Find Phil & Stacy here:
www.todayissomeday.net
Links to the Tampa Charity Meet Up Here: https://todayissomeday.net/tampa-meetup
Millers in Motion: www.millersinmotion.con
Ever wondered if the rolling hills of a nomadic life are as serene as they appear? Imagine setting up your home wherever your heart desires—the scent of fresh pine or the sound of ocean waves your constant companions. This eye-opening episode brings Phil and Stacy from Today is Someday into the fold, as we examine the riveting intricacies of RV living. Together, we traverse the landscape of drivable versus towable homes on wheels, sharing the wisdom gleaned from countless miles on the open road. Our guests pull back the curtain on their full-time travel adventures in their beloved motorhome, Ruby, while we champion the versatility of our Alliance Valor Toy Hauler.
Navigating the highways isn't just about the make and model of your rig; it's an art form that requires a balance of practicality and passion. Whether it's dissecting the crucial safety essentials for smooth sailing or sharing chuckle-worthy anecdotes about leveling on uneven terrain, this conversation has it all. We swap stories that span from the everyday realities of RV setup to the unexpected work dynamics that unfold in a mobile office space. Even better, we're spilling the beans on the live podcast recordings and our charity meetup at the Florida RV Super Show—where community, journey, and the spirit of giving come together under the stars.
As the embers of our campfire chat glow, we reflect on the sense of belonging that our RVs bring to our work, passions, and social lives. Phil and Stacy open up about their office on the move, while we share the secrets of transforming a toy hauler into a haven of productivity. It's not just about the journey; it's about crafting a life that blends the thrill of exploration with the comforts of home. So, buckle up and join us for a ride through the joys, challenges, and heartwarming moments that define the RV lifestyle. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or new to the notion of a home that roams, this episode promises insights that just might inspire you to hit the road and embrace the adventure that awaits.
Find Phil & Stacy here:
www.todayissomeday.net
Links to the Tampa Charity Meet Up Here: https://todayissomeday.net/tampa-meetup
Millers in Motion: www.millersinmotion.con
Ever wondered if the rolling hills of a nomadic life are as serene as they appear? Imagine setting up your home wherever your heart desires—the scent of fresh pine or the sound of ocean waves your constant companions. This eye-opening episode brings Phil and Stacy from Today is Someday into the fold, as we examine the riveting intricacies of RV living. Together, we traverse the landscape of drivable versus towable homes on wheels, sharing the wisdom gleaned from countless miles on the open road. Our guests pull back the curtain on their full-time travel adventures in their beloved motorhome, Ruby, while we champion the versatility of our Alliance Valor Toy Hauler.
Navigating the highways isn't just about the make and model of your rig; it's an art form that requires a balance of practicality and passion. Whether it's dissecting the crucial safety essentials for smooth sailing or sharing chuckle-worthy anecdotes about leveling on uneven terrain, this conversation has it all. We swap stories that span from the everyday realities of RV setup to the unexpected work dynamics that unfold in a mobile office space. Even better, we're spilling the beans on the live podcast recordings and our charity meetup at the Florida RV Super Show—where community, journey, and the spirit of giving come together under the stars.
As the embers of our campfire chat glow, we reflect on the sense of belonging that our RVs bring to our work, passions, and social lives. Phil and Stacy open up about their office on the move, while we share the secrets of transforming a toy hauler into a haven of productivity. It's not just about the journey; it's about crafting a life that blends the thrill of exploration with the comforts of home. So, buckle up and join us for a ride through the joys, challenges, and heartwarming moments that define the RV lifestyle. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or new to the notion of a home that roams, this episode promises insights that just might inspire you to hit the road and embrace the adventure that awaits.
Welcome back to the RV Shenanigans podcast. I'm Ryan.
Speaker 3:I'm Lauren, and together we are Millers in Motion. We are from North Texas and we are enjoying a new season of life exploring the United States in our Alliance. Valor Toyholler, we are coming to you with our first podcast from 2024. We are in the Texas Hill Country enjoying some beautiful scenery with some awesome friends, and we are thrilled to have our first guest of the year.
Speaker 2:We do and we're going to bring them on here in just a little bit, unless you're watching this on YouTube and you can obviously see who they are already, because I'm lazy and a bad editor and I just leave one camera view the whole time. Also, if you are going to be coming to the Florida RV Super Show because you're going to be here in this right before that make sure and come by the Alliance RV booth. We're going to be doing some live podcast recordings. We may have some guests with us. If you're on YouTube, you know what I'm saying, talking a little bit more about RV, the RV industry, the lifestyle, pretty much any and everything. So we'll be doing that Wednesday through Saturday of the show. So make sure and swing by and say hi. We're going to take a quick ad read break and we'll be right back with Phil and Stacy from Today is Someday.
Speaker 3:All right, like you said, we have Phil and Stacy from Today is Someday, and we first came across them when we were looking for our very first RV and they were a wealth of information. Then our paths crossed again with the RV unplugged series.
Speaker 2:Well, stacy was Phil. We just kind of, whatever he did, we just did the opposite of, and normally we're pretty solid, good plan especially with directions, but that's okay.
Speaker 3:So, yes, we did come across them again. We've gotten to know them and we really admire them, not only in the content creator space, but also for their charitable give, give backs. So why don't you guys introduce yourselves to our listeners?
Speaker 4:Hello everyone.
Speaker 1:How's everyone doing?
Speaker 4:We are Phil and Stacy from Today is Someday and we've been almost full time for six years now and it has been amazing. We have the same story you've heard over and over.
Speaker 1:We quit our jobs, sold all our stuff, bought an RV and hit the road and we have not looked back and we've only just scratched the surface on our travels, that's for sure. I mean, we've been to a ton of places, but we haven't been to a ton of places in the same sense. So we're looking forward to 2024 as well.
Speaker 3:I feel like the more you see, the more you realize you didn't see absolutely that bucket list.
Speaker 1:We check off one. Three more things get added.
Speaker 3:That is so true and what kind of rig do you guys travel in?
Speaker 1:We have a 2016 Tiffin Allegro Red 33AA. It's a diesel pusher. She's 35 feet and her name is Ruby and she is home.
Speaker 4:So we get a lot of questions asking about it. Does it feel like a house? Does it feel like a home? And you know, when you go on vacation and you're gone in the hotel for two weeks and you come home you're like that is our RV everywhere we go.
Speaker 2:So today we are going to be talking about the difference in drivable RVs and towable RVs. Obviously, lauren and I are new to our Alliance Valor 44 V14 previously in our Grand Design Solitude 5th wheel Both of those, obviously 5th wheel on the towable side. I don't know all that much, except for the things that translate between the two, about motorhomes or any drivable kind. We looked at them briefly and realized that we were going to be towable people right out of the gates, so we wanted to bring you guys on, simply because I don't know what I'm talking about, and you guys have been years long enough that hopefully you know what you're talking about.
Speaker 4:Well, most of us know what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:I know what she tells me or again the opposite of what you broke on accident, yes, of course, and like you, we knew out of the gates we were going to be motorhome people, not towables and we did look at them, but the dream was always to drive our RV.
Speaker 2:So just for a quick clarification for everybody else listening, if you're a first time buyer, maybe just considering getting into an RV. What we mean by drivable is going to be anything from a class B, class B plus, which is really a C, it's a whole thing, just go with it. Class C, class A's, and then there's two types of class A's, being the diesel pusher version and the gas version.
Speaker 1:And don't forget the supersedes.
Speaker 2:And supersedes. I forgot about those.
Speaker 4:So if it has a steering wheel.
Speaker 2:it is a drivable Engines come in handy too, and that's it. Well you know, if it has a steering wheel.
Speaker 4:It's going to have an engine.
Speaker 2:That is not necessarily true, you need to go to more backwards places in.
Speaker 1:Texas, that's right.
Speaker 2:So on the towable side, obviously that's going to be any RV that is towed behind, hopefully behind a rig or behind a truck, and so that's going to be your travel trailers, tear drops, pop-up campers, fifth wheels, whether they be toy haulers or not, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:So that's a lot of that is that's a lot to digest.
Speaker 4:Quite a variety. So, it's very confusing when you're just starting in the RV space.
Speaker 2:It really is, and that's why so much of what we wanted to do with this podcast was going into more detail, because we have a little bit more time in YouTube videos, and you guys know this. We know this because we all do the same, similar things. At least, it's so hard to get a bunch of information about a topic into a video, because it's you know 10 to 20 minutes, give or take.
Speaker 4:Youtube is bad and curious.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so that's the big reason why we do the podcast is because we take those topics and now deep dive them Right Right.
Speaker 3:But we can also bring in people who have more knowledge than we do, so that we get accurate information.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. Let's start off with kind of the differences in the rigs that we have essentially. So, obviously you guys have a drivable RV. Do you guys your towed vehicle or the vehicle that's behind? Regardless of what you're doing, you guys happen to have the Jeep Correct. Do you guys find that a necessity?
Speaker 1:for us? Yeah, because otherwise we'd be driving our 35 foot house around right everywhere we went and we would be limited where we could take her in Parker. So we park in a campground or out in the in the desert, somewhere BLM land and then we detach the Jeep and we use that to go explore.
Speaker 4:So for us it is essential to have a towed vehicle when now, that being said, it is not required to have a towed vehicle with the motor home, and we know people who do not take a towed. They totally RV a little bit different from us. They either have e-bikes. We know people who get there and rent cars, and we also know people who make sure they stay close enough to public transportation or Ubers or that kind of thing. And so just to say that just because you have a motor home doesn't mean you have to RV the way we RV. There are a lot of options out there for you.
Speaker 4:And we also know people who who drive behind a motor home, where they don't actually ever attach the car and it's not officially a towed because they don't tow it. So there are a ton of options out there.
Speaker 2:So when you guys were first looking for an RV, did you have a particular class or length that you said, if we did this small, if you even considered it that small, that hey, we don't necessarily have to have that towed vehicle, or was it? You just knew you were going to do it, because you knew you were going to go bigger?
Speaker 1:automatically. We knew the size of the rig we wanted to have.
Speaker 4:We didn't really know, because Phil wanted one size.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted another size.
Speaker 4:But we we did compromise to the 35 feet. But we also knew we were going to be living in our RV full time and we did not want to have to pack up our RV to go to the store. So we always knew we would have a tow car Right.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So as far as the towable side for us, obviously you have to have a tow vehicle, otherwise you're going nowhere fast or it just becomes a park model, or that I mean, then that is the thing we didn't even talk about. So I guess that's a good point is there are park models and those types, things that are really aren't designed to be on the road in any capacity. They're designed to move from point of point B maybe a handful of times in a just that yeah.
Speaker 2:So for us we had to have the appropriate tow vehicle and again that's such a wide gamut of everything Like our big Valor. We have to have a minimum a one ton dually just for safety, support, some side to side, for lateral motion as well as payload capacity. So if you're looking for an RV, that's probably one of the biggest differences is do you want to drive if you're going for a big toy haul or do you are K driving a dually around?
Speaker 2:as your daily driver or having someone follow you and having a second vehicle and something smaller, or would you rather tow it behind a motorhome or get something small enough where you're just driving around like a van lifer?
Speaker 1:Right, and we did early on. We did look at budgeting for a truck and a fifth wheel and at the end of the day, the price for two of those vehicles versus the price of a motorhome when we were looking, we're about the same and we're gonna. We're gonna spend a lot of money, is my point. So we just said we don't, we don't have a truck. It made it easier for the motorhome because we already had two cars that we could try to tow, see which one worked better and then go from there.
Speaker 2:So what were kind of your day one? Essentials that you had to have, no matter what, to make everything function within reason the way you want, not the stuff that made things more comfortable but made things more safety related, or just absolutely wouldn't do it without it kind of a situation.
Speaker 4:So let's let's, because we're talking about tow cars, let's start with that what we need to attach the car. So when we were attaching the items we needed, we needed the tow arms, we needed the brakes. So there is a whole setup to attach the car to safely tow behind the motorhome.
Speaker 3:And was that something you could do yourself, or did you have to have somebody install that Well?
Speaker 4:some people can do it themselves. Yes, we did not. We paid someone to do it for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's a bunch of different options for equipment for tow vehicles. We just happened to go with a particular brand. We have the air ride suspension on our RV, so we went with a air equipped braking system that tapped in to our onboard air, which makes braking our Jeep a lot easier. So when the Jeep is attached, I hit the RV, brakes there's. It sends a signal back, it pushes the actuator on the brake pedal in the Jeep and it slows the Jeep down. And in many states I think all of them actually you have to have a form of a brake system on your tow vehicle and we've seen forums after forums of discussions of saying, well, I've done this for 20 years and I've never had breaking system and I can tell you, the first time you're involved in an accident where you're being questioned about something, if it was your fault, the first thing they're gonna look at is your RV, your towed where you would complain.
Speaker 1:So for us it's not even about can we do it without it. We want it to be as safe as possible. So that's why we chose the system that we did. And then, going back to the safety essentials that we needed for the RV, we had two items, before we even had the RV, that we knew that we needed to have peace of mind.
Speaker 3:This is the good stuff.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we knew we needed the TPMS, the tire pressure monitoring system, and the surge protection or surge guard for RV. So when it's plugged into the pedestal we wanted to make sure that the pedestal wasn't giving us bad power or something happening to the pedestal and shorting out our system. We had those two items months before. We knew what rig we were gonna have. We knew we were gonna have a 50M RV, just didn't know what type.
Speaker 2:So, on the TPMS, do most motorhomes come with like what Ford truck would come with, where they have like an in-rim TPMS as well with the chassis, or do you have to do an external one?
Speaker 4:no matter what, I know ours did not. I don't know if there's some higher models that do have it, but I don't know of any RVs that do there are some that are coming with them on board already, but then again it doesn't.
Speaker 1:so we have a TPMS for all of the tires that are on the ground connected to the rig. So we have six on the RV and the four on the Jeep so I could monitor them while we're towing.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's super important too, because if you didn't have that on the Jeep even though you probably have Gene typically has the internal where it pops up on your screen, just like our Ford does. But if you had a blowout back there, do you think you'd even know if you didn't have TPMS? No, you'd just be dragging your Jeep by you, and we have friends that that's happened to.
Speaker 4:Really, we had our friend Al. He had a blowout on his Jeep and he didn't know. Somebody flagged him down and there's also that's where the that is a cause of fires. If you keep the brake set on your towed vehicle and you start driving away, that can cause a fire. And even though you can't, the TPMS won't prevent the fire. But as that brake and that tire is heating up and overheating, leading to the fire, you will get notified. So those are just the little things that we kind of wanted to be aware of ahead of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the TPMS. It's called a tire pressure monitoring system, but it monitors more than just your tire pressure, so it will let you know if, if your tire is getting too hot.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And it could be a multiple, a multitude of issues going on a hung brake, something stuck in the wheel, but if your tire gets to a certain temperature, it's going to lead to a blowout. So then then you can, you can monitor it, you can get the alarm pull over and take care of it before you have a catastrophic event on the side of the highway.
Speaker 2:So I'd say, from the towable side, just to kind of what you guys talked about, the TPMS, as well as a surge guard of some kind, whether it's progressive, huge auto transformers something that has an actual disconnect.
Speaker 2:If they were to have bad power, preferably something that can tell you what's going on so you can diagnose it better. There are some that are just more like surge protectors essentially, where it'll just cut power and that's it and you don't really know why. But those are very similar on the towable side, cause it's the same thing. Especially with the triple axle, we have more. We probably will know if we have a blowout if we didn't have a TPMS a little easier than you guys would, with the exception of, yeah, cause if one side goes out.
Speaker 2:You'll feel it tugging the truck a little bit and just looking at your mirror, you see pieces flying everywhere.
Speaker 2:We luckily have not had one, mainly because we've run with a TPMS. We bought both of our TPMS's prior to the coaches as well. Like as soon as we knew we were switching out our previous coach for the Valor, we knew we needed to buy a new one because the way ours was installed in the previous we couldn't bring it with us. So we bought one before we ever got there. As far as, like, the tow vehicle stuff, that's where the biggest difference is gonna be between drivable and towable, because obviously I'm towing quite a bit more weight behind me. You are the reverse of that.
Speaker 2:Your vehicle is the biggest weight and then your Jeep is the light thing, and so for us there's a couple of different ways we can go about doing that. Now I'm gonna talk about fifth wheels. Travel trailers is just a ball on the bumper and you should probably consider, in any capacity getting a weight distribution and stabilizing bar. That's gonna help with trailer sway, which, for travel trailers, is the biggest thing. We there are tons of people have made videos on it. We don't. We have a horse trailer that we use one on, but because it's not an RV, we don't necessarily do a whole lot of that. But as far as a fifth wheel, you can actually take your kingpin, which is your traditional fifth wheel hitch pin box, into a hitch that you put in the bed of your truck. For us, we use the B&W companion. It locks in. There's no necessarily safety chains involved with that, like that's. The other thing is sometimes trailers have safety chains and sometimes don't, and it's just the difference in what's required by law and what's not.
Speaker 1:So do you have a disconnect cable or something that would apply brakes? Say, there was a catastrophic event with your hitch and it broke free Right. That's scary as hell, get out, but something that would lock it up.
Speaker 2:There's two, exactly. There's a trailer breakaway switch, essentially. So when you put everything together and everything's locked or those jaws are clamped, you tie down, essentially a cable to somewhere other than the hitch in the bed of your truck. For us, we just clip it to one of the little bedside clips in the truck. So if the trailer were ever to get too far away so the hitch failed in some capacity and it pulled away, it would pull that and would lock up all of our brakes. Now, as an additional security thing for us, we upgraded from a drum brake system, which is an electrical braking system using magnets that essentially is just closed or not, there's really no in between to a disc brake system, which is what vehicles have essentially.
Speaker 2:So you can apply pressure and more of it and less of it and all those things, so we can actually stop our entire coach just by braking the RV. So from about 40, 50 miles an hour. I can slow down and stop without ever applying the brake in the truck. If I wanted to, shouldn't, but can.
Speaker 4:So what does that look like in the truck? Like what is it an arm, is it a button? Like is it a pedal, is it a trailer brake stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so it's a combination of those things. So you in those types of trucks and if you have a heavy duty truck, they're probably gonna come and pre-installed with it. But it's that little pincher thing that nobody ever really knows what it is, with a plus or minus above it. Oh, okay, and so that pincher is your manual control. For just the brakes in the back, the plus or minus is called the gain, and so the gain is how much pressure is applied back there versus your foot on the pedal.
Speaker 2:So, when I apply my foot on the pedal we run. The signal runs all the way back to the brakes and it at whatever I have the setting at. So if I needed to break harder, like if it's not strong enough for our weight or whatever, I can adjust how much, and then it also applies that back there. So it's typically a little less than what's in the truck, because if you go too hard then it's pulling the truck backwards.
Speaker 4:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And then if you switch to a goose neck, which is gonna be that ball that's in the middle, we're just gonna open up the can of worms real fast here. Let's do it with that band-aid off. This is a whole thing in towables.
Speaker 1:Whenever I see those on the road, they just look so unsafe, like a bump and it's coming off.
Speaker 2:There's two things on towables. That's weird about them is one there's hardly any that are legitimately rated for our frames Because of how they come down and attach. It puts a pressure on the top deck of the frame in a very different way.
Speaker 2:So frame of the truck or frame of the RV Frame of the RV, and so when it applies pressure, it applies torque differently and it can actually cause flexing. Now there's a few out there that are proven through testing to, not one of them being the Gen Y, which has a almost like hovering system, so it almost acts like a torque tension thing, and so it doesn't apply quite the same way. It's actually what Brinkley's using for their upgraded pin box, just from their standard one. And then you have the Reese Goose box, which has like an airbag system inside of it.
Speaker 2:But, they've spread. That's really big and so it spreads out so much that it kind of counteracts a lot of the torquing and all that. But I can tell you, with those I've towed other Goose neck trailers and it's literally just like what's on the ball. It's on a ball and there's literally just a coupler and if that coupler comes off that trailer is gone. So by law in all 50 States you are required to have safety chains in addition to trailer brakes to that, because they come off all the time and that's why, it's much like you don't ever hear.
Speaker 2:How many times do you hear of the semi-driving down the roads? Trailer came disconnected somehow.
Speaker 2:I don't think I ever have the coupler they use is essentially the Kingpin traditional fifth wheel, because if you ever look at the back, it has that huge disc on the back of the truck. They bring it in, slam it down the jaws close. If you look in the back of ours we have the micro version and so the Goose neck one. It's great because you don't have that huge hitch in your truck but literally everything's relying on a little wire and a pin to stay closed at the bottom of that ball and if it happens to come up it's gonna cause a lot you just the probability of you having a disconnect skyrockets on them. It's why we don't like them.
Speaker 1:Well, you get distracted putting that together and you forget to put the pin in. That's a bad day for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's bad and that can happen in March too, because we have a safety pin that keeps the handle shut, the jaws closed. If we forget to do that, it's gone, but at the same time, a lot of them like ours it won't. Actually, I'll know the second I if I did a pull test.
Speaker 4:I was gonna say that's where you'll know, or anything like that, and so I'm-. So let's just throw it in here that we both have checklists.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:And just so you know. I know we're talking about differences, but hopefully you guys listening, everyone follows a checklist, no matter what kind of RV they have.
Speaker 2:You read my mind, or the situation in your hooking or unhooking you may think it's like oh, I'm, it doesn't matter, I overnighted, I didn't unhook or anything. Still go through it. You may just hit yes on a lot of them real fast.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because you didn't do it.
Speaker 2:But still visually inspect, and I say that we check our running chassis every time we stop. I just get in the habit of walking through, just making sure you never know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get out and check the toe, make sure the arms, the cables I've lost cables that have popped out going down the road and they've been dragging and they're filed off and I can't use them anymore. So that leads to spares. So I keep spares of all of that. So if if any one piece of equipment on my toe setup goes out now, she's driving behind me because I can't tow it safely.
Speaker 4:And we all know he can't handle not me not being upfront with him because he's directionally challenged.
Speaker 1:Back to the navigational issue.
Speaker 2:In all fairness, there's evidence without Stacy involved with you and I.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Thanks to the guys at RV on plug causing stress. That's another podcast for another year.
Speaker 2:Another year Decade.
Speaker 1:But no, the checklist are a must and you know the pull test that you were alluding to, that's that is a key step. I don't know how many times we have seen a truck pulling a fifth wheel with the bed, semi bent, crushed, tailgate crushed because they did a pull test and it fell, or they didn't do the pull test and it fell Either way yeah, it fell so that for that side of the house, the towable, it is imperative to do that.
Speaker 2:And a pull test is essentially just barely raising your jacks to where they're almost hovering. But you, literally, you have like millimeters of space, and so if you pull forward, your jacks are going to catch it before it slams on your truck and damages it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I will also say that. And even people that do pull tests, I still never see them stick their head behind the tailgate and look, just look. Visually you can see the jaws closed. Oh yeah, just look, if you're closing the pins in, you're 90% of the way to success. Do a quick pull test Now. You're 100%. Roll wherever you want to roll, don't touch it.
Speaker 4:Now, technically, we do a pull test as well. It's not really called a pull test, but we do always visualize. We I pull the RV forward. We visualize the tires on our towed moving, because the number one issue with towed and the number one problem or thing that's forgotten is removing that emergency brake off the towed, which can lead to a fire on your towed.
Speaker 2:Well, I could also see two people accidentally not putting in the four wheels so that they move freely and actually being in park, or something like that.
Speaker 1:And just now you're dragging it because then you're going to burn up your transmission and other things too. So yeah, I mean it's for us. You know, we've been towing that Jeep behind us for for almost five years because we didn't get it. We didn't have it right away, and we still go through our checklist on that as if it was day one, because it's. I mean, it's a few steps, but it's a few steps. If you missed one could lead to a huge issue down the road.
Speaker 3:Your biggest catastrophe? Yeah, your big believers of the checklist as well? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And Stacy's thing is and she tells people all the time use your checklist. And it doesn't matter how far you get in your checklist. If you get interrupted during your whatever you're doing setting up, breaking down if you get interrupted you go back to item one, yep, and you start over. Now you know you've been talking to somebody for 20 minutes or you had to deal with a little, or Phil's been talking to someone Giving them RV advice, but you always start back over because you may have missed something.
Speaker 1:you know. Human, the human error factor is always high.
Speaker 2:No, it really is, and that's. It's amazing, just taking a few seconds to do a checklist and the disregard time, the dollars you will save in repairs.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yes, more Look at it as an investment.
Speaker 1:You're time for some cash.
Speaker 2:Okay. So now that we're hooked up, yes, so this is probably where a lot of the real big differences start between the two, besides the fact that you have an engine and our engine is an Artow vehicle. But let's talk a little bit about some of our travel day differences. So when you guys, you're hooked up, you're rolling, you go, what does that kind of look like for you guys? And not so much the navigation side of it, but really just kind of when you're driving, how do you guys operate the rig? Is it? Do you? Can you really just get up and get a sandwich when you want, or can you? Yes, so let's I mean let's talk about the basic stuff is drinks, refrigerator, bathrooms.
Speaker 4:I'm using my wifi sitting there in my front seat as I'm editing videos or checking email, and pretty much everything with RV we can use. I should say I can use cause Phil's in the driver's seat, but you know I can get to the bathroom, I can get to our bedroom, with us closed up and driving down the road, so it really makes it easy for us to travel. I don't have to pack a bag to go in the truck of either snacks or computer or whatever we need. I literally just have to sit in the passenger seat and I can grab whatever we need.
Speaker 1:And the only real time that we have to stop is when I have to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 4:Or if we need fuel, and that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:Those are the only times we stop. We can I can eat lunch driving cause she'll go get a sandwich or a snack or whatever, and we just keep going. And if we do have to stop for the bathroom or to get something to eat, we just pull over, I hop out, get what I need to eat and we hop back in the seat and we say out, meaning pop out of the seat.
Speaker 4:I mean, if you're thinking of a fifth wheel, you're thinking y'all are your truck. You have to pop out of the truck and get into your RV.
Speaker 1:Right, you have to get out you have to go back, you have to open the door, you gotta open a slide. You got there's moving parts that you have, that we don't have, and that was one of the things that we looked at in the beginning. We wanted to be able to do that.
Speaker 4:Look, phil wanted me to present him with a sandwich riding down the road and to refill his drinks, because I can't argue and say, no, get it yourself While he's driving down the road.
Speaker 1:But to say also on a platter with like angels saying in the background Killing the grapes who doesn't like a good sandwich while they're driving down the road. I mean, it's one of those things that we can do Y'all can't do that. And we get a lot of that from folks that have fifth wheels and travel trailers that, like I wish I could do that.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's even a level above that too, and I will say some of that, what you're talking about, you guys can do in your rig. Now, if a lot of motor homes I've noticed, typically the fridge is normally never blocked, but I'm sure there's a scenario every once in a while where that may be a thing, where, when your slides are in.
Speaker 4:There's a few models.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so if you do happen to have one of those models, sorry, get your sandwich out before you get going.
Speaker 2:That's right, but like for us that because we have to stop, I mean it's a whole thing. I mean the stop for us is a minimum of 30 minutes because you have to stop, you have to park, you have to get out and we have the dog component. So do we get the dogs out? Do we don't get the dogs out? And then do we have to pop a slide out? We have to put stairs down. It's one of the things I probably dislike most about towables, cause I like to sit and book it and we just physically can't because of all of those things you just said.
Speaker 3:But you know what we can do. We can back into a parking space.
Speaker 1:You've got us in there.
Speaker 4:And let's break that down really quick. Cause a lot of people won't understand Right. Yes, a motor home can go and reverse. If you have a dolly, you can reverse your motor home and park it. But if you have tow arms and you have a flat towed, if you back up you are at risk for bending your tow arms and damaging your whole setup.
Speaker 1:And we know there's people out there that do it and they do it like a champ. They've been doing it for 20 years. Good on you. Our tow setup cost us close to $5,000. We're trying to play by the book today, right and for me it's an investment in our time and our equipment. So I've backed up straight. Maybe two, three feet.
Speaker 4:Once or twice, and that's about it. And it took you 45 minutes to go those two or three feet. We're not doing this. We're not doing this.
Speaker 1:And then I immediately fixed whatever situation I was in, and then I got out and checked to make sure everything was still attached and working and not bent.
Speaker 2:But I mean, there's frozen cons to it, but we cannot if we're hooked up, which is something I would love to be able to do, whereas, like if we happen to pull into like a cracker barrel or something for the night, we actually park very similar to well, if you know how to parallel park, there's an argument to be made that most people don't or want to, but we actually pull up past where we're going and then back into the site because I can actually do it more efficiently where you guys have to pull in nose first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have to. And for us, if we're stopping somewhere overnight, we always put the driver's side to the curb, so we don't need to have our passenger slide, our kitchen slide, we don't need to pull it out. So if we're at curb side, we can put that slide out over the curb and the grass and we're not in impeding traffic. We can open our bedroom slide one side of it over the curb. So we're mindful of that and we know that those two slides and sometimes we don't even move the front slide out, we just do the bedroom slide.
Speaker 2:And that's very similar for the towable side as well. It's probably a hand toss of which way you park, based on your coach and what your needs are.
Speaker 2:Like for us. We're the opposite of what you guys do. We do passenger side, but that's cause our door side's on there and we have stairs that come out, and so that's the number one. Oopsie, I ran over it thing. And then that's also the slide. If we can get that slide even just a few feet out it's not a Schwintech or anything, so it can go a little bit out and not have to do anything. We can now get into the fridge, full access to everything inside the non-toy hauler space, the living space of our coach, and so that's the slide that we always put out. The downside is that also means that our bedroom slide's not going out. Unfortunately, we have to have that one, so we do. The person on the other side of the coach me gets to barrel, roll into bed and then scooch up.
Speaker 3:Yes, but I think something important here is that some of the motor homes come with that tilt-a-bed, so if they can't put, that bedroom slide out.
Speaker 1:They actually can't lay down. Yeah, and that's a problem as well, for sure.
Speaker 2:So, just since we're already talking about it we already mentioned fuel and all those things how far? I mean? I know this is a super loaded question, but roughly, how big is your fuel tank? How far can you go? All that stuff?
Speaker 1:We have a 100 gallon diesel fuel tank and we can go I don't know close to 900 miles, roughly Our fuel mileage and you ask anybody that owns a diesel pusher. If you're calculating your mileage and fuel cost in the diesel pusher you're doing it wrong. But we average about 9.3. Gallon or miles to the gallon. That's towing the Jeep as well. So the we got a 360 Cummins engine in there and she's a workhorse.
Speaker 2:So that's probably another one of those massive differences between the two is you guys can really sit down and just roll if you want to, for an extended period of time, assuming you're not running generator that's also pulling fuel from that same reserve right right.
Speaker 2:So whereas us, if you have a standard Truck of some kind, you have between 40 and 50 gallons of on board and you're getting worse fuel mileage because it's not really designed To do that all the time even though it can doesn't mean it's not engineered that way necessarily. So you know, we're getting closer to seven to eight miles a gallon with much less of a range, and so we have to stop for fuel more frequently. So inherently towables move slower Right.
Speaker 1:Well, on the flip side, we only we fuel up at about a half a tank all the time because the way the Fuel tank is designed to feed the generator if need be. I don't want to go below a half a tank because I know when I get below A quarter of a tank the generator won't work. Oh, okay, it has to have a quarter of a tank for the generator work.
Speaker 2:So I have some sort of safety feature so that you have reserve fuel to drive.
Speaker 1:So our half a tank fill up leaves me a quarter tank buffer got you. So when I get to a half a tank I'm asking Stacy to find a spot.
Speaker 1:So that we can pull in before we get there, because you know Inevitably you're gonna have an issue on the side of the road on a Sunday, always in the middle of the Texas heat there's gonna be nobody to come help you. We're gonna need the generator for the ACs Right or to power anything, and we need to have that buffer. So that's something when we were first looking at the RV or buying it, we didn't know. We nobody talked about that, nobody ever said this is an important thing you need to be mindful of it's something we learned over time.
Speaker 2:Is there a way to expand your fuel tank in any way, or you just stuck with it, because that's a thing I don't know that we have space like where you know to expand the tank, so everything's puzzled in the total side, like if I wanted to think about a toolbox. I could get a gravity feed into our main fuel tank and expanded by upwards of 80 gallons in addition to so I could get up To a hundred gallons. But now you're talking about worrying about GVWR.
Speaker 4:I know that's going through my head, yeah anytime you feel liquid.
Speaker 2:I'm just doing math, like alright.
Speaker 1:It's crazy when you start doing a math on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say we're not gonna dive into all that. And it's overly complicated. I would say y'all's friend, chad, probably did one of the best explained videos of it, so I'll just link that because he made sense of it and I'm still struggling to make sense of it in my head. So I know we're good, but if you asked me to do it for somebody else, I probably wouldn't be numbers games important for so many reasons.
Speaker 3:So the other thing I wanted to say about fuel is that, towing the vehicle, we can actually prepare the day before we can go fuel up with Just our truck and not have to worry about taking the RV through a fuel up, whereas you guys unfortunately don't quite get that option, even though you can go further on each fill right and we also have to go to a truck stop, like we do not fit in regular gas stations where if you guys detached and took the truck, you could go to just a regular gas station and not a truck stop and we don't, because we like saving money.
Speaker 2:Yes because we both, we everybody and you should always use an open roads car.
Speaker 1:Yes, because diesel engine of any sort, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for two reasons one. The savings you don't have you. So if you don't have one, you can still go through the commercial lanes for the most part. Yeah, but you're gonna play the in and out game. Yeah, because you have to pre authorize, because it only at the pump, only takes a commercial card. Well, the open roads card serves as that for you. Instead of having to go in, authorize, come back out. Go back and get your receipt, come back out and, god forbid, someone need to use the restroom.
Speaker 4:Yes, whereas it's faster, it's easier, you're going to save money and I have a whole blog on how it works. So if you guys can go to our website and look at our blogs and you'll see it there. But I'm telling you we've saved some serious money since we've been using it, and if you don't have a diesel, you can also find these kind of savings for a regular fuel card.
Speaker 1:So everybody should be saving on their gas and their diesel and something we didn't know when refueling the rig was, we would go to say, a Valero, just a regular Valero gas station to get diesel, because in Texas there's diesel every gas station, fuel stations. These diesel the pumps, the nozzles are different.
Speaker 1:Yes, they are, you know so it took me longer to fill up at the local Valero In our neighborhood when we before we started full-timing then much longer yeah, as opposed to going to a truck stop where the nozzles are much bigger the bigger flow, yeah, the volume that that's being pumped in to these big rigs. It's no time is money.
Speaker 2:They have to get going so I also know some motorhomes have dual fuel sides. We do and so if you guys were legitimately in a pension had to get out, and there was the rare occasion there wasn't a trucker in front of you waiting to get his receipt, or shower or whatever they seem to do in there for hours on end.
Speaker 2:You could and they do this for the semis because they have three to five hundred gallons of fuel capacity. They can pump simultaneously from both sides. So if you guys were just in a massive time crunch, you couldn't do that, as we could if we're in a massive time crunch.
Speaker 4:We're doing something wrong. But one other thing I do want to point out that is a difference between the two. When we're fueling is the fact that we need death, and not only well, we both need death. But when we get deaf, our tanks are separated from our fuel tanks, so we do have to move the RV forward after we're done filling up with the diesel in order to put in the death, so it is kind of a two-step process during the times that we need death.
Speaker 2:I call that the trucker tease. You're like, we're moving.
Speaker 1:Again, it's something we didn't know about when we were doing our homework. Right, you know, we were so fixated on the floor plan, and you know sure length, that we didn't think of things like death Right and death for those that are going. What is death?
Speaker 2:You know what is here. What does hearing have to do with?
Speaker 1:it is diesel exhaust fluid and it's a. It's a fluid that you have to have for our particular year and engine. It's required. So we have to move the rig up and when we fill up we're only putting in Four gallons.
Speaker 2:I was about to ask how big is that reserve for you?
Speaker 1:It's a 13 gallon tank. Okay, but because of all the death scares with the sensors and the headers, the best advice we found was keep it topped off. Yeah, so the minute I I get down a quarter of a tank, I'm filling it up.
Speaker 4:So what, not down to a quarter tank for those early things?
Speaker 1:So when I get to three quarters, yes, but well, it's hard because we have four green lights.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not actual numbers numbers, it's four green lights.
Speaker 1:So when one green light goes away, when the tick drops. I'm putting. I'm putting more deaf in the tank, so it's about two and a half to maybe four gallons, depending on where I'm at and deaf is not exclusive to the bigger, like common style engines R4 to F 350, which is a 2019, also requires death.
Speaker 2:There is a certain year where our style of truck right that it didn't have it before and it has it after. I believe it's somewhere around 2005 to 2008 right, it's a federal regulation. Yes, and we do the exact same thing. The biggest difference we have an eight gallon reserve, so we're almost the size of you guys but, our truck. Obviously we don't have the fuel capacity so it lasts us a little longer. We typically will get a few long.
Speaker 1:I will get close to almost 800 miles before we really have to put anything in and we could probably go a while before we needed it, but we we had a deaf scare where we were on the side of the road and thought we were gonna be out yeah and once, once your deaf shuts down or D rates, yep. Essentially, you can only go five miles an hour.
Speaker 2:It's a safety built in we got some friends that I'd happen to and on the side on the side of the interstate right going five miles an hour is not recommended.
Speaker 1:And you don't want to be told no so you know, we just the advice was, keep it topped off.
Speaker 2:We've kept it topped off and we haven't had an issue since so one other thing the open roads car does work on death at the At the pump. It's really rare to find death on a pump unless you're in the commercial truck lanes or at a Bucky's.
Speaker 4:And let's clarify yes, you don't get a discount on that, but you can use it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so at least you're not having to fiddle with that huge plastic thing. It is cheaper already inherently because it's coming from a pump versus a container. Yes, so it is. The price per gallon versus the containers is cheaper, so you kind of are saving. It's just not an actual discount.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and we don't bless you. We, I mean we have. Initially, when we first started RVing, we bought the boxes because everybody's like you're gonna run, you're not gonna be able to find it and you're gonna need it. It's scarce, it's this, is that, and we and six years later, we, you know, six months after we started we've never purchased again unless we were in that area that we needed to that's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 2:If you're planning an Alaskan trip or something like that, it probably would be your better interest yet to grab a couple of boxes to have, just in case it expires to yes, it's a long expression, but it can expire, so don't buy it when I use it.
Speaker 4:It could have been sitting on the shelf for a while to check that day, always look before you purchase, just like your bread.
Speaker 1:Yes, Just like your bread.
Speaker 2:So is there anything you guys do in particular that's special for the motorhome, for like routing and all that stuff, as far as like actual transit?
Speaker 4:Fill is not allowed to navigate.
Speaker 1:Put the be back shortly.
Speaker 4:Sign on my face, because now it's on her and yes, there is, and I believe, I'm pretty sure that we are very Similar in what we do, because with RVing it is the question is do you fit in a regular parking spot? If the answer is no, you should have special RV safe GPS. Yes, if you're, if the RV you are driving is higher up than a conversion van, you should be using special RV safe GPS and I would even argue that you should have that specialty, but also with a form of redundancy.
Speaker 4:Don't ask me how I know that Well our redundancy is not only do we okay, so let's, let's backtrack a little bit, what do? We use. We, yes, our motorhome does have in dash RV safe GPS, but I can tell you it is a serious pain to update. So that has gone by the wayside for us because when we purchased our RV, it was already out of date.
Speaker 1:So the RV safe GPS is One that you can put your RV's Specifications in, height being one of them, weight being a second one, and link and I will say everything we're talking about at this moment applies to both.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is not.
Speaker 2:This is the one area where it's actually very similar, but it's a super important topic and it's a big safety issue and propane A lot of them absolutely Know if you have propane for those there are some roads in the US that you can't go down. You have propane on board for whatever reason. Depend on the kind right.
Speaker 4:So we do have, as I was saying, the in-dash, but that we don't use. So we purchased a Garmin RV safe GPS. It has all the stats in Phil was talking about and there are so other options for you. That is not the only way to get RV safe travel. You can also use things like RV trip wizard. It's an app. There's something called Coal Pilot, which is also an app. So there are a ton of options out there for you to be safe. Do not use ways, do not use.
Speaker 4:Google, because they don't know how long you are, and ultimately you're gonna end up in a situation it's gonna have you do a u-turn, it's gonna have you go, possibly in a tunnel you won't fit in.
Speaker 2:Waited for you because how tall are you, your coach? We're 13 even and we're 13 8 yeah. And so, trust me, you come up on some of those bridges and there's no, you're not using an RV safe GPS and there doesn't happen to be that that measurement in the yellow square that they put on should put on all of them, but they don't. You start to get real concerned, real fast, as you're rolling that thing going 65 miles now add fresh black top With no sign.
Speaker 3:Yes, how many inches did they put on there?
Speaker 1:and how much room did they just take away? Right, because now you're on a new road and they haven't adjusted.
Speaker 2:You know, the Parker factor is there.
Speaker 1:So for us. I keep on the dash. Mm-hmm as a. You know, as a note all the time how tall we are right, how heavy we are, and it's right there. So I'm always reminded of our specifications as we're driving down the road.
Speaker 4:So when you're stressing yeah, you don't forget.
Speaker 2:Just happens to be on the floor on the flip down thing.
Speaker 1:I have a little.
Speaker 2:I've written down right there.
Speaker 1:We came across a bridge one time. Using our RV Specific GPS, we rounded this corner and it's a weight limit 12 tons.
Speaker 4:No, it was. I thought it was six tons, so it's 12,000 pounds. Anyway, both of us looked at each other and we're like, what's it done? What's it done?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, we're yelling at at Alexa, alexa. What is 12 times what it? I mean, we're because we're, we needed to know in a pinch and we stopped in our tracks because we were too heavy, or I should say Ruby was too heavy to cross the bridge.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I do want to say that every RV safe GPS will make a mistake.
Speaker 4:Oh there's no such thing as perfect routing, but there is the safest possible routing. So one of our backups that we always have on board is we have an old school trucker Atlas the book, you can buy the paper and we have used it a couple times to verify if we're gonna hit an unsafe bridge or tunnel, because we all know the Northeast has ton of those. And I also Use it to reroute us because for some reason we were going somewhere and it was taking us a two-hour route that I knew wasn't necessary. So I did go through the trucker Atlas and I found a way for us to get there that saved us two hours. So there might be times where you might want to pull it out it, like I said, it's just a backup, a safety issue.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think we we were talking about this not long ago Stacy, you and I, we do very similar things. We both route plan using the RV trip wizard from. Rv life and then I take that and put inserted into a pre-planned route in my Garmin.
Speaker 2:Right and I just cross-referenced the two before I commit to it, and if they're the same, I normally that's my kind of double confirmation, I'm good. If they're different, I start to question why a lot more, and that's when I'll start to dive in a little bit deeper to it.
Speaker 3:I'm just gonna say that we both have larger vehicles and if we are close enough to the bridge to read, that yellow sign where? The. Too late, chances of you stopping are slim to none.
Speaker 2:I don't know, my disc brakes are pretty cool.
Speaker 3:The chances of you Calculating and then thinking about it and stopping are non-existent.
Speaker 1:And if you, if you happen to hit one of those, you're the top of your rigs and look like my haircut?
Speaker 2:Yes, and if you don't, if you're listening to this because it is an audio podcast, it's very flat.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's a flat top and we've seen those and we've seen the horror stories about people AC shaved off and yeah. People driving through a bridge that they shouldn't have or an intersection had a low.
Speaker 4:Whatever it happens and you know it not to say it won't happen to us, but we've taken the steps to mitigate it, you know that's much as possible, right and then another thing we do for routing and I'm pretty sure you guys do the same thing because we were talking about it If you're doing wherever we're doing an overnight and we overnight all different types of places, from Crackle barrel to harvest hose, boondockers Welcome, we do all of those. And Elks Lodge we're remember where we're an elks member, so we I will always look at the parking lot of the place we are going to land in to make sure we have a safe place to enter and exit right. I mean, sometimes we go to Walmart, h, eb you know the grocery stores and we want to know that we can get in and out without having to unhook Back up, without getting trapped and doing a you know a 30-point turn. So a good way to do it it's just to go in and do the Google map and drive the route and make sure you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1:The other thing, too, is we know, if we're taking up multiple parking spaces, how many parking spots we need to successfully park if that's how you know, you're a true RVer.
Speaker 1:You know how many parking spots exactly so when we're looking at that satellite view of the parking lot and we're Counting how many spaces before there's an island, you know, oh, we can't park there. We can't park there again. These are things that nobody tells you about a project and you just have to find out the the hard way and if there's a tree on that.
Speaker 4:Just be aware. We all know the satellite view is not always up to date, so there's a chance that there's a tree planted that wasn't there in your view.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but those are the steps that we'd additional steps that we take anytime we're moving, because you just never know when you Get in a pickle. And, yes, it takes less than five minutes to unhook the Jeep to move if we have to, but it's a pain.
Speaker 4:Why do we want to do that? We can avoid it.
Speaker 2:Especially if you're trying to get in and out fast.
Speaker 4:I think it's simplest possible.
Speaker 2:So, okay, we are gonna take a quick break and we will be right back. Okay, we are back with Phil and Stacy talking all things motorhomes, drive-ables versus Toe-able things, and I'm trying to get my chair to stop squeaking against my counter very hard.
Speaker 3:You can't focus until that's done.
Speaker 2:No, it's one of those things. So, okay, this might be one of our longest podcast, which is not shocking, based on yesterday. I mean, we sat around, talked about five hours.
Speaker 1:But this is good stuff it is. This is stuff that we found on our own or by accident.
Speaker 4:I learned the hard way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know this is stuff that we would have loved to have found in Our homework stage, in our research stage, in the very beginning.
Speaker 2:We will also say Phil has ulterior motives. He's trying to get out of hike.
Speaker 4:Bill is going hiking. It's day one of the year. We have to start the year right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we took a break and nobody got up to go get a drink at the bathroom. We talked about hiking and I was like let's just keep talking.
Speaker 2:We fix Stacy's mic.
Speaker 3:I'm also gonna say that Phil took the shortcut getting here. He didn't even take the long way around, he walked through the yard my goal this year is to conserve energy.
Speaker 4:That's been your goal the last five years. What are you talking?
Speaker 2:about, and this is what happens when you get a bunch of full-time RVers. You know they don't see each other very often. We just sit around and talk, yeah. So okay, we've gone through all kinds of different stuff. As far as in transit, the difference is when we're sitting down, kind of more stationary. But let's dive into a little bit about kind of the setup and tear down differences, because I I know they're not necessarily Different. As far as the checklist things we were talking about earlier in the episode, if for some reason you skipped ahead to this ad Read section, go back and listen to that part. This will make a lot more sense, right? But I feel like and I could be completely wrong, but I feel like you guys can probably get up and go a lot faster than we can.
Speaker 1:I think so too. Yeah, we've timed it, I think we've. We got up, put everything that we had out, stowed it Jack's up slides in 20 minutes. We were gone Wow.
Speaker 3:Wow, even attaching the toad, yes.
Speaker 2:I will say timing yourself and trying to go fast, not the best idea.
Speaker 4:But so I mean we.
Speaker 1:There have been a couple of occasions where it was necessary, right yeah, and it wasn't us just sitting around saying, hey, let's see how fast we can do it. It was we've got to move, and we've got to move now, right? So we, we did it.
Speaker 2:So what does that process? Let's just go through a setup process For when you get to a campground, of like kind of what you do, and then I'll just chime in with towable as you guys go.
Speaker 4:So I can say that it's it. It's going to depend on how much stuff you want to set up, and I do want to preface this that we don't pull out anything for outside unless we plan to use it.
Speaker 2:So let's just talk about the coach itself functionality.
Speaker 4:So as far as camping chairs fire, yeah, we're not talking about any of that. No sunshades.
Speaker 2:That's all personal preference, we're talking about functioning as an RV without having to use boondocking essentials, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4:So if we are in a pull through um, let's just start by saying we don't always take our toad off. If we're only going to be there for a nine or two, we're not going anywhere, so we'll pull straight in. We can hit a button and that button will self level us. And when I say level, it will not only level us, but when the um, the jacks come down, they also help to stabilize the coach, to prevent, like when you're walking the habit it's shaking rock back and forth. So that is most of the time, if we're in a level spot, it hit a button and it does it all for us. And then I hit four buttons. We have four slides, the slides come out and we are pretty much set up, except for a few decor items.
Speaker 3:And do you do that from the inside of your RV or do you get outside?
Speaker 4:Everything is inside, unless we're detaching the um toad idea. All that inside.
Speaker 1:And while she's doing that, I'm outside and I'm testing the pedestal with my surge guard, my surge protector. I don't plug anything in until I test that. Then I plug it in, set up the water sewer, um, and she does it. If there's no trees or obstructions around us, she's goes. She just opens all the slides. If there's trees or something close, then I'll go and watch and then I'll finish. But we can. We can come in jacked down slides out, plugged in in 10, 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:How.
Speaker 2:So here's the biggest oxybord. That's almost exactly the same for us, but completely different.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go, so it's. It's very similar. I mean there's sometimes when we're just overnighting somewhere, uh, that we don't unhook necessarily and that we'll still put our our jacks down just for stabilization, get off the truck, that kind of thing. Now I will say we are probably more likely to unhook than you guys are, because you could, hypothetically, if you guys were good for two or three days and there was, you weren't going to go anywhere. You just kind of focus and get work done, whatever. You don't actually have to unhook your toe.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 2:I were waiting until you needed it and then unhook it.
Speaker 3:And we've done that many times, and there's no consequence on your toad for that, correct?
Speaker 2:I don't have. If we're going to be somewhere for longer than one night, I'll typically always unhook, no matter what. Um, because it does have some wear and tear on my truck. Um, from that perspective, even if I do get it all the way up, it's still attached to the, the pin box and the hitch and everything else. So, um, but it's. It's kind of the same thing. I think one of the interesting things too is how level does you have to start for your level or to actually work and be correct?
Speaker 1:So our rig, when we hit, when Stacy hits the auto level button, we dump air. So we the rig lowers to the ground right away because you guys have an airbag suspension system.
Speaker 2:Correct, okay.
Speaker 1:And then from there it goes to the lowest side first, or slope side first, to level us out. Okay, so it raises up, right?
Speaker 4:So then I don't know what grade like I, I don't know, our grade before we can't level.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:And we do have quite a few tricks that we do to help us level, um, if our auto leveling, uh, if it's too steep for our auto level, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I remember, and I'm going to talk about Mike and Susan, rv blogger. If you haven't checked them out, they're great, they were amazing. They were team Phil. Yes, they were.
Speaker 4:We will hold that against them and I remember him and I otherwise known as the only occupants of Black Deck Island.
Speaker 2:I will point out them longer than me. That was true story. They like when we were talking about when we both got back into the game. He had to be very level to begin with just to get his level. Is that kind of a difference in gassers versus diesels because of the air suspension system?
Speaker 1:The only reason we have to be level to deploy slides, so our front slides. Well, if we're not level, the front slides won't come out.
Speaker 4:They're hydraulic or even close yeah.
Speaker 1:Our back slides are Schwintek, they're electric. And he was talking come out at any any degree.
Speaker 2:So he was talking about, though like to get his auto level to work. He has to start fairly level already, no, not I.
Speaker 4:Well, now we have two separate brands and two separate RVs. So there are always differences in motor homes and the manufacturer he has the gassers, so he's got more of a leaf suspension system. Yes.
Speaker 2:If you're type of worries, you guys have the air. So that's why I didn't know if you guys knew the difference being drivable, he could very well have a completely different level system Sure.
Speaker 4:We have the HWH leveling and I can say we can be extremely unlevel to deploy the jacks and have been. The worst was at the balloon fiesta. I think that was like literally I had to have steps built to hit my stairs to get in.
Speaker 1:We were so high up so we could be very unlevel. The back was almost on the ground.
Speaker 4:Oh, the front was so high up that's deployed. That's how sloped we were. But there are let's just say there are a lot of tricks we do me driving up on blocks. There are a lot of things we do and but I can tell you we never, ever, level with our wheels off the ground.
Speaker 4:If you see that I know this is a big controversial thing because it is, and if you read your manual, it will flat out tell you not to do it. Because if something fails with those jacks, your RV is going to move and it can roll and there might be an issue with brakes. You are at risk for some serious damage and our injury.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're putting excessive weight and pressure on your suspension.
Speaker 2:And that's not what it's built for, and at the end of the day, too, you're losing two points of contact to the ground.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 2:You're actually losing stability by doing that. Disregard all the safety hazards stuff, you're automatically less stable because you losing points of contact, and that's where you could.
Speaker 1:your RV could move and your jack could bend.
Speaker 2:We've seen people with bent jacks because of that very issue and I will say that's a thing in the Tobel as well, because with us being nose heavy and I don't know how this is for motorhomes, but like we prefer, if we're going to be high on one side, we prefer to be nose down because we're more stable that way. Right, we spend more time from the midsection of the coach forward and, given we're a toy hauler, we don't. I mean, I work in the back, but we don't do a ton back there.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so we're. We live in the front half for the most part. But you'll see sometimes where you get a side slope and you'll see a toy hauler or any fifth wheel or travel trailer and their tires are off the ground on one side and every time we walk past it it's like a bus into a cold sweat.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, same thing Me too. Oh my gosh. And now you, we've seen them like two feet off the ground. Oh yeah, it scares the ground.
Speaker 1:And we've had side slope where we've had to put wood under one side of the rig, either the tires or the jack, or both Right, so you know we've. We've brought the the ground up to the jacks, if you will, so that they don't have to go down as far.
Speaker 4:They're not free.
Speaker 1:Oh, we've done that Start leveling, and then we put wood under the tires to fill in the gaps. So there, we always carry 12 by 12 pieces of wood with us so that we can play Tetris under the rig.
Speaker 4:Well, we say 12 by 12, but it has been cut. It's not 12 foot long, no, we have 12 by 12. Squares.
Speaker 1:Squares.
Speaker 2:Squares, yeah, squares that we stack and play with. Yeah, that we keep and our building blocks.
Speaker 1:It does take up space, but it's it's good to have it when you need it, and we've used it a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'll say that we also carry a couple of stacks of just your basic camco.
Speaker 4:I call them adult Legos, but the blocks so you can crush them as as a motorhome. Well, yeah, you guys will crush them in our driveway. Crush them quite as bad.
Speaker 2:But that we also used to carry. So instead of having two of the or a bunch of the 12 by 12 blocks you guys have, I just got some two by sixes that were and I cut to the length- of our because our tires are all in a row, obviously, and so if I can get one tire up, it's just way easier to get them all on one.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:In fact I used to have an RVM plug. I typically always use them on grass because one of the downsides for Tobles and we're so heavy is if it gets soft at all rain or anything we sink and I can't get out.
Speaker 4:We will too, right yeah.
Speaker 1:And so we have to be towed out. It's not fun.
Speaker 2:That sounds less fun than even with me, because at least I have hooks and stuff on the front of my truck.
Speaker 3:Yes, we can clamp too easily, but these are the things that nobody tells you to keep in your truck because you don't need them till you need them Right, like the adult.
Speaker 1:Legos you were talking about. I thought I needed them and in our driveway we I used them under my jackpads because I just had the jackpad, the middle pad. I didn't want to scarring up the driveway as we were getting ready to sell the house, so I put these Legos under there and I didn't know what I was doing I was very new at this whole leveling game and I brought it down and it wasn't centered and I crushed two of them because it was off centered and the pressure literally just flattened it.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a good point about the weight difference too. You know, on soft ground or this or that, yeah, and we've lost some.
Speaker 2:We've lost a couple before because it was heavy and was soft and I didn't care because the beyonds they're not that expensive.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so I used them to more stabilize the ground than anything else, I will say and we had this conversation yesterday we both have snap pads on our coaches obviously probably very different sizes.
Speaker 2:But I've said a couple of times we have an early on video on our channel where we were in Gulfport, mississippi, and we were super on level and I straight up said multiple times that those snap pads saved our rear end, because otherwise there's a very there's a couple scenarios where we could have very easily slipped off. It was just the middle foot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that, in addition to all these things, helps spread out. Now, we don't always put everything, anything down if it's on grass, because those snap pads act as that first layer and it helps distribute that weight so much better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, now going to the setup. I don't remember if you said how long it takes you like, if you quickly like, if you have to do it fast your start to finish, ready to go Set up.
Speaker 2:we can probably do an about. I'm not going to include my office because that's a whole thing takes a little bit of work in there, but we're probably closer to 30 to 45 minutes. You say I think at a minimum, okay yeah 30 would be the quick side of that, and 45 if we're kind of taking our time. Got you Not in a hurry?
Speaker 3:And a complication with the dogs that you know. I can't really help him get into a site sometimes if the dogs are being rowdy or this or that, and so that plays a little bit of a role in making sure they're out of the picture and both of us can do what we need to do yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah that would be. It's like kids, you know, you gotta add a little extra stress to it and hair it's amazing.
Speaker 2:When you pull the slides in that way, you find.
Speaker 4:Always.
Speaker 2:The take down is the exact same for us, though it just. It's just the reverse.
Speaker 4:In reverse Right.
Speaker 2:Because and that I will say the only thing the catcher when we're hooking up is, I know, like when you guys put the toad on, you want to be reasonably flat, right, right. And so for us, anytime that the nose is high, like we currently are, it adds a whole other level of complication getting it on the pin, because the head of our hitch in the bed of the truck has to flex and it doesn't love backwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the one angle it doesn't like, and so it's always a little bit of a bigger pain. And I will say, neither of us mentioned this in the safety section and I just realized we probably should have wheel chocks.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You should use wheel chocks. I will never. I don't care where I am, what I am, what's going on. I will always use a high end industrial size wheel chock on both sides. And when we had the dual axle I, like the driver's side, always put on the front tire but I put it on the reverse tire in case that axle were to fail. I still had one side, so at least it's just going in a circle.
Speaker 4:Yes, right.
Speaker 2:And not rolling into somebody or something else. On our triple axle we have independent suspensions so they're not connected through the center anymore. So I do the center tire that way. If we were to break free or in that tire something happened, I have a tire on both sides of the chalk that will still hit it. Yeah, and I'm assuming you guys use wheel chocks, no.
Speaker 1:No, we did. We did when we first started. We did when we first started because I thought I needed them and I had these little bit of yellow plastic.
Speaker 2:Oh well, that's not a wheel chock.
Speaker 1:And I was like I was putting them out and then you know we'd walk around the park and I'm like we're the only motorhome that has wheel chocks.
Speaker 2:Is it just not a thing for motorhomes? Not?
Speaker 1:a thing.
Speaker 2:Because you have a parking brake or because okay.
Speaker 1:From what? From what we've you know, been told in red and, and you know just forms we've been in, but I soon got rid of wine.
Speaker 2:Just an extra thing you're carrying around.
Speaker 1:It was taking up space, and then I was not even using them.
Speaker 3:So you look at us learning stuff yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're ready for your random RV.
Speaker 3:Fun fact that I don't know if you know or don't know, we may not know.
Speaker 2:Those little yellow chocks. They expire what they expire. The plastic actually fails over time. They have. Because it's that type of plastic, they're required to put an expiration date on it.
Speaker 4:I guess the heat probably breaks down the plastic.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm sorry. So ours expired then. Yeah, we got rid of them because they expired yeah, expired yeah.
Speaker 2:So like ours, we purposely bought the metal rubber.
Speaker 1:So we have a high end rubber gray, Almost like the what the?
Speaker 2:aviation industry uses we actually, because I lose things. Instead of having two chocks, I have two chocks on a rope, just like you would use, like airplanes use.
Speaker 4:I'm saving that long, but it's.
Speaker 2:It actually makes it so the are. The trailers like to shift a little bit as you're coming up and off jacks, yeah, and so typically ours likes to roll back just a few inches, just enough to not be able to get that shock out, Of course. Well, with the rope I can kind of give it a little yank and typically I can get it out, especially on concrete and that kind of stuff. So Interesting.
Speaker 1:It's a good point.
Speaker 2:So as far as the rest of ours, when we leave it's, I do feel like it takes us not, I mean, I don't know, significantly longer than you guys, but enough to where, if we were in a pinch, you beat us.
Speaker 1:Well, that I would say, the longest thing for us is. I mean, we could have everything packed away, we could have the jacks up the slides in ready to go and we're still waiting to air up. Okay, because the reverse when we start the engine and bring the jacks in, then then it airs up to ride height. So sometimes if it's colder, it takes a little bit longer to get to ride height, so we have to be mindful of that before we can pull out.
Speaker 4:And it doesn't take that long. No, but if we're in a hurry, we need to start the RV sooner.
Speaker 2:So is that normally early on in the checklist on your tear down?
Speaker 4:Well, I mean typically when we start it. Obviously we start it whenever we are closing in the slides, instead of using the pedestal to close the slides. So we'll start it there, and by the time we get all four of them closed, phil attaches the car and we do a walk around. We're good, we're at ride height.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't think. Is there really anything that we haven't hit? I'm looking at Lauren. No, she's got the master list.
Speaker 3:The rest of the setup and the tear down. I think is pretty similar. Everybody needs poop pose Everybody needs water hose that sort of stuff, and so I think the rest of it's pretty similar.
Speaker 4:I think the only thing I would add is the larger your RV, the longer it's going to take, absolutely. If you have a small little van. It's not going to take you long. You're not going to have as much stuff. There's not going to be as much to do. Well, the bigger you are, the more stuff, the more work it is.
Speaker 2:And if you're a van lifer or looking to get in the van life or we're talking about leveling systems, all that you may not even have them Right, right, most. Of those don't even come with them. Because it's such a need, just move a little bit, it's not necessary yeah, we've got friends that start two days prior. What it's a travel day.
Speaker 1:They start packing up, they start tearing down stuff and I'm just like how often do they move?
Speaker 4:Not often like we do, so that's why we're moving a lot.
Speaker 1:But it's just, it's crazy when you hear oh, we can't go do anything.
Speaker 4:My 72 hour checklist.
Speaker 1:I've got to start my tear down. I'm like we're leaving three days from now.
Speaker 4:We just got here, but there's some that, but they'll sit for three weeks to a month, whereas we, if we sit for seven days, that's a long time for us what you told me one time if you start to know where you're turning without using Google Maps, you're there too long. Not Google Maps, jared let's, I mean it's for the car.
Speaker 2:It doesn't really matter, it's Phil he doesn't use the map.
Speaker 1:If you can get around without using GPS. You're there too long. Yeah, there you go. It's time to move on.
Speaker 2:My chair made another noise. I'm just making sure that people know it's not me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, ooh, we're still doing that, I'm moving forward, that I lost my train of thought with that. So let's talk about working from home.
Speaker 4:So let's, I'm gonna jump right in because I have found you know, we did a whole thing with Chad and Tara when we did a compare and contrast and this was the biggest difference is the ability to work remotely in your RV. And, as you guys all know, with motor homes you don't have a separate room, a separate office. So I work at our dinner table, which means my computer is always there. So I never get to step away from work, even if I sit down, no matter, it stares me in the face. But not only that if I'm making a phone call, phil's also working right beside me in the same room and his chair. So there is no separation. We don't escape the office, we don't escape each other. So that is a big difference with a motor home as opposed to a fifth wheel, especially if you're a tow hauler.
Speaker 2:Well, I was gonna say so that's on the towable side. That's a load of question, because most travel trailers aren't gonna have that separation because of the size Our last, you guys saw our last coach.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't know if you saw the inside of it. I did.
Speaker 2:Okay, we didn't really have that same separation there because the living room kitchen was all one big flow and so we actually had a very I had a very similar setup that you have in your motor home.
Speaker 2:The only difference was we were elevated on more of like a table bar thing, but we did the same thing when it was dinner time or we needed it, just slid out of the way. The big reason why we switched to a tow hauler was for that separation, so that we could close a door and Lauren could be on a work call in the living room, because when she does work from here at the moment, which is gonna be more and more and more she sets up at the dining room table right. And then I did a complete conversion in our toy hauler space because it's guaranteed I work almost every day from here somehow, and it's amazing how, just getting off the laptop off of your lap and sitting at a desk with a screen, how much more productive you are especially when it comes to video editing and some of the stuff we do that's so in depth.
Speaker 3:So I completely converted that area for me and Shetha Dorf, and you have quite a bit of room back there too. You've got more room than just the table that you had before, so you have that your own storage that stays away from the dogs, and we can move the dogs outside of his space so they're not a distraction. There's not dog hair in the electrical equipment and there's not noise in the background for your calls.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, and we can do stuff like this now because we can shut a door and now the dogs are staring at us, not anymore. They've realized we're not going anywhere. So but we can do this now and actually have people over and close the door and stick them out there and throw their dog beds out there with their water, and we can actually have our space to ourselves. So and that's a big reason why we selected a fifth wheel on a toy hauler is, I do feel like we get more floor space.
Speaker 1:I know it might not feel that bigger.
Speaker 2:Sometimes that's feel is such a big thing in an RV because, like Well, and it's your priority, Like you say, you feel like it's bigger.
Speaker 4:That's because what you chose has the space that you need. So, whatever, your priority is the way you're gonna RV, the way you're gonna live in your RV. That's what you have to look for.
Speaker 2:So does this valor, knowing that you guys have seen the solitude feel bigger or smaller to you.
Speaker 4:Bigger.
Speaker 2:It does feel bigger.
Speaker 4:I agree.
Speaker 2:Not to me, see, I think it feels smaller.
Speaker 4:So to me it feels bigger because the living space is bigger. Now I'm not cooking in your kitchen. Your last place had a bigger kitchen and less living area.
Speaker 1:And that's why I think it's. This is smaller because the other one, when you walked in, you were in the living room but then it was open to the kitchen and it was so much. I mean it was just a bigger, more open space. That I first thing I said when I walked in here was like this is a little smaller.
Speaker 4:But I feel like we sat at the bar there, whereas this is more of a living room. Right, I like about it, but you didn't have that.
Speaker 1:So that now you open that door and you look through there.
Speaker 4:now it looks bigger and just so you know that I know for those of you listening you can't see.
Speaker 3:That is the garage, the Toy.
Speaker 4:Holders part Over there to the right.
Speaker 2:Well, and another thing that we always liked the idea of is the patio, and so we dropped that. Like we were in Tennessee for about a week and a half and we had a, we were right on the Little Pigeon River with our site, so we dropped it and every morning we sat with our other coffee dogs sat out there, and you could watch the creek go by.
Speaker 1:And that gives you more living space.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it does not in dirt Right.
Speaker 1:And yeah, exactly, you can step off the ground, the dogs can get out, you get the fresh air. I mean there are pros and cons for sure For both. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:I think the most important thing is if you're looking to buy your first or change into something else, because whatever you have isn't working for you, you have to make your priority list and write out what do you plan to do in your RV, like how are you gonna live? Is this, you know, only two weeks out of the year, so it doesn't matter? Are you gonna live in it? Are you working? Do you have kids who needs their own space? Do you need space for a 125 pound dog? Like? Everything is relative. So make your list of what your needs are, how you're gonna live in it.
Speaker 3:And in priority.
Speaker 4:Yes, because you know, just like a house, you don't get your whole wish list. So you have to prioritize what is most important when you go through and start looking at RVs.
Speaker 1:And we never even thought about us having to work in the rig Because we never.
Speaker 4:Okay, let's rephrase that. Well, we didn't expect Bill never thought about it. I did because I knew I would be doing something.
Speaker 1:Well, we didn't expect the channel to do what it eventually did. Well, that's you know, she was still going to do something on the nursing side from the road, so she was going to have to work in the rig.
Speaker 4:But we didn't expect that's just for sanity's sake.
Speaker 1:That the level of work we were doing, and now that the channel has turned into a full blown we got to work 24 seven now and we're having a ton of fun doing it but those we didn't think about that aspect of our full time life in the beginning.
Speaker 2:So, phil, how much do you legitimately work? I'm guessing, since Stacy takes the desk area, that most of the office work and that kind of stuff falls on her. Or is that 50 50 with you guys?
Speaker 1:No, most of the the channel work.
Speaker 4:It's 99 one. No, just kidding.
Speaker 1:Most of she does most of the editing. Most of the the picture editing in Canva she's making. You know, she's like just recently she's just she's gone through and she's made a ton of reels, she's capturing certain pictures and whatnot. So I put in it's not near as much as she does, Because I don't know I can't do.
Speaker 4:The video Phil is in charge of social media Social media For his comments and posting and he helps with emails and stuff.
Speaker 2:So I only asked because I wanted to make sure I was asking the right person. But is there something from like a working from the road that is your absolute have to have an RV that maybe you don't have or do have now? That's like if we were to switch rigs. This absolutely has to be this way.
Speaker 4:For me. I'm so flexible. It usually, no, I think. Now that I have it, I have a huge monitor.
Speaker 3:What size is the monitor? That's what I was gonna say is I don't think I can do it without the monitor.
Speaker 1:I don't know how big it is, I can't go back down it is because now when I go, when we're on the road 27, 30 some months yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm traveling, I'm working just on my computer now my laptop and my lap. When we're driving. It's like I don't know if I can work with one screen. I need like three screens.
Speaker 2:Squinting cause you can't see anything.
Speaker 1:now, all of a sudden, but I think the key for us to be able to work without a hitch in our setup is our internet.
Speaker 2:We bring our internet with us.
Speaker 1:So we have a Peplink router, slash modem and a cell carrier that we use for our internet, so we go everywhere we go and plus our backup plan. Yeah, we have a Starlink. That's our backup. It saved us in Canada. But having the ability to not have to worry about pulling into a park, and using park wifi to work or upload download. It's almost non-existent.
Speaker 2:I was about to say you mean the myth of park wifi. Yeah, it is the wifi exists the internet, portion of it? Question.
Speaker 1:Right, and there's certain rules in campgrounds that I want you to upload. Download whatever. It's the exact opposite of what we all do, Right and because of the nature of what we do, we need a lot of bandwidth. We need so having the ability and to be able to do that while driving down the road. Now we did the same thing when we first started with a hotspot little hockey puck, and when we got three megs down and two megs up, we were whoo-hoo. We were high-fiving because we didn't know what we'd do. Emails.
Speaker 4:Yes. But I do have to say as far as switching RVs, I would absolutely love your office, Love it. I could spread out, I could do my thing, but I gotta tell you I will not trade your space for your setup and breakdown because literally when we travel my office, all I do is put a blanket on our kitchen table and flatten the monitor and I'm done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is my breakdown. I can do two versions of that. I can either flatten it kind of like what you're saying.
Speaker 4:I use a pillow, one of the ones that are worn off here and I will bungee it down because it's the back of the rig, a weed bungee, just so it doesn't, yeah, rattle around.
Speaker 2:I can do that, or I can completely remove it and stick it in the autumn, and it just depends on how lazy I'm being there.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think that's the whole point of this is that there are so many similarities and so many differences and we're actually doing similar things, it's just in different ways and in spaces that work for us.
Speaker 4:So there's no wrong answer and that's the answer the space that works for you. And when you hear people say what's the perfect RV, it's the perfect. Rv for you. That's the perfect RV.
Speaker 2:It's the one that fits you, and that's, I mean, the number one question we get with this RV is and especially, we started an owner's group for this one specifically because it is the largest RV alliance has ever made.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 4:And so size is a concern, go ahead and say it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yes, I tried to pass it, but it fell right back.
Speaker 4:I knew it was coming.
Speaker 2:But no, that's the biggest concern when anybody is looking at the questions we've got, because we were the first consumer to have the product by months, Wow. So the biggest question we got is are you okay finding campgrounds? It's like, well, if you can fit a 45 foot coach in, you can fit us.
Speaker 4:And that question does kind of make me a little crazy, because we get it a lot. We even get it in our crew, where they're like oh, is that campground, can I go?
Speaker 1:Can I go?
Speaker 4:And I gotta tell you the majority of campgrounds I'm not talking national park and state park, but I'm saying private campgrounds will accommodate all RVs because they want everybody's money If they're setting up that campground unless it's no old campground but the majority you can get into. Also, most state parks and national parks big rigs can get into. There's just not a lot of those spaces.
Speaker 2:They do fill up quickly and you have to be specific when you're making those searches. You have to look for things that are 45 plus and even harvest hose. Like sometimes that's an issue is because they just don't have the room and so you just slide that slider over to 45 plus.
Speaker 4:Yes, they're just not as many. So if you want the size, if you wanna go bigger, if that's your thing, don't let the campgrounds keep you from doing that.
Speaker 2:Right, you just have to be more intentional. Yes, 100%.
Speaker 1:And something else we found too is, as we stated earlier, we're 35 feet long. We can fit into a 30 foot long RV site if there's nothing behind us, right right, because we have from the back tires to the back of the RV. We have this overhang so we can hang over or out of the site as long as there's no boulders or trees behind us.
Speaker 1:So if we're looking to go somewhere and we find a 30 foot site, we'll go back to the old Google Earth and see the street view and we'll go, especially if you can pick your site. We'll bring it right in, and if there's nothing there, we know we can fit in a 30 foot site.
Speaker 2:Well, and there's a fun feature on Google Maps with that too, where you can actually measure the distance and you can get because sometimes they say 45, but really it's like 42 or 48. Because they've said 40, like even the sites we're in now. They said they're all 45.
Speaker 4:Really.
Speaker 2:This isn't. This is 45. I do think this is 45, but I so. The thing is, when we're hooked up, we're 63 and a half.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so just because the rig fits doesn't mean I'm having to somewhere to put the truck, and then I have to get creative with where I'm jamming my truck.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, that is true.
Speaker 2:But there's some sites here that are easily 80 feet and so it's very when campgrounds are put and stuff together, they keep it very standardized.
Speaker 4:It's very subjective.
Speaker 1:And you just have to know your rig. You have to know what your limitations are. You have to know how to use the internet to get creative with your you know, looking ahead, so that when you get there it's not a shock.
Speaker 4:You don't want any surprises when you're towing and driving something this big.
Speaker 2:And the big yeah Was I saying. The smaller you are, the more you can handle it. The bigger you are the less you are flexible.
Speaker 1:The last thing you want to do, after driving six hours, seven hours, is get to a campground and then figure out oh crap, I don't even fit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not leveling. I got to go hunt down a campus at a yeah, walmart, here we come, you know so I want to kind of shift just a little bit Um. Is there what? What do you think the life expectancy of your coach actually is?
Speaker 4:I know that's a super loaded question based on maintenance, but assuming you keep up with all the regular maintenance, the ways that, in your case, Tiffin tells you you should, I mean, and we do and we have, just so you know, we do have a maintenance spreadsheet filled went through every manual for RV when we moved in and he, according to what the manual says, that's when we go through and do whatever checks, maintenance, whatever and for us, for RV, I can tell you right now we will be driving it into the ground. And when I say that I'm easy 20 years yeah.
Speaker 1:If not more, absolutely, if not longer.
Speaker 4:If I can keep fill from buying the shiny new things which he likes to do. But for me it's paid for. We are going to drive the crap out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and staying on top of things. You know, I was once told long ago, if you take care of your stuff, it'll take care of you, and we stay on top of things. I mean, there's things that pop up that are out of your control.
Speaker 4:Normal wear and care of them upfront.
Speaker 1:Even the littlest issue, take care of it, because eventually it'll turn into a big issue. So for us, we'll stay on top of it. We'll follow the the guidelines or recommendations from Freightliner and what Tiffin says and we'll go from there. But I'm pretty sure we can get 20 plus out of that thing Now diesel engines are made to go forever.
Speaker 4:That's not going to ask is do you feel?
Speaker 2:like there's a difference when you're talking about the different classes of driveables. Oh, absolutely. Oh, I'm sure, because you know it's like a Ford pickup truck versus a diesel engine.
Speaker 4:So it is going to be dependent upon the one you purchase. But for us, and the way ours is made and the engine that we have, it is a work course and it's made to go many, many miles.
Speaker 1:And something we didn't tell you is the difference between a gas motorhome and a diesel motorhome is the diesel motorhome engine is in the rear of the RV, so we can't hear ours, I mean it's not very loud. There are many times when we were already running that I've restarted the rig because I couldn't hear it, and that's one of the differences, for us too, is the ride we didn't.
Speaker 4:I know we. We've been talking forever and we can keep going forever. But there is a bit of a difference. In a in the pickup truck like, you guys drive as far as the, how smooth the ride is and how loud the right and a gas motorhome.
Speaker 1:You're sitting on top of your engine. So now you've got noise, you've got heat, you've got all that in front of you. And again, during our research, people were telling us we couldn't even hold a conversation in the driver passenger seat because the engine was so loud. And I was like, no, we, we're gonna be full time and traveling in this, we've got to be able to talk, you know, and it's, it's again those things that you just don't think about until it's too late and there is a longevity difference in a gas motorhome and the diesel motor, just like in the Ford trucks.
Speaker 2:Yes, my diesel is gonna last longer than an F 150 with a star yeah because that's crazy, because on the towable side everybody kind of has, especially, and I will say there's a difference in full timing and part timing or weekend warring this, any timing it's, we're talking in terms of like actual time, like years, months, whatever, yeah, reality of its hours on engine.
Speaker 4:Yes and how?
Speaker 2:many times those tires are going to roll your tires go bad. But let's be honest. Tires can last you a long time if you're not rolling them very often and you're storing it correctly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I will tell you, the life expectancy of our rig would probably be cut in half if we were part timers.
Speaker 4:This is gonna sit. Oh, there's more wear and tear when you don't use it the longer you sit, the more critters find your house and make makes it their house.
Speaker 1:So then you have wiring cabling that starts to deteriorate.
Speaker 4:You have engines that are not going through.
Speaker 1:So there's, there's and I'm a probably, you know, over emphasizing maybe half the life, but it is going to decrease the life of it because the longer it sits, especially in this Texas, he sure it'll wear it down.
Speaker 3:So engines need to be used to say anything mechanical designed to be working, not sitting, just like tires that are meant to be moving.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I don't know how many times people have looked at an older rig. It's 12 years old but it only has 4000 miles on it and I'm like run, yeah, you know, because of the issues you can't see the wiring, the piping. And later on, you know, we've heard the stories that somebody's system or component wasn't working and they, you know, backtracked it and it was half gone because something had eaten at it or it just deteriorated altogether.
Speaker 4:Now, what's the longevity you think for your RV, as far as it being a fifth wheel or a towable?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna let Lauren take this one and avoid it.
Speaker 3:Not 20 years, no. So in the towable world, for some reason, there seems to be the standard of like at a five year mark. It's almost like the seven year itch right. And so people, whenever they say, oh, I don't want something that old, I mean they're talking more close to that timeline than they are?
Speaker 4:That's not really to me, that's. We've had ours for five years.
Speaker 2:Yeah that we would be time to flip, I just can't imagine doing that. No, I do think too that they are built differently.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, obviously, we're it's not your grandpa's faith wheel?
Speaker 3:No, yeah, well, and the same thing is going to go into it, how we take care of it how we keep up with all these systems and things like that. How hard are we on it on the road?
Speaker 2:And the other thing too, is us flipping out a fifth wheel versus, like what you guys have, a motorhome. There's a different financial because the truck doesn't go, the truck stays the same. Right, and so, to flip out, we're talking about potentially hundreds of thousand dollars difference between what you guys are doing what we're doing, yeah, and so it's not as big of a sticker shock for us. So I think if people are more inclined to flip it out, because the because it's less expensive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I was going to say is how much of it is new shiny versus it actually doesn't work. I think in that toable world there's a lot more. I want the new shiny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the same in the motorhome world. I mean, we've seen people on their fourth, fifth, sixth RV and they get a new one every two years. I just can't keep up with that.
Speaker 1:I mean we have it now. Stacy called it our home in the beginning and it truly is our home. The first six months of it, it was the RV, right, the RV. We got to go back to the RV at the six month mark. Then we started saying we need to go home. We got to get back to the house, right. So there's a, there's a change there with it. But if you take care of it and you've done some upgrades to yours, that will you'll get a few more years out of. I would think.
Speaker 2:I will say, just for a little clarification, if you're listening or watching, we are talking about a factory issue, greg, and if you do want to last longer, there are some upgrades you can do to make not only a feel more like a home, whether it's an aesthetical thing or adding on different comfort things for us. That was the independent suspension. Is that a word? Come what?
Speaker 3:A statical. A statical. I like that you learn new words, commit and build past and hope no one calls you out on it.
Speaker 1:Well, I got stuck. I was like wait, is that a word?
Speaker 4:But you're absolutely spot on Welcome to my life.
Speaker 1:You're spot on with that.
Speaker 4:I'm a creative too, so you know who knows what word Right, so reappear.
Speaker 2:But yeah, like I don't. You know, we kind of had a number in our head is like we hope to get to this and everything is to get to this, and it was that five to seven year mark. And now some of that too is we like change and whether I mean we can use the channel's excuse that we want to do something else and all that, and we've told you guys, like we don't know what that next wrinkles be. I'm not going to worry about it for about five more years, but you know, we like the idea of moving into a toble, not just to share the differences in real time but drivable drivable, I would say toble.
Speaker 2:Yeah not bad. It's creatively toble, it is.
Speaker 4:So Miller's emotional going to shake it up a little bit, get a little more experience and different types of RV stuff in the future.
Speaker 2:And I do think with us that's always. I know you guys are starting to travel a lot more internationally and for us it's always been about what we're doing and where we're going, and right now it just happens to be about in this RV right. It doesn't mean we're never going to get on an airplane or a cruise or do other things. It's for us, it's always about us in motion and again yeah, this is our house Right.
Speaker 1:So if we were in a standard you know sticks and bricks we would take a vacation and go overseas.
Speaker 2:We would take a cruise.
Speaker 1:So that's how we're treating our lifestyle right now. This is our house and we can leave the house and go do other things. But yeah, we it's hard when you go to an RV show and you see all the new shiny you can see the hard for fill bells and whistles and it's like, ooh, I want that or ooh, that would be nice.
Speaker 1:But again, ruby's paid for we've got her right where we were. We wonder we'd know how she ticks and how she drives and all of that. So for us we're, you know, we're the kind that own something and then run it into the ground, right, because we want to keep it. For, you know, a very long time.
Speaker 4:That's how I am to yeah, it's an investment, I mean, just like any house would be, and it wasn't a cheap investment. And and I say investment, yes, I know it depreciates. So you're all you people don't beat me up, I know.
Speaker 1:that's why we buy used.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so, but for me, the longer I have it, the more money I'm getting out of it because we are living in it and I. I can tell you right now, phil, he will not agree. But I, honestly, 20 years, I'd be fine. I mean, I don't know if we'll buy a house in that in the meantime. You know, we might one day buy a house as well, but you know, as long as the RV is still, you know starting to sweat.
Speaker 3:I'll get him a towel.
Speaker 4:Oh no, Phil likes big and shiny. I can tell you right now, if I said yes, we would have a 45 foot motor home in our driveway. Well, we don't have a driveway, but in our site right now. Don't tempt me.
Speaker 2:It's not, it's not happening. I've seen some like robusts.
Speaker 4:It would do a bus in a heartbeat of fate.
Speaker 1:I wanted. I wanted a bigger one because we were living in it full time. So my mind, I thought we need bigger space we need more space because we came from a 3000 square foot house right to this box.
Speaker 4:It is hard to go and I honestly all those people who go to a van after living in a house and apartment. It's to y'all because it is amazing that you can do that. A lot of us who move to a full time RV do kind of do it staggered and in stages.
Speaker 3:So that was why we picked the first one we did, was it felt very homey.
Speaker 2:It had the kitchen, it had the living room, had the touches and I would argue we're actually a little bit of the reverse of that of like you guys went to a kind of more traditional size.
Speaker 2:RV we went big at the solitude was big, the Valor's big. I think we could go smaller, to something closer to y'all size. We'd have to get creative compared to what we're doing now. I'd lose the office. I'd lose those things, but but I think definitely can be done, could do it and do it well, not just do it and like we're and still be comfortable.
Speaker 4:No, you want it. You want to be comfortable and I think that's a valid option.
Speaker 3:You know, in a different season, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is the current season and when we hit a new one.
Speaker 3:That's probably the time for it.
Speaker 2:So what? What was the thing about your current rig that was like that's the one for us, that's it, and not just for me Finally saying yes, that kind of, is it?
Speaker 4:but for me? Well, we already knew we're getting a motorhome, but that one, specifically for me, is when the slides are open, it feels like a living room and we can fit a lot of people in that living room. We've had 12 adults in our living room and to me, that's what makes it a home. I don't I don't want my refrigerator sitting next to me. As far as me, feeling like it's in the living room with me, I wanted to feel yours, doesn't there's separation there, but I wanted to feel like a living room and like warm and and homey. Look, I needed a couch I could stretch out on, because that's what I do whenever I want to veg not that I do it often, but she does not do it often, but those were my priorities.
Speaker 4:I wanted to feel like a living room, I want to be comfortable, I want to lounge, I want to curl up, and those were the things I was looking for and it has it.
Speaker 1:This was the first rig that we walked into that she started redecorating. She could see herself and we had been in a ton of them, but this is the one that she could see herself in and, as we're walking through it and you know, considering all the features it had, we're like this could really work for us. For me, the the only thing that I wanted, knowing we're going to be full-time is I wanted the diesel. Right, I wanted the diesel, and that was about as short as I wanted to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had talked 30 to 35, but 35 was 30 to 40 was our.
Speaker 4:our fill wanted closer to 40.
Speaker 1:I wanted closer to 30, so it worked out perfect, but yeah and it has truly been the sweet spot for us, because it's it's it's taken care of all of our needs. It's got everything that our house had in it, and then some meeting everything that we needed. We have right spot, yeah, and we've not once reached for something or tried to do something and not been able to do it or get it, like in the house.
Speaker 2:Sure, so I've been talking a whole lot on behalf of Lauren and I in this one, so I'm going to ask you the same question.
Speaker 3:But for us Okay.
Speaker 2:Congratulations, you're now being interviewed.
Speaker 4:Welcome to the podcast, lauren. This is new.
Speaker 2:So what was our big factors, from the tolerable side, in picking either rig or both rigs? However, you want to tackle that.
Speaker 3:So, starting with the, the solitude, because that was our first jump into RV life and, like I said before, I wanted something that felt homey. So I wanted something big, open spaces, nice living room, nice kitchen, where we weren't setting ourselves up for failure and you nailed it. We did you nailed we actually. We actually did yes because I didn't want. I mean, we came from a ranch, we came from acreage and a pool and you know, a beautiful house.
Speaker 2:And I said oh man, if we stuff well, that we didn't use once the last year we were there is too cold.
Speaker 3:You had one and I didn't want to set us up for that failure. So I wanted something that felt like home and that gave us the best chance for success as we were taking on a new endeavor right now. Then our needs change during that first year and so then, as we came to reassess what we didn't, didn't want out of our real life, that just helped us kind of hone in what we wanted and what made us more successful and more experiences and those sorts of things what kept us on the road and functioning well.
Speaker 1:So, now that you have this one, how long before you had that homey, feel like you nailed the first one right out of the gates.
Speaker 2:That had everything you wanted.
Speaker 1:Then you got this one. We did. When did you say we have this like home?
Speaker 2:I don't think we have, yet we have it, yet we've only been in this for five months maybe four, yeah, four or five months.
Speaker 1:I thought it smelled funny.
Speaker 3:And so we've already done little things like put little touches up and, and whatnot, switch out chairs for the little storage ottoman, softened some things up, but we haven't even hung photos on the walls yet and yeah, I don't see any of us, and where are we? So we took a photo yesterday so that you could be the first.
Speaker 4:I think we should bring a magnet put on their fridge so they have to look at us.
Speaker 1:I like, but you're right, those, it's the touches it is.
Speaker 3:It's the touches that go, and I think it's important to say we both modded our rigs absolutely to make them work right yeah, well, like we, we've made big changes to our rig because if you're watching this on video, you'll know we're talking about.
Speaker 2:We typically have a big L shape sofa. We ditched that immediately, never barely sat on it once. We went to this just because we saw past what Alliance built it as, because we saw the bones of it and said this could be really good for us, because with the dogs we need to floor space more than we needed seating. Yes because it's just us right. So we just stuck us. You know the sofa where you guys are and this now is normally where the dog bed sits.
Speaker 3:And now it's me well, and another first big mod for you was getting the office space set up so that that was a workflow that's an everyday kind of. Thing and so that's what makes it home, is how you function in it, right, and so, as you warm up the space, as you make it yours and I would say it's harder in the toy haulers toy haulers inherently feel more industrial.
Speaker 2:Some of it thinks I do because of the garage may be the garage always does, and you can do things like lake carpeting and flooring down over that.
Speaker 1:It really it's removable or not, but typically toy haulers have more of a gray, black and white tones to it, whereas, like our solitude had more warm browns yeah and those types of things, but they weren't too overly brown they also come with a fuel smell in the garage because because they're using it for toys they can yeah, so that's where you get always.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't.
Speaker 1:You have that aspect that if you did have a motorcycle you know, even if you took it out of the space, right, you're reminded that it's a garage, right, you know, because of the smells, that it and you can open the air vents that allow all that to come out. It's inherently always there if we got anything.
Speaker 2:We get an electric golf cart, so I don't know that it would still ever do that. But this.
Speaker 1:This seems very soft and warm and homey because of the colors that that are in here right now, and we haven't changed.
Speaker 3:You like the pillows, don't you I?
Speaker 1:do. I love the pillows.
Speaker 2:And we really haven't changed much, except for like some fixtures that launch them.
Speaker 3:But that was a little bit of a hiccup for us coming into a Joy-Hallor was some of the decor and the designs. They weren't homey enough that I was convinced of it. It still felt very RV-ish, but you know that's.
Speaker 4:That is, across the industry.
Speaker 3:So they are just now.
Speaker 4:I feel like starting to get up to date. The 80s are finally going away with the new builds. So I think when you're comparing RVs to homes, that is definitely a hurdle everyone has to get over For sure.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think the manufacturers are starting to listen, slowly, but yes.
Speaker 2:Well, and I will say good on Alliance because they're one of the first ones that Flatout said one of their core things is customer driven feedback and we were very lucky enough that we got to know those guys well before we got our rig and this motor home, this towable was in production or in a proto series still. And they let us see some of the proto pictures and we immediately kind of went that's weird, that's weird.
Speaker 1:That's weird.
Speaker 2:And it all changed.
Speaker 1:Well, we're in Alliance of Ones that did the whiteboard and said tell us what you like, Tell us what you would like to see in a fifth wheel. So, and they crammed in about what 99% of those options.
Speaker 4:They tried to yeah, as much as possible. That's listening.
Speaker 1:That's listening to the consumer.
Speaker 2:Little things, like the one touch control lipber. I know you guys have some version of that Firefly system. That's like the whole, all your electronic systems, lights, all that stuff. On one thing Well, they tried to do that for motor homes. It's the wiring's so different in these and it never really caught on. Well, because it's a screen but it's slow and there's some manufacturers that that's all you can use and there's just problems with it, it's not efficient enough and so everybody just wanted manual switches.
Speaker 2:Alliance is like, well, you're spending more for something that nobody's using when I put it in, so they actually. I know a big term in the show right now is all that like decontenting. We put so much stuff, these gotten so expensive. We need to start coming out of stuff that are actually affordable again, and so they're starting to pull some of these features where. Alliance is like we're just going to put the money where we need it and then stuff that's irrelevant gets out.
Speaker 1:Keep it simple, yep.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, even our year that we have 2016,. They've made significant changes since then and when we looked at ours, we didn't the light switch on the other side of the room in the bedroom.
Speaker 3:We didn't think about that, we never even thought about that till we were staying in it and then we both jumped in bed and the lights were on.
Speaker 1:We were like who's the light switch? Oh, one of us has to get out and go turn the. Now they fix that it's on the bedside. But they've evolved and it's because they're listening to those of us that are in the lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Which is great because at the end of the day, everybody will have the newer consumers at least get a better product. Yes, yeah absolutely All right. I think that if you have made it to this point, wow, that was a marathon chat session.
Speaker 4:This was nothing compared to the rest of the weekend, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I tell you this has got to be muzzled.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of great information in here that people that are just getting into this or even cracking the old computer open and doing the towable versus motorhome. They're going to find this useful.
Speaker 2:Hopefully there's a lot of good info. That's the mission.
Speaker 1:they didn't know about yes.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure you didn't know, we didn't either. And that's exactly what I want to do this with you guys, because we know you guys have that experience with driveables versus our towable, and so ying and yang.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a fun comparison.
Speaker 2:Is there anything driveable, towable? You feel like you just got to get in there that we didn't touch.
Speaker 4:No, no you know, you could talk about this for five hours, so I think it's good. I definitely think there's possibility for expansion and other podcasts, but no, I think it's a good surface.
Speaker 1:And we've covered a lot of these topics individually in blogs and videos from the motorhome perspective, from our experience, but it covers just hit on some of the towable issues. So we have a lot of that stuff on our website and on our channel as well.
Speaker 2:So that's what I was going to say is if you guys don't mind, just where can people find everything for you guys? What's the website? You should all that.
Speaker 4:You can find a ton of info on our website, todayasomedaynet, as well as our YouTube channel Today Asomeday. So a ton of RVing, travel lifestyle info, discounts, gear, you name. It Is there.
Speaker 1:You can even send us an email at infoattodayasomedaynet, and if you can't find something you're looking for on the website, we can link it to you in an email and get you pointed in the right direction.
Speaker 2:And I will say, if you want to find a community, that you're looking for your people. When it comes to the RV space, Lauren and I it was a no-brainer for us. We're part of their someday crew and it is the greatest bunch of people that I've hardly met.
Speaker 4:No, it is a wonderful community. If you're looking for friendships on the road, because I've got to tell you, the number one reason people stop full timing is loneliness, that is number one. If you're looking for connection, for friendship, for camaraderie your road dogs, whatever you want to call it, there is a great group Head over today asomedaynet. Check out our crew, join us for meetups, gatherings, events, you name it, we'll do it.
Speaker 2:And very last plug, if you are coming to the Tampa show, and hopefully you'll come by and say hi at the Alliance RV booth, while we are doing live podcast recordings, we will have tons of different guests. Three shows a day. The January, the 19th, you guys are doing a fundraiser meetup. Yes, that is being sponsored by RV on plug. And I'm hoping there's at least some tickets left to that last session still.
Speaker 4:There are 40 tickets remaining as of right now. We will be doing another big push up in the next two weeks to unload those tickets. All proceeds, 100% of the proceeds, go to veteran charities through the Elks Lodge, who is generously giving us an event space. And the best part is, whatever we raise our sponsor RV on plug, we'll match it dollar for dollar. So we are going to have double the donation.
Speaker 1:And it's $10 a ticket. Your donation is $10 a person per ticket.
Speaker 4:I might shake you down at the door and get you to empty your pockets too.
Speaker 1:But you're coming in to like-minded folks that are enjoying the lifestyle, that love everything about RVing and they want to give back. This is their way of contributing to a charity, and our charity that we normally go with is a military charity Homes for Our Troops.
Speaker 4:Which is what RV, unplugged, will be donating to Right.
Speaker 1:And the local Tampa Elks is going to keep that with the local veteran charities. They're in Tampa so it all stays in town, which is great. So if you've got some time on the 19th there's 40 tickets left Get on them. We'd love to see you, love to grip and grin. You get to hang out. I think it's the last session, so you get to hang out for even longer than an hour.
Speaker 4:Maybe the coolest part is they were a lot of friendships formed at our last meetup and people are meeting up on the road getting together, so it is a great way to meet other folks in the community.
Speaker 1:And you might even meet some other folks that you might be watching on.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, that's right, I forget.
Speaker 2:Well, there's two versions of this. That's right, you can meet a handful of the OGs.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Season one so New State Nomads, our everyday getaway.
Speaker 1:Millers in motion.
Speaker 2:Obviously you guys.
Speaker 1:Actually you'll get to meet Lauren, because most of you, if you watch season one, know all about Ryan.
Speaker 2:Who am I missing? Anybody else in there that I'm?
Speaker 4:Susan and RV blogger. Yeah, RV blogger. And then. Tony will also be there who's on the production side?
Speaker 2:Production side and crew or the bun, but no longer has the bun.
Speaker 4:Now the fun part is we will be announcing season two contestants that night. We'll be releasing it and there will be a handful of season two contestants that will be there for the event.
Speaker 1:And if you haven't seen RV on plug season one, do your homework, go back, watch those episodes, watch the trailers, watch the videos.
Speaker 4:That way you'll know all the inside jokes when you get there.
Speaker 1:There will be some.
Speaker 4:There are a lot.
Speaker 1:So I mean we'd love to have you come by check us out, but we'll be all over the fairgrounds. You'll run into quite a few of us there.
Speaker 4:I do also want to say, for those of you who want to donate to our veteran charities, we do have a link on our website. So if you cannot attend, please head over to todayasomedaynet, hit our event page and there is a box there you can donate and 100% of what you donate will go over to our charity.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say before we wrap up. We have always said about building our community and I can't speak strongly enough that this is exactly what we're talking about that these are the people, these are the actions, this is the community support that we are talking about. So thank you so much for being and speaking to that.
Speaker 4:It's so strongly. It's the most important part of what we do, our community and what we do for our veteran charities 100%. They are who we are and they make our channel what it is.
Speaker 1:That fuels the fire to keep churning the channel out and doing the videos and doing the charity events, because if our channel went away tomorrow, we would still be a voice for veterans. I mean, it's just who we are. I'm retired Navy Stacy's a Navy veteran. It's in our family, it's just in our DNA. And as long as we can, we'll keep shouting. Well, thank you guys so much for sitting down for a solid few hours.
Speaker 4:Phil almost got out of the height, but he's not. Height can happen in.
Speaker 3:I think I got a cramp Three minutes to hit the road. Hydrate man, Hydrate.
Speaker 1:I pulled a love handle. Does that count?
Speaker 2:No, Thank you guys so much for being on the podcast Great stuff. Thank you for listening. If you got any value out of this, please do us a favor. If you're watching on YouTube, hit that little Subscribe button. If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment down below. If you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform, the biggest help if you enjoy this you could do is rate and review this on whatever platform you're listening to and share it with one friend. That's all we ask One friend.
Speaker 3:Doesn't even have to be a friend, can just be a person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really don't care. Just make them listen to it, just grab their phone, Do it Some dude or do that. Ok, all right, thank you guys, so much and we will catch you next week. Happy camping.