Jamestown Settlement is located in Jamestown, Virginia adjacent to the original site and National Park Service historic park. There is plenty of parking and while there is not dedicated RV parking there is no problem parking your Roadtrek - or even a larger RV. We parked in an empty part of the lot in two spaces back to front and there was no problem. The museum and interpretation center is is a large building next to the parking lot. As you enter this building there are admission ticket counters, a gift shop, and a cafeteria. After you purchase your ticket you walk to a long hallway that spans the entire rear of the building and this takes you to an orientation film, the musuem, and at the end of the hall, the exit to the living history area. Other than the museum this is an outdoor attraction. Plan this for a day that will not rain. We tried, and with hopes of just a cloudy day - as you can see from the photos - it did rain lightly that afternoon. In anticipation of that possibility, we stopped first to see the introductory film in the musuem theater - the story of the founding of the settlement and its first years - and then we headed outside, saving the indoor museum for later.

Outside you can explore on your own or take a guided tour which is included in your admission. Tours have scheduled starting times which will be posted. You may leave the tour at any time, if you wish. We went outside for our group tour and our tour guide was a woman portraying a member of the  Powhatan tribe. She took escorted us down a path to the Powhatan Village. Everything that you see at Jamestown Settlement has been created down to detail from research of journals and documents kept by the settlers. Some of these included drawings and sketches of what the settlers saw and the Powhatan Village represents the result of that research. The Powhatan people lived in huts made of sea grass. In the village you will see and walk into those huts - fully furnished inside just as they were. You will also see skills of the native people demonstrated. With the guide you are taken around the village and through one of the dwellings as she answers questions and explains what you are seeing and the life of the Powhatan people. From here the guide escorts you through the forest to the settlers fort. You are welcome to come back to the village later to explore on your own.

Once at the fort you are introduced to one of the settlers and then the Powhatan woman leaves you with him. He is now your guide for the fort. The fort has been recreated just as it was again based on extensive research. As archaeology at the original site discovers new findings about the fort, Jamestown Settlement revises their reconstruction. For many years and until the last ten years or so, it was thought that the original fort site had eroded into the James River and no longer existed. An archaeology project started to investigate areas that before had been left undug because they were covered by Civil War earth works. There was a reluctance to disturb one history for an earlier history. Test digs proved the theory of where the fort may be correct and an extensive project was undertaken and still continues today - at the original site. So, very much so, every part of history as it was known of Jamestown keeps changing.

In the fort your guide will explain the life of the colonists and the hardships that they endured in the first year of the settlement. You will learn about the "starving time" which almost wiped out the small colony. You will be taken though a few of the buildings but not all, and again, it is expected that you will come back to the fort later to explore on your own. Throughout the fort there are people portraying colonists who are going about their daily lives. Some demonstrating trades, some tending gardens, some doing their military duty. You will see bread baked in a bake oven, carpentry, blacksmithing, armor repair, the firing of a matchlock musket - something that is not commonly seen - even as a colonial reenactor who fires a flintlock musket regularly, I had to see the matchlock fired, and through the day there are scheduled firings of one of the fort's cannons. Your guide will next take you out of the fort and down to the river where you will be introduced to one of the sailors who sailed on one of the three ships that brought the colonists to the New World.

There are three ships - the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery. (I hope you were not thinking the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria - or the Mayflower!) The sailor will tell you about the voyage and its hardships. You will learn that in mid-voyage they had to wait on the ocean for the wind to come blowing in the right direction to get to their destination - and how long that took. Your guide will then invite you to explore each of the ships and that ends the guided tour. You can walk on board of each ship. You can go into the holds at the bottom of the ships. You can see the captain's quarters, and where the colonists spent the voyage. These are real ships floating on the James River and tied up to the docks. These ships are capable of sailing. On the ships you will only slightly feel the rocking of the ship on the water - enough to help you understand what it would be like to be out on open sea for months.

















When you are ready to leave the ships, you return on your own now to the fort. Spend time in the fort. Look at the various buildings - inside and out. Talk to the people. There is even armor out for you to try on. When you are ready to move on again, return to the Powhatan Village and see everything there.

When you have seen all of the outside living history attractions, come back up the path that you took down to the Powhatan Village and return to the musuem building. Start your exploration of the museum, not at the end where you just came back inside, but go down the hallway to the beginning. The museum is arranged by years.  At the start of the museum's presentation, you will see first what Virginia was like before the colonists arrived. You will learn about the native people and how they lived. The museum then moves along to show you what life was for the colonists in England. Some of these men were quite wealthy - this colony was a business venture. They were coming to make money more than anything else. You will see various rooms from homes of different classes of people. And you will learn that what they were after was gold - and in this part of Virginia there is no gold - though they would not know that. What they found was tobacco and with that the colony succeeded.  In the museum you will learn more about the voyage. You will see artifacts from the colonists. You will learn about the real Pocahontas - not the Disney version or the myths. You will see how the settlement developed and how it grew to be the first capital of Virginia and then later was abandoned for a somewhat more comfortable environment up river to Williamsburg.

 Plan on spending a full day at Jamestown Settlement. I recommend seeing this first before you go to Historic Jamestowne, the NPS site where it all really happened. You will have a much better understanding of what is abstractly shown at the original site, if you see it come to life first at Jamestown Settlement. This is one of the must sees - both sites are - when you come to this part of Virginia. And it will help you appreciate what you see at Williamsburg as well and what it took to birth a nation.

Kitchen

Fireplace

Colonist's bedchamber

Tobacco - Virgina "Gold"

Colonist's Home

Governor's Home

Armor brought from England to be worn in the Virginia heat!

Governor.s Bedchamber

Bake Oven

Cannon Drill

For many, many years The Williamsburg Pottery, known by many as just "The Pottery" was one of the must stops when visiting Williamsburg, Virginia. It was a conglomeration of warehouse buildings and outlet stores. It was started by a man who put some old dishes on their lawn to sell to tourists driving by. The business grew to include a pottery - yes, where pottery is made - and this salt-glazed pottery made in colonial style became a popular souvenir of the area, not just sold at "The Pottery" but all in all of the local gift shops. Soon odd lot items were brought in along with baskets, flower arrangements, woodwork, housewares, garden decorations, and the list just goes on and on. The great thing about The Pottery always was that you would find the most unusual things there and the prices were exceptionally inexpensive. It was incredible. And there was an RV park on the rear of the property.

A few years back the Williamsburg Pottery closed for renovations. The gentleman who started the business passed away and now it was in the hands of the family who decided that it needed updating. There was a lot of apprehension of people who loved the place when the drawings of the new Pottery were revealed. When it opened this past April, I read a lot of disappointing reports from people who went looking for The Pottery and found something very different. On this last trip to Williamsburg we decided to see for ourselves.

The Williamsburg Pottery is located on Route 60 and the address is 6692 Richmond Road in Williamsburg. It is actually very close to the campground that we stay at - American Heritage Campground. This is what you will see from the road. There is a very large parking lot and the building in this photo extends to several buildings all in the same design. What there is now is a "cute" Williamsburg Pottery. If what was inside matched what had in the past been inside the warehouse buildings, it would have been great. But while some was the same on a much smaller scale, a lot was now "upscale" and the prices were increased to match the look. Gone are the bargains. Gone are the oddities. Gone is the room full of baskets, each only a couple of dollars. Gone is most of the fun. Even the food court is gone. Replaced with an upscale cafe and a Bon Pain restaurant. They used to have these great pulled pork sandwiches and a refillable souvenir of The Pottery plastic cup of soda. Those, too, are gone.



You can still see one of the buildings, shown in the photo above of the original Pottery. Seeing standing next to one of the new buildings made me miss the old Pottery even more. The railroad tracks go through the Pottery property and you can see them in the foreground of the above photo. Freight trains still come through on a regular basis. In the photo to the right you can see the old railroad crossing that in the past you had to cross to get to the Pottery buildings. It is all in rubble now.


We went through all of the sections of the "new" Williamsburg Pottery hoping to find a bargain. No bargains were to be found. We looked at the salt-glazed pottery that was on display and did find the section of "seconds" which the Pottery was always known for. Pots with slight mistakes that really did not make a difference and always in the past sold for much, much less than the same piece of pottery that was "perfect". The seconds were there but the prices were more than the price of the same perfect piece that we saw at a tourist gift shop.

It was sadly disappointing. Meryl said to me - as she often does - "change is not always for the better".  It was a way to spend a rainy afternoon, but it turned out to be a sad afternoon recalling what used to be.