July 25, 2023 • 40 mins
RV life is full of adventure, but definitely had our fair share of unexpected curveballs while living this RV life. This episode is all about the crazy situations and unexpected issues that we've overcome while RVing fulltime across the US. How do you go from 3,000 sq ft to 300 sq ft? How do you navigate arguments living in such close quarters? How do you keep up with family and friends? What is up with the RV smoke detector? We answer all these questions and more! Plus, we share the crazy things we brought with us into the RV and how we stay organized on the road.
Referenced:
Fridge Storage Organizers - https://amzn.to/3KaUVSq
Top 5 things you DON'T Need for RV Life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3dJpgXhX2c
RV Internet Solutions on the Road - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=643WNzKYdRI
Campendium reviews for campground cell coverage - https://www.campendium.com/
Join the community by checking out beacons.ai/wanderingrvbabe and follow us on Tiktok @WanderingRVBabe, Instagram @WanderingRVBabe, YouTube @WanderingRVBabe, or Facebook Wandering RV Babe
Support us through our Amazon Store: podcast.wanderingbabe.com/amazonstore
*Special thanks for our Intro/Outro music to Stock Media provided by stockmusic331 / Pond5
Referenced:
Fridge Storage Organizers - https://amzn.to/3KaUVSq
Top 5 things you DON'T Need for RV Life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3dJpgXhX2c
RV Internet Solutions on the Road - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=643WNzKYdRI
Campendium reviews for campground cell coverage - https://www.campendium.com/
Join the community by checking out beacons.ai/wanderingrvbabe and follow us on Tiktok @WanderingRVBabe, Instagram @WanderingRVBabe, YouTube @WanderingRVBabe, or Facebook Wandering RV Babe
Support us through our Amazon Store: podcast.wanderingbabe.com/amazonstore
*Special thanks for our Intro/Outro music to Stock Media provided by stockmusic331 / Pond5
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I'm really hoping our camera does notoverheat this week, because it has overheated
the past two times we've recorded thepodcasts, and this is the warmest it's
been since we went over to video. Yeah. Yeah, Like most of
the country is going through a bitof a heat wave right now, and
(00:21):
I don't know. We're in anarea where typically there's much more mild temperatures
during this time of year. We'rein Utah, but it's hot. It's
hot here, guys, to thepoint where, like we have to turn
off our AC in order to recordour podcast or go live on TikTok with
you guys, and you know,otherwise we get a lot of like just
(00:45):
sound pollution and like sound interference,y'all. So it's a little hot.
We're gonna survive. We'll get throughit together. But who I don't know
if I'll survived, but hopefully thecamera will. All right, good luck,
little guy, good luck? Imean sure, no, not you,
but can Welcome to the Wandering RVPodcast. Were biweekly source for our
(01:19):
stories, our screw ups, andour success is living the full time RB
life. I'm your host, Kara, the Wandering RV Babe, and this
is my driver, Ryan, Howdid folks welcome U? Tall? Oh?
That was that was intense, guys, that was intense. Okay.
So while we're talking about today,are the curveballs that life can throw at
(01:42):
you living this RV life. Andwhen I say curveballs, I don't mean
things that you would kind of expectwith RV life. I mean like true,
weird curveballs that has definitely been thrownat us over the last two years
that we've been doing RV life,and a lot of them have happened recently.
So off to the race as wego. Softball or baseball curveballs or
(02:07):
cricket cricket? Do they do curveballsin cricket? I have no idea.
Sure we'll call it cricket cricket curveballs. But yeah, we are in Provo,
Utah, home of the Fighting Bulldogsand also the fourth largest city in
Utah. You get a lot ofresearch, but hold hold on, it
gets even better. The fourth largestOkay, that's with one hundred and fifteen
(02:30):
thousand people, which comes to onlythree percent of the total Utah population.
Wow. Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean there's except for some really
big cities, there's not as manypeople in general out here, which is
actually lovely because it's not quite ascrowded and traffic, I don't know,
(02:53):
traffic has been really really crazy inProvo and in Salt Lake. It's it's
kind of big city traffic in general, so it's not just specific to this
one area, but oh my god, it's like the road laws don't apply.
The lines on the road are likepainted, little cute lines. They
just they don't apply their suggestions.Yeah, it's been it's been very very
(03:19):
fun being here. We so Ihurt my foot. We'll talk about this
here in a minute, but Ihurt my foot a few weeks ago.
So that's really severely limited our abilityto go and just explore and go hiking.
And some of the plans that wehad going into this trip to first
Colorado and now Utah just had toget completely scrapped, the biggest hiking states
(03:42):
of the country. I know,I know, yeah, because I can
kind of barely walk right now,which is super, super sucky. But
we have fun in Park City.Over the weekend, we went there and
we went to Olympic Park and checkedthat out. They were actually doing some
ski jumper practice, which was reallyreally cool to just sit and watch.
So of all the activities, alot of them required that she'd not go
(04:08):
because she was hurt, and thenthe few ones that she could do,
they wouldn't allow her to go becausetechnically the boot is an open toe shoe.
Yeah, so I have this likebig ortho orthotic boot that I have
to wear right now and the toesare open. And we were like,
well, I mean the fund isfar enough back, Like could we just
(04:29):
pretend it's closed? And they werelike no, we just like tape over
with duct tape and call it clothes. Yeah. Yeah, okay, So
I'm want to take us back ina little history lesson over the past fourteen
months about healthcare. Yeah, it'sbeen it's been interesting. I'm normally a
healthy person, by the way,it has been very interesting. So starting
(04:51):
last year, last May, sofourteen months ago, my mother, while
we were caravanning in New York Yeahthis one wasn't even me, Yeah,
broke her arm in New York Cityabout two hours away from our campground.
So I had to drive her tothe hospital. Super crazy thing, not
fun. You don't don't try it. Then in December we had to schedule
(05:14):
time so little miss over here couldhave had a procedure done. It was
it was normal, it was routine, no big deal. But we just
had to schedule time. We hadto stop what we were doing. Uh.
And then as we're in Tampa,we've been driving. We drove from
Texas over to Florida, went toa couple of places, and we ended
up in Tampa. As we're gettingto Tampa, you're in so much excruciating
(05:35):
pain from it. Then we endup having to go to the er,
come to find out it's infected.Yeah, it was not good, Glordy.
Then a few months later, afew months after that, our dog
hurts her. It's like her knee. It's yeah, it's kind of her
knee, isn't Yeah, and she'slike hobbling around on three legs. She
(05:57):
heard her like. We gave hera couple of weeks to kind of see
if she got better. Didn't getbetter. I had to take her to
the vet ear to get an extray done on her to figure out what
was going on. Then you hurtyour foot, Yeah, actually she hurt
my foot, not intentionally, butshe's she's a bigger girl and she's like
muscly, and so she stepped onmy foot. That was kind of the
(06:20):
initial injury. And then a fewdays later I just like walked wrong.
I don't know, I just putmy weight, shifted my weight incorrectly or
something like that. And we havenow found out we were able to get
an MRI done just this past week, actually saw a specialist and now found
(06:41):
out that it's an injury to myplanter plate ligament. So essentially, like
the ball of my foot is alljacked up. Trying to say that ten
times fast planter plate ligament play,I can't even say it once. Yeah,
so I had to really concentrate onthat. That was that was hard.
Yeah, thanks. So yeah,so I'm stuck in a boot for
(07:04):
a little bit longer. Hopefully itwill heal. From what I've been told,
it's like the one of the longerligaments to heal, and we'll get
the full report in a few daysto find out like how badly injured it
is. So yeah, so that'sfun. It's been a bit of a
(07:24):
trip. But what I will sayis getting healthcare on the road can be
a little tricky. So we havea great insurance plan through my job.
I kind of worked that normal likenine to five job, through an actual
company. So we have insurance throughthat company, which is great, and
it's all across the nation, sowe can get you know, healthcare when
we need it. Normally, ifit's just like a cold or we need
(07:47):
a prescription refill or something like that, we just use the like teldoc services
through the insurance company, which iskind of great, or through the the
my company that's coordinated with that,and that's really nice. But you know,
when you have a injury that requiresyou know, MRIs and X rays
(08:07):
and things like that, you can'talways really do that virtually. So we
have had like just a really toughtime with getting like prior authorization in time
to get the radiology imaging scans thatwe need to get before we have to
move on from an area. Sotell me, when did you get your
(08:28):
MRI done last night? When didthe doctor see you about it last week?
Today? Yeah? Yeah? Whenare we're leaving town tomorrow? So
yeah, so I saw the doctorover a week ago. Now he ordered
the MRI like right then and there. They have a really good working relationship
with a local imaging center. Solike they were amazing the doctor and the
(08:50):
doctor's office was great. They weresuper super interested in the RV life too.
It was really great. We justlike stopped and like chatted with the
doctor or probably ten fifteen minutes afterthe visit was over, which was super
awesome. And then the imaging centerwas amazing, Like they got me rescheduled
for my MRI multiple times because wethought the preof would be in and it
(09:13):
wasn't. And yeah, all theall of the things. Long story short,
there, finally got the MRI lastnight. We ended up having to
self pay for it because we wererunning out of time. We don't know
what's going on with the insurance company, but we'll figure that out. Saw
the doctor today, got a coupleof first well actually three steroids shots in
(09:35):
my foot this morning. We leavetomorrow. So all that said, I
think we're in a good spot.The doctor thinks we're in a good spot.
We're gonna do a virtual follow upwith him in a couple of weeks.
It should be fine. They tookgreat care of us. But man,
you kind of have to be yourown advocate here, and you have
to make sure if you're doing RVlife, you're on the road and something
(09:56):
happens and you're not able to haltyour plans or stop or you know,
whatever the case may be. Youreally just have to be your own advocate.
You have to make sure that you'reexplaining everything, your whole circumstance to
your doctor too, you know,any of the other you know, healthcare
providers that are in that whole processthat you need to get well again,
(10:18):
so that way they know and theycan work with you on it, and
you know, to that end,also call the insurance company and advocate for
yourself there as well. That wasa curveball. It's a curveball. This
year has been nuts with just allof the healthcare stuff that we've had to
deal with. And I know itall happen more as we get older.
I know that, like there's manymany other campers in our years that do
(10:39):
this life that have, you know, chronic illnesses. We do have some
chronic illnesses that flare up every nowand then, but they overall they don't
really impede our travels all that much. But this one definitely through a sport
curveball. We need a refill.Refill done, all right, tell the
chat what we're drinking tonight, becauseit's a little bit different than when we
(11:00):
normally drinking. I know, we'renormally all in on the whiskeys or beers
or mixed drinks, cocktails, prettymuch everything else except four. I was
in the mood for saki tonight.I don't know why, but I was
just like, you know what,We're going to liquor store. I was
like, I wonder if they haveany good saki. I like the cold
(11:20):
unfiltered sak. So it's a negooryis I guess is what it's called.
And so I wasn't sure and thenwe got there and they had it,
and I was like, yes,please, yeah, yeah, well we
recently had a gin or not agin. Well it's made with gin.
A saki seventy five made with gin, lemon juice and simple syrup, and
(11:43):
it was amazing. So I kindof recreated that recipe at home. And
then I think that's probably what likedrove your craving right now for sak is,
Like that flavor in the cocktail wasreally nice, but it was just
kind of a hint of that flavor, not the full thing, whereas this
is like full on saki. Andyeah, I agree with you. My
(12:03):
favorite is the chilled unfiltered saki.Jesse I'm with you. I like,
I always want saki at a sushibar, but I was just totally in
the mood this time. I don'tknow why it was. It was weird.
It's I don't think we bought sakioutside of like a sushi bar,
Like I don't think we've ever goneto a liquor store to buy saki before.
Just kind of just something. Itwas on a whim. It was
(12:26):
on a whim. So that's whatwe're drinking to night. I don't know
if you're still in there. We'vetalked a couple of times, Hey,
TX, but we actually we actuallychecked our batteries two weeks ago and we're
like, we need to change theseout. And so last week I went
in got some new batteries. Sowe have brand new batteries in the rig.
So we'll see how they do longterm. But you but yeah,
(12:48):
yeah, we literally just checked themand just change them out. So our
main topic again, it's about curveballsand curveballs that you wouldn't normally expect from
our V life. So like there'sexpected curveballs that can happen in RV life,
like unexpected repairs or things like that. Maintenance all all the things like
(13:09):
that. These are not those things. These are everything else. Everything you
don't think of, like like pissingoff your wife in an RV without a
sofa bed, Like where are yougoing to go sleep? Like, what
are you gonna do? Are yougonna go sleep in the truck? I
mean, I guess you'd have to. I like, yeah, we we
haven't had too many of those issues. But it can happen. It can
(13:33):
absolutely happen. In three hundred squarefeet. There's not a lot of places
for you to go. And duringthe day, if you get like salty
with each other, one of youcan just go outside if the weather's nice
and like go walk it off orwhatever. Well the other one's like,
you know, kind of go toyour own corners from that perspective. But
if you're still pissed off at eachother when the sun's going down, man,
that that could be that could betime to cuddle up and make it
(13:56):
up. Yeah, yeah, Imean it is hard to go from,
at least in our experience, itis challenging to go from three thousand square
feet down to about three hundred squarefeet. I realize that those of you
who live in like Manhattan are laughingat us right now because you're like,
oh, rookies, just sit down. But you know, if you're not
(14:20):
used to living in that small ofa space, it's an adjustment for sure.
Yeah, I mean, what ofthe how do I get my video
game time on when there's only oneTV in the RV? Like? What
am I supposed to do? Ifyou want to watch your stupid little lovey
dovey shows and I want to whatlovey dovey shows? I don't know.
Okay, all right, you're tryingto dog on me and I really don't
(14:43):
actually watch lovey dewy shows. Iwas trying to come up with something.
I'm trying to create that fight.I know, I know, but no,
I mean it's real, like wehave and not every RV is this
way. We only have one bathroomin our RV. We have two sinks,
which is great, but we onlyhave one bathroom. So we have
we've learned how to navigate that situation. When this dude over here decides to
(15:09):
go watch TikTok videos for twenty minutes, I feel singled out. I'm doing
other things besides just watching TikTok videosin there, And it's natural course of
action. Yep, yep, it'syes, that is that is the thing.
But he has learned to give mea warning. It's like a it's
like a Pooh cale co co coco, Like I gotta go. Do
(15:33):
you have to be really quick ordo you have to like do something in
here really quick before I occupy thebathroom for the next twenty minutes. I
do not take twenty All women exaggerateall and that's not an exaggeration. That's
not an exaggeration at all. SoI feel like I ranted enough. Okay,
(15:54):
okay, how about the fact thatyou are your own dishwasher? Oh
my okay, so y'all, mokay. We realized this going into our
v life. Like I knew Iwas given up my dishwasher. I had
come to well, I thought Ihad come to terms with it. What
I guess I didn't realize was alittle bit of a curveball. Is the
(16:18):
sink itself is small. I meanit's it's good size for a camper,
but it's still small. The spaceto dry the dishes is small, and
the area itself is small, soit's really kind of a one person area.
Still, so it's not like hecan really get in and like help
with a lot of that. It'sa one person job, so we kind
(16:41):
of had to like figure out howto take some of our favorite recipes that
you know in our house, we'refoodies. We love to cook. So
our house, when we had one, had a really nice sized kitchen.
We could spread out, we couldpull out all the pots and pans.
We had a great dishwasher, hugelike kind of sink that could fit a
(17:03):
lot of dishes as well. Noissues there, And so when we moved
to the into the RV and everythinggot proportionally smaller, we had to figure
out how to make our favorite disheswith less dishes. Overall, I feel
like you're calling me a messy person. You're not messy. You do cook
kind of messy though you've gotten betterabout it. But but yeah, you
(17:25):
really, you really have. Iappreciate the effort there, and it's it's
much much better than it was.But yeah, you kind of are all
over the place when you cook,and so I'm a I'm an inspired cooker
you are, and the food istotally worth it, So I'm okay cleaning
up after that. But we didkind of think through how to do a
better job with like consolidating all thedishes that need to be cleaned after we
(17:51):
cook. The other thing that Ikind of didn't like, I guess I
realized, but I didn't really internalize, is I do dishes like three times
a day, because if you justlet it build up, there's nowhere to
put them whenever you do have togo and clean them, and then there's
nowhere to put them when you dohave to dry them. So if you
let all those dishes build up,it's like the camper is overflowing with dirty
(18:15):
dishes at that point. So dishes. The dishwasher does dishes locked. I
feel like there's like a TikTok inthis, like things you can say about
your wife that you can't say aboutyour dishwasher. Okay, guys, well,
okay, we've got to do aTikTok. I promise we will record
because that is too good not todo. Okay, dishwasher. Uh what
(18:40):
about the smoke detector? Oh goodlord, I'm not okay, y'all.
The fucking smoke detector goes off everysingle time we use the air fire,
every time, every time, Andit's not smokey in here, it's it's
just I don't know. It's likesmells. It is that a thing for
(19:00):
them to like smell the food cookingand then them to go, oh my
gosh, that smells way too good. I just have to like make sure
you know that that could you know, mean trouble for you. And it
pisses her off, but it freaksthe hell out of our dog. Yeah,
yeah, like I think, andI think the fact that it pisses
me off and I respond that waylike makes her even more anxious and agitating.
(19:23):
So I'm trying to curve that.But oh my goodness, like the
loudness of the beeping we really makesthe dog just pace back and forth,
and that's the same direction that Ihave to go to like essentially air it
out. But yeah, it's kindof wave a hat in front of I
do. If I think about itin time and it's not too hot outside,
(19:44):
I will proactively turn on all thefans and open up all the windows
and open the screen door, andthen we don't have any issue. But
sometimes I forget or sometimes it's justtoo hot outside and we're like, okay,
we'll deal with it when it goesoff. Yeah, I mean,
I turn on all the fans butit is. It's just not Yeah.
Now, I will say Natasha fromGodwin's on the Go, if you're not
following them, you absolutely should.They're amazing. But she has the same
(20:08):
air fryer in what she found wasif she turns it on air roast setting
instead of air fry setting, it'ssupposed to do the same thing in terms
of how it cooks the food,but it doesn't set off the fur alarm.
So we have yet to try that. We will try it and get
back to you, but yeah,you should definitely, definitely definitely check them
out because they're amazing. If youdon't know, this is my skeptical face,
(20:30):
but I'm definitely willing to try it. We'll try it, oh man.
We're prepping for a three day travelday coming up, so we won't
be trying it anytime soon. Becauseevery time we have a travel day,
especially multiple travel days in a row, we plan like the easiest of cleanup
meals ever, and that's when alot of times we'll pull out like the
(20:52):
paper plates and the paper cups andthings like that, so we have the
fewest number of dishes. Part ofthat is we're tired after a long travel
day. We just don't want tohave to mess with it. But part
of it is an attempt to conservewater, especially if we are not plugged
into water. So we'll try itin a bit, probably in the next
(21:15):
week, week and a half orso. Another curveball that we've talked about,
We talked about Internet connection, Yeah, for sure, that was in
a previous episode. We'll link itin the description. But like cell phone
data and like cell phone connectivity isanother curveball that is tied to Internet but
(21:36):
kind of separate in its own waythat we've come across. Yeah, it
really depends on what region you're inand like where people kind of put their
money. They're all quote unquote nationwidenetworks, well most of them are,
but they're not necessarily full bandwidth.So like you may get somewhere and like
you may have full bars on yourphone connecting to the antenna, but if
they haven't upgraded the backbone to thatantenna, then that full bars isn't going
(21:59):
to do you any good. That'sobviously, like if you'd go driving down
the street at your local town,you know, Verizon or eighteen team may
be doing amazing, but so andso may not be. But as you
go across the country, other thingsare going to change that, and then
you're gonna have companies like US Cellularand Boost that are really only regional in
general. I think the other thingthat is was a bit of an adjustment
(22:22):
for us with RV life. Forfull timers especially, we've had to be
a lot more intentional about keeping upwith our friends and family while we're on
the road because we're on the roadyear round. I don't I don't know
about you. I just text myfriends whenever I think about them. So
every like four or five months,Every every four or five months, you're
your friends here that you're still alive. Now, I totally we do like
(22:48):
girls wine date with my girlfriends.It's it's super fun. FaceTime is amazing,
Zoom is amazing, Like the technologyto be able to just still stay
connected is really great. And whenwe're on the road, and so we
plan like what we call our girlsdate nights every few weeks where we'll each
get our beverage of choice, wehop on FaceTime and we just chat,
(23:11):
which is super fun. And thenwe've really like tried to plan our travel
around what we call anchor points throughoutthe year, and one of like kind
of those big things, big placesthat we want to go or big things
that we want to do, andthen we kind of weave in the rest
of the travel from there. Oneof those anchor points is we always come
(23:33):
back home for the holidays, andso we get to see our friends and
family during the holidays. We reallyprioritize like hitting everybody during the holidays,
so by the time we get donewith the holidays, we're like extroverted out.
We need that time to like recharge, but we love it because we
get to see everybody. And thenlike this past July fourth, our whole
family actually came up to Colorado andone of them got a cabin, one
(23:57):
of them brought their travel trailers.We actually camped right next to them in
the site, right next to them. One of them stayed in a hotel,
but we all met up together andwe got to hang out together,
which was super cool. So wedo make plans to see our family throughout
the year, we just have tobe really really thoughtful about it. And
then stuff like our Instagram, Facebookand like honestly this podcast are kind of
(24:21):
ways for them to keep up withus as well. That was kind of
how it got started was just away for people, friends, family to
be able to be like, hey, what are you guys doing well,
rather than us answering in a bazilliontimes. Listen to our podcast, go
watch our social media something. Wellyou'll kind of you'll get the gist of
where we're at. Yeah. Yeah, like Jenny joining us today, Like
we know Jenny in real life.We've been friends with her and her family
(24:45):
for a long long time, andshe's hanging out with us live on TikTok
right now, which is super superfun. So those are also great ways
to keep up with friends and family. The other cool thing that social media
has done for us is we've reallybeen able to cultivate a community with other
RV families, whether full time RVfamilies or families that are just into r
(25:08):
ving and just trying to get asmany trips in as they can this year,
and it really gotten a chance toactually get to know each other,
which is super super cool. Soit's you know, the power of social
media, the power of connectivity hasreally been something we've leveraged while we've been
on the road. Okay, onething that's been a curveball for me,
and I mean it's it's affected youa little bit, but definitely has affected
(25:30):
me a lot. Allergies, Ohmy goodness. They're so different from place
to place and what may cause itin one place, you go to another
area, something completely new might becausing your issues and you just don't know.
Yeah, honestly, I didn't evenrealize what cottonwood's like. Cottonwood was
like that. You just hear iton the news that cottonwood pollens are really
(25:51):
really high, and then we getto Colorado and it's like snowing cottonwood,
little little white things whatever they're called, seedlets on us, and I'm like,
my allergies are destroying me. Iknow it, like you kind of
have adapted a little bit, butyeah, it's been it's been rough.
A poor guy. He was sneezingconstantly. His eyes were super swollen for
(26:12):
a bit. And yeah, itdid look it looked like snow falling from
the sky was so much, somuch, last last little curveball. You're
just gonna throw this one in thevery end. Okay, yes we are
glamping, we're not camping, sowe totally recognize this. Yeah, there's
like a super big debate every timewe post a video when we get a
(26:34):
comment like you guys aren't camping,Like, yeah, no, we realize
that we're glamping. We get it, but it does come. It comes
with its own different set of downsides. Like you think, Okay, camping
is a lot harder than glamping,Like that's the whole point. Glamping is
more glamorous. The issue is whenit comes to things like work. Yeah,
(26:57):
so we have to be played.Yes, we have to be places
that have good Internet, which meansthat we're this yeah, like the I'm
sorry, I didn't mean to cutyou off, and the sacrifice that we
make with that. So we bothhave kind of the knowledge jobs where knowledge
(27:18):
worker jobs where we have to beon the computer quite a bit, and
that means we have to be connectedto the internet. We have to have
a really solid, like rock solidinternet connection, and often that means being
close enough to a highway, likewithin ten fifteen minutes of a highway and
not being like way out in theboonies, which is super sad because it's
(27:40):
beautiful to camp out there. Butthe sacrifice that we make is there's a
lot of light pollution. And sothat was one of the things that I
expected going into this life of like, oh man, we're gonna be sleeping
under the stars every night. We'regonna get to see like all of the
stars, and it's gonna be gorgeousand beautiful. And there have been a
few places that we've been able togo where we have been able to see
(28:03):
like just this gorgeous, gorgeous nightsky. But for the most part,
unfortunately, because we have to beso connected all the time and we really
can only disconnect when we truly goon vacation, there's a ton of light
pollution, and so even camping ina campground or state park that's close to
(28:26):
where we need to be for ourinternet connectivity ultimately prevents us from being able
to like super enjoy that like realcampground vibe. Yeah. And on top
of that, unfortunately, because we'reworking Monday through fright, well you're working
Monday through Friday. Your schedule isa little weird, but you're working Monday
through Friday, we can't really movearound during the week, and our tanks
(28:52):
they can't really make it past twoor three days. So we pretty much
have to always go to campgrounds thathave full hookups, which kind of limits
the selection and you don't get someof that more rustic feel where you're more
spread out and kind of get toenjoy yourself and be kind of in your
own little world. Now we're youknow, a couple of feet away from
the next guy over. Yeah.Yeah, that's the other thing is,
(29:12):
man, we would love to havean opportunity to like really truly go boondocking
and like Moab or someplace like supercool. But yeah, I mean,
our one, our rig is notsuper set up for boondocking right now.
We'd have to do a lot toit to really get it set up for
more than just like a night ortwo. But yeah, it's It's also
(29:32):
one of those things where we're prettytied in during the week day to our
computers because of the work that wedo, and so we kind of have
to reserve all of our exploration forthe evenings and the weekends, and that
very very much limits where we cango, where we can stay, and
how long we can stay because wetend we tend to have to travel more
(29:55):
slowly than everybody else who might havemore freedom to just pick up and move
midweek. So moving to our pickof the week, one of the things
that we've talked about a ton anda lot of get a lot of questions
on is how do we stay organizedmovie from especially moving from three thousand square
feet down to three hundred square feetand not ever having lived in that small
(30:19):
of a confined space before. Andso yeah, there, there is there's
a little strategy that goes into playthere. I always have these lofty goals
that everything will have its place andit's gonna be right there, readily accessible
whenever I need it. But theninevitably, like something gets buried just a
little bit too far back, andthen I need it three times in three
(30:40):
days, and I just end upleaving it out, and so it's not
cool. So so it wasn't asbig a deal when we were in three
thousand square feet and I had Iliked to putter, and so I had
time to just kind of go aroundand like pick stuff up and like put
stuff back where it goes. Butin three hundred square feet it becomes an
(31:04):
eyesore really really quickly, and sowe definitely have to be very intentional about
how we keep things organized. Probablyour two biggest strategies is one, everything
has a place. If it doesn'thave a place, it doesn't stay.
So that's kind of a rule thatwe have is if we can't find a
place for it, we don't keepit. So if it's something we really
(31:27):
really want to keep, we finda place for it. The other thing
I think is we maximize the spacethat we can with like organizers like bins
and stuff. We even have binsin our fridge, which come in handy
on travel days because then if somethingdoes make a mess inside the fridge on
travel days, it's like contained.It doesn't get everywhere. But we have
(31:49):
bins everywhere. We use vertical storagea lot, so we have command strips
and we have just different baskets andthings that are hanging from those that help
keep lightweight stuff organized. But yeah, like we we really just had to
figure out how to maximize our spaceby leveraging storage. And I'll be honest,
(32:09):
when we first moved into our RV, we did some things, we
put some things up, and thenwe realized later that's not how we function
best and we had to rearrange.We did that several times, and that's
okay, and I'm sure we'll continueto do that as we like purge old
things and get new things in thatkind of thing. But yeah, that
that is how we stay organized inthe camper. I also have like a
(32:30):
label maker too, which is reallyreally super handy. So for all of
our cabinets where things aren't super visible, I have like a label maker that
says, like here's what, here'swhat's in this, Like here's our board
games, and like here's this andhere's that. So everything everything, Hey,
everything has a label. It's fine, it's good, you know.
(32:51):
But so I kind of do thesame thing with our basements. So I've
got like some larger like closing binsfor like our sewer hookups, our fresh
water hookups. Some of my toolsthat I need for certain stuff are on
like one side of the basement.Some tools on aid, especially tools that
I might need on the road oron the other side of the basement,
and they're all kind of readily accessible. Then obviously we've got like our chairs
(33:12):
and stuff. It's all kind oforganized. But like those bins, like
buying bins of different sizes, it'sgonna make organizing in your RV so much
better. That is just a gamechanger. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
Okay, So we had a coolfan question this week that came up.
We actually did a TikTok on it, and then we had a friend
(33:34):
actually stitch our TikTok and carried onthe conversation. So we thought we'd bring
it up here here as well andtalk through it. But the question was,
what like useless things did you bringinto our V life when you first
started from your house that you sold, And you're probably gonna hate our answer.
So so we didn't really bring alot of excessive so we kind of
(34:02):
knew what we were doing. Wewe add like a full on garage sale,
like we sold everything and we onlykept a few things, got a
storage unit and put those few thingsinto the storage unit. But then really
actually the bigger thing that came fromit was that we ended up buying some
stuff that we didn't need or didn'tactually end up being useful. Yeah.
(34:24):
Yeah, So the reason we actuallydidn't bring a ton of stuff with us
that we knew would you know,ultimately not be useful is we have camped
our entire lives, whether it's tentcamping, pop up tent trailer camping,
or actual travel trailer or V stylecamping. We've both literally done it our
(34:46):
entire lives, both separately as wellas together. Once we started dating and
then ultimately got married, so wekind of had an idea. We certainly
had some learning curves doing it fulltime because prior to two years ago,
oh we didn't do it full time, but we kind of knew what was
up. Like we kind of knewyou can't bring furniture with you, like
(35:06):
you can't, you can't bring aton of big things, big bulky things
with you. But like one ofthe weird things, super weird for us,
and it's very specific to us,and our particular RV model is y'all,
we went through two Cureg coffee makersin like less than a year,
(35:27):
and those suckers are not cheap.And the reason why is because we have
a rear kitchen and so our modelnumber, our RIG is a sand Piper
thirty nine bark, which means itis a I know the manufacturer didn't label
it this way, but we callit a badass rear kitchen because it is
really badass. But it's a rearkitchen, not a mid kitchen or a
(35:50):
front kitchen. And so if youhave a front kitchen or a mid kitchen
and you have a tollable RV,it's going to absorb a little bit more
of the shock from the road,and you're not gonna have quite so much
bumpiness. The rear of your traileris where all the bumpiness is, or
at least a lot of it,a lot of bumpiness. And so I
think and my theory is it wasjust even though we patted it down really
(36:12):
well, we packed it really well, there's probably some sort of mechanism inside
the curig that's just really delicate,and being at the rear of the camper
was it's too much the most vibrationsback there. Yeah, so we ended
up after the second one broke,we ended up swapping it out for like
a cheap like twenty five dollars Blackand Decker a coffee maker. It's just
a regular pot coffee maker, andit's been amazing. It's it's worked like
(36:37):
a champ the entire time. Wekeep it in place so it doesn't really
move from its location, so wedon't have to pack it away or anything.
We just kind of pat it withsome like fabric padding like what you
would recover a chair with essentially,and some bungee ties and we're good to
go. Yeah. The other thingyou bought you about this like set of
(37:00):
like stackable stainless steel pots and pans. Yeah, they had so many good
reviews from campers, from our veersonline, but yeah, it's no,
it was worthless. I mean,we still use like some of the pots,
but we pretty much use none ofthe pans. They were just not
helpful. I mean, the factthat they stacked was really really cool,
(37:21):
but they're just not high quality stainlesssteel, and so it just yeah,
no, yeah, it just itjust wasn't worth it. We ended up
swapping out a lot of the elementsof it for actual like just ceramic coded
pans, and we it's it's funny. We thought we would use so many
more pans, and then because ofthe whole dishwasher conversation we hadn't been in
earlier, we ended up getting likeone pan and one sauce pan, and
(37:45):
we're like set. Yeah, hey, friends, thanks for listening, thanks
for watching. We'd love to stayconnected to you. We are on all
of the socials TikTok, Instagram,Facebook, YouTube, what about forgot Snapchat,
and threads. We just joined threads. We are we are among the
first people on the bandwagon for threads, so definitely check us out. There
(38:09):
same username the entire time. It'sat Wandering RV Babe. The other cool
thing is we have a website.Our website features our podcasts, So if
you want to connect to us,you want to see a full episode of
our podcast or get subscribe to ourpodcast, check out our website. It's
in the bio of all of oursocial media platforms. We also on our
(38:29):
website have links to any of theproducts that we actually use and love and
talk about as well as merch.We have merch, No, we have
march, we have merch. Idon't know what appeared out of somewhere.
I don't know magic. So yeah, so stay connected with us, Definitely
send this comments, Definitely interact withus. We'd love to hear your stories,
(38:51):
your screw ups and your success isdoing the RV life, or any
questions that you might have about RVlife as well. So hang out with
us. Thanks so much for checkingout our episode. We'll see mis un
fine. Okay, you know,I honestly can't remember the last time we
(39:15):
had a major fight. We hadthat question come up a minute ago.
Yeah. They were like, Ican't imagine you fighting with each other,
and no, I really can't Ican't even remember the last like all out
brawl and fight that were. Iwas like, one of us is sleeping
on the sofa, who's going yeah, yeah, I don't like it was
always you. But but I know, I like we we don't. Well,
(39:37):
Okay, so I guess in seventeenyears of marriage. Yeah, I
know, seventeen years of marriage,we've got We've had all the fights,
We've had them all, we've gotdone. We've we've been there, done
that. I love how I wrotethat joke and you stole the joke from
me. Oh I did. I'mso sorry now I'm not really sorry, like
I'm really hoping our camera does notoverheat this week, because it has overheated
the past two times we've recorded thepodcasts, and this is the warmest it's
been since we went over to video. Yeah. Yeah, Like most of
the country is going through a bitof a heat wave right now, and
(00:21):
I don't know. We're in anarea where typically there's much more mild temperatures
during this time of year. We'rein Utah, but it's hot. It's
hot here, guys, to thepoint where, like we have to turn
off our AC in order to recordour podcast or go live on TikTok with
you guys, and you know,otherwise we get a lot of like just
(00:45):
sound pollution and like sound interference,y'all. So it's a little hot.
We're gonna survive. We'll get throughit together. But who I don't know
if I'll survived, but hopefully thecamera will. All right, good luck,
little guy, good luck? Imean sure, no, not you,
but can Welcome to the Wandering RVPodcast. Were biweekly source for our
(01:19):
stories, our screw ups, andour success is living the full time RB
life. I'm your host, Kara, the Wandering RV Babe, and this
is my driver, Ryan, Howdid folks welcome U? Tall? Oh?
That was that was intense, guys, that was intense. Okay.
So while we're talking about today,are the curveballs that life can throw at
(01:42):
you living this RV life. Andwhen I say curveballs, I don't mean
things that you would kind of expectwith RV life. I mean like true,
weird curveballs that has definitely been thrownat us over the last two years
that we've been doing RV life,and a lot of them have happened recently.
So off to the race as wego. Softball or baseball curveballs or
(02:07):
cricket cricket? Do they do curveballsin cricket? I have no idea.
Sure we'll call it cricket cricket curveballs. But yeah, we are in Provo,
Utah, home of the Fighting Bulldogsand also the fourth largest city in
Utah. You get a lot ofresearch, but hold hold on, it
gets even better. The fourth largestOkay, that's with one hundred and fifteen
(02:30):
thousand people, which comes to onlythree percent of the total Utah population.
Wow. Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean there's except for some really
big cities, there's not as manypeople in general out here, which is
actually lovely because it's not quite ascrowded and traffic, I don't know,
(02:53):
traffic has been really really crazy inProvo and in Salt Lake. It's it's
kind of big city traffic in general, so it's not just specific to this
one area, but oh my god, it's like the road laws don't apply.
The lines on the road are likepainted, little cute lines. They
just they don't apply their suggestions.Yeah, it's been it's been very very
(03:19):
fun being here. We so Ihurt my foot. We'll talk about this
here in a minute, but Ihurt my foot a few weeks ago.
So that's really severely limited our abilityto go and just explore and go hiking.
And some of the plans that wehad going into this trip to first
Colorado and now Utah just had toget completely scrapped, the biggest hiking states
(03:42):
of the country. I know,I know, yeah, because I can
kind of barely walk right now,which is super, super sucky. But
we have fun in Park City.Over the weekend, we went there and
we went to Olympic Park and checkedthat out. They were actually doing some
ski jumper practice, which was reallyreally cool to just sit and watch.
So of all the activities, alot of them required that she'd not go
(04:08):
because she was hurt, and thenthe few ones that she could do,
they wouldn't allow her to go becausetechnically the boot is an open toe shoe.
Yeah, so I have this likebig ortho orthotic boot that I have
to wear right now and the toesare open. And we were like,
well, I mean the fund isfar enough back, Like could we just
(04:29):
pretend it's closed? And they werelike no, we just like tape over
with duct tape and call it clothes. Yeah. Yeah, okay, So
I'm want to take us back ina little history lesson over the past fourteen
months about healthcare. Yeah, it'sbeen it's been interesting. I'm normally a
healthy person, by the way,it has been very interesting. So starting
(04:51):
last year, last May, sofourteen months ago, my mother, while
we were caravanning in New York Yeahthis one wasn't even me, Yeah,
broke her arm in New York Cityabout two hours away from our campground.
So I had to drive her tothe hospital. Super crazy thing, not
fun. You don't don't try it. Then in December we had to schedule
(05:14):
time so little miss over here couldhave had a procedure done. It was
it was normal, it was routine, no big deal. But we just
had to schedule time. We hadto stop what we were doing. Uh.
And then as we're in Tampa,we've been driving. We drove from
Texas over to Florida, went toa couple of places, and we ended
up in Tampa. As we're gettingto Tampa, you're in so much excruciating
(05:35):
pain from it. Then we endup having to go to the er,
come to find out it's infected.Yeah, it was not good, Glordy.
Then a few months later, afew months after that, our dog
hurts her. It's like her knee. It's yeah, it's kind of her
knee, isn't Yeah, and she'slike hobbling around on three legs. She
(05:57):
heard her like. We gave hera couple of weeks to kind of see
if she got better. Didn't getbetter. I had to take her to
the vet ear to get an extray done on her to figure out what
was going on. Then you hurtyour foot, Yeah, actually she hurt
my foot, not intentionally, butshe's she's a bigger girl and she's like
muscly, and so she stepped onmy foot. That was kind of the
(06:20):
initial injury. And then a fewdays later I just like walked wrong.
I don't know, I just putmy weight, shifted my weight incorrectly or
something like that. And we havenow found out we were able to get
an MRI done just this past week, actually saw a specialist and now found
(06:41):
out that it's an injury to myplanter plate ligament. So essentially, like
the ball of my foot is alljacked up. Trying to say that ten
times fast planter plate ligament play,I can't even say it once. Yeah,
so I had to really concentrate onthat. That was that was hard.
Yeah, thanks. So yeah,so I'm stuck in a boot for
(07:04):
a little bit longer. Hopefully itwill heal. From what I've been told,
it's like the one of the longerligaments to heal, and we'll get
the full report in a few daysto find out like how badly injured it
is. So yeah, so that'sfun. It's been a bit of a
(07:24):
trip. But what I will sayis getting healthcare on the road can be
a little tricky. So we havea great insurance plan through my job.
I kind of worked that normal likenine to five job, through an actual
company. So we have insurance throughthat company, which is great, and
it's all across the nation, sowe can get you know, healthcare when
we need it. Normally, ifit's just like a cold or we need
(07:47):
a prescription refill or something like that, we just use the like teldoc services
through the insurance company, which iskind of great, or through the the
my company that's coordinated with that,and that's really nice. But you know,
when you have a injury that requiresyou know, MRIs and X rays
(08:07):
and things like that, you can'talways really do that virtually. So we
have had like just a really toughtime with getting like prior authorization in time
to get the radiology imaging scans thatwe need to get before we have to
move on from an area. Sotell me, when did you get your
(08:28):
MRI done last night? When didthe doctor see you about it last week?
Today? Yeah? Yeah? Whenare we're leaving town tomorrow? So
yeah, so I saw the doctorover a week ago. Now he ordered
the MRI like right then and there. They have a really good working relationship
with a local imaging center. Solike they were amazing the doctor and the
(08:50):
doctor's office was great. They weresuper super interested in the RV life too.
It was really great. We justlike stopped and like chatted with the
doctor or probably ten fifteen minutes afterthe visit was over, which was super
awesome. And then the imaging centerwas amazing, Like they got me rescheduled
for my MRI multiple times because wethought the preof would be in and it
(09:13):
wasn't. And yeah, all theall of the things. Long story short,
there, finally got the MRI lastnight. We ended up having to
self pay for it because we wererunning out of time. We don't know
what's going on with the insurance company, but we'll figure that out. Saw
the doctor today, got a coupleof first well actually three steroids shots in
(09:35):
my foot this morning. We leavetomorrow. So all that said, I
think we're in a good spot.The doctor thinks we're in a good spot.
We're gonna do a virtual follow upwith him in a couple of weeks.
It should be fine. They tookgreat care of us. But man,
you kind of have to be yourown advocate here, and you have
to make sure if you're doing RVlife, you're on the road and something
(09:56):
happens and you're not able to haltyour plans or stop or you know,
whatever the case may be. Youreally just have to be your own advocate.
You have to make sure that you'reexplaining everything, your whole circumstance to
your doctor too, you know,any of the other you know, healthcare
providers that are in that whole processthat you need to get well again,
(10:18):
so that way they know and theycan work with you on it, and
you know, to that end,also call the insurance company and advocate for
yourself there as well. That wasa curveball. It's a curveball. This
year has been nuts with just allof the healthcare stuff that we've had to
deal with. And I know itall happen more as we get older.
I know that, like there's manymany other campers in our years that do
(10:39):
this life that have, you know, chronic illnesses. We do have some
chronic illnesses that flare up every nowand then, but they overall they don't
really impede our travels all that much. But this one definitely through a sport
curveball. We need a refill.Refill done, all right, tell the
chat what we're drinking tonight, becauseit's a little bit different than when we
(11:00):
normally drinking. I know, we'renormally all in on the whiskeys or beers
or mixed drinks, cocktails, prettymuch everything else except four. I was
in the mood for saki tonight.I don't know why, but I was
just like, you know what,We're going to liquor store. I was
like, I wonder if they haveany good saki. I like the cold
(11:20):
unfiltered sak. So it's a negooryis I guess is what it's called.
And so I wasn't sure and thenwe got there and they had it,
and I was like, yes,please, yeah, yeah, well we
recently had a gin or not agin. Well it's made with gin.
A saki seventy five made with gin, lemon juice and simple syrup, and
(11:43):
it was amazing. So I kindof recreated that recipe at home. And
then I think that's probably what likedrove your craving right now for sak is,
Like that flavor in the cocktail wasreally nice, but it was just
kind of a hint of that flavor, not the full thing, whereas this
is like full on saki. Andyeah, I agree with you. My
(12:03):
favorite is the chilled unfiltered saki.Jesse I'm with you. I like,
I always want saki at a sushibar, but I was just totally in
the mood this time. I don'tknow why it was. It was weird.
It's I don't think we bought sakioutside of like a sushi bar,
Like I don't think we've ever goneto a liquor store to buy saki before.
Just kind of just something. Itwas on a whim. It was
(12:26):
on a whim. So that's whatwe're drinking to night. I don't know
if you're still in there. We'vetalked a couple of times, Hey,
TX, but we actually we actuallychecked our batteries two weeks ago and we're
like, we need to change theseout. And so last week I went
in got some new batteries. Sowe have brand new batteries in the rig.
So we'll see how they do longterm. But you but yeah,
(12:48):
yeah, we literally just checked themand just change them out. So our
main topic again, it's about curveballsand curveballs that you wouldn't normally expect from
our V life. So like there'sexpected curveballs that can happen in RV life,
like unexpected repairs or things like that. Maintenance all all the things like
(13:09):
that. These are not those things. These are everything else. Everything you
don't think of, like like pissingoff your wife in an RV without a
sofa bed, Like where are yougoing to go sleep? Like, what
are you gonna do? Are yougonna go sleep in the truck? I
mean, I guess you'd have to. I like, yeah, we we
haven't had too many of those issues. But it can happen. It can
(13:33):
absolutely happen. In three hundred squarefeet. There's not a lot of places
for you to go. And duringthe day, if you get like salty
with each other, one of youcan just go outside if the weather's nice
and like go walk it off orwhatever. Well the other one's like,
you know, kind of go toyour own corners from that perspective. But
if you're still pissed off at eachother when the sun's going down, man,
that that could be that could betime to cuddle up and make it
(13:56):
up. Yeah, yeah, Imean it is hard to go from,
at least in our experience, itis challenging to go from three thousand square
feet down to about three hundred squarefeet. I realize that those of you
who live in like Manhattan are laughingat us right now because you're like,
oh, rookies, just sit down. But you know, if you're not
(14:20):
used to living in that small ofa space, it's an adjustment for sure.
Yeah, I mean, what ofthe how do I get my video
game time on when there's only oneTV in the RV? Like? What
am I supposed to do? Ifyou want to watch your stupid little lovey
dovey shows and I want to whatlovey dovey shows? I don't know.
Okay, all right, you're tryingto dog on me and I really don't
(14:43):
actually watch lovey dewy shows. Iwas trying to come up with something.
I'm trying to create that fight.I know, I know, but no,
I mean it's real, like wehave and not every RV is this
way. We only have one bathroomin our RV. We have two sinks,
which is great, but we onlyhave one bathroom. So we have
we've learned how to navigate that situation. When this dude over here decides to
(15:09):
go watch TikTok videos for twenty minutes, I feel singled out. I'm doing
other things besides just watching TikTok videosin there, And it's natural course of
action. Yep, yep, it'syes, that is that is the thing.
But he has learned to give mea warning. It's like a it's
like a Pooh cale co co coco, Like I gotta go. Do
(15:33):
you have to be really quick ordo you have to like do something in
here really quick before I occupy thebathroom for the next twenty minutes. I
do not take twenty All women exaggerateall and that's not an exaggeration. That's
not an exaggeration at all. SoI feel like I ranted enough. Okay,
(15:54):
okay, how about the fact thatyou are your own dishwasher? Oh
my okay, so y'all, mokay. We realized this going into our
v life. Like I knew Iwas given up my dishwasher. I had
come to well, I thought Ihad come to terms with it. What
I guess I didn't realize was alittle bit of a curveball. Is the
(16:18):
sink itself is small. I meanit's it's good size for a camper,
but it's still small. The spaceto dry the dishes is small, and
the area itself is small, soit's really kind of a one person area.
Still, so it's not like hecan really get in and like help
with a lot of that. It'sa one person job, so we kind
(16:41):
of had to like figure out howto take some of our favorite recipes that
you know in our house, we'refoodies. We love to cook. So
our house, when we had one, had a really nice sized kitchen.
We could spread out, we couldpull out all the pots and pans.
We had a great dishwasher, hugelike kind of sink that could fit a
(17:03):
lot of dishes as well. Noissues there, And so when we moved
to the into the RV and everythinggot proportionally smaller, we had to figure
out how to make our favorite disheswith less dishes. Overall, I feel
like you're calling me a messy person. You're not messy. You do cook
kind of messy though you've gotten betterabout it. But but yeah, you
(17:25):
really, you really have. Iappreciate the effort there, and it's it's
much much better than it was.But yeah, you kind of are all
over the place when you cook,and so I'm a I'm an inspired cooker
you are, and the food istotally worth it, So I'm okay cleaning
up after that. But we didkind of think through how to do a
better job with like consolidating all thedishes that need to be cleaned after we
(17:51):
cook. The other thing that Ikind of didn't like, I guess I
realized, but I didn't really internalize, is I do dishes like three times
a day, because if you justlet it build up, there's nowhere to
put them whenever you do have togo and clean them, and then there's
nowhere to put them when you dohave to dry them. So if you
let all those dishes build up,it's like the camper is overflowing with dirty
(18:15):
dishes at that point. So dishes. The dishwasher does dishes locked. I
feel like there's like a TikTok inthis, like things you can say about
your wife that you can't say aboutyour dishwasher. Okay, guys, well,
okay, we've got to do aTikTok. I promise we will record
because that is too good not todo. Okay, dishwasher. Uh what
(18:40):
about the smoke detector? Oh goodlord, I'm not okay, y'all.
The fucking smoke detector goes off everysingle time we use the air fire,
every time, every time, Andit's not smokey in here, it's it's
just I don't know. It's likesmells. It is that a thing for
(19:00):
them to like smell the food cookingand then them to go, oh my
gosh, that smells way too good. I just have to like make sure
you know that that could you know, mean trouble for you. And it
pisses her off, but it freaksthe hell out of our dog. Yeah,
yeah, like I think, andI think the fact that it pisses
me off and I respond that waylike makes her even more anxious and agitating.
(19:23):
So I'm trying to curve that.But oh my goodness, like the
loudness of the beeping we really makesthe dog just pace back and forth,
and that's the same direction that Ihave to go to like essentially air it
out. But yeah, it's kindof wave a hat in front of I
do. If I think about itin time and it's not too hot outside,
(19:44):
I will proactively turn on all thefans and open up all the windows
and open the screen door, andthen we don't have any issue. But
sometimes I forget or sometimes it's justtoo hot outside and we're like, okay,
we'll deal with it when it goesoff. Yeah, I mean,
I turn on all the fans butit is. It's just not Yeah.
Now, I will say Natasha fromGodwin's on the Go, if you're not
following them, you absolutely should.They're amazing. But she has the same
(20:08):
air fryer in what she found wasif she turns it on air roast setting
instead of air fry setting, it'ssupposed to do the same thing in terms
of how it cooks the food,but it doesn't set off the fur alarm.
So we have yet to try that. We will try it and get
back to you, but yeah,you should definitely, definitely definitely check them
out because they're amazing. If youdon't know, this is my skeptical face,
(20:30):
but I'm definitely willing to try it. We'll try it, oh man.
We're prepping for a three day travelday coming up, so we won't
be trying it anytime soon. Becauseevery time we have a travel day,
especially multiple travel days in a row, we plan like the easiest of cleanup
meals ever, and that's when alot of times we'll pull out like the
(20:52):
paper plates and the paper cups andthings like that, so we have the
fewest number of dishes. Part ofthat is we're tired after a long travel
day. We just don't want tohave to mess with it. But part
of it is an attempt to conservewater, especially if we are not plugged
into water. So we'll try itin a bit, probably in the next
(21:15):
week, week and a half orso. Another curveball that we've talked about,
We talked about Internet connection, Yeah, for sure, that was in
a previous episode. We'll link itin the description. But like cell phone
data and like cell phone connectivity isanother curveball that is tied to Internet but
(21:36):
kind of separate in its own waythat we've come across. Yeah, it
really depends on what region you're inand like where people kind of put their
money. They're all quote unquote nationwidenetworks, well most of them are,
but they're not necessarily full bandwidth.So like you may get somewhere and like
you may have full bars on yourphone connecting to the antenna, but if
they haven't upgraded the backbone to thatantenna, then that full bars isn't going
(21:59):
to do you any good. That'sobviously, like if you'd go driving down
the street at your local town,you know, Verizon or eighteen team may
be doing amazing, but so andso may not be. But as you
go across the country, other thingsare going to change that, and then
you're gonna have companies like US Cellularand Boost that are really only regional in
general. I think the other thingthat is was a bit of an adjustment
(22:22):
for us with RV life. Forfull timers especially, we've had to be
a lot more intentional about keeping upwith our friends and family while we're on
the road because we're on the roadyear round. I don't I don't know
about you. I just text myfriends whenever I think about them. So
every like four or five months,Every every four or five months, you're
your friends here that you're still alive. Now, I totally we do like
(22:48):
girls wine date with my girlfriends.It's it's super fun. FaceTime is amazing,
Zoom is amazing, Like the technologyto be able to just still stay
connected is really great. And whenwe're on the road, and so we
plan like what we call our girlsdate nights every few weeks where we'll each
get our beverage of choice, wehop on FaceTime and we just chat,
(23:11):
which is super fun. And thenwe've really like tried to plan our travel
around what we call anchor points throughoutthe year, and one of like kind
of those big things, big placesthat we want to go or big things
that we want to do, andthen we kind of weave in the rest
of the travel from there. Oneof those anchor points is we always come
(23:33):
back home for the holidays, andso we get to see our friends and
family during the holidays. We reallyprioritize like hitting everybody during the holidays,
so by the time we get donewith the holidays, we're like extroverted out.
We need that time to like recharge, but we love it because we
get to see everybody. And thenlike this past July fourth, our whole
family actually came up to Colorado andone of them got a cabin, one
(23:57):
of them brought their travel trailers.We actually camped right next to them in
the site, right next to them. One of them stayed in a hotel,
but we all met up together andwe got to hang out together,
which was super cool. So wedo make plans to see our family throughout
the year, we just have tobe really really thoughtful about it. And
then stuff like our Instagram, Facebookand like honestly this podcast are kind of
(24:21):
ways for them to keep up withus as well. That was kind of
how it got started was just away for people, friends, family to
be able to be like, hey, what are you guys doing well,
rather than us answering in a bazilliontimes. Listen to our podcast, go
watch our social media something. Wellyou'll kind of you'll get the gist of
where we're at. Yeah. Yeah, like Jenny joining us today, Like
we know Jenny in real life.We've been friends with her and her family
(24:45):
for a long long time, andshe's hanging out with us live on TikTok
right now, which is super superfun. So those are also great ways
to keep up with friends and family. The other cool thing that social media
has done for us is we've reallybeen able to cultivate a community with other
RV families, whether full time RVfamilies or families that are just into r
(25:08):
ving and just trying to get asmany trips in as they can this year,
and it really gotten a chance toactually get to know each other,
which is super super cool. Soit's you know, the power of social
media, the power of connectivity hasreally been something we've leveraged while we've been
on the road. Okay, onething that's been a curveball for me,
and I mean it's it's affected youa little bit, but definitely has affected
(25:30):
me a lot. Allergies, Ohmy goodness. They're so different from place
to place and what may cause itin one place, you go to another
area, something completely new might becausing your issues and you just don't know.
Yeah, honestly, I didn't evenrealize what cottonwood's like. Cottonwood was
like that. You just hear iton the news that cottonwood pollens are really
(25:51):
really high, and then we getto Colorado and it's like snowing cottonwood,
little little white things whatever they're called, seedlets on us, and I'm like,
my allergies are destroying me. Iknow it, like you kind of
have adapted a little bit, butyeah, it's been it's been rough.
A poor guy. He was sneezingconstantly. His eyes were super swollen for
(26:12):
a bit. And yeah, itdid look it looked like snow falling from
the sky was so much, somuch, last last little curveball. You're
just gonna throw this one in thevery end. Okay, yes we are
glamping, we're not camping, sowe totally recognize this. Yeah, there's
like a super big debate every timewe post a video when we get a
(26:34):
comment like you guys aren't camping,Like, yeah, no, we realize
that we're glamping. We get it, but it does come. It comes
with its own different set of downsides. Like you think, Okay, camping
is a lot harder than glamping,Like that's the whole point. Glamping is
more glamorous. The issue is whenit comes to things like work. Yeah,
(26:57):
so we have to be played.Yes, we have to be places
that have good Internet, which meansthat we're this yeah, like the I'm
sorry, I didn't mean to cutyou off, and the sacrifice that we
make with that. So we bothhave kind of the knowledge jobs where knowledge
(27:18):
worker jobs where we have to beon the computer quite a bit, and
that means we have to be connectedto the internet. We have to have
a really solid, like rock solidinternet connection, and often that means being
close enough to a highway, likewithin ten fifteen minutes of a highway and
not being like way out in theboonies, which is super sad because it's
(27:40):
beautiful to camp out there. Butthe sacrifice that we make is there's a
lot of light pollution. And sothat was one of the things that I
expected going into this life of like, oh man, we're gonna be sleeping
under the stars every night. We'regonna get to see like all of the
stars, and it's gonna be gorgeousand beautiful. And there have been a
few places that we've been able togo where we have been able to see
(28:03):
like just this gorgeous, gorgeous nightsky. But for the most part,
unfortunately, because we have to beso connected all the time and we really
can only disconnect when we truly goon vacation, there's a ton of light
pollution, and so even camping ina campground or state park that's close to
(28:26):
where we need to be for ourinternet connectivity ultimately prevents us from being able
to like super enjoy that like realcampground vibe. Yeah. And on top
of that, unfortunately, because we'reworking Monday through fright, well you're working
Monday through Friday. Your schedule isa little weird, but you're working Monday
through Friday, we can't really movearound during the week, and our tanks
(28:52):
they can't really make it past twoor three days. So we pretty much
have to always go to campgrounds thathave full hookups, which kind of limits
the selection and you don't get someof that more rustic feel where you're more
spread out and kind of get toenjoy yourself and be kind of in your
own little world. Now we're youknow, a couple of feet away from
the next guy over. Yeah.Yeah, that's the other thing is,
(29:12):
man, we would love to havean opportunity to like really truly go boondocking
and like Moab or someplace like supercool. But yeah, I mean,
our one, our rig is notsuper set up for boondocking right now.
We'd have to do a lot toit to really get it set up for
more than just like a night ortwo. But yeah, it's It's also
(29:32):
one of those things where we're prettytied in during the week day to our
computers because of the work that wedo, and so we kind of have
to reserve all of our exploration forthe evenings and the weekends, and that
very very much limits where we cango, where we can stay, and
how long we can stay because wetend we tend to have to travel more
(29:55):
slowly than everybody else who might havemore freedom to just pick up and move
midweek. So moving to our pickof the week, one of the things
that we've talked about a ton anda lot of get a lot of questions
on is how do we stay organizedmovie from especially moving from three thousand square
feet down to three hundred square feetand not ever having lived in that small
(30:19):
of a confined space before. Andso yeah, there, there is there's
a little strategy that goes into playthere. I always have these lofty goals
that everything will have its place andit's gonna be right there, readily accessible
whenever I need it. But theninevitably, like something gets buried just a
little bit too far back, andthen I need it three times in three
(30:40):
days, and I just end upleaving it out, and so it's not
cool. So so it wasn't asbig a deal when we were in three
thousand square feet and I had Iliked to putter, and so I had
time to just kind of go aroundand like pick stuff up and like put
stuff back where it goes. Butin three hundred square feet it becomes an
(31:04):
eyesore really really quickly, and sowe definitely have to be very intentional about
how we keep things organized. Probablyour two biggest strategies is one, everything
has a place. If it doesn'thave a place, it doesn't stay.
So that's kind of a rule thatwe have is if we can't find a
place for it, we don't keepit. So if it's something we really
(31:27):
really want to keep, we finda place for it. The other thing
I think is we maximize the spacethat we can with like organizers like bins
and stuff. We even have binsin our fridge, which come in handy
on travel days because then if somethingdoes make a mess inside the fridge on
travel days, it's like contained.It doesn't get everywhere. But we have
(31:49):
bins everywhere. We use vertical storagea lot, so we have command strips
and we have just different baskets andthings that are hanging from those that help
keep lightweight stuff organized. But yeah, like we we really just had to
figure out how to maximize our spaceby leveraging storage. And I'll be honest,
(32:09):
when we first moved into our RV, we did some things, we
put some things up, and thenwe realized later that's not how we function
best and we had to rearrange.We did that several times, and that's
okay, and I'm sure we'll continueto do that as we like purge old
things and get new things in thatkind of thing. But yeah, that
that is how we stay organized inthe camper. I also have like a
(32:30):
label maker too, which is reallyreally super handy. So for all of
our cabinets where things aren't super visible, I have like a label maker that
says, like here's what, here'swhat's in this, Like here's our board
games, and like here's this andhere's that. So everything everything, Hey,
everything has a label. It's fine, it's good, you know.
(32:51):
But so I kind of do thesame thing with our basements. So I've
got like some larger like closing binsfor like our sewer hookups, our fresh
water hookups. Some of my toolsthat I need for certain stuff are on
like one side of the basement.Some tools on aid, especially tools that
I might need on the road oron the other side of the basement,
and they're all kind of readily accessible. Then obviously we've got like our chairs
(33:12):
and stuff. It's all kind oforganized. But like those bins, like
buying bins of different sizes, it'sgonna make organizing in your RV so much
better. That is just a gamechanger. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
Okay, So we had a coolfan question this week that came up.
We actually did a TikTok on it, and then we had a friend
(33:34):
actually stitch our TikTok and carried onthe conversation. So we thought we'd bring
it up here here as well andtalk through it. But the question was,
what like useless things did you bringinto our V life when you first
started from your house that you sold, And you're probably gonna hate our answer.
So so we didn't really bring alot of excessive so we kind of
(34:02):
knew what we were doing. Wewe add like a full on garage sale,
like we sold everything and we onlykept a few things, got a
storage unit and put those few thingsinto the storage unit. But then really
actually the bigger thing that came fromit was that we ended up buying some
stuff that we didn't need or didn'tactually end up being useful. Yeah.
(34:24):
Yeah, So the reason we actuallydidn't bring a ton of stuff with us
that we knew would you know,ultimately not be useful is we have camped
our entire lives, whether it's tentcamping, pop up tent trailer camping,
or actual travel trailer or V stylecamping. We've both literally done it our
(34:46):
entire lives, both separately as wellas together. Once we started dating and
then ultimately got married, so wekind of had an idea. We certainly
had some learning curves doing it fulltime because prior to two years ago,
oh we didn't do it full time, but we kind of knew what was
up. Like we kind of knewyou can't bring furniture with you, like
(35:06):
you can't, you can't bring aton of big things, big bulky things
with you. But like one ofthe weird things, super weird for us,
and it's very specific to us,and our particular RV model is y'all,
we went through two Cureg coffee makersin like less than a year,
(35:27):
and those suckers are not cheap.And the reason why is because we have
a rear kitchen and so our modelnumber, our RIG is a sand Piper
thirty nine bark, which means itis a I know the manufacturer didn't label
it this way, but we callit a badass rear kitchen because it is
really badass. But it's a rearkitchen, not a mid kitchen or a
(35:50):
front kitchen. And so if youhave a front kitchen or a mid kitchen
and you have a tollable RV,it's going to absorb a little bit more
of the shock from the road,and you're not gonna have quite so much
bumpiness. The rear of your traileris where all the bumpiness is, or
at least a lot of it,a lot of bumpiness. And so I
think and my theory is it wasjust even though we patted it down really
(36:12):
well, we packed it really well, there's probably some sort of mechanism inside
the curig that's just really delicate,and being at the rear of the camper
was it's too much the most vibrationsback there. Yeah, so we ended
up after the second one broke,we ended up swapping it out for like
a cheap like twenty five dollars Blackand Decker a coffee maker. It's just
a regular pot coffee maker, andit's been amazing. It's it's worked like
(36:37):
a champ the entire time. Wekeep it in place so it doesn't really
move from its location, so wedon't have to pack it away or anything.
We just kind of pat it withsome like fabric padding like what you
would recover a chair with essentially,and some bungee ties and we're good to
go. Yeah. The other thingyou bought you about this like set of
(37:00):
like stackable stainless steel pots and pans. Yeah, they had so many good
reviews from campers, from our veersonline, but yeah, it's no,
it was worthless. I mean,we still use like some of the pots,
but we pretty much use none ofthe pans. They were just not
helpful. I mean, the factthat they stacked was really really cool,
(37:21):
but they're just not high quality stainlesssteel, and so it just yeah,
no, yeah, it just itjust wasn't worth it. We ended up
swapping out a lot of the elementsof it for actual like just ceramic coded
pans, and we it's it's funny. We thought we would use so many
more pans, and then because ofthe whole dishwasher conversation we hadn't been in
earlier, we ended up getting likeone pan and one sauce pan, and
(37:45):
we're like set. Yeah, hey, friends, thanks for listening, thanks
for watching. We'd love to stayconnected to you. We are on all
of the socials TikTok, Instagram,Facebook, YouTube, what about forgot Snapchat,
and threads. We just joined threads. We are we are among the
first people on the bandwagon for threads, so definitely check us out. There
(38:09):
same username the entire time. It'sat Wandering RV Babe. The other cool
thing is we have a website.Our website features our podcasts, So if
you want to connect to us,you want to see a full episode of
our podcast or get subscribe to ourpodcast, check out our website. It's
in the bio of all of oursocial media platforms. We also on our
(38:29):
website have links to any of theproducts that we actually use and love and
talk about as well as merch.We have merch, No, we have
march, we have merch. Idon't know what appeared out of somewhere.
I don't know magic. So yeah, so stay connected with us, Definitely
send this comments, Definitely interact withus. We'd love to hear your stories,
(38:51):
your screw ups and your success isdoing the RV life, or any
questions that you might have about RVlife as well. So hang out with
us. Thanks so much for checkingout our episode. We'll see mis un
fine. Okay, you know,I honestly can't remember the last time we
(39:15):
had a major fight. We hadthat question come up a minute ago.
Yeah. They were like, Ican't imagine you fighting with each other,
and no, I really can't Ican't even remember the last like all out
brawl and fight that were. Iwas like, one of us is sleeping
on the sofa, who's going yeah, yeah, I don't like it was
always you. But but I know, I like we we don't. Well,
(39:37):
Okay, so I guess in seventeenyears of marriage. Yeah, I
know, seventeen years of marriage,we've got We've had all the fights,
We've had them all, we've gotdone. We've we've been there, done
that. I love how I wrotethat joke and you stole the joke from
me. Oh I did. I'mso sorry now I'm not really sorry, like
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