Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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 of All Time with her dog Finn,
exploring America's national parks. And today we're airing another episode
of Boon Docking with Brad, we are talking about hooking
up your r V. Um So, I guess this one's
(00:28):
one that Matt definitely won't jump in a lot. I
want him to when he can and when he wants
to talk about it, because there's definitely a point where
he's going to throw something in my face, in particular
about Santa Fe. But okay, so we should actually start
at the basics. What is hooking up your V? What
does that mean? Um? So, that is when you are
(00:50):
going to like a campsite and you are going to
be using their electricity and their water inside of your
r V. So what I'm gonna do is I'm i
tell you how to do that. I'm gonna describe it
to you so that way you can learn and find
the ways to research it. So if you're trying to
get into this lifestyle, basically you are ahead of the
game and you know what to ask next. Right, everything
(01:13):
here is just the beginning because I don't have visuals, UM,
so I want you to just listen and learn how
to do this because these are things you're gonna do
all the time. UM. Hooking up and d uh disconnecting
your RV happens almost daily sometimes. UM, it's definitely a
weekly thing, if not a monthly thing. So when you
(01:34):
first arrived to in r V park, you're gonna get
a map of the campground when you check in, and
then that r V park will most likely have a
guide that will take you to your RV spot, and
so you're gonna pull into your r V spot. Now
sometimes they're back ins, and then there's also pulled through sites. UM.
So those are the two main sites. So back in
(01:55):
is one that you back into. UM. And when you
do that, you're gonna want to disconnect any V vehicles
you have or any trailers because most of the time
those are for like a smaller site, so you would
park your vehicle or your trailer in front of you
or on the side of the road. And so disconnecting
a car or a trailer, it's about your ball hitch
(02:15):
and it's how your hitch set up works. UM. The
nice thing about the trailer that we were pulling around
with us the lat past year, it had an electrical jack,
so basically you didn't have to crank it up and
crank it down with a chalk block. You pushed a button,
you held it down, and it like raised the trailer
off of your hits for you. It was really really
(02:36):
nice to have in those situations. But because it was
a trailer, we always had to call the r V
pack ahead of time to ask them about like where
do we parked this? Can we park this year? Some
do allow it, some don't, Uh, can we use a
parking spaces are a special storage area. There's a lot
of different questions that you have to get into even
before you arrive, to make sure that they can accommodate
(02:58):
you and your setup. This was really annoying for us
u UM, but luckily most places had somewhere there's only
one or two. But luckily we actually had friends nearby
so we could go drop it off at their place
and then we have to call them and ask them
where they want it and that kind of thing. But
so these are definitely technical details. Of when you're on
(03:18):
the road of what you have to deal with. So
once you get the car or trailer disconnected, Um, you're
going to back in in this situation, so you're gonna
want to make sure your level when you're backing in,
So you're gonna find the You're gonna do a walk
around of your vehicle and of the site beforehand because
sometimes they're gonna have different dips in the grounds or
(03:38):
things like that. So you'll have your own chalk blocks.
And those chalk blocks are whether going to help you
level out, so as you're backing in, your kind of
putting these chalk blocks below to help level out your
RV because when you have a crooked RV, it kind
of feels like like you have vertigo, um, and you
just get dizzy or you're like whoa, Like, are you
missed step a lot? Because you're thinking you're on flat
(04:00):
surface but you're not. So these chalk blocks come in
handy definitely. UM. And then once you're on those chalk
blocks and your level, you're gonna want to put in
your emergency break right UM. And that's a really quick
way of putting that together. But there's this is a
very important step. There's times where it's taken me five
minutes because I'm on flat ground, and then there's times
(04:23):
where it taking me half an hour to get it right,
um I, and that's because I didn't have the right
chalk blox at that point in time. UM. So I
had these ones that you basically there are four by
four in square almost and you basically stacked them on
top of each other like a pyramid. So there was
like four pig holes almost like a lego. And so
(04:44):
I had two of those and then I put one
in the center of that, so that way it created
a ramp, like you put three legos together, one two
and then one in the middle that connects them both right,
and so that's how you start to get a level,
but you have to like moving forward or backwards to
ending on where you're at. But then there's some r
vs that have auto levelers for you, so you literally
(05:05):
push that button, it levels itself and you're golden. So
it all depends on your specific r V site and
are set up that you that you get um and
these are all great things to look for when you're
buying an r V. Right, Uh, we would love that
it would be a beautiful thing to have, and then
you have to get different jackpads and things like that.
A jack pad is the thing that goes on the ground.
(05:28):
UM that will basically the auto level goes into and
it's subway. It doesn't poke a hole through the ground,
and then it doesn't level itself. UM. So once you
get your vehicle all level, and the first thing you're
gonna do in most situations is plug in your electrical cords. UM.
So if you have a trailer like ours where the
(05:50):
it's permanently put in hooked up into your RV, basically
you're gonna pull out this long thirty am extension cord
that will go and plug into electrical outlet box UM.
And some r vs they're not like permanently attached, so
basically they'll be in like one of your storage areas
(06:10):
and then you're gonna come out and plug it into
your r V and then into that. So there's us
like two different types of setups there. But when you
get over to that electrical outlet box, you're gonna want
to make sure that the electricity breakers, the circuit breakers
are turned off. Uh. And that's just because you don't
want to create a surge with into your r V,
(06:31):
UM because your a C is still on on accident
or something like that. UM, because all these things can
create these surges which then can ruin your r V
and then you have to go get warranty work done
and you have to pay more money to do it.
So it's always better to be safe than sorry, and
that's why we use a surge protector as well. And
so we plug in our surge vector into the thirty
(06:52):
amp outlet for us. We then plug the search protector
into our extension cord that came out of our r V,
and then we turn that circuit break on to feed
power into our r V. There's a lot of electrical
equipment within your r V, and protecting it is probably
the most important asset UM to r V living. UM.
(07:17):
We've had an issue with our generator breaking, but that's
more for boondocking, so I'll get into generators on another episode.
But UM, you're gonna want to go back in. You're
gonna check that your fridge is working because it will
be auto gas and off so when you're driving, it
actually works off of your stored energy. In your UM
(07:39):
house battery, there's two batteries in an RV normally sometimes more.
But basically, to break it down simply, you have your
engine battery for your chassis, for your normal vehicle, and
then you have your house battery, which is in the
back right, and so those two will charge off each
other and connect to each other, but then there's different
(08:00):
breakers in between them again to help with those electrical
surges and such. So when you're driving down the road, um,
your fridge is on gas, but it actually runs off
that house battery as well. They work together to make
sure that your food stays cold while driving. Um, So
when you have that on auto, you just want to
make sure it's a solid green light once you plugged
(08:20):
in that thirty MP outlet. Uh. The other thing you're
gonna do is you're gonna go over to your A
C or your heat panel to make sure that that's working,
and then you'll turn on your lights and live life
with electricity. Right, So, I bet you didn't know there's
all that involved in and we're only on electricity. The
(08:41):
next easy part is water. Right. It's like hooking up
a hose too from your car to uh a spray nozzle.
Like it's just that easy, except you want to make
sure you have regulators on there. There's a water pressure
regulator you can get almost anywhere Walmart's, Amazon, anything, UM
five to ten bucks cheap. But if you don't have
(09:04):
one of those, some water parks water levels are so
high with pressure that it could actually blow out pipes
within your RV. So you get this little five to
ten dollar thing and you put that on the spicket outside.
Then you plug your hose in your water hose. You
don't want to use your dump pose or your your
(09:25):
dump cleaning hose because they're gonna be two separate ones.
So you have that water hose basically, and then what
we do is we have a water water filteration system UM.
So that way it filters the water that's going into
our r V so we can drink with it, cooke
with it. Because we don't know where this water has
been and how it's been used in these different local municipalities,
(09:47):
so as you're traveling, you don't have a normal resource
for water that like you know where it's from. So
that's what we do to make sure that we filter
that water. UM. Plug into your r V, turn on
the spicket outside, and wallah, you got water inside of
your RV. These are the easiest parts of hooking up.
(10:08):
The next one is the dirty nasty dump pose my favorite.
Absolutely you are listening to park Landia from my heart radio. Hi,
I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This park Landia. The next
(10:30):
one is the dirty nasty dump pose. UM. So hooking
it up is actually really easy. Um. You Basically what
you're doing is you're taking that dump pose UM. It's
normally in a fifteen ft accordion UM there I would
say the circumference is like three inches or four inches around,
(10:52):
So it's a big hose because that's what's gonna take
your U wast from your r V or your dirty
waters from your r V into the ground from the outside.
You're gonna have a panel that flips up. UM. So
basically this is where you're going to take and put
um your dumpos on the RVs waste fitting UM and
(11:13):
that basically extends it to where you can then take
it to the dump station's inlet. And that inlet is
going to be normally in the ground, and that's where
you hook up the other side of your dump pose
and make sure that it's tightly secured because you don't
want any of this stuff coming out. That's for sure.
Where I made my biggest mistake in Santa Fe, New
(11:35):
Mexico was before I put my dump pose on. I
basically didn't check to see if my black tank um
safety valve was closed, and so when I took off
the cap to my r vs UM fitting, the waiste fitting,
(11:58):
I took off that cap and all the black tank
shot out at me everywhere. It was a disaster. It
was the nastiest thing that happened in my life. And
I was screaming, and you're fighting against all this poo
filled water, yes, feces filled water, and it's spraying on
you and you're trying to like freak out. You're like,
(12:18):
oh my god, what did I do? What I do?
And you're trying to put the cap back on, and
then you don't realize that, like, it's not the cap
you need to turn. You need to put that safety
black tank safety lever back in so that way it
just stops flowing for a second so you can breathe
and vomit because it's so gross. It was like, it
was a horrible experience. I'm still have PTSD over this,
(12:39):
and I just remember stripping down I definitely threw up.
I hope to make it that much worse. UM. And
I remember going to Matt. I said, I need you
to give me the shampoo, and he wasn't moving fast enough.
I said, I need you to give me the shampoo.
I said, if you don't give it to me now,
(12:59):
I'm going to freak out. And he's like, now Matt's
freaking out. He's like, what happened? I said, the dump
tink went all over me, and like he just got
real quiet, really nice, and he just smiled as he
passed that over because he's just like this is this
is it? Like I can't take this, Like that's why
I don't do this case. Uh So, Nile's say, we're
(13:22):
supposed to check out at ten, and I didn't check
out to eleven because I was in that shower for
an hour. UM. I went through about half of that
bottle of shampoo because I just I wanted to have
every gross feeling off of me. UM. I brushed my teeth,
threw away my toothbrush afterwards. You know, anything I used
I basically threw away, including the towel and the clothes
(13:42):
I was wearing. Um, even though they were like my
favorite pair of jeans. I didn't care. I'm not dealing
with that. Um. But so I get back up and I,
you know, I hook up the dump tank and get
it all taken care of. And the problem is, I
don't want you to ever have to go through what
(14:03):
I went through. It was a traumatic experience, horrific experience.
And you just you're gonna be a lot happier knowing
that you don't have to go through that, like I didn't. UM.
So that's all get dumped, the tanks, I disconnected the hose,
I washed it out. But anyways, this is about hooking
(14:24):
up that, not actually disconnecting it. So well look over
that in a tiny bit longer, because there's a couple
more things that you're definitely gonna want to do. UM.
And this is also why you wear gloves when you're
in this situation, when you're hooking up your dump tink um,
and then you're gonna want to always keep those closed
even though you have the hose connected. UM, when you're
(14:47):
dumping it, you want to open up those. You dump
your waists, and then you close those emergency safety lovers again,
even if you're there for a week, because you're gonna
want to dump your tanks about like every couple of days,
But you don't want to keep those traps open because
you know then you'll have different like flies and possibility
of animals or rodents getting into your r V. So
(15:09):
you want to keep these things closed at all times.
Even if you just like leave your dump posts hooked
up like I do, you don't want to leave it open.
So basically you will be collecting waste within your r
V and then dumping it every couple of days. UM,
and that's just to make sure you don't have rodents
inside of your r V. UM. We never really had
any issues with this, but I've been told about the
(15:31):
different kinds of flies that can grow UM there spawn
like satan and coming to you r V. So we
just be safe and we learn from other people's mistakes
in that aspect, because I've rather learned enough around the
dump type that I don't need to learn anymore. Another
(15:55):
thing you're gonna want to do is you're gonna want
to just make sure that your pro paint tanks are
on and that your supply is full when you're hooking up,
just so that way you can cook. You know, you
can UM you can bake in your oven, you can
cook eggs on your stovetop, whatever you want. You just
want to make sure that you have that. UM. But
now once you've done that, you've learned your lessons and
never mess with the dump tanks. You've hooked up your
(16:17):
water and your electricity, you're ready to throw out that
awning fire, up that barbecue, and put out that outdoor
equipment because it's time to have a good time camping. UM.
Really easy and a super super fun time. UM, as
long as you don't make mistakes. So basically you're gonna
(16:40):
reverse that now, UM. To get out of there, You're
going to you know, I always leave the water electricity
until the end because basically your MAT's always gonna be
in there, maybe like making a cup of coffee in
the morning or making his oatmeal or something like that,
so I'll need some of those things. UM. And so
basically the uh because we take off pretty early in
(17:02):
the mornings, you know, we try to get out of
places by eight or nine am, even though you have
till eleven. UM. So when you go around the RV,
you're gonna take away your dump pose first. So you're
gonna dump your waists. You're gonna do your black tank first.
You always do your black tink first because that's gonna
be your feces and like bad bad stuff. Um. And
(17:23):
then you do your gray tank second. And that's because
that's just your like gray water. That's why it's called gray.
And that's because it's just the water that was from
your shower or from washing dishes, things that are not
as you know, nasty. Um. But basically you're gonna dump
those second. Once it's all done, you're gonna close your
emergency valves, put your cap back over your r vs
(17:46):
who are inlet, and you're gonna take your accordion uh
dump hose and you're gonna wash it out. And this
is where it requires a second hose. You don't want
to use your normal water hose because you don't want
that to actually touch and then all and you have
like nasty water, So you use a special hose to
clean that out, rinse that out, uh cord in it.
(18:07):
You put your caps on, you make sure it's nice
and dried out and like rinsed out, and then you
put that away. Um, really easy. Next thing I do
is I'll take the water. I'll check with Matt to
make sure that he's all good, he got his water
that he needs, and then UM, i will take that
water hose assembly apart and just you know, round it
(18:28):
up and I'll put it in my UH wet storage
container on the outside of the r V, which is
one of the storage units that like it's better for
wet wet stuff. Then I'll take our electrical cord and
I'll wind it back up into our r VS UM
side UM organizer holder place and basically that will go away.
(18:51):
I'll make sure that all of my awnings are in,
that our slideouts are in. I'll do a three sixty
surveillance of the area to make sure that there's nothing
else hooked up or that our scooters UM still hooked
up and not like UM laying on the side or
anything like that, because we tow around our scooter UM
to get around to different areas in different neighborhoods that
(19:12):
we travel to. And so basically I'll do a three
sixty check. I'll check my tires, UM, I will make
sure that everything is working and we're ready to hit
the road safely. UM. So once that's all done, I'll
jump in, I'll pull forward a little bit and you
know what you have to do again. After you pull
forward about five to ten ft, you stop it and
(19:34):
you go do another three sixty because a lot of
times you'll have chalk blocks and you don't want to
leave back your chalk box because those can range anywhere
between forty dollars to like a hundred and eighty because
some of these chalk blocks are like eighty bucks of
chalk for like these specialized ones. Luckily we don't have those,
but you don't want to leave anything behind. Uh. And
(19:57):
then you basically get in your r V and go
on your marry way until you have to do it
again the next day if you're living on the road
full time, or if you're going home, then to go
home again. So there's a lot of fun things about
(20:19):
r V living and hooking up your r V can
be a fun thing and a bad thing. Most of
the time, it's just a lot of work. It only
takes fifteen to twenty minutes, and it's it's not really
that difficult. But you'll find your system. You'll find two
places where it's you store things, and you'll make it.
You'll make it work for you. Um I make sure
(20:41):
that Matt never has to deal with this, but this
actually reminds me. Um, you have to remind me to
pick up some more gloves because I just ran out
when we hooked up this time. Okay, all right, yeah,
well you you've been listening to park Landia, a show
about National Park. Parklandia is the production of My Heart Radio,
(21:02):
created by Matt Carouac, Brad Carouac and Christopher has the
otis producer and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer
is Christopher Hasiotis our researcher, It's Jescelyn Shields. A special
things goes out to Gabrielle Collin's Crystal Waters and the
rest of the Parklandia crew and hey listeners, if you're
enjoying the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
It helps other people like you find our show. You
(21:24):
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