April 22, 2020 • 21 mins
Maybe the most basic task of the full-time RV life is...living in the RV. And in order to make that transition from our Chicago loft to our new home, we had to do a lot of downsizing. It was not easy and involved a lot of difficult decisions and we had to leave a lot of things we love behind and in storage. In this last installment of Boondocking With Brad, we'll discuss what that process was like and the trade-off between our old brick-and-mortar home and life on the road.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia,
a production of I Heart Radio. We sold our loft
in Chicago, moved into an r V, and now we're
talking in the country full time with our dog Finn,
exploring America's national parks. And today we're bringing you another
episode of Boon Docking with Brad. Now today we are
(00:27):
going to be discussing back to basics. Before we even
jumped into our V full time, we had to sell
off our stuff. We had to fix our loft to
sell it. We had to talk with friends. We threw
yard sales, groad sales, We went to the um Goodwill
and gave well donations. Uh, we had to do a
lot of different things in order to do this. There's
(00:50):
a lot of mental minimalization and physical mentaliza minimalization. Yeah,
for sure, it was emotional and stressful and in addition
to just being a lot of work and preparation. And
it's different, much different than like moving because I've moved
several times, especially in and around Chicago, and this was
(01:13):
really different because now I'm having to go through pretty
much each and every material possession in way, whether I
need it or not, which we could put it in storage,
or if we put it in storage, yeah, which there's
a whole another thing. Yeah, And then like there's this
this mental minimalization that you have to go through because
you're realizing that you're giving up this city. There's so
(01:36):
much to do there, there's so many things to to
remember and to people to talk to and say goodbye,
and and what you're doing is you're trying to like
get ready to go on the road for a long
period of time. And what I don't think a lot
of people realize is that there's this mental piece where
you have to like restructure how you think, how you feel,
(01:57):
how you act um to be able to focus on
RV living because it is such an undertaking in the beginning.
So when I talk about like mental minimalization, it's really
just trying to refocus that into what we need for
the RV. And so when you start thinking about, Okay,
I have a ten ft by twenty six ft space
(02:20):
to put all of my belongings in, how do I
do that? Yeah, it's definitely not easy. We couldn't take
your childhood desk, but we did put that in storage. Yeah,
I know, but it's still it's one of those sentimental things.
So you know, we had to find out what it was.
And so I had to take a couple of trips
(02:41):
to the storage in Indiana, to the farm, and it
was a it was a journey for sure. Yeah, I know,
like for me too, I needed to specifically find items
or keep items that made me feel at home, because
that was really hard. Leaving Chicago was really hard, especially
(03:02):
for me because I was there for so long and
was so rooted there and leaving was just a real
emotional struggle. So I knew I needed to get items
that would make me feel mentally comfortable, and that means
like movies and games and books and stuff like that.
But I was used to having in using and a
regular basists. I remember that, uh, Luise, you and her
(03:26):
went to a little store and bought a mini cactus cacti,
and uh, you know you wanted to bring that because
you know that's something that would make you think of her. Um.
I told you, Louise that Matt would even be able
to kill a cactus. And we're sorry to say that
about eight months in, I don't even know lasted that long,
(03:50):
I like killed it in record. I was trying to
give you some I was really trying to give you
some extralyway here. I don't know, I don't know it
has it has since passed. Um. And then like Maggie
gave you the neon cactus sign that's like still next
to our bed. That's like we had like uh, double
sided sticky taped it right to the sides. That's a
little nightlight, uh for when we wanted to glow. And
(04:13):
so it's just really you know, there's those things. You
see them and they remind you of the people around you,
and that's great. I can handle like inanimate objects, but
living things, Yeah, Finn, it's great, but exactly yeah, Finn
is like yeah, then Finn is very well take care
of and spoiled, so we don't have to worry about
(04:35):
that at least um. But yeah, So you know there's
those like things you're like, Okay, it's not necessary to
have it, but it's something that you want and it
helps you with that memory or that feeling of that friend.
And and so there's things like that you bring. That's
why we have photos up in our r V and
all these different little aspects to to make it really
(04:58):
more homie. Well, that's a question Uh, we get asked
a lot, or like I get people ask me a
lot like how do you make it feel? Or like
what do you recommend you know, really basic questions like
for people moving into an RV for the first time
and how to feel comfortable with it. And my one
of my number one recommendations is doing stuff like hanging photos,
not framed or anything that's you don't really have the
(05:19):
space for that and it's not necessary. But like what
we do is just having photos that we printed out
and we literally just kind of tape them up essentially,
so they don't clothes line pit. Yeah, so they don't
take a physical room. They're just adhered right to the
cabinets and stuff. And it goes a long way because
it's not only does it live en up the space,
(05:40):
but you're surrounded by these positive memories and friendly faces
and it's really uplifting, it really is, and uh, you
know getting actually, God, we had a lot. We have
a lot of collections. Um, we have a tiki mug collection.
I had a liquor collection. I did have a record collection,
but I ended up selling that before going on the
(06:01):
road because I don't know why. I probably shouldn't have
but that's okay. They're in a good home and everything
is good there and people are using them, so that's
what matters. Records are meant to be played, that stored,
and I just didn't want them to go bad because
they were in a storage area and not like temperature controlled.
So yeah, but I sold. I mean I was at
(06:21):
least four or five records in there. UM and our
tiki mugs. We had to wrap them all up, box
them all up, label them. We took down our National
Parks wall which has to travel on one side and
traveled to on the other. Um, and then it has
all well had nine national parks at the time, so um,
(06:46):
all their postcards in these beautiful frames and basically as
we traveled to them, we would move the frame from
one side to the other and then we collect knickknacks
to fill gaps and a beautiful wall. Um. But we
had to pack all that away. We can't bring that
all into our v but we did bring one sign
and that's the Jack carrollac quote. Their suitcases are piled
(07:07):
on the sidewalk again, yet there's longer ways to go
because the road is life. Um, and that's hanging on
our fridge now and so we kept that one part
of the wall because it's a beautiful quote and it's
on this beautiful piece of wood um that our friends
at Tiftwood in New Mexico UM made for us UM
when we were getting that National Parks wall together. And
(07:30):
so there's just so many beautiful aspects that we wanted
to bring with us that we couldn't. And then close
Matt had he actually had our closet space you did,
and actually I remember one Christmas he surprised me by
(07:51):
reducing it to half of it and he actually allowed
me to have half the space after three years of
being married. So that was like a Christmas gift to
me one year because I was like, I don't have
any room and he did that for me. So that
was really nice. Yeah, because in addition to having this
whole closet, I also had a big armor and I'm like,
Merry Christmas, here's half a closet that you are entitled too,
(08:14):
but I have refused to give me. But then we
had to reduce even more and so now I mean
it's gross, like we're talking about. That was a four
ft deep by fifteen ft wide um with two like
racks high where you can hang clothes. Um. And then
(08:36):
Matt finally reduced his to half of that and then
from there, now we have a two ft by three
ft by five ft tall box for mats hanguble clothes,
and three drawers too small or too shallow, you know,
four or five inches tall drawers, and then one that's
like a foot deep. And that's all he gets, basically nothing. Um.
(09:00):
So what we had to do is we had to
find like, okay, these are the good clothes. We don't
want to bring these on the road because they will
get ruined. And there's some clothes that we did and
you know what, they're used so much that you know, um,
we never had to really deal with this in Chicago
because we didn't like do that. But like we have
hats that are literally were this beautiful black color and
(09:21):
now they like have brown spots because they've been out
in the sun so much and we wear them consistently
and constantly. Um. And so there's just different things that
you have to like make sure that you don't bring
your nice, nice clothes, but bring a nice set of
clothes so that way you can go out on a
date together and things like that. So these are things
that we had to think about. It's just all this
(09:41):
minimalizing and and just trying to figure out what are
necessities to be able to live this lifestyle. Yeah. Um,
like you were saying board games, that was another collection.
We probably had over eight board games because you probably
like FT to sixty. Yeah, I mean that's still on
(10:02):
the high end. But we had a good amount of
board games. Probably, No, we had more than that, definitely
more than that. So we'll agree to disagree. But we
ended up bringing five with us, and now we have
like acquired five more somehow. Yeah, they fell up action
of the aret, like very different cupboards. Right above our bed,
(10:23):
we have all of our little uh board games and
you know there's ones like Trekking the National Parks essential. Um,
then there's that train game and I might Ticket to
Rub such a fun game. Those are two very similar,
different but similar. We need to play that game. We do.
I really misplaying problem. It's like a lot of the
board games we have are meant for a minimum of
(10:45):
three people. Well, we can play Ticket to Ride just
the two of us, but you would always get mad
at me. Be it's the more people you play it
with the better, because it's just more fun that way,
but also like kind of softens the blow and I
feel less betrayed by people. You said it, you said
by you go ahead and keep it, So that's the ideal,
(11:09):
And like Ticket to Ride, I would just get too
annoyed with Yeah, no, and you know what I'm When
you have other people, you can actually like turn them
against me, and that's what you do. And if they
want to do that and they're on their welcome to
That's why you'll never play Monopoly with me because I'm
too good at it and I just hate that game terrible.
(11:30):
It tears apart families. Yes, but yeah, so we had
to decide do we bring Monopoly, and somehow we had
four different types of Monopoly people the National Parks regular
Mario Mario, Oh my gosh. Now we just have the
National Parks version, which is that definitely makes it like better,
(11:53):
but we still don't play it because, yeah, I won't
play it like with you. I played it with like
my siblings one and that is true. Yeah, he won't.
And I love that game like I love playing Monopoly,
and you're too devious. Yeah, I even tell you my
strategy and you still don't like, Well, I don't know
get it. I can't do that game, which is the
(12:17):
worst strategy now that I think about it, because I
realized it's gentrification. Um, exactly what you're doing now. Yeah,
I just realized I'm a horrible human being when I
play Monopoly. Yeah, you're just realizing. Uh, you are listening
to park Landia from my heart radio. Hi, I'm Matt
(12:44):
and I'm Brad. This is park Landia. So there's just
a lot of different things that you have to like
really condense. I mean even your potting pans. Like who
would think that you couldn't bring all your pottent pans.
We only have like seven eight of them, but like
literally now we're allowed to have like two. We have
our like frying pan and are pot um and it's
(13:06):
a small pot not a big one. Um. But basically
we had to just find these things, and you know,
there's some things we had to get rid of or
we put them in storage for a kitchen stuff because
we had to get like foldable or stackable or different
things like I can't bring all of my cocktail glasses,
like I have my coupes, my highballs, my rocks classes,
(13:27):
you know, all these different kinds of cocktail glasses, beautiful
vintage ones. I mean, I love I love making cocktails. Um,
that's something you might not know about me. But I
make my own bidders when I have space. And there's
a lot of like creative outlets that I have around
cocktails and making making them. And that's because I got
(13:50):
sick on Cosmos when we were first dating, because we're
watching Real Housewives and drinking Cosmos, and um, I said,
I'll never do that to you again. So I had
to learn how to makes for real. Yeah, Cossa poltins, No,
I can't do those. I like martinis, but Cosa polsans
are too sweet and I had like two of them
and you probably made them doubles now they're probably triples
like that. It was bad, Like I shouldn't have making
(14:13):
cocktails at that point. Ever since then, when I seen
Matt crawled up on the floor and then after something
went very wrong, I was like, okay, that's right. I
remember like waking I don't remember much. I remember like
waking up. Probably crawled up in the people position, like
on the bathroom floor. Yeah, I throw him as a
pillow and I'm I'm just gonna leave him there. Because
(14:33):
I don't want him to I just don't want to
move him better. But I made sure he was okay.
So don't think I'm just I Matri had water and
I gave him telling all and I you know, I
sat there with him for hours. I even fell asleep
on the floor, just making sure he was good. And
then um, then I just I went finally, like went
(14:54):
onto the couch because he was okay. But and it
wasn't as dramatic as this sounds. So anyway, we don't
make hotsmos in the r V. UM. Yeah, so there's
just so much like you know, you have all this space.
The other day, we went into a friend's house, um,
and we I was like, Matt, when is the last
(15:15):
time we've been in a home? And he was like, oh,
that's probably like two months ago, um, at my dad's house.
And I said, what, like, just think of this concept
of not being in a home, any home, your own home,
any home for two months. You're living in ten by
space and so when you go into this home, you're
like it's so gigantic, Like their bathroom was bigger than
(15:38):
our r V. Legit like no joke, And so you
just have to remember, like when you're minimalizing, minimalized to
your bathroom, that's about the size that you get, um
in most cases. But uh, it takes a lot. It's
a mental it's a physical thing, it's an emotional thing
(15:59):
because you have to part ways. Like you know, I
have a lot of like marine corps like memorabilia and things,
and I had to pack all that away and my
dress blues um from the Marines and you know, so
I had to pack all that stuff away. Um, I
have a lot of memories notes um, like about my
martial arts days and all these things that I can't
just go to and get inspiration from or like remember
(16:20):
where I came from, And so a lot of that
just goes away. So you just kind of have to
focus on what is absolutely a necessity versus anything else.
So you have all these memories and you put them
(16:40):
all away. But what did we gain from that? Well,
we've gained a lot. We've made a lot of memories
together because it kind of refocuses everything and we spend
more time together doing stuff, more time talking because there's
less distractions for sure, and less space. Like we're not
not that are loft is huge or anything, but like
(17:03):
you know back then, like I could be in one
room doing something, you could be in the other room
doing something. And it's nice that things have gotten cozier
with less distractions, and we do more stuff together, whether
it's watching and with other people. We meet new people,
We talked to new people. Because we don't have much
within our v we we definitely push ourselves out to
(17:25):
just talk to more people and visit and explore more.
That's good too. Yeah, I feel like we've made a
really broad network of acquaintances and even friends across the country,
which is really nice and comforting, because that was a
big struggle, was just like leaving that social safety neut
of Chicago in a sense, and then in the in
(17:46):
the subsequent like year and a half, like making connections
with people all over the country and being like now
I don't feel so tied to one place. I feel
much more comfortable. There's freedom where I feel like Albuquerque
is my backyard. I feel like um Portland's Maine is
my backyard, or Land at Atlanta. These are all places
(18:09):
that are just amazing. And I remember when we were
in Nashville, we met a couple Cameron and Jeremy from
Atlanta and they became great friends. Uh. This past Thanksgiving,
we actually spent things like friends Giving with them in
Atlanta because we were in Atlanta and we were you know,
we were working and making sure to try to connect
(18:32):
with people, and so we've made these great friendships at travel.
We did not meet him in Atlanta, so it's weird
that we would just be in Atlanta and now we're
friends and we went out multiple times, we met their friends. Um,
and it's just it's really inspiring. The things that you
gain aren't exactly physical items. They are relationships, they're people.
(18:55):
There are relationship with earth, with national parks, with wildlife
and ecology and all these beautiful aspects of what it
really means, what life means. Yeah, and with Finn too,
Like that's a big thing because like in Chicago, Yeah,
we didn't ever take him downtown or anything. We didn't
go sight seeing with Finn. He was all he really
(19:16):
got to do and see was explore the neighborhood and
wander around. There's a park at the end of the block,
which is lovely, but like not much like change. He
would just do the same thing. And when we were
in Portland, Maine, watching him, he was there was just
it was full of wonderment. And yeah, he's seen so
much and we've done so much with him, and his
(19:37):
enthusiasm is very clear. He has a very emotive face.
And you can see how we went on a couple
of hikes with him in a Katie And National Park
in Maine, and not only did he pulled his own
he you know, his tiny little dog with little legs,
was able to walk for miles, but he was scrambling
in like, in and out of little rocks and along
(19:57):
the shore, and I was blown away and it really
inspired me. I'm like, wow, your enthusiasm, it's beautiful. Like
I feel like I'm closer to the meaning of life
than I've ever been. And that's just like seeing people
seeing it through Finn, meeting people, talking with people, doing
something for somebody else. And that's what I fin Field.
(20:18):
Finn has done for us for so long, and now
it's nice to see that for him. But that makes
me me happier than any monetary value out there. Is
just seeing something done for somebody else, or seeing somebody's
energy spike because they're in love with the world in nature. Yes,
it's a wonderful thing and that's been a really rewarding aspect.
For sure, you've been listening to park Landia, a show
(20:44):
about national parks. Parkland is a production of My Heart Radio,
created by Matt Carouac, Brad Carouac and Christopher has theotis
producer and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer is
Christopher has the Otis. Our researcher, It's Jefflyn shield. A
special things goes out to Gabrielle Collins, Chris to Waters
and the rest of the Parklandia crew and Hey listeners,
If you're enjoying the show, leave us a review on
(21:05):
Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like you find our show.
You can keep up with us on social media as well.
Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at
Parklandia pod and join in on the conversation and our
Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcasts My Heart Radio,
visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you
(21:27):
for listening.
Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia,
a production of I Heart Radio. We sold our loft
in Chicago, moved into an r V, and now we're
talking in the country full time with our dog Finn,
exploring America's national parks. And today we're bringing you another
episode of Boon Docking with Brad. Now today we are
(00:27):
going to be discussing back to basics. Before we even
jumped into our V full time, we had to sell
off our stuff. We had to fix our loft to
sell it. We had to talk with friends. We threw
yard sales, groad sales, We went to the um Goodwill
and gave well donations. Uh, we had to do a
lot of different things in order to do this. There's
(00:50):
a lot of mental minimalization and physical mentaliza minimalization. Yeah,
for sure, it was emotional and stressful and in addition
to just being a lot of work and preparation. And
it's different, much different than like moving because I've moved
several times, especially in and around Chicago, and this was
(01:13):
really different because now I'm having to go through pretty
much each and every material possession in way, whether I
need it or not, which we could put it in storage,
or if we put it in storage, yeah, which there's
a whole another thing. Yeah, And then like there's this
this mental minimalization that you have to go through because
you're realizing that you're giving up this city. There's so
(01:36):
much to do there, there's so many things to to
remember and to people to talk to and say goodbye,
and and what you're doing is you're trying to like
get ready to go on the road for a long
period of time. And what I don't think a lot
of people realize is that there's this mental piece where
you have to like restructure how you think, how you feel,
(01:57):
how you act um to be able to focus on
RV living because it is such an undertaking in the beginning.
So when I talk about like mental minimalization, it's really
just trying to refocus that into what we need for
the RV. And so when you start thinking about, Okay,
I have a ten ft by twenty six ft space
(02:20):
to put all of my belongings in, how do I
do that? Yeah, it's definitely not easy. We couldn't take
your childhood desk, but we did put that in storage. Yeah,
I know, but it's still it's one of those sentimental things.
So you know, we had to find out what it was.
And so I had to take a couple of trips
(02:41):
to the storage in Indiana, to the farm, and it
was a it was a journey for sure. Yeah, I know,
like for me too, I needed to specifically find items
or keep items that made me feel at home, because
that was really hard. Leaving Chicago was really hard, especially
(03:02):
for me because I was there for so long and
was so rooted there and leaving was just a real
emotional struggle. So I knew I needed to get items
that would make me feel mentally comfortable, and that means
like movies and games and books and stuff like that.
But I was used to having in using and a
regular basists. I remember that, uh, Luise, you and her
(03:26):
went to a little store and bought a mini cactus cacti,
and uh, you know you wanted to bring that because
you know that's something that would make you think of her. Um.
I told you, Louise that Matt would even be able
to kill a cactus. And we're sorry to say that
about eight months in, I don't even know lasted that long,
(03:50):
I like killed it in record. I was trying to
give you some I was really trying to give you
some extralyway here. I don't know, I don't know it
has it has since passed. Um. And then like Maggie
gave you the neon cactus sign that's like still next
to our bed. That's like we had like uh, double
sided sticky taped it right to the sides. That's a
little nightlight, uh for when we wanted to glow. And
(04:13):
so it's just really you know, there's those things. You
see them and they remind you of the people around you,
and that's great. I can handle like inanimate objects, but
living things, Yeah, Finn, it's great, but exactly yeah, Finn
is like yeah, then Finn is very well take care
of and spoiled, so we don't have to worry about
(04:35):
that at least um. But yeah, So you know there's
those like things you're like, Okay, it's not necessary to
have it, but it's something that you want and it
helps you with that memory or that feeling of that friend.
And and so there's things like that you bring. That's
why we have photos up in our r V and
all these different little aspects to to make it really
(04:58):
more homie. Well, that's a question Uh, we get asked
a lot, or like I get people ask me a
lot like how do you make it feel? Or like
what do you recommend you know, really basic questions like
for people moving into an RV for the first time
and how to feel comfortable with it. And my one
of my number one recommendations is doing stuff like hanging photos,
not framed or anything that's you don't really have the
(05:19):
space for that and it's not necessary. But like what
we do is just having photos that we printed out
and we literally just kind of tape them up essentially,
so they don't clothes line pit. Yeah, so they don't
take a physical room. They're just adhered right to the
cabinets and stuff. And it goes a long way because
it's not only does it live en up the space,
(05:40):
but you're surrounded by these positive memories and friendly faces
and it's really uplifting, it really is, and uh, you
know getting actually, God, we had a lot. We have
a lot of collections. Um, we have a tiki mug collection.
I had a liquor collection. I did have a record collection,
but I ended up selling that before going on the
(06:01):
road because I don't know why. I probably shouldn't have
but that's okay. They're in a good home and everything
is good there and people are using them, so that's
what matters. Records are meant to be played, that stored,
and I just didn't want them to go bad because
they were in a storage area and not like temperature controlled.
So yeah, but I sold. I mean I was at
(06:21):
least four or five records in there. UM and our
tiki mugs. We had to wrap them all up, box
them all up, label them. We took down our National
Parks wall which has to travel on one side and
traveled to on the other. Um, and then it has
all well had nine national parks at the time, so um,
(06:46):
all their postcards in these beautiful frames and basically as
we traveled to them, we would move the frame from
one side to the other and then we collect knickknacks
to fill gaps and a beautiful wall. Um. But we
had to pack all that away. We can't bring that
all into our v but we did bring one sign
and that's the Jack carrollac quote. Their suitcases are piled
(07:07):
on the sidewalk again, yet there's longer ways to go
because the road is life. Um, and that's hanging on
our fridge now and so we kept that one part
of the wall because it's a beautiful quote and it's
on this beautiful piece of wood um that our friends
at Tiftwood in New Mexico UM made for us UM
when we were getting that National Parks wall together. And
(07:30):
so there's just so many beautiful aspects that we wanted
to bring with us that we couldn't. And then close
Matt had he actually had our closet space you did,
and actually I remember one Christmas he surprised me by
(07:51):
reducing it to half of it and he actually allowed
me to have half the space after three years of
being married. So that was like a Christmas gift to
me one year because I was like, I don't have
any room and he did that for me. So that
was really nice. Yeah, because in addition to having this
whole closet, I also had a big armor and I'm like,
Merry Christmas, here's half a closet that you are entitled too,
(08:14):
but I have refused to give me. But then we
had to reduce even more and so now I mean
it's gross, like we're talking about. That was a four
ft deep by fifteen ft wide um with two like
racks high where you can hang clothes. Um. And then
(08:36):
Matt finally reduced his to half of that and then
from there, now we have a two ft by three
ft by five ft tall box for mats hanguble clothes,
and three drawers too small or too shallow, you know,
four or five inches tall drawers, and then one that's
like a foot deep. And that's all he gets, basically nothing. Um.
(09:00):
So what we had to do is we had to
find like, okay, these are the good clothes. We don't
want to bring these on the road because they will
get ruined. And there's some clothes that we did and
you know what, they're used so much that you know, um,
we never had to really deal with this in Chicago
because we didn't like do that. But like we have
hats that are literally were this beautiful black color and
(09:21):
now they like have brown spots because they've been out
in the sun so much and we wear them consistently
and constantly. Um. And so there's just different things that
you have to like make sure that you don't bring
your nice, nice clothes, but bring a nice set of
clothes so that way you can go out on a
date together and things like that. So these are things
that we had to think about. It's just all this
(09:41):
minimalizing and and just trying to figure out what are
necessities to be able to live this lifestyle. Yeah. Um,
like you were saying board games, that was another collection.
We probably had over eight board games because you probably
like FT to sixty. Yeah, I mean that's still on
(10:02):
the high end. But we had a good amount of
board games. Probably, No, we had more than that, definitely
more than that. So we'll agree to disagree. But we
ended up bringing five with us, and now we have
like acquired five more somehow. Yeah, they fell up action
of the aret, like very different cupboards. Right above our bed,
(10:23):
we have all of our little uh board games and
you know there's ones like Trekking the National Parks essential. Um,
then there's that train game and I might Ticket to
Rub such a fun game. Those are two very similar,
different but similar. We need to play that game. We do.
I really misplaying problem. It's like a lot of the
board games we have are meant for a minimum of
(10:45):
three people. Well, we can play Ticket to Ride just
the two of us, but you would always get mad
at me. Be it's the more people you play it
with the better, because it's just more fun that way,
but also like kind of softens the blow and I
feel less betrayed by people. You said it, you said
by you go ahead and keep it, So that's the ideal,
(11:09):
And like Ticket to Ride, I would just get too
annoyed with Yeah, no, and you know what I'm When
you have other people, you can actually like turn them
against me, and that's what you do. And if they
want to do that and they're on their welcome to
That's why you'll never play Monopoly with me because I'm
too good at it and I just hate that game terrible.
(11:30):
It tears apart families. Yes, but yeah, so we had
to decide do we bring Monopoly, and somehow we had
four different types of Monopoly people the National Parks regular
Mario Mario, Oh my gosh. Now we just have the
National Parks version, which is that definitely makes it like better,
(11:53):
but we still don't play it because, yeah, I won't
play it like with you. I played it with like
my siblings one and that is true. Yeah, he won't.
And I love that game like I love playing Monopoly,
and you're too devious. Yeah, I even tell you my
strategy and you still don't like, Well, I don't know
get it. I can't do that game, which is the
(12:17):
worst strategy now that I think about it, because I
realized it's gentrification. Um, exactly what you're doing now. Yeah,
I just realized I'm a horrible human being when I
play Monopoly. Yeah, you're just realizing. Uh, you are listening
to park Landia from my heart radio. Hi, I'm Matt
(12:44):
and I'm Brad. This is park Landia. So there's just
a lot of different things that you have to like
really condense. I mean even your potting pans. Like who
would think that you couldn't bring all your pottent pans.
We only have like seven eight of them, but like
literally now we're allowed to have like two. We have
our like frying pan and are pot um and it's
(13:06):
a small pot not a big one. Um. But basically
we had to just find these things, and you know,
there's some things we had to get rid of or
we put them in storage for a kitchen stuff because
we had to get like foldable or stackable or different
things like I can't bring all of my cocktail glasses,
like I have my coupes, my highballs, my rocks classes,
(13:27):
you know, all these different kinds of cocktail glasses, beautiful
vintage ones. I mean, I love I love making cocktails. Um,
that's something you might not know about me. But I
make my own bidders when I have space. And there's
a lot of like creative outlets that I have around
cocktails and making making them. And that's because I got
(13:50):
sick on Cosmos when we were first dating, because we're
watching Real Housewives and drinking Cosmos, and um, I said,
I'll never do that to you again. So I had
to learn how to makes for real. Yeah, Cossa poltins, No,
I can't do those. I like martinis, but Cosa polsans
are too sweet and I had like two of them
and you probably made them doubles now they're probably triples
like that. It was bad, Like I shouldn't have making
(14:13):
cocktails at that point. Ever since then, when I seen
Matt crawled up on the floor and then after something
went very wrong, I was like, okay, that's right. I
remember like waking I don't remember much. I remember like
waking up. Probably crawled up in the people position, like
on the bathroom floor. Yeah, I throw him as a
pillow and I'm I'm just gonna leave him there. Because
(14:33):
I don't want him to I just don't want to
move him better. But I made sure he was okay.
So don't think I'm just I Matri had water and
I gave him telling all and I you know, I
sat there with him for hours. I even fell asleep
on the floor, just making sure he was good. And
then um, then I just I went finally, like went
(14:54):
onto the couch because he was okay. But and it
wasn't as dramatic as this sounds. So anyway, we don't
make hotsmos in the r V. UM. Yeah, so there's
just so much like you know, you have all this space.
The other day, we went into a friend's house, um,
and we I was like, Matt, when is the last
(15:15):
time we've been in a home? And he was like, oh,
that's probably like two months ago, um, at my dad's house.
And I said, what, like, just think of this concept
of not being in a home, any home, your own home,
any home for two months. You're living in ten by
space and so when you go into this home, you're
like it's so gigantic, Like their bathroom was bigger than
(15:38):
our r V. Legit like no joke, And so you
just have to remember, like when you're minimalizing, minimalized to
your bathroom, that's about the size that you get, um
in most cases. But uh, it takes a lot. It's
a mental it's a physical thing, it's an emotional thing
(15:59):
because you have to part ways. Like you know, I
have a lot of like marine corps like memorabilia and things,
and I had to pack all that away and my
dress blues um from the Marines and you know, so
I had to pack all that stuff away. Um, I
have a lot of memories notes um, like about my
martial arts days and all these things that I can't
just go to and get inspiration from or like remember
(16:20):
where I came from, And so a lot of that
just goes away. So you just kind of have to
focus on what is absolutely a necessity versus anything else.
So you have all these memories and you put them
(16:40):
all away. But what did we gain from that? Well,
we've gained a lot. We've made a lot of memories
together because it kind of refocuses everything and we spend
more time together doing stuff, more time talking because there's
less distractions for sure, and less space. Like we're not
not that are loft is huge or anything, but like
(17:03):
you know back then, like I could be in one
room doing something, you could be in the other room
doing something. And it's nice that things have gotten cozier
with less distractions, and we do more stuff together, whether
it's watching and with other people. We meet new people,
We talked to new people. Because we don't have much
within our v we we definitely push ourselves out to
(17:25):
just talk to more people and visit and explore more.
That's good too. Yeah, I feel like we've made a
really broad network of acquaintances and even friends across the country,
which is really nice and comforting, because that was a
big struggle, was just like leaving that social safety neut
of Chicago in a sense, and then in the in
(17:46):
the subsequent like year and a half, like making connections
with people all over the country and being like now
I don't feel so tied to one place. I feel
much more comfortable. There's freedom where I feel like Albuquerque
is my backyard. I feel like um Portland's Maine is
my backyard, or Land at Atlanta. These are all places
(18:09):
that are just amazing. And I remember when we were
in Nashville, we met a couple Cameron and Jeremy from
Atlanta and they became great friends. Uh. This past Thanksgiving,
we actually spent things like friends Giving with them in
Atlanta because we were in Atlanta and we were you know,
we were working and making sure to try to connect
(18:32):
with people, and so we've made these great friendships at travel.
We did not meet him in Atlanta, so it's weird
that we would just be in Atlanta and now we're
friends and we went out multiple times, we met their friends. Um,
and it's just it's really inspiring. The things that you
gain aren't exactly physical items. They are relationships, they're people.
(18:55):
There are relationship with earth, with national parks, with wildlife
and ecology and all these beautiful aspects of what it
really means, what life means. Yeah, and with Finn too,
Like that's a big thing because like in Chicago, Yeah,
we didn't ever take him downtown or anything. We didn't
go sight seeing with Finn. He was all he really
(19:16):
got to do and see was explore the neighborhood and
wander around. There's a park at the end of the block,
which is lovely, but like not much like change. He
would just do the same thing. And when we were
in Portland, Maine, watching him, he was there was just
it was full of wonderment. And yeah, he's seen so
much and we've done so much with him, and his
(19:37):
enthusiasm is very clear. He has a very emotive face.
And you can see how we went on a couple
of hikes with him in a Katie And National Park
in Maine, and not only did he pulled his own
he you know, his tiny little dog with little legs,
was able to walk for miles, but he was scrambling
in like, in and out of little rocks and along
(19:57):
the shore, and I was blown away and it really
inspired me. I'm like, wow, your enthusiasm, it's beautiful. Like
I feel like I'm closer to the meaning of life
than I've ever been. And that's just like seeing people
seeing it through Finn, meeting people, talking with people, doing
something for somebody else. And that's what I fin Field.
(20:18):
Finn has done for us for so long, and now
it's nice to see that for him. But that makes
me me happier than any monetary value out there. Is
just seeing something done for somebody else, or seeing somebody's
energy spike because they're in love with the world in nature. Yes,
it's a wonderful thing and that's been a really rewarding aspect.
For sure, you've been listening to park Landia, a show
(20:44):
about national parks. Parkland is a production of My Heart Radio,
created by Matt Carouac, Brad Carouac and Christopher has theotis
producer and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer is
Christopher has the Otis. Our researcher, It's Jefflyn shield. A
special things goes out to Gabrielle Collins, Chris to Waters
and the rest of the Parklandia crew and Hey listeners,
If you're enjoying the show, leave us a review on
(21:05):
Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like you find our show.
You can keep up with us on social media as well.
Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at
Parklandia pod and join in on the conversation and our
Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcasts My Heart Radio,
visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you
(21:27):
for listening.
Parklandia News
Hosts And Creators
Brad Kirouac
Matt Kirouac
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