Joining the caravan of RVs on Alaska roads

Next Monday is Memorial Day and the holiday weekend marks the beginning of yet another busy Alaskan summer season. The tourists will be arriving and some of them will rent a motorhome as their way to travel Alaska and take in the sights.

That means many of us will be driving down the road at 35 mph behind the gawking tourists as they marvel at our Mat-Su Valley scenery while we’re trying to get to work, the store or the kid’s soccer contest. There will be mumbled comments, hand gestures, and some dangerous passing maneuvers by those impatiently following the tourist-mobiles.

That’s a good time to take a “chill pill.”

While we like to blame the tourists for these traffic slowdowns, I suspect some of that sluggish driving is being done by locals with their own RVs, trying to shake off the rust from eight months of not operating a much larger-than-normal highway vehicle.

We were able to buy our own RV last fall, just in time to get it winterized and stored. So far, I’ve driven the unit to and from Anchorage three times (for winterization, de-winterization, and some warrantee work), once to Palmer for a trailer hitch installation, and once to Wasilla for some supplies to get the unit ready for the summer.

We’re planning a trip to Homer in the next few weeks to visit my mother-in-law and that will be the real “shakedown cruise” for my wife, myself, and our four little dogs — all of whom enjoy going for a ride.

The unit is wider than my pick-up but not much longer. The wind seems to be the biggest concern I’ve found so far while driving, especially a strong crosswind. However, it’s not that hard to get the unit up to the speed limit and running the Glenn Highway has been easy with the cruise control engaged. Having been stuck behind a slow-moving RV, I appreciate the frustration and, when driving my own rig, have tried to either move at the speed limit or get as far over to the right as I can to let others pass.

That still isn’t good enough for some!

We made that Wasilla trip this past Sunday and in the 40-mile round trip from Big Lake, we were illegally passed by one car, nearly cut off by two different pick-ups trying to get in front of us as traffic lanes merged, and had a couple tailgaters so close I could only see the shadow of the vehicle in the rearview mirror — and I was driving the speed limit!

RVs are a fact of life here in the summertime, so take a deep breath and drive sensibly when you encounter one. Most RV drivers will try to get out of your way if they realize they’re going too slow. And if you’re really lucky, maybe a trooper will also be caught in the line and will enforce the law when five or more vehicles are stuck behind a slow-moving RV!

We got this RV because neither of us is getting any younger and sleeping on the ground just isn’t as much fun as it used to be! I’m finding, after a night in my favorite tent, that I hurt in places I didn’t even know I had when I used to do this sort of thing fairly regularly. But the best thing about an RV is the “indoor plumbing” which is available whenever the urge strikes — you folks getting past the fifty-year mark can appreciate that!

I’ve wanted a camping unit for well over 10 years, but I always thought in terms of a truck-camper. My wife wasn’t real keen on that approach but wanted to take some trips around the state and talked for a year about getting an RV. Things worked out last fall and we got one.

Now, instead of getting up at 3 a.m. to drive up and launch our boat to go king fishing and then driving home to get some sleep, we now can arrive the night before with boat in tow and have a comfortable place to base out from. I’m thinking the same approach will work for some hunting trips I have in mind for both small game and maybe caribou. The unit will tow up to about a 6,000-pound trailer, so hauling an ATV or snowmachine shouldn’t be a problem and the trailer will carry a lot of extra gear (and fuel) to suit the trip requirements.

The down side (there’s always a down side I’m finding) is fuel usage. The unit gets only about eight to ten mpg by itself. Towing the riverboat or the covered utility trailer will probably lower those figures by two to four mpg, I’m guessing. The RV has a big engine and plenty of power, but I know what towing the riverboat does to my truck’s gas mileage. I’m expecting the same with the RV.

So, the next time you come up behind an RV, be courteous and, if I’m driving, give me a chance to move over and get out of your way, okay?

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by e-mailing sports@frontiersman.com.