Best Tips for First Time Boondockers from the Alliance RV National Rally!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever thought about getting into boondocking,
taking your RV and goingoff-grid for an extended period
of time?
Or maybe just rolling through acracker barrel and kind of know
how to use your powermanagement systems, how to
control your water usage as wellas your sewer dumping and all
those different things?
Maybe you're just struggling tofind the right spot to boondock
All of that information.

(00:21):
Coming up next, on the RVShenanigans podcast.
Welcome back to the RVShenanigans podcast.
My name is Ryan and along withmy wife Lauren, we make up
Millers in Motion.
We have been traveling in ourRV and other ways now for about

(00:47):
two and a half years well, I'vebeen traveling longer than that,
but on a more full-time basisand recording it all to be
played on the millers in motionyoutube channel.
You are watching this on the rvshenanigans podcast channel, as
well as the audio platforms,whichever one you prefer apple's
podcast, apple podcast, spotify, google, all those fun things.
We're pretty much everywhere.
Platforms, whichever one youprefer Apple Podcast, spotify,
google, all those fun things.
We're pretty much everywhereand we hope you're enjoying it.

(01:10):
We do have a big favor.
We have decided to remove thepodcast from our main Miller's
in Motion channel, so if you arewatching this and you're a fan
of that, please make sure tocheck out the RV Shenanigans
Podcast YouTube channel.
That's where you're going tofind it and if you could do us a
favor, we are trying to getthis out in front of as many
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(01:31):
it with some friends that kindof thing.
If you're listening to thepodcast, please do us a huge
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Give us a rating and a review.
Just a couple of little nicewords down there would be
amazing.
Five stars would be great too,depending on what podcast
platform the most of.
Whatever the thing is, I'mpretty sure it's five and stars
on all of them, but just in caseit's not, that would be amazing

(01:52):
because that is pretty much theonly way we get this pushed out
to anybody.
We greatly appreciate that,because it's crazy to think that
this is my job, but I really doappreciate it.
There's a lot more work thatgoes into it than most people
realize, and I wouldn't trade itfor the absolute world because
I love it, mainly because we getto meet people like you
listening or watching on theother end of this.

(02:12):
So boondocking.
Recently we just got done withthe 2024 Alliance RV National
Rally and we got to host andemcee however, you want to say
that a boondocking panel withsome friends and there's a lot
of really good information.
So if you're looking toconsidering to get into
boondocking, you know, findingthe knowledge base of what apps

(02:36):
do you use?
How do you determine whether toyou know to get you where you
need to go?
How do you find some of theseboondocking places?
How do you manage your power?
You know, do you have a solarsystem?
Do you not have a solar system?
We do.
If you haven't seen anyprevious podcasts, we just put a
very big one on our 2024alliance valor.
So we do have a pretty robustsolar system.

(02:56):
But you don't have to to go dothe things that we're talking
about doing, especially ifyou're doing it right and you're
chasing good weather um, how todeal with your sewer water, all
that stuff.
We're actually going to kind ofwell backtrack to me emceeing
that event.
So, without further ado, here isme, from like two and a half
weeks ago with the boondockingpanel.
Enjoy, welcome guys.

(03:22):
This is the boondocking paneland before we get started, I
just want to make sure weintroduce everybody.
If you were here from thesocial media panel.
I'm still here.
My name is Ryan Miller, I'm oneof the Alliance Brand
Ambassadors and we've beenboondocking ever since Todd
tortured me in a field in Texasfor RV Unplugged Season 1.
And I don't care what orderwhatever, introduce yourselves.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Good morning everybody, and I don't care what
order whatever, introduceyourselves.
Good morning everybody.
I'm Mark page.
My lovely bride and I have a370 and we boondock over a
hundred nights a year, sometimeseven more than that, and we
don't rough it.
We've got a big solar lithiumsystem, but we're what.
You can't hear me, can you hearme now?

(04:10):
What?
Wow, now I sound reallyimportant.
But I'll let them tell theirown story.
But we are three Oea's foralliance and we help answer some
social media.
So hi, I work with alliance andI'm here to help you I'm

(04:32):
charles tyer can you read thatupside down?

Speaker 1 (04:37):
can you read it?

Speaker 4 (04:37):
upside down.
Um, good morning.
Um, I'm charles tyer, my wife'sLeslie Tyre.
We have a Valor 40 V13, and weabsolutely love boondocking.
I'd rather boondock campingthan any other way, probably
even better than mooch docking,but that'd be second, but

(05:02):
boondocking's awesome.
So I look forward to throughoutthis next hour we'll get into
some details and answer somequestions for you.

Speaker 8 (05:13):
Good morning.
I'm Steve Jankovicius.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's a radio voice right there.

Speaker 8 (05:19):
Sorry about that.
My wife Chris is here.
We have a 310.
My wife Chris is here, we havea 310.
And, like Charles and Mark said, we really enjoy boondocking.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
It puts us in some places that are just absolutely
gorgeous and away from everybodyelse, which is nice sometimes.
And I didn't say we're in a44V14, so no small rigs really
here.
A whole lot is there.
Of course, it's Alliance, so Iknow that you guys.
I'd like to kind of start bytalking about kind of what, the
one thing that made you reallywant to get into boondocking
initially.
What was that?

Speaker 3 (05:58):
About eight years yeah, about eight years ago,
maybe a little more than thatnow I came in and that was way
before Alliance, of course, butI came in and told Angie I said,
hey, I've been reading aboutthis thing called boondocking
and I want to do it.
She said, oh, what's that?
And I said it's where you goand you camp in a place with no

(06:18):
hookups, out in the wildernesswithout any connection
whatsoever, and she said, yeah,we're not doing that.
So I whined and cried and, likethe spoiled little boy I am in
many ways, I got my way.
And so our first boondockingtrip we were probably on our
second day and she said I likethis.

(06:41):
And again, not roughing it.
The tent days are long gone.
We never looked back from thatpoint.
As the solar system has gottenbigger, the boondocking has
gotten less difficult.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
We first just started camping and hanging out with
friends who were boondocking andwe learned from them and it was
just amazing to be able to goand camp out in the wild.
Literally.
You don't have RVs all next toyou, you don't have the lights

(07:23):
from the street lights and thenight lights and the trains and
the ambulances, and it's sopeaceful, it's so beautiful.
The night sky when you're outin the middle of nowhere is
brighter than you've ever seenbefore.
But we didn't set out to saywe're going to buy an RV and
boondock.
We bought the RV and juststarted traveling.

(07:45):
And we ended up traveling withpeople who do boondock and now
I'm like a boondocking junkie,it's like I would rather go do
that than anything else.
And so we retired and startedtraveling in an RV and, probably
like many people, we were likeokay, we're going to find a

(08:08):
little piece of land on the EastCoast and a little piece of
land on the West Coast, you know, here and there, and we'll have
places to take our RV that weown, and we won't have to be in
an RV park.
Well, guess what Lightbulbmoment when we started
boondocking?
We already have that land, it'sour land, it's public land that

(08:29):
you can take your RV anytimeand go stay on it.
You don't even it's alreadythere, so that makes it so
exciting for me.
So we gave up the search forall the land because we just go
to whether it's all the names ofthe different areas where you
can go boondock.

Speaker 8 (08:49):
But it just makes it very enjoyable when we bought
our camper we didn't reallythink about boondocking.
And then we figured out, heardabout harvest hosts and said,
okay, we'll, we'll do that.
You know it's only one night orwhatever.
Um, so we weren't thinkingnecessarily the big boondocking

(09:12):
that everybody thinks about.
There's many ways to boondock.
I mean whether it's a harvesthost method, or you're on public
land or you're in, you knowyour brother's pasture or
whatever, or you know you're adriveway, somebody's driveway
You're still boondocking, orcould be, if you can't plug in.

(09:32):
Then we ran into these guys andlike, okay, we need a little bit
more, we need to do more,started out with a small system
and figured out it needed to bea little bit bigger.
Chris didn't like the fact thatwe didn't have much battery
when we woke up in the morning.
So she says you need morebatteries and I went, yeah,
great.
So and it evolves, you know howmuch you want to do.

(09:54):
We weren't quite sure how to doit, but we you know hanging out
with other people and askingquestions we kind of figured it
out.
By no means are we experts atit yet, but we do pretty good.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
I was going to say, I think one of the biggest things
too and I'm going to move overhere just so that I can see a
little better what's y'all'sdefinition of boondocking.
I think that's a great kind ofplace to start, now that people
have a little insight to whatyou guys do and hide a little
bit.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
So great question, because you could describe
boondocking in many ways, but ina nutshell it's being able to
camp without plugging your rigin to any kind of power.
I don't want to say that Any tothe grid, to electric, you know
you could plug your rig in toyour generator.

(10:42):
That's boondocking.
Finding ways to plug your riginto your generator, that's
boondocking.
Finding ways to power your rigand camp without plugging into a
pedestal, like Steve was saying, that may be one night in a
Walmart parking lot or that maybe 90 days across the Midwest.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Anybody else got another.
We're just going with Charles'answer.
So we do want to answer as manyquestions as we possibly can.
So if you formulate them, I didtake the mic away from out
there so we could have one.
So if you have a question, justkind of get my attention, raise
your hand, I'll come over toyou.
But what's one thing you guyswish you'd know before you
started boondocking, that youknow now, like if there's a

(11:28):
first-timer out there that'sthinking about diving into this
lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Do it.
I mean seriously.
It's a little unnerving.
I guess everybody knows Charlesand I do solar installs and so
we have had so many differentlevels of install.
We know of people, we know offriends that they boondock yes,

(11:58):
sir.
Oh, dave, boondock.
Yeah, finish your thought.
No, go ahead.
I was like you can say itbetter than I can.
Mr Caldwell here is aboondocking champion too.
He's got some amazing spots uphis repertoire.
But just do it.
I mean you do have tounderstand your limitations.
We strongly encourage, you know, if you say, well, I've got a

(12:21):
good camper and I've got onereally good, one lead acid
battery and I'm going to bonedock, it's probably not enough.
Now, if you temper yourexpectations and you understand
that that one battery is notgoing to completely power your
coach, you have to save enoughto get your jacks up in the

(12:42):
morning and your slides back in.
So it's that level.
But but again, seriously, do it, try it.

Speaker 8 (12:50):
I mean I think the one thing to do for first timers
or new newbies, like ryan said,is do it while you're plugged
in.
You know, sitting in rv park,unplug the thing, fill up your
water tank and live off of yourrig.
Don't hook up to anything whileyou're sitting on the pad.
You've got a great backup plan.
If you wake up in the morningand batteries are dead, or you

(13:13):
know tanks are full or whatever,start over.
You know, plug in, dump yourtanks, fill your water tank and
start over and learn how toration your water, how to
control your power usage,whether it's one lead acid
battery which is fine I mean,people have done it for forever
on one battery or you do it in atent that you know didn't have

(13:34):
anything.
So practice it when you can andhave that safety net of being
able to plug back in.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Have y'all ever been to a place where you got there
and you thought, uh-oh, weshouldn't be here because of
turn radius of your trailer, orsomething like that.
Yes, you have, mr Caldwell.

Speaker 9 (13:58):
Are you talking about the guy that we thought maybe
he had bodies in the barrels inthe back?

Speaker 3 (14:03):
No, I'm talking about the place in Nebraska and then
up in the Tetons where you and Iwent up someplace where we
shouldn't have been.
Well, as I went through thegate I read the sign that said
no big rigs.
Well, I only have a 310.
That's only 35 foot long,that's not a big rig.
So Jim and I went up and I saidI'm going to go.

(14:26):
He said, if you're going to go,I'm going to go.
And we rounded the first cornerand I said into the microphone.
I said oh, and we got up and itgot scary really fast.
Um, we, we had to back in.
And that's when I discoveredthat I had to perform the rear
wall fix on my coach, as therear wall almost fell off.
But anyways, yeah, it was.

(14:49):
That's probably the biggestthing and we know it from we
travel with a group.
Drop your rig somewhere safeand take your truck.
And the second part of thatquestion is how do you
circumvent that?
And the second part of thatquestion is how do you
circumvent that?
That right there and we have,it's a whole lot easier to turn

(15:10):
around that dually, or even insome areas, your e-bike, if
you've got one.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I was going to say, lauren and I started doing that
when we do go further off-gridis we'll drop one of the e-bikes
and typically I'll go, becauseI have a better understanding of
what the rig can and can't door should or shouldn't do more
or less.
And so we'll.
I'll go out ahead and see,because sometimes it's potholes
in a dirt road, sometimes it's aturn radius, sometimes what
they call them Arizonapinstripes.

(15:35):
I'd rather not scratch up theside of my coach trying to
squeeze in so so I'm Cash Foley.

Speaker 5 (15:45):
I was blessed by spending the first 90, maybe two
months with an experiencedboondock buddy.
I think that was a huge benefit.
We traveled around, he helpedme learn how to pick sites, how
to do the thing, and at the endof that time we kept going and
we had 200 days unplugged thefirst year.

(16:07):
But it's hard to get thatconfidence.
They say it takes about twomonths of it before you quit
being paranoid.
So find a good boondockingbuddy, hopefully that has more
experience than you, or justhave someone with you.
That's a backup.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
So I'm just going to ask this question because it's a
good opportunity to kind oftalk about it.
But when, if you let's say youdon't have that boondocking
buddy, or maybe you do, or maybe, like us it was Howard and
Caitlin Newstate who are in atiny little Class C and we're in
a 64-foot fifth wheel what doyou guys use to kind of find
some of those sites where youcan fit, because we all have
slightly larger rigs than somepeople, but now you've got to go

(16:53):
sit up there.

Speaker 9 (16:55):
Angie Page, and we learned this from Jim and Debbie
Caldwell.
They taught us to visit theranger stations or the forest
stations and then flat out askthem, where would you camp with
your family?

Speaker 4 (17:11):
and going off of recommendations yeah, so I use,
uh, google earth a lot, so I'llfirst.
There's two parts to thequestion.
One is how do you even where doyou go to find a boondocking
spot Like?
There's apps and websites.
The main one's calledCampendium, there's also

(17:33):
freecampsitesnet, there's someothers and there's Facebook
groups and there's word of mouth.
There are plenty of people atthis rally that have
spreadsheets that are multiplepages long of GPS coordinates
for boondocking locations acrossthis country.
They'll share their experiencewith you if you get to sit down

(17:56):
with them and get to know them.
But back to your first question.
Once you know you're going to aspot, what's another way of
viewing the spot to make sureyou will fit there?
And I do go into Google Earth alot and look at images there to
see what's around.

Speaker 8 (18:20):
Yeah, pretty much the same thing.
Google Earth, even the Googlecamera guy that drives down the
roads, street View, read reviews, look up the state natural

(18:41):
resource board, like Texas Parksand or or whatever it is, and
try to find what they say orplaces you can go and then hunt
it down as much as you can findany reviews for that area.
Sometimes you get lucky andjust kind of fall into one it's
what I was gonna say.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
I think a lot of us too.
We're talking about going alittle further out in the middle
of nowhere for some of thesethings, and sometimes it's as
easy as just pulling off theside of the road in Alaska and
you're not really searching foranything in that front, but
paying attention to what youthink you can and can't do, like
we were talking about thee-bike, like just understanding
your rig and don't necessarilylike take reviews and make sure
you read through it, but like ifyou've got a standard Dexter

(19:21):
axle on your suspension andyou're gonna to some of those
heaves in Alaska, when you pulloff of them they can drop you
know, feet in some case, andthat's if your rig hasn't
shifted on about a 40 degreeangle.
You haven't lived quite yet,especially if you live in it.
Um, so, understanding what yourrig can and can't do in some of
those scenarios and notnecessarily, I mean trust other
people, but take it with a grainof salt too.

(19:41):
And if you don't feelcomfortable, then just don't do
it, because at the end of theday, if you're nervous it's
probably not going to go realwell in that process.

Speaker 8 (19:48):
Yeah, and the other is, you know, the reviews are
great and Street View orwhatever, but conditions change.
You know, a big rainstorm willcome through and wash out a road
.
We did one last year that was,you know, a gravel road.
We're pulling up the hill and Idon't think I think charles was
in the lead or whatever and hegoes watch out for the ditch

(20:08):
because there was a big old youknow washout, or through the
middle of the road that we gotthrough it but it wasn't you
know.
It was kind of like okay, how'syou know, everything started
tipping and twisting and ifyou're following a 40 v13.
Going around some twisty roadsyou get to see lots of tail
swing I feel like I'm in asports car compared to him.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
I would just add, especially for first-time
boondockers or people who arejust starting if you take your
rigs off the beaten path and gowhere, it's just beautiful to
wake up.
We woke up morning aftermorning and the Grand Teton

(20:48):
Mountains are right there andit's free.
But when you go to these places, your rig's going to get
scratched, you're going to runinto a pothole and bend
something.
This is not a you've got to becomfortable with.

(21:08):
That is where I'm going.
If you're going to go out andtruly truly boondock like we're
doing, just expect that you'regoing to have some not damage,
but I guess it is damage right.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
A higher percentage of it.
Like, the likelihood of damageis just higher because you're
pushing your rig to a furtherlimit than, say, driving down
well I'd say a road in America.
But let's be honest, they'regetting bad enough that it's
getting similar.
At this point Just out ofcuriosity, because I should have
done this at the beginning howmany people have never
boondocked before in this room?
Yeah, okay, so spotty.
How many people have dabbedtheir foot in it and they're

(21:43):
looking to expand?
And how many are like theseguys and are hardcore?
Okay, so decent little mix.
I'm just curious because it'sone of those interesting things
because there's always differentlevels of it.
Like, you guys go prettyextreme and we're those people
that we like to travel kind ofhard because we're special, and
so a 10-hour drive day for us isnothing, and having a nice

(22:08):
solar system and a little bit ofwater on board and being able
to just slide in somewhere andeverything work normal is a big
deal for us because we canfunction a little better and get
some decent sleep.
And so even for us, like, socrack, cracker, docking right at
a cracker barrel, you can stayovernight for free.
Please buy something.
So they keep letting us do it.
I know exactly how many parallelsites I need to maneuver and
how many I need to park, andthat's a crazy thing you didn't
think you needed to know.
But I need 12 spots to maneuverand 10 to park In the right

(22:32):
scenario if there's a truck orsomething in my way more.
And so learning some of thosethings.
And then the Google Earth slashmaps trick does everybody know
how to use the measure functionin that?
That's one of those things andif you're not new to it, it's
crazy Like I use it for sitestoo, just because we're so big.
I'm sure you guys have whereit's like it's a 40-foot site.
Well, my rig's 46 feet long.
How can I overhang?

(22:53):
And then the dirt is anotherwebsite that actually is
starting to do a lot ofcampground views, kind of like
the Google Street View, butyou'll actually be able to see
in so you can see if there'ssomething, an incline that you
might not be able to seevertically, or branches and
stuff, and hopefully it's stillnot there by the time you get
there.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Charles talked about scratches.
So last summer in our brand new370, two and a half week old,
maybe three weeks old it wasprobably pretty old by this time
, weeks old, it was probablypretty old by this time With
full body paint and independentsuspension, I looked at the pine

(23:30):
tree limb that was hanging overthe side of the road and I
thought, as I was pulling in, Ithought, well, that's just pine
needles, that's not a problem.
What I didn't see was thefour-inch limb in the middle of
the pine needles and I put itthrough my window in one of my
slide outs.
You can fix things, so don'tlet that stop you, but be.
Yeah, I said shoot a couple oftimes.

(23:54):
I'm going to point out.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
In addition to being able to fix things, you can also
avoid things Well.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
I pulled in, put the limb through the window, didn't
know it.
Angie and all my friends didknow it, but they knew what my
reaction was going to be so theydidn't tell me until we went to
the next spot and Angie says weneed to talk.
And I went back and then Imelted down but I found out you
can change one of those littleside windows in the 370 vanity.

(24:22):
Slide in.
What did we do, jim?
30 minutes, maybe 15?

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Nobody filmed this.
Yeah, oh so there's a blackmailfootage out there somewhere is
what I just heard R-rated.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
But anyways, you are going to the more adventure that
you have.
You are going to.
Charlie was 100% right, you aregoing to get some little nicks
and scratches, but man, theadventure.
We could talk the rest of theday about the amazing things
that we've seen.
I would love to spend an houron Island Park, idaho.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
One other point if you want to get really, really
good at leveling your coach, ifyou want to know all really good
at leveling your coach, if youwant to know all about that
crazy leveling system, goboondocking for the whole summer
.
There's not a level spotanywhere when you boondock.
If you think it is, it's stillnot.
But you will learn how to themanual mode.

(25:18):
You'll learn auto, what helps,what doesn't, how to get it
level before you even unhook,because it's such a challenge
when you're camping in a fieldsomewhere.

Speaker 10 (25:32):
Susan Eshelman and I just wanted to share that.
My particular strategy is topick an area that has three or
four boondocking areas and makereservations at an RV park for
two nights, drop the trailer andgo scout.
I'm really afraid of scoutingwith the trailer, but there's

(26:00):
great sites and great roads thathappen to be one vehicle wide
and you go wait a second.
I would have to back up for twomiles if somebody was going the
opposite direction.
We cross those off the list.
So you know, everybody's gottheir own set of things that

(26:21):
they're comfortable with or notcomfortable with, but but doing
the scouting thing, you knowjust, it's better off without
your trailer.

Speaker 5 (26:31):
We found the most wonderful places that were 20
miles away from that town.
We would never have just droveout there with our RV, but
amazing.

Speaker 8 (26:40):
Yeah, I think Susan made a good point as to you know
it's okay to go to an RV parkand go scout, or when we're
looking, I try to have a backupplan.
You know in my pocket that.
Hey, if we don't find somethingor if it's all full or we can't
get there.
There's an RV park over hereand we'll just stay the night

(27:01):
there.
And the other is you knowweather changes over here and
we'll just stay the night there.
And the other is you knowweather changes.
You know we wanted to gosomewhere last year and we
looked at the weather and it wasgoing to be 90 something
degrees during the day and notcool at night.
Well, the dogs won't surviveduring the day.
We're not going to sleep atnight if it's still 80 degrees
in the rig and not running airconditioners or anything.

(27:22):
So we said to heck with, we'lljust go plug in somewhere for a
couple days.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
I was going to say.
The hard part about doing anhour-long panel about
boondocking is we really needabout seven hours?
Because I'm already like we'vetalked about just finding a spot
and I want to get into power, Iwant to get into water.
We're going to get into someother stuff right after this
question.

Speaker 10 (27:41):
So, talking about repairs, we're still sticks and
bricks, so we have tons of tools.

Speaker 8 (27:55):
What kind of tools did you guys take that you are
happy you took, not happy youtook or should have taken?
Yeah, that's a bad question toask us.
We are all doing RV tech workand solar installs, so we've got
more tools than we reallyprobably should have or have.
You need your basic.
You know basic screw guns,something to cut things with
some kind of saw drill.

(28:16):
You know just some basic tools.
It's nothing crazy.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
So one that I wish I had had, that I now own is a
one-inch driver, so that you canget your tires off and
something a little easier, andthen still the torque wrench.

Speaker 8 (28:34):
Yeah, a nice impact gun is good.
I bought or got for Christmas asix-inch chainsaw.
It's a little itty-bittyhandheld chainsaw.
There's always a limb stickingout somewhere.
You know Mark carries a littleweed eater to clean out spots,

(28:55):
so you add to it.
But the same stuff that youneed to get here and fix things
is the same stuff.
You need boondocking and thenyou need a couple other things,
maybe a little saw or somethingto get some limbs back, or some
clippers.
I carry those anyway because weback into a spot and the limb's

(29:16):
dangling over my airconditioner and I don't want it
to fall into it.
So I hope that answers yourquestion A voltmeter.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
If you own a rig and you do not have a voltmeter,
order one from Amazon.
That's probably the number onediagnosis tool, especially when
we have our OEA calls and we'llcontact the owner and they're
having electrical issues.
The very first question do youhave a voltmeter?

(29:49):
And most of the time, if theysay no, it's going to be very
difficult to track down.
Yep, it is.

Speaker 7 (29:57):
Just wonder if any of you have upgraded your
suspension at all.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Yes, mark has.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
I have not.
I have not.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
I have not and I have .
So we have two ISs and two.
Do you just have your standard7K, 8k leaf springs, all that
good stuff.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
But we're enjoying immensely the full independent.
However, my 310 did not have ithad the very stock.
However my 310 did not have ithad the very stock.
And that was again at one pointtwo years ago.
We went almost 100 days withoutplugging in.
I'll guarantee you we havepulled our rigs in places

(30:40):
Alliance had never intendedthese rigs to be and in
retrospect, some of them.

Speaker 6 (30:52):
We probably shouldn't have been, so it adds a lot to
it, but it doesn't prevent youfrom still seeing this beautiful
country, hi, so we are bothretired and we're both full-time
together, not separate.
I thought I'd clarify.
And we boondock every once in awhile, but we do the easy
boondocking just one night hereand there.
But we're interested in doingmore.
But we're watching.
Battery technology is changingso fast right now.

(31:13):
Do any of you have any?

Speaker 4 (31:20):
insight into kind of where you think that direction
is going and what that lookslike.
So lithium batteries that we'reusing today, that come in every
Valor from Alliance, that comewith lithium or the lithium you
can buy, that technology isawesome and it's here for a long
, long time.

(31:40):
So if you bought into lithiumbatteries today, you're making a
great purchase.
You're not buying somethingthat's going to be out, that
can't be used next year or fiveyears from now.
That is a very good energystorage solution.
Will there be new chemicals?

(32:02):
There are some upcoming soon,probably Different kind of
lithium, but it's still going tobe a lithium battery.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
It's technology.
It's always moving forward,right?
It's just a matter of when thenext thing's going to come out.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
What's great about the lithium batteries is the
technology is the same as it hasbeen.
What's getting better isthey're just putting it into
smaller packages.
So instead of having a batterythe size of this table, it's a
battery the size of the phone.
It's still your lithium battery.
They're just getting them downin size.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
So, since we're kind of getting into power, if you
guys don't mind, what kind ofsolar lithium setups do you guys
each have?

Speaker 4 (32:47):
This would be interesting for you all to hear,
because you now know how muchboondocking we do.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
We all travel together.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
We travel together and we have totally different
systems.
Mark can go first.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
None of you know mine , which is fun.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
We have a dual inverter 3,000 watts of solar,
the equivalency of 1,900-ampbatteries.
We have a 24-volt system and Ido not carry a generator.
I actually sold it last monthbecause I didn't use it.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
So he has all of that solar and all of those
batteries it.
So he has all of that solar andall of those batteries.
Well, I go the same place as hedoes and I have six batteries.
I've only ever had six.
I have a single one inverter.
It's a 12-volt system, not a24-volt, but I have a built-in
Onan 5,500-watt generator.

(33:43):
If, if we have a week of stormsand the sun doesn't recharge my
batteries, I hit a button andthe generator comes on.
I'm still boondocking.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
I have to have gasoline for my generator, but
he's still boondocking too, justa little less comfortably if
there's cloud cover for a longperiod of time right so you can.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
You can as long as you're able to produce energy
for your RV.
It doesn't matter if it'scoming from the sun or a
generator or whatever othersource.

Speaker 8 (34:17):
Yeah, our system's probably in the middle of this
pack.
We have a single inverter, 800amperes of batteries and 1700
watts of solar.
We started with 400 amperebatteries and half of that in
solar, so 800 or so and itworked fine.

(34:37):
But it was kind of on the edgea little bit sometimes, and so
we got a little bit bigger, andso we got a little bit bigger.
And then we have a smallgenerator where I carry with me.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
And then we have a dual inverter system as well.
It's dual Victron Quattro.
So 8,000 watts, constant 10,000watts on a cranking for a
little bit of time and then for1,200 amp hours of 24 volt and
then we have just under 3,000watts on our roof.
So actually we had installedtwo weeks ago now, and the first
time I plugged in and this wasa little bit in Texas too, where

(35:11):
it's 92 degrees the first timeI plugged in was actually here
post the install.
So that kind of gives you someinsight.
But what I was told early on inthat is you might as well like
drugs a little bit more, becauseif you get in a solar, next
thing you know you're just goinga little bit more.
A little bit of that.
Change it to this.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
there's a new cool technology which you guys have
developed, new cool technologytoo it is also really nice when
you have the solar capability onyour rig, even if you're not
boondocking, even if you're justgoing on a camping trip, two
hours or maybe three hoursbefore you get to your

(35:48):
destination, when you stop for abathroom break or lunch, you
flip on the air conditioner.
So when you get where you'regoing, your rig's already cooled
down because you have solarpanels and you have batteries
and you have the inverterrunning the air conditioner.
So that's a bonus that we use alot.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
I don't even turn mine off, man.
I just leave them on.
That way it's always like 74 inthere, Just for especially the
new people getting intoboondocking between your systems
.
What can you tangibly run, justso that we kind of simplify it?
Just a hair for those people.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Start with Mark yeah, everything.
But let me back up just very,very, very briefly to the
technology question, the biggestthing for me on the lithium
batteries.
Two years ago a person wouldask me what battery should I get
?
Immediately I said Battle Born,end of story, king of the Hill,

(36:45):
amazing technology.
That's no longer the case.
There are so many wonderfulcompanies out there and now
instead of $1,000 to $1,100 per100-amp battery, you can get a
great battery for around $300per 100 amps battery for around

(37:10):
$300 per 100 amps Tremendousdifference.
So that price point, victron iswhat we sell and use and
believe in and I wouldn'tinstall anything.
But we always tell people whenyour Renogy goes out, keep using
it and enjoy it.
When it goes out, replace itwith Victron.
They have dropped prices 30% inthe last year and it's
continuing to come down.
What can we run?

(37:30):
Honestly, I gave an examplejust the other day to someone.
When I first bought my RamDually, it had a 32-gallon
diesel tank in it.
I didn't go very far dieseltank in it and so I didn't go
very far.
All of our stops and bathroombreaks were scheduled around
diesel stations, so I added a 60gallon auxiliary.

(37:52):
Now we've got 92 gallons ofdiesel.
It's the same thing with yourbatteries.
What can you run?
How much solar do you have andhow many batteries do you have?
Nothing runs on solar.
It runs on batteries powered bysolar and recharged by solar.
So with the big system, ifwe've got good sun, I can run
two ACs and the batteries arereplenished immediately.

(38:15):
I don't see it drop below 100,so not a lot.
I still don't do a lot ofelectric heat sources.
It's unnecessary.
You have a water heater thathas propane and electric.
15 minutes before your shower,flip the propane water heater on
and you've got hot water andthen turn it off.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yeah, I have a single inverter, single 3,000 watt
inverter, and I comfortably runone AC.
The truth is, we can runanything in our RV at any single
given time.
We can't run everything in ourRV all at the same time.
So I can turn on any AC I want,but not all three of them.

(38:58):
I can turn on the electricwater heater, but not with the
microwave and an AC.
So it's the way we use ourcoach.
We live like we're plugged in.
We turn whatever we want on,but I go back to also my
generator.

(39:18):
If I need three ACs, I can doit.
I just also have the generatorto do that.

Speaker 8 (39:25):
Yeah, mine's the same as Charles.
I can run everything in my rigif I want to but not at the same
time.
I don't have enough capacityfor that.
And we tend to go places wherewe don't need an AC.
You know that's our plan, is,you know, chase?
70 degrees at night.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Well and I think that's the big portion like we
get stuck in places sometimeswhere it's 95 degrees, so being
able to run multiple acs forlauren and I was a really big
deal because of that.
So what you're trying to dodictates what you're going to
end up putting in at the end ofthe day and also how much you
want to spend.
That's a factor, because theycan get up there in price as
well.

Speaker 8 (40:03):
Yeah, I mean we're talking running ACs.
You're burning one battery, 100amp hour battery every hour, so
to go over per AC, so to goovernight.
You're gonna go eat a lot ofbatteries.
We have a lot of people askingquestions.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
I'm gonna get right behind you because you had it up
first and I'll come back to you.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
So thinking about starting small, moving to the
12-volt fridge.
That's obviously going to pulloff your batteries, so one lead
acid is not going to get youovernight at all, so would like
a single 300 get you overnightwith your default solar.
I think we get 320 on most ofthe paradigms so I'm still
trying to figure this out right.

(40:41):
Can I go with to start small,to start?
You know, start with like asolar generator, maybe have a
generator backup and not have toput you know, twenty thousand
dollars of solar in yeah, you're.

Speaker 8 (40:52):
The dc fridges will go through about a battery
overnight and then your lightsand whatever else you got going
on might eat a little bit more.
So 200, 300, it is pretty safeto make it through the night and
have enough charge to get yourjacks up and do whatever you got
to do in the morning, whereyou're gonna get well, as you

(41:13):
get a bigger battery and youdeplete it further than, and
then you get into the chase ofhow many panels do I need on
this the roof to recharge it?
On a halfway cloudy day liketoday, we're great, but earlier
in the week, when it was sort ofraining, not raining, the solar
is not going to make it back.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
And I think this is a good point to insert.
When I knew I was going to bekind of up here with you guys
doing this, I cornered Bill andI asked what's the biggest
question they get on kind of theRenergy solar stuff that comes
with, whether you have the solaror the solar plus option, is
the number one question thecustomer service team gets is
why can't I turn my AC on withwhat Alliance sent me?
And so it's just amisunderstanding of the

(41:55):
information.
Alliance uses a lot of 12-voltcomponents like fridges, TVs,
those types of things, and thosecan all run on that battery
without the use of inverters.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
But an AC requires an inverter, and alliance doesn't
put inverters on yet yet.
And for those doing the math orare trying to figure this out,
this question has been asked alot too, which is when you're
considering running your airconditioner, the air
conditioners in our rigs.
When you're considering runningyour air conditioner, the air
conditioners in our rigs use one.
When you're running the AC onhigh, it uses one battery,
meaning a 12-volt, 100-amp-hourbattery uses one battery every

(42:37):
hour.
If you wanted to run your airconditioner for eight hours, you
need eight batteries.
And then I say you need eightbatteries without any way of
recharging them.
That it's.
It would use on average onebattery per hour then.
Then you need some way torecharge your batteries when the
Sun comes back up the nextmorning, or a generator.

(42:57):
But the air conditioner is aenergy hog.
If you, if you take the airconditioner out of the equation
and chase 70 degrees, life isgreat.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Back to yours just a minute.
In the solar generators, thattechnology has really grown a
lot and it is a good option.
We've had people call and sayman, I want the biggest thing
you sell.
Our first question is well,what are you going to do On
occasional overnight stay?
Well, you don't need thebiggest thing we sell.
So, however, if you're lookingat it as a starting point, it's

(43:36):
not really upgradable.
Oh, yes, it is.
You can get four or five.
I'm not hauling around four orfive.
I'm not hauling around four orfive.
But with the Victron systemsyou can start relatively small
and inexpensively and add two.
You have to get the rightequipment and you have to have
the right installer and not justplopping the solar panels right

(43:59):
in the middle of everything.
But so you have to look at theend game.
What are you trying to end upwith?

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I think one of the biggest obstacles too in solar
is the price tag.
Right, it kind of gets to thatpoint and you can phase a system
in.
You don't have to drop 20 or$30,000 on a huge system right
out of the gates.
You can just put batteries andinverter on and use an off-board
generator or pedestals.
If it's once a night toreplenish and not have to put
the solar on.
That's the more expensive andfirst, unfortunately, but you

(44:28):
can phase it just a little bit.

Speaker 10 (44:33):
I just wanted to give hope to some people out
there.
Now our system is very similarto theirs.
But our boondocking buddy, lukeWertz.
He did a lot of boondockingwith his family, homeschooled
two kids and they had an autostart on their own generator and

(44:54):
I believe their batteries werestill lead acid.
He just had it set to where thegenerator would come on and
recharge the batteries.
It had minimal solar and so youcan do it with a stock system
if you go ahead and spring forthe auto start on your generator

(45:17):
to take care of the batteriesand not let them drop too low.
I love solar, I love lithium,but it's just an alternate way
of doing it.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Was there a question back here somewhere?
I thought I saw somebody.
Nope, okay, back there All theway in this other room.
If I toss it, can you catch it?

Speaker 10 (45:49):
I'm just wondering, steve, you have the smaller
generator.
You said there you go, you havethe smaller generator.

Speaker 8 (45:56):
Yeah, I have a 2,000 watt.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
How does that work?

Speaker 8 (46:02):
It works great.

Speaker 7 (46:03):
I mean as opposed to the one that will come on
automatically and all that.

Speaker 8 (46:07):
So I haven't.
I've had to use it once.
Wow, I was parked under sometrees and wasn't getting great
sun and it was kind of cloudyanyway, so I plugged it in and
you know, with our system, I canturn down the system to adjust

(46:28):
what kind of power flow it'lltake in.
So I just turn it down to takein 10 amps from the generator,
which 10 amps from the generatoris 100 amps going into my
battery.
It doesn't take long to charge.
You know, charge it back up alittle bit and so that that's
enough.
It's enough to charge it up.
You know, run a coffee pickerif you need it.

(46:49):
Just, you know, as a backup, um, you don't need a giant
generator if that's all you'retrying to do is top off your
battery.
If you're like ryan, that's,you know, running all over the
south, you know, and it's hotand he may need his air
conditioners on, then he needs abigger generator.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Some of us call it RVing the wrong way.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Yeah, yeah.
I would just add that in theboondocking world, the people
that have the generators,they're not using them.
They're not starting thegenerator to run their RV and
turn on all kind of stuff in theRV.
They're just using thegenerator to run their RV and
turn on all kind of stuff in theRV.
They're just using thegenerator to recharge their
batteries.
Because it's been storming forfour days and there's no sun, it

(47:36):
will also run things in the RV.
I don't mean to take away fromthat.
The generator will still allowyou to run the microwave, but
the main purpose for theboondockers are to recharge your
batteries and that's why theycarry a small generator for that
.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
That's the main purpose I was gonna say, for us
it's a backup system.
Now it's what it is.
It's not a primary systemanymore, it's a backup, and or
it's slightly cloudy and I needto get going somewhere and I
want to pull in a little bitmore before I stop for the night
, just to have enough capacityto get through the night, kind
of a situation, yeah, and likeSusan said, you know, if you

(48:14):
just have a small set ofbatteries or you really need to
run air conditioners or whatever, then you need a bigger
generator.

Speaker 8 (48:22):
I'm going to avoid being hot at night whether I go
pay for a spot to plug in or Ijust move.
It's got wheels.
Get the heck out of here, let'sgo Okay.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
So because I know we're on, but was there a
question that I just missed?
Was there another question?

Speaker 8 (48:38):
back there somewhere.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
I just watched you do that.
That's why.

Speaker 8 (48:41):
I was Thought I saw one.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
I wanted to bring up, if I could, for just a minute,
mr Caldwell back there, my goodbuddy Jim.
He texted me and said talkabout apps a little bit, and
probably our most commonquestion is what app do you use
to boondock?
And my answer again is yes.
All of them.
Campendium the dirtfreecampsitesnet.

(49:07):
Rely on reviews.
Rv Life campground reviews.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
I overlander.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
You can filter.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Very good.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
You can go into Campendium, for instance, and
filter free sites, but readthose reviews.
You have to kind of logicallylook at it.
Throw out the nightmares andthrow out the best ones and look
at the meat in the middle andyou know if you've got 60 foot
of rig going down the road andit says you know horrible

(49:38):
switchbacks to get to it.

Speaker 8 (49:40):
Don't go there and stop, but challenge accepted yes
, oh yeah, not anymore oh, I'llwait for it at the bottom I'm
sorry, leslie, that you have todeal with that but but it, it.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
You know, look at them and and ask, um, there,
there is not.
Oh, I only use you're missingout on a lot of stuff.
I mean, you know, know, use allof them.
So Jim suggested the DIRT.
It's got some really goodfilters that will narrow it down
to what it is that you'relooking for.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
D-Y-R-T.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Yes, the DIRT.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
Yeah, both.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yeah, I think both is the answer.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
He asked do we use the paid version of that or the
free version?
When you travel with the wholegroup, someone usually has the
paid version and I'm still usingthe free version.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
I'm a sucker on paying for apps.
My AccuWeather app, I thinkit's the best.
I pay $20 a year to get windforecast and you know that's
cheap Campendium pro pro level,I think they call it.
I think it's 20 bucks a year.
Well, it wasn't this morning,okay.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
So hang on, hang on, hang on.
I was going to address that, sothat actually just made a
switch.
So Campendium and Road Trippersis a big company, kind of like
RV Life, that owns a bunch ofdifferent little things.
Campendium is being absorbednow by Road Trippers.
So if you're looking for theCampendium app, you actually are
looking for the Road Trippersapp.
All of that information is inthere.

(51:18):
The only thing you're going tofind you can nod your head.
No, but the company told methat, and so whether or not it's
actively good right at themoment, I have no idea.
I haven't gone on it myself,but it is being they're
restructuring the apps.
I'm just like right now and itwill redirect you to the right
service app.
Okay, so there.
So you may need to update yourapp potentially.
There's always that option too.

(51:38):
So, oh gotcha.
So yeah, there might be alittle bit of a glitchy moment
there while they do thatintegration stuff, all right.
Let's chat water, becausenothing goes with electricity
like water.
That's just what I was going tosay.
So you guys travel down theroad with full tanks all the
time.
Right, don't actually nod.

(51:59):
Yes, please Do you really.
Yes, sir, Did you okay.
So I asked if, because he's gota mic and didn't use it, he
said he actually does traveldown the road with full tanks
Did you do anything to reinforceit or did you just roll with
what Alliance did?

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Nope, the 310 and the 370, both.
I see how they're installed.
There are some rigs.
Early build avenues did have abit of an issue with
reinforcement.
Now generally we have greatwater at our house.
We haven't been inside andslept in our house in four years

(52:32):
but grandson lives in the area.
We'll fill up and use Now ifwe're going through Shreveport
or Baton Rouge in southernLouisiana.
I don't fill it up, but I don'thesitate, but do so carefully.
Alliance doesn't recommend thatyou always fill it up and
bounce down the road.

(52:53):
But, yeah, and we carry a60-gallon water bladder with us
that's easy to fill and easy totransfer to your coach.

Speaker 8 (53:02):
Yeah, I think I have traveled with it full, for you
know large distances.
We try to plan to not do that.
You know, if we can find aplace to fill up somewhere
closer to where we are, andthat's the recommendation that
Alliance will give you and mostpeople will.
I mean, yes, it's great to haveall the water in there, but

(53:25):
it's a lot of weight and it doesbounce around a lot.
So when you're planning yourtrip, you've got to find a place
to dump, you've got to find aplace to fill with water.
If you can fill up right beforeyou get there, that's a better
way to do it.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Yep.
So traveling across the country, boondocking, we have always
found water.
Country boondocking, we, wehave always found water um, and
we have found some water.
That's amazing and it's comingliterally flowing out of the
side of the mountain, on theside of the road.
And we do, we, we do carry withus on these boondocking trips

(54:00):
of 50 or 60 gallon water bladder.
So our rig is parked um andwe're there for weeks and as we,
as we go out and explore, likewe'll go to a nearby national
park, we'll take the waterbladder with us.
And while we're inside thenational park, they always have
little camping areas, usuallytoo small for my big rig and but

(54:22):
it's a tent camping area.
Well, every one of those has awater spigot.
So we just asked the nice folksthere do you mind if we fill up
our water bladder while we'rehere?
And they've always said yes.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
So we bring water back to our camp campers and
fill, refill our tanks fromusing this water bladder I know
we have a couple of differentversions of alliance rvs here,
but does everybody have the samesize freshwater tank or is one
smaller than the other betweenthe three of you guys?

Speaker 4 (54:49):
The Deltas definitely have smaller, but the fifth
wheels, I think, are all thesame Right around 100 gallons
100 gallons.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
How long can each of you guys make 100 gallons last
for you out there In boondockingmode?
Let me rephrase that not justfull bore, using.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
If we expand it a little bit, freshwater tanks and
waste tanks, it is a 98-gallontank.
However, 12 of that isconsidered to be water heater.
Most I've ever gotten in myfreshwater tank from Dead Empty
is about 86 gallons.
I've got a little meter that Iput on, but a lot of it is just

(55:31):
your usage.
We have a friend that wants togo boondocking.
He said the only problem is Itake 30 minute showers.
I said well, it's going to bean issue.
But with 53 gallon kitchen, 53gallon shower, 53 gallon waste,
we have a bidet on our masterbathroom toilet and we can go 13
days on the black tank, about aweek.

(55:52):
The hard thing is for a lot ofwonderful, beautiful people is
you can't leave a dirty dish inthe sink.
So you know you wait a littlebit, you can dump that water
outside.
But my experience has been werun out of fresh water long
before we run out of storagecapacity.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
So just do the man a week we on fresh water like
bullet point version there atthe end.
Yeah, we're about the same.
We were about a week if we arein the conservation mode.
But obviously what goes in,like we're just talking about,
must come out.
So you, I was gonna say, say wealso carry around about a
60-gallon water bladder.
It's just the just in case, andif you have, you can either get

(56:33):
an external pump to pump it in.
But if you have a winterizationfeature on your coach, which I
think all alliances should, youcan siphon it in, and so you
just have to have a hose thatdoesn't have a connector on the
one side.
As far as if you guys want tostay out for, let's say, three
weeks to a month straight outthere and you're not going to
move the RV, there's the caveat.

Speaker 4 (56:55):
How do you get rid of the out version of water?
You have to.
There are some of thesebladders water bladders that are
black tank bladders.
You can transfer your wasteinto the bladder and take it
into a town to a dump station.

Speaker 8 (57:10):
Macerator pump.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
And we use a macerator pump to fill that
bladder.
You can also just use your BlueBoy tote.
You know, you've got to get itinto the bed of your truck and
take it into town and it's heavywhen it's full of crap, but
sorry, but yeah, I mean youcan't just dump it on the ground

(57:35):
out there, so you've got to getit.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
So would you guys prefer to, just when your black
tank's full, it's time to justmove and go ahead and do a dump
and then find a new place.
Is that kind of your line?

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Most of the time we we will have moved on in in two
weeks.
In fact, most of the publiclands.
There are a set number of daysyou're allowed to stay there and
you must move on.
Not all of them are enforced,because we see people that have
been there for years.
But um, but really when youcome in there's a sign that says
you know, 14 days max stay.
So you're going to be moving onanyway, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
So we have time for a handful of questions before we
have to wrap up and they kick usout of the building.
Does anybody have any questions?
All right, then I'm going toask one what's your favorite
boondocking site you've found sofar?

Speaker 4 (58:23):
And I'm saying this because I want to know for
myself and we're going to tellall these people yeah, we're all
thinking of the same, some ofus at least thinking of the
exact same place.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
So now you all have to answer with a separate
location, so good luck with that.
Whoever's not talking first?

Speaker 4 (58:39):
The favorite location of them all and we have had
some amazing places, but thefavorite place for us is a
little place called Island Park,idaho.
Just an amazing scenery.
We were camped right along asmall river or creek.

(59:02):
It was a branch off of a riverbut just literally the campers.
When you open your door, thewater's right there, everything
was scenic and beautiful and weliterally had moose female and
bull moose walking down thewater, like for me to that table

(59:23):
.
It was just a great location.
About 15 minutes fromyellowstone yeah, oh sorry.
Yeah, right outside ofyellowstone.
We we would go into yellowstoneevery day and enjoy the park
and we had our.
Our campsite was free and itwas amazing views.
Um so, and I I have the GPScoordinates.

(59:47):
Anybody that's going there I'llshare.

Speaker 6 (59:50):
it's not the faint of heart getting to the site we
were in, though.
Yeah, it's a little spooky.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
She said it's not the faint of heart getting to the
site if you didn't hear her backover here we did one of my
favorite spots and it wasn't asmuch Island Park is mine too.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
There really aren't words and the pictures are just.
You know you show them they'relike no, that's not real.
But one of my favorite spotswas in north of Jackson Hole,
wyoming, near the little town Ibelieve it was Moran.
It was a highway departmentgravel storage yard that they
have open for boondockers, builtin security for all their

(01:00:30):
mounds of gravel.
But when you open your bigbeautiful windows in your
Alliance you're looking at theGrand Tetons.
It's free that that if it'sfree, it's for me, but it was we
.
We tend to travel as a groupand we'll have other allies,

(01:00:50):
will see us and will join andkind of circle the wagon type
thing.
But that's one of my favoritespots.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
You're not getting out of this, Steve.

Speaker 8 (01:01:03):
I think it's hard to pick, but there's a spot we
found, kind of by accident, inBeulah, wyoming.
It was on some state land.
It's a little parking, publicaccess to the river People float
the river Little tiny parkinglot that we circled around and
got our stuff all situated inthere and then, I don't know,

(01:01:24):
two other rigs somehow squeezedin there too, situated in there,
and then I don't know, twoother rigs somehow squeezed in
there too.
But from here to you know, thewall over there there was a
beautiful 10-foot waterfall andyou know the river was running
through about knee deep and ifyou stayed in it for more than
about 10 minutes your anklesfroze.
Um, trout were swimming rightpast us.
I mean, it was.

(01:01:45):
It was a pretty cool spot, butit was.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
You know it's what you find so are there any spots
on the bucket list that youhaven't made it to yet, but you
definitely want to try and getto, like, say, this year or next
year yeah, we're trying to headwest, northwest this year, so
we don't know what we're lookingfor yet.
We'll figure it out as we go.
That's next week's problem.
Yeah, gotcha, uh, so oh,perfect.

Speaker 7 (01:02:08):
One more question so two of you have kind of
mentioned this already.
But proximity to other campersthat are boondocking what are
kind of the rules on that?
And then also, what are thesame like think about that.
What are your rules like whenyou run your generator?
What are the same like thinkabout that.
What are your rules Like whenyou run your generator?
What is the general likeunwritten expectations of not

(01:02:31):
running at certain hours or soboondocking etiquette kind of a
question.

Speaker 8 (01:02:37):
So some of the places you go have designated sites.
You know you can see them, thepullout, and it's probably got a
marker or a fire pit orsomething with it.
So you need to stay withinthose and those are generally
spaced out pretty far.
It's when you get to just somerandom like this place, we were
kind of tight in there with our.

(01:02:58):
The three of us were tight, wewere okay with that.
The other people came in andthey were tight too, but
everybody was pretty respectfulof each other.
I think if you just berespectful and you know during
the day, run your generator ifyou need to or talk to them and
say, hey, you know I'm gettinglow on battery or I need to do
something tonight, is it okay?

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
I'm sorry, Steve.

Speaker 8 (01:03:21):
No, I don't know of any hard and fast rules.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
The one good thing too and it sounds like a
flippant answer and I don't meanit this way but if you're in a
situation, if you boondock a lot, you are going to have somebody
pull within feet of your RV.
The great thing about AllianceRVs they have wheels, we do.
There's generally a wholegaggle of us that are together

(01:03:46):
and so we kind of park in a wayto kind of prevent somebody from
being around on top of us.
But yeah, that was what Stevesaid, respectful.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
I was going to say too, and I've shifted over here
but my general rule of thumb tooand we're out there if we're by
ourselves is do as we wouldwant to do.
So if I didn't want to be rightnext to somebody, like what, if
I was in their position, wherewould I prefer me to be, kind of
a thing.
And then I generally take therule of thumb is first come,
first serve, kind of a thing.
If there's like one really coolspot and I have to get within

(01:04:18):
feet of somebody else that Ihave no idea who they are,
haven't talked to them, nothing,then they got the spot good for
them.
And then I shift down somewhereelse that I would feel
comfortable if I were them beingat.
So that's just kind ofsomething we do.

Speaker 9 (01:04:32):
Up until now, everybody's been sort of talking
about the western United States, but I'm from the east coast,
I'm from Pennsylvania.
Have you ever boondocked on theeast coast, any places there?

Speaker 8 (01:04:45):
With the size of rigs that we have, it's kind of
difficult.
We did our first big trip twoyears ago to the east coast, all
the way to Maine and back, andwe planned it to stay in parks
because we weren't reallyexperienced yet at boondocking
or weren't comfortable.
We did harvest hosts, we didseveral of those and that worked

(01:05:08):
out great because there'senough room for us.
But everywhere we drove we werelooking at campsites or trying
to find places in the nationalforest and they're just not made
for for what we're haulingaround.
You can find them.
There's places out there.
You just you really have tohunt around.
Even like state parks are kindof tight.

(01:05:28):
They're not made.
They were built in the you know20s and they haven't fixed them
yet.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
So it's tough I was gonna say the east coast is just
for rvers as a whole.
It's a slightly more difficultarea to be in, how west
everything's kind of more wide,open bridges seem to be taller,
all that stuff because theroutes out east are a lot more
prohibitive as well, especiallyif you have a 13 foot six inch
rig, which we all pretty much dohere.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
So it's the one thing that I've found free.
Campsitesnet has a tendency tokind of list a variety of you
know we're.
I'm all about blM land, ourland.
It's generally wide open, thedispersed camping In Florida.
There's the water managementdistricts that you have to make

(01:06:14):
reservations but in thatreservation they give you the
code to the gate and you go inand it's just beautiful and
again free.
But that's where a lot of theapps come in to find different
kinds.

Speaker 4 (01:06:33):
So we've talked power , we've talked water, and one
question was brought up earlierabout you know what's one thing
that you've learned boondocking.
That you didn't know but you donow.
So I'll throw this out there tosay it was a surprise to me.
But the hardest part of theboondocking especially when you

(01:06:57):
do it all summer and when you'redoing it out Midwest and West
the hardest thing to do is toget rid of your trash.
It sounds crazy, but it'seasier to get water, it's easier
to dump your tanks, it's easierto do everything except your
trash.
They won't allow you to use anydumpsters out there to put your

(01:07:20):
trash in.
So my tip for those that areeither experiencing or going to
experience the problem ofgetting rid of your trash is
save your walmart bags.
You know your little plasticbags from when you get groceries
.
If you put your trash in one ofthose every time you make a

(01:07:41):
trip to town or trip to anational park, that that little
bag will fit in a normal trashcan, even at a gas pump you can
put your trip.
But if you carry a trash bag,man, people will tell you get
out of here.
You know Anyway, just sharingthat with you all that if you're
just starting, you're going tohave a problem getting rid of

(01:08:02):
your trash.

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
And a combination of what Charles said with with the
little bags.
Don't throw stinky stuff inyour big trash bags, because you
may have that trash bag for twoweeks and it gets worse.
So you put your stinky stuff inthe little bag and whatever
stinky stuff is to you I'm not,we have dogs, so you just
whatever and but the big stuff.

(01:08:26):
If it's just paper products andno food products, it'll ride
good for two, three weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
Recycle or recycle.

Speaker 8 (01:08:35):
Yep, well, recycle spots are hard to find too.
It's amazing that you're inColorado and you know it's all
tree hugger type things and youcan't find a place to put
aluminum cans.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
it's kind of one more question then we're gonna start
wrapping her up you guys areobviously out in the wild.

Speaker 7 (01:09:00):
What do you guys do when for self-protection,
whether it's animals or unwantedvisitors?

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
Great question.
That question is asked almostevery year.
When you travel in a group,it's a lot easier, even if
you're just traveling with oneother camper.
It's easier because, forsafety-wise, when the whole
group leaves and goes to thepark and hikes on a 10-hour hike
well one vehicle is always leftback with the camper, so it

(01:09:34):
does look like there's somebodyhome.
If you're by yourself andyou're taking your vehicles away
, it's just.
I would at that point advise toinvest in security cameras and

(01:09:55):
things like that.
But we carry a shotgun or someprotection from wild animals,
should it occur, and we take itserious.
We have that stuff available.
It's not like packed away whereif we need it, we can't get to
it.
I mean it's uh, it's there andavailable.
We've never had an issue uh, no, no, no even stories to tell

(01:10:15):
about.
Almost you know it.
Just we have.
We've always found that theareas we've been in have been uh
, safe, uh, we've never hadthings stolen or broken into.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Bear spray in the door of my truck.

Speaker 4 (01:10:32):
I've had more closer encounters of wildlife while
hiking in the national parksthan I do back at the campsite.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
And just to expand it from our point of view too.
This came up in the full-timerpanel yesterday.
If you go full-time, ifyou're're in a spot you don't
feel comfortable or something'sgoing on, the best security
system I've ever found is righthere in my gut.
And if you you get there andyou feel a little meh about it,
just like anything else thathappens at RV parks sometimes it
can happen the nicest placesjust move, go.
That we've said it multipletimes now.

(01:11:02):
The, your rig has wheels, justshift to somewhere you're more
comfortable.
I mean, it might not be themost easy option.
And then just to piggyback onthat a little bit is Internet,
because if you do have likebeing able to have whether it's
a Starlink, because you're outwest of Illinois, or T-Mobile 5G
, whatever it is like we stillwork full-time and these guys
all work a little bit in somecapacity.

(01:11:22):
And so why are you laughing,steve?
And so why are you laughing,steve?
Just trying not to, and so youknow having that internet and
our security system to be ableto, so that if Lauren and I are
just off by ourselves, knowingthat I can pop a camera up and I
can kind of see around my rigbecause we're gone and it's just
us, so our rig's sitting thereby itself is comforting in a way

(01:11:43):
.
Or I'll get a motionnotification if there's
something going on by it.
Comforting in a way, or I'llget a motion notification if
there's something going on by it.
So essentially the questionjust so everybody hears it was
Charles said that he had afirearm on board and she's
asking about kind of I'm goingto add state to state in

(01:12:04):
addition, because that's a funthing too, as well as crossing
borders like in Canada.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
So I have not been through Canada.
I know there are specific rulesabout what type of firearm you
can carry through there andthey're extremely strict.
From what I understand, markhas gone through Canada so he
could expand on that.
Mark has gone through Canada sohe could expand on that.
As far as state to state, soI'm retired from 30 years of law

(01:12:35):
enforcement and so I stillcarry law enforcement
credentials and I'm probably theworst one to ask because I can
just tell you I'm going to havemy firearm in whatever state I
am, whatever state I'm in.
But it would be best to, youknow, look up the state's rules

(01:12:56):
about what you can carry in andout of their state.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
That's what I was going to say is just don't put
yourself in a bad situation, andthat goes for the like whether
it's a security issue, where youknow you can be okay, versus
the other side is justunderstand the laws and
regulations of the state country, whatever you happen to be
going to before, and I'm surethose laws, just like in the
States, change constantly,especially with Canada.
There's a whole new dog thing.
If you haven't seen that,apparently we have to have our

(01:13:19):
dogs microchip now if you'regoing to go into Canada or back
into the U S from othercountries, like going up to.
Oh yeah, that's a whole newthing.
Leslie, I just saw your face goYep, and that's who knows, I
mean, when it's going to go intoeffect, but it's been passed,
so there's always constant lawschanging with crossing borders,
states or countries.
Alright, well, I know these guyswould probably be happy to chat

(01:13:41):
more, but I know whoever's nextin here is probably going to
start wandering in.
But do any of you guys havesocial media that they can
follow?
Learn more, do all those things?
Steve's really nodding his head, no hard there.
And then, what's the name ofthe install company?
Just so you guys have the solarinstall stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Yeah.
So Mark and I own a solarinstall company.
It's called Unplugged RV Solar,Unplugged RV Solar.
And more and more we learned.
If you add and more, you couldjust do anything.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
Tank cleanings.

Speaker 4 (01:14:11):
But we have a Facebook page.
You could look us up there andyou could Facebook messages.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
We'll answer any questions anytime Awesome.
Well, thank you guys so muchfor being on the panel and thank
you guys for coming in.
If you have any questions, I'msure we'll linger for just a
little bit until they officiallykick us all the way out.
So thank you guys for coming.
Thank you.

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