RV Shenanigans! Podcast from Millers in Motion
The RV Shenanigans podcast is your go-to audio adventure for all things RV travel! Hosted by Ryan & Lauren Miller of Millers in Motion, this podcast dives into the ups, downs, and downright hilarious moments of life on the road. From navigating epic road trips and campsite mishaps to discussing RV gear, maintenance tips, and travel inspiration, RV Shenanigans brings a mix of expert advice and laugh-out-loud stories. Whether you’re a seasoned RVer or just dreaming of hitting the road, this podcast delivers relatable tales, helpful tips, and plenty of good vibes to fuel your wanderlust. Tune in, buckle up, and get ready to keep the wheels rolling and the adventures coming!
RV Shenanigans! Podcast from Millers in Motion
Best Tips for First Time Boondockers from the Alliance RV National Rally!
Best Tips for First Time Boondockers from the Alliance RV National Rally!
Recently we attended the 2024 Alliance National Rally, and during our time there we got to host a few panels! This week we have an exciting panel discussion on Boondocking! Thinking about trying to RV or Camp off Grid? We chat about everything on our favorite boondocking sites, power management, water usage and dealing with the sewer side of things!
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Have you ever thought about getting into boondocking, taking your RV and going off-grid for an extended period of time? Or maybe just rolling through a cracker barrel and kind of know how to use your power management systems, how to control your water usage as well as your sewer dumping and all those different things? Maybe you're just struggling to find the right spot to boondock All of that information. Coming up next, on the RV Shenanigans podcast. Welcome back to the RV Shenanigans podcast. My name is Ryan and along with my wife Lauren, we make up Millers in Motion. We have been traveling in our RV and other ways now for about two and a half years well, I've been traveling longer than that, but on a more full-time basis and recording it all to be played on the millers in motion youtube channel.
Speaker 1:You are watching this on the rv shenanigans 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 you prefer Apple Podcast, spotify, google, all those fun things. We're pretty much everywhere and we hope you're enjoying it. We do have a big favor. We have decided to remove the podcast from our main Miller's in Motion channel, so if you are watching this and you're a fan of that, please make sure to check out the RV Shenanigans Podcast YouTube channel. That's where you're going to find it and if you could do us a favor, we are trying to get this out in front of as many people as possible, so we would love for you to actually share it with some friends that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to the podcast, please do us a huge favor. Give us a rating and a review. Just a couple of little nice words down there would be amazing. Five stars would be great too, depending on what podcast platform the most of. Whatever the thing is, I'm pretty sure it's five and stars on all of them, but just in case it's not, that would be amazing because that is pretty much the only 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 do appreciate it. There's a lot more work that goes into it than most people realize, and I wouldn't trade it for the absolute world because I love it, mainly because we get to meet people like you listening or watching on the other end of this.
Speaker 1:So boondocking. Recently we just got done with the 2024 Alliance RV National Rally and we got to host and emcee however, you want to say that a boondocking panel with some friends and there's a lot of really good information. So if you're looking to considering to get into boondocking, you know, finding the knowledge base of what apps do you use? How do you determine whether to you know to get you where you need to go? How do you find some of these boondocking places? How do you manage your power? You know, do you have a solar system? Do you not have a solar system? We do. If you haven't seen any previous podcasts, we just put a very big one on our 2024 alliance valor. So we do have a pretty robust solar system. But you don't have to to go do the things that we're talking about doing, especially if you're doing it right and you're chasing good weather um, how to deal with your sewer water, all that stuff. We're actually going to kind of well backtrack to me emceeing that event.
Speaker 1:So, without further ado, here is me, from like two and a half weeks ago with the boondocking panel. Enjoy, welcome guys. This is the boondocking panel and before we get started, I just want to make sure we introduce everybody. If you were here from the social media panel. I'm still here. My name is Ryan Miller, I'm one of the Alliance Brand Ambassadors and we've been boondocking ever since Todd tortured me in a field in Texas for RV Unplugged Season 1. And I don't care what order whatever, introduce yourselves.
Speaker 3:Good morning everybody, and I don't care what order whatever, introduce yourselves. Good morning everybody. I'm Mark page. My lovely bride and I have a 370 and we boondock over a hundred nights a year, sometimes even more than that, and we don't rough it. We've got a big solar lithium system, but we're what. You can't hear me, can you hear me now? What? Wow, now I sound really important. But I'll let them tell their own story. But we are three Oea's for alliance and we help answer some social media. So hi, I work with alliance and I'm here to help you I'm charles tyer can you read that upside down?
Speaker 1:can you read it?
Speaker 4:upside down. Um, good morning. Um, I'm charles tyer, my wife's Leslie Tyre. We have a Valor 40 V13, and we absolutely love boondocking. I'd rather boondock camping than any other way, probably even better than mooch docking, but that'd be second, but boondocking's awesome. So I look forward to throughout this next hour we'll get into some details and answer some questions for you.
Speaker 8:Good morning. I'm Steve Jankovicius.
Speaker 1:That's a radio voice right there.
Speaker 8:Sorry about that. My wife Chris is here. We have a 310. My wife Chris is here, we have a 310. And, like Charles and Mark said, we really enjoy boondocking.
Speaker 1:It puts us in some places that are just absolutely gorgeous and away from everybody else, which is nice sometimes. And I didn't say we're in a 44V14, so no small rigs really here. A whole lot is there. Of course, it's Alliance, so I know that you guys. I'd like to kind of start by talking about kind of what, the one thing that made you really want to get into boondocking initially. What was that?
Speaker 3:About eight years yeah, about eight years ago, maybe a little more than that now I came in and that was way before Alliance, of course, but I came in and told Angie I said, hey, I've been reading about this thing called boondocking and I want to do it. She said, oh, what's that? And I said it's where you go and you camp in a place with no hookups, out in the wilderness without any connection whatsoever, and she said, yeah, we're not doing that. So I whined and cried and, like the spoiled little boy I am in many ways, I got my way. And so our first boondocking trip we were probably on our second day and she said I like this.
Speaker 3:And again, not roughing it. The tent days are long gone. We never looked back from that point. As the solar system has gotten bigger, the boondocking has gotten less difficult.
Speaker 4:We first just started camping and hanging out with friends who were boondocking and we learned from them and it was just amazing to be able to go and camp out in the wild. Literally. You don't have RVs all next to you, you don't have the lights from the street lights and the night lights and the trains and the ambulances, and it's so peaceful, it's so beautiful. The night sky when you're out in the middle of nowhere is brighter than you've ever seen before. But we didn't set out to say we're going to buy an RV and boondock. We bought the RV and just started traveling. And we ended up traveling with people who do boondock and now I'm like a boondocking junkie, it's like I would rather go do that than anything else.
Speaker 4:And so we retired and started traveling in an RV and, probably like many people, we were like okay, we're going to find a little piece of land on the East Coast 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 we own, and we won't have to be in an RV park. Well, guess what Lightbulb moment when we started boondocking? We already have that land, it's our land, it's public land that you can take your RV anytime and go stay on it. You don't even it's already there, so that makes it so exciting for me. So we gave up the search for all the land because we just go to whether it's all the names of the different areas where you can go boondock.
Speaker 8:But it just makes it very enjoyable when we bought our camper we didn't really think about boondocking. And then we figured out, heard about harvest hosts and said, okay, we'll, we'll do that. You know it's only one night or whatever. Um, so we weren't thinking necessarily the big boondocking that everybody thinks about. There's many ways to boondock. I mean whether it's a harvest host method, or you're on public land or you're in, you know your brother's pasture or whatever, or you know you're a driveway, somebody's driveway You're still boondocking, or could be, if you can't plug in.
Speaker 8:Then we ran into these guys and like, okay, we need a little bit more, we need to do more, started out with a small system and figured out it needed to be a little bit bigger. Chris didn't like the fact that we didn't have much battery when we woke up in the morning. So she says you need more batteries and I went, yeah, great. So and it evolves, you know how much you want to do. We weren't quite sure how to do it, but we you know hanging out with other people and asking questions we kind of figured it out. By no means are we experts at it yet, but we do pretty good.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, I think one of the biggest things too and I'm going to move over here just so that I can see a little better what's y'all's definition of boondocking. I think that's a great kind of place to start, now that people have a little insight to what you guys do and hide a little bit.
Speaker 4:So great question, because you could describe boondocking in many ways, but in a nutshell it's being able to camp without plugging your rig in to any kind of power. I don't want to say that Any to the grid, to electric, you know you could plug your rig in to your generator. That's boondocking. Finding ways to plug your rig into your generator, that's boondocking. Finding ways to power your rig and camp without plugging into a pedestal, like Steve was saying, that may be one night in a Walmart parking lot or that may be 90 days across the Midwest.
Speaker 1:Anybody else got another. We're just going with Charles' answer. So we do want to answer as many questions as we possibly can. So if you formulate them, I did take the mic away from out there so we could have one. So if you have a question, just kind of get my attention, raise your hand, I'll come over to you. But what's one thing you guys wish you'd know before you started boondocking, that you know now, like if there's a first-timer out there that's thinking about diving into this lifestyle.
Speaker 3:Do it. I mean seriously. It's a little unnerving. I guess everybody knows Charles and I do solar installs and so we have had so many different levels of install. We know of people, we know of friends that they boondock yes, sir. Oh, dave, boondock. Yeah, finish your thought. No, go ahead. I was like you can say it better than I can. Mr Caldwell here is a boondocking champion too. He's got some amazing spots up his repertoire. But just do it. I mean you do have to understand your limitations. We strongly encourage, you know, if you say, well, I've got a good camper and I've got one really good, one lead acid battery and I'm going to bone dock, it's probably not enough. Now, if you temper your expectations and you understand that that one battery is not going to completely power your coach, you have to save enough to get your jacks up in the morning and your slides back in. So it's that level. But but again, seriously, do it, try it.
Speaker 8: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 your rig. Don't hook up to anything while you're sitting on the pad. You've got a great backup plan. If you wake up in the morning and batteries are dead, or you know tanks are full or whatever, start over. You know, plug in, dump your tanks, fill your water tank and start over and learn how to ration 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 a tent that you know didn't have anything.
Speaker 8:So practice it when you can and have that safety net of being able to plug back in.
Speaker 3:Have y'all ever been to a place where you got there and you thought, uh-oh, we shouldn't be here because of turn radius of your trailer, or something like that. Yes, you have, mr Caldwell.
Speaker 9:Are you talking about the guy that we thought maybe he had bodies in the barrels in the back?
Speaker 3:No, I'm talking about the place in Nebraska and then up in the Tetons where you and I went up someplace where we shouldn't have been. Well, as I went through the gate 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 said I'm going to go. He said, if you're going to go, I'm going to go.
Speaker 3:And we rounded the first corner and I said into the microphone. I said oh, and we got up and it got scary really fast. Um, we, we had to back in. And that's when I discovered that I had to perform the rear wall fix on my coach, as the rear wall almost fell off. But anyways, yeah, it was. That's probably the biggest thing and we know it from we travel with a group. Drop your rig somewhere safe and take your truck. And the second part of that question is how do you circumvent that? And the second part of that question is how do you circumvent that? That right there and we have, it's a whole lot easier to turn around that dually, or even in some areas, your e-bike, if you've got one.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, lauren and I started doing that when we do go further off-grid is we'll drop one of the e-bikes and typically I'll go, because I have a better understanding of what the rig can and can't do or 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 a turn radius, sometimes what they call them Arizona pinstripes. I'd rather not scratch up the side of my coach trying to squeeze in so so I'm Cash Foley.
Speaker 5:I was blessed by spending the first 90, maybe two months with an experienced boondock buddy. I think that was a huge benefit. We traveled around, he helped me learn how to pick sites, how to do the thing, and at the end of that time we kept going and we had 200 days unplugged the first year. But it's hard to get that confidence. They say it takes about two months of it before you quit being paranoid. So find a good boondocking buddy, hopefully that has more experience than you, or just have someone with you. That's a backup.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to ask this question because it's a good opportunity to kind of talk about it. But when, if you let's say you don't have that boondocking buddy, or maybe you do, or maybe, like us it was Howard and Caitlin Newstate who are in a tiny little Class C and we're in a 64-foot fifth wheel what do you guys use to kind of find some of those sites where you can fit, because we all have slightly larger rigs than some people, but now you've got to go sit up there.
Speaker 9:Angie Page, and we learned this from Jim and Debbie Caldwell. They taught us to visit the ranger stations or the forest stations and then flat out ask them, where would you camp with your family?
Speaker 4:and going off of recommendations yeah, so I use, uh, google earth a lot, so I'll first. There's two parts to the question. One is how do you even where do you go to find a boondocking spot Like? There's apps and websites. The main one's called Campendium, there's also freecampsitesnet, there's some others and there's Facebook groups and there's word of mouth. There are plenty of people at this rally that have spreadsheets that are multiple pages long of GPS coordinates for boondocking locations across this country. They'll share their experience with you if you get to sit down with them and get to know them. But back to your first question. Once you know you're going to a spot, what's another way of viewing the spot to make sure you will fit there? And I do go into Google Earth a lot and look at images there to see what's around.
Speaker 8:Yeah, pretty much the same thing. Google Earth, even the Google camera guy that drives down the roads, street View, read reviews, look up the state natural resource board, like Texas Parks and or or whatever it is, and try to find what they say or places you can go and then hunt it down as much as you can find any reviews for that area. Sometimes you get lucky and just kind of fall into one it's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of us too.
Speaker 1:We're talking about going a little further out in the middle of nowhere for some of these things, and sometimes it's as easy as just pulling off the side of the road in Alaska and you're not really searching for anything in that front, but paying attention to what you think you can and can't do, like we were talking about the e-bike, like just understanding your rig and don't necessarily like take reviews and make sure you read through it, but like if you've got a standard Dexter axle on your suspension and you're gonna to some of those heaves in Alaska, when you pull off of them they can drop you know, feet in some case, and that's if your rig hasn't shifted on about a 40 degree angle.
Speaker 1:You haven't lived quite yet, especially if you live in it. Um, so, understanding what your rig can and can't do in some of those scenarios and not necessarily, I mean trust other people, but take it with a grain of salt too. And if you don't feel comfortable, then just don't do it, because at the end of the day, if you're nervous it's probably not going to go real well in that process.
Speaker 8:Yeah, and the other is, you know, the reviews are great and Street View or whatever, but conditions change. You know, a big rainstorm will come 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 I don't think I think charles was in the lead or whatever and he goes watch out for the ditch because there was a big old you know washout, or through the middle of the road that we got through it but it wasn't you know.
Speaker 8:It was kind of like okay, how's you know, everything started tipping and twisting and if you're following a 40 v13. Going around some twisty roads you get to see lots of tail swing I feel like I'm in a sports car compared to him.
Speaker 4:I would just add, especially for first-time boondockers or people who are just starting if you take your rigs off the beaten path and go where, it's just beautiful to wake up. We woke up morning after morning and the Grand Teton Mountains are right there and it's free. But when you go to these places, your rig's going to get scratched, you're going to run into a pothole and bend something. This is not a you've got to be comfortable with. That is where I'm going. If you're going to go out and truly truly boondock like we're doing, just expect that you're going to have some not damage, but I guess it is damage right.
Speaker 1:A higher percentage of it. Like, the likelihood of damage is just higher because you're pushing your rig to a further limit than, say, driving down well I'd say a road in America. But let's be honest, they're getting bad enough that it's getting similar. At this point Just out of curiosity, because I should have done this at the beginning how many people have never boondocked before in this room? Yeah, okay, so spotty. How many people have dabbed their foot in it and they're looking to expand? And how many are like these guys and are hardcore? Okay, so decent little mix.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious because it's one of those interesting things because there's always different levels of it. Like, you guys go pretty extreme and we're those people that we like to travel kind of hard because we're special, and so a 10-hour drive day for us is nothing, and having a nice solar system and a little bit of water on board and being able to just slide in somewhere and everything work normal is a big deal for us because we can function a little better and get some decent sleep. And so even for us, like, so crack, cracker, docking right at a cracker barrel, you can stay overnight for free. Please buy something. So they keep letting us do it.
Speaker 1:I know exactly how many parallel sites I need to maneuver and how many I need to park, and that's a crazy thing you didn't think you needed to know. But I need 12 spots to maneuver and 10 to park In the right scenario if there's a truck or something in my way more. And so learning some of those things. And then the Google Earth slash maps trick does everybody know how to use the measure function in that? That's one of those things and if you're not new to it, it's crazy Like I use it for sites too, just because we're so big. I'm sure you guys have where it's like it's a 40-foot site. Well, my rig's 46 feet long. How can I overhang? And then the dirt is another website that actually is starting to do a lot of campground views, kind of like the Google Street View, but you'll actually be able to see in so you can see if there's something, an incline that you might not be able to see vertically, or branches and stuff, and hopefully it's still not there by the time you get there.
Speaker 3:Charles talked about scratches. So last summer in our brand new 370, two and a half week old, maybe three weeks old it was probably pretty old by this time, weeks old, it was probably pretty old by this time With full body paint and independent suspension, I looked at the pine tree limb that was hanging over the side of the road and I thought, as I was pulling in, I thought, well, that's just pine needles, that's not a problem. What I didn't see was the four-inch limb in the middle of the pine needles and I put it through my window in one of my slide outs. You can fix things, so don't let that stop you, but be. Yeah, I said shoot a couple of times. I'm going to point out.
Speaker 1:In addition to being able to fix things, you can also avoid things Well.
Speaker 3:I pulled in, put the limb through the window, didn't know it. Angie and all my friends did know it, but they knew what my reaction was going to be so they didn't tell me until we went to the next spot and Angie says we need to talk. And I went back and then I melted down but I found out you can change one of those little side windows in the 370 vanity. Slide in. What did we do, jim? 30 minutes, maybe 15?
Speaker 1:Nobody filmed this. Yeah, oh so there's a blackmail footage out there somewhere is what I just heard R-rated.
Speaker 3:But anyways, you are going to the more adventure that you have. You are going to. Charlie was 100% right, you are going to get some little nicks and scratches, but man, the adventure. We could talk the rest of the day about the amazing things that we've seen. I would love to spend an hour on Island Park, idaho.
Speaker 4:One other point if you want to get really, really good at leveling your coach, if you want to know all really good at leveling your coach, if you want to know all about that crazy leveling system, go boondocking for the whole summer. There's not a level spot anywhere when you boondock. If you think it is, it's still not. But you will learn how to the manual mode. 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 field somewhere.
Speaker 10:Susan Eshelman and I just wanted to share that. My particular strategy is to pick an area that has three or four boondocking areas and make reservations at an RV park for two nights, drop the trailer and go scout. I'm really afraid of scouting with the trailer, but there's great sites and great roads that happen to be one vehicle wide and you go wait a second. I would have to back up for two miles if somebody was going the opposite direction. We cross those off the list. So you know, everybody's got their own set of things that they're comfortable with or not comfortable with, but but doing the scouting thing, you know just, it's better off without your trailer.
Speaker 5:We found the most wonderful places that were 20 miles away from that town. We would never have just drove out there with our RV, but amazing.
Speaker 8:Yeah, I think Susan made a good point as to you know it's okay to go to an RV park and go scout, or when we're looking, I try to have a backup plan. You know in my pocket that.
Speaker 8:Hey, if we don't find something or if it's all full or we can't get there. There's an RV park over here and we'll just stay the night there. And the other is you know weather changes over here and we'll just stay the night there. And the other is you know weather changes. You know we wanted to go somewhere last year and we looked at the weather and it was going to be 90 something degrees during the day and not cool at night. Well, the dogs won't survive during the day. We're not going to sleep at night if it's still 80 degrees in the rig and not running air conditioners or anything. So we said to heck with, we'll just go plug in somewhere for a couple days.
Speaker 1:I was going to say. The hard part about doing an hour-long panel about boondocking is we really need about seven hours? Because I'm already like we've talked about just finding a spot and I want to get into power, I want to get into water. We're going to get into some other stuff right after this question.
Speaker 10:So, talking about repairs, we're still sticks and bricks, so we have tons of tools.
Speaker 8:What kind of tools did you guys take that you are happy you took, not happy you took or should have taken? Yeah, that's a bad question to ask us. We are all doing RV tech work and solar installs, so we've got more tools than we really probably should have or have. You need your basic. You know basic screw guns, something to cut things with some kind of saw drill. You know just some basic tools. It's nothing crazy.
Speaker 1:So one that I wish I had had, that I now own is a one-inch driver, so that you can get your tires off and something a little easier, and then still the torque wrench.
Speaker 8:Yeah, a nice impact gun is good. I bought or got for Christmas a six-inch chainsaw. It's a little itty-bitty handheld chainsaw. There's always a limb sticking out somewhere. You know Mark carries a little weed eater to clean out spots, so you add to it. But the same stuff that you need to get here and fix things is the same stuff. You need boondocking and then you need a couple other things, maybe a little saw or something to get some limbs back, or some clippers. I carry those anyway because we back into a spot and the limb's dangling over my air conditioner and I don't want it to fall into it. So I hope that answers your question A voltmeter.
Speaker 3:If you own a rig and you do not have a voltmeter, order one from Amazon. That's probably the number one diagnosis tool, especially when we have our OEA calls and we'll contact the owner and they're having electrical issues. The very first question do you have a voltmeter? And most of the time, if they say no, it's going to be very difficult to track down. Yep, it is.
Speaker 7:Just wonder if any of you have upgraded your suspension at all.
Speaker 3:Yes, mark has.
Speaker 4:I have not. I have not.
Speaker 1:I have not and I have. So we have two ISs and two. Do you just have your standard 7K, 8k leaf springs, all that good stuff.
Speaker 3:But we're enjoying immensely the full independent. However, my 310 did not have it had the very stock. However my 310 did not have it had the very stock. And that was again at one point two years ago. We went almost 100 days without plugging in. I'll guarantee you we have pulled our rigs in places Alliance had never intended these rigs to be and in retrospect, some of them.
Speaker 6:We probably shouldn't have been, so it adds a lot to it, but it doesn't prevent you from still seeing this beautiful country, hi, so we are both retired and we're both full-time together, not separate. I thought I'd clarify. And we boondock every once in a while, but we do the easy boondocking just one night here and there. But we're interested in doing more. But we're watching. Battery technology is changing so fast right now. Do any of you have any?
Speaker 4:insight into kind of where you think that direction is going and what that looks like. So lithium batteries that we're using today, that come in every Valor from Alliance, that come with lithium or the lithium you can buy, that technology is awesome and it's here for a long, long time. So if you bought into lithium batteries today, you're making a great purchase. You're not buying something that's going to be out, that can't be used next year or five years from now. That is a very good energy storage solution. Will there be new chemicals? There are some upcoming soon, probably Different kind of lithium, but it's still going to be a lithium battery.
Speaker 1:It's technology. It's always moving forward, right? It's just a matter of when the next thing's going to come out.
Speaker 4:What's great about the lithium batteries is the technology is the same as it has been. What's getting better is they're just putting it into smaller packages. So instead of having a battery the size of this table, it's a battery the size of the phone. It's still your lithium battery. They're just getting them down in size.
Speaker 1:So, since we're kind of getting into power, if you guys don't mind, what kind of solar lithium setups do you guys each have?
Speaker 4:This would be interesting for you all to hear, because you now know how much boondocking we do.
Speaker 3:We all travel together.
Speaker 4:We travel together and we have totally different systems. Mark can go first.
Speaker 1:None of you know mine, which is fun.
Speaker 3:We have a dual inverter 3,000 watts of solar, the equivalency of 1,900-amp batteries. We have a 24-volt system and I do not carry a generator. I actually sold it last month because I didn't use it.
Speaker 4:So he has all of that solar and all of those batteries it. So he has all of that solar and all of those batteries. Well, I go the same place as he does and I have six batteries. I've only ever had six. I have a single one inverter. It's a 12-volt system, not a 24-volt, but I have a built-in Onan 5,500-watt generator. If, if we have a week of storms and the sun doesn't recharge my batteries, I hit a button and the generator comes on. I'm still boondocking.
Speaker 1:I have to have gasoline for my generator, but he's still boondocking too, just a little less comfortably if there's cloud cover for a long period of time right so you can.
Speaker 4:You can as long as you're able to produce energy for your RV. It doesn't matter if it's coming from the sun or a generator or whatever other source.
Speaker 8:Yeah, our system's probably in the middle of this pack. We have a single inverter, 800 amperes of batteries and 1700 watts of solar. We started with 400 ampere batteries and half of that in solar, so 800 or so and it worked fine. But it was kind of on the edge a little bit sometimes, and so we got a little bit bigger, and so we got a little bit bigger. And then we have a small generator where I carry with me.
Speaker 1:And then we have a dual inverter system as well. It's dual Victron Quattro. So 8,000 watts, constant 10,000 watts on a cranking for a little bit of time and then for 1,200 amp hours of 24 volt and then we have just under 3,000 watts on our roof. So actually we had installed two weeks ago now, and the first time I plugged in and this was a little bit in Texas too, where it's 92 degrees the first time I plugged in was actually here post the install. So that kind of gives you some insight. But what I was told early on in that is you might as well like drugs a little bit more, because if you get in a solar, next thing you know you're just going a little bit more. A little bit of that. Change it to this.
Speaker 4:there's a new cool technology which you guys have developed, new cool technology too it is also really nice when you have the solar capability on your rig, even if you're not boondocking, even if you're just going on a camping trip, two hours or maybe three hours before you get to your destination, when you stop for a bathroom break or lunch, you flip on the air conditioner. So when you get where you're going, your rig's already cooled down because you have solar panels and you have batteries and you have the inverter running the air conditioner. So that's a bonus that we use a lot.
Speaker 1:I don't even turn mine off, man. I just leave them on. That way it's always like 74 in there, Just for especially the new people getting into boondocking between your systems. What can you tangibly run, just so that we kind of simplify it? Just a hair for those people.
Speaker 3:Start with Mark yeah, everything. But let me back up just very, very, very briefly to the technology question, the biggest thing for me on the lithium batteries. Two years ago a person would ask me what battery should I get? Immediately I said Battle Born, end of story, king of the Hill, amazing technology. That's no longer the case. There are so many wonderful companies out there and now instead of $1,000 to $1,100 per 100-amp battery, you can get a great battery for around $300 per 100 amps battery for around $300 per 100 amps Tremendous difference. So that price point, victron is what we sell and use and believe in and I wouldn't install anything. But we always tell people when your Renogy goes out, keep using it and enjoy it. When it goes out, replace it with Victron. They have dropped prices 30% in the last year and it's continuing to come down.
Speaker 3:What can we run? Honestly, I gave an example just the other day to someone. When I first bought my Ram Dually, it had a 32-gallon diesel tank in it. I didn't go very far diesel tank in it and so I didn't go very far. All of our stops and bathroom breaks were scheduled around diesel stations, so I added a 60 gallon auxiliary. Now we've got 92 gallons of diesel. It's the same thing with your batteries. What can you run? How much solar do you have and how many batteries do you have? Nothing runs on solar. It runs on batteries powered by solar and recharged by solar. So with the big system, if we've got good sun, I can run two ACs and the batteries are replenished immediately. I don't see it drop below 100, so not a lot.
Speaker 3:I still don't do a lot of electric heat sources. It's unnecessary. You have a water heater that has propane and electric. 15 minutes before your shower, flip the propane water heater on and you've got hot water and then turn it off.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have a single inverter, single 3,000 watt inverter, and I comfortably run one AC. The truth is, we can run anything in our RV at any single given time. We can't run everything in our RV all at the same time. So I can turn on any AC I want, but not all three of them. I can turn on the electric water heater, but not with the microwave and an AC. So it's the way we use our coach. We live like we're plugged in. We turn whatever we want on, but I go back to also my generator. If I need three ACs, I can do it. I just also have the generator to do that.
Speaker 8:Yeah, mine's the same as Charles. I can run everything in my rig if I want to but not at the same time. I don't have enough capacity for that. And we tend to go places where we don't need an AC. You know that's our plan, is, you know, chase? 70 degrees at night.
Speaker 1:Well and I think that's the big portion like we get stuck in places sometimes where it's 95 degrees, so being able to run multiple acs for lauren and I was a really big deal because of that. So what you're trying to do dictates what you're going to end up putting in at the end of the day and also how much you want to spend. That's a factor, because they can get up there in price as well.
Speaker 8:Yeah, I mean we're talking running ACs. You're burning one battery, 100 amp hour battery every hour, so to go over per AC, so to go overnight. You're gonna go eat a lot of batteries. We have a lot of people asking questions.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna get right behind you because you had it up first and I'll come back to you.
Speaker 2:So thinking about starting small, moving to the 12-volt fridge. That's obviously going to pull off your batteries, so one lead acid is not going to get you overnight at all, so would like a single 300 get you overnight with your default solar. I think we get 320 on most of the paradigms so I'm still trying to figure this out right. Can I go with to start small, to start? You know, start with like a solar generator, maybe have a generator backup and not have to put you know, twenty thousand dollars of solar in yeah, you're.
Speaker 8:The dc fridges will go through about a battery overnight and then your lights and whatever else you got going on might eat a little bit more. So 200, 300, it is pretty safe to make it through the night and have enough charge to get your jacks up and do whatever you got to do in the morning, where you're gonna get well, as you get a bigger battery and you deplete it further than, and then you get into the chase of how many panels do I need on this the roof to recharge it? On a halfway cloudy day like today, we're great, but earlier in the week, when it was sort of raining, not raining, the solar is not going to make it back.
Speaker 1:And I think this is a good point to insert. When I knew I was going to be kind of up here with you guys doing this, I cornered Bill and I asked what's the biggest question they get on kind of the Renergy solar stuff that comes with, whether you have the solar or the solar plus option, is the number one question the customer service team gets is why can't I turn my AC on with what Alliance sent me? And so it's just a misunderstanding of the information. Alliance uses a lot of 12-volt components like fridges, TVs, those types of things, and those can all run on that battery without the use of inverters.
Speaker 4:But an AC requires an inverter, and alliance doesn't put inverters on yet yet. And for those doing the math or are trying to figure this out, this question has been asked a lot too, which is when you're considering running your air conditioner, the air conditioners in our rigs. When you're considering running your air conditioner, the air conditioners in our rigs use one. When you're running the AC on high, it uses one battery, meaning a 12-volt, 100-amp-hour battery uses one battery every hour. If you wanted to run your air conditioner for eight hours, you need eight batteries. And then I say you need eight batteries without any way of recharging them. That it's. It would use on average one battery per hour then. Then you need some way to recharge your batteries when the Sun comes back up the next morning, or a generator. But the air conditioner is a energy hog. If you, if you take the air conditioner out of the equation and chase 70 degrees, life is great.
Speaker 3:Back to yours just a minute. In the solar generators, that technology has really grown a lot and it is a good option. We've had people call and say man, 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 the biggest thing we sell. So, however, if you're looking at it as a starting point, it's not really upgradable. Oh, yes, it is. You can get four or five. I'm not hauling around four or five. I'm not hauling around four or five. But with the Victron systems you can start relatively small and inexpensively and add two. You have to get the right equipment and you have to have the right installer and not just plopping the solar panels right in the middle of everything. But so you have to look at the end game. What are you trying to end up with?
Speaker 1:I think one of the biggest obstacles too in solar is the price tag. Right, it kind of gets to that point 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 and inverter on and use an off-board generator or pedestals. If it's once a night to replenish and not have to put the solar on. That's the more expensive and first, unfortunately, but you can phase it just a little bit.
Speaker 10:I just wanted to give hope to some people out there. Now our system is very similar to theirs. But our boondocking buddy, luke Wertz. He did a lot of boondocking with his family, homeschooled two kids and they had an auto start on their own generator and I believe their batteries were still lead acid. He just had it set to where the generator would come on and recharge the batteries. It had minimal solar and so you can do it with a stock system if you go ahead and spring for the auto start on your generator to take care of the batteries and not let them drop too low. I love solar, I love lithium, but it's just an alternate way of doing it.
Speaker 1:Was there a question back here somewhere? I thought I saw somebody. Nope, okay, back there All the way in this other room. If I toss it, can you catch it?
Speaker 10:I'm just wondering, steve, you have the smaller generator. You said there you go, you have the smaller generator.
Speaker 8:Yeah, I have a 2,000 watt.
Speaker 3:How does that work?
Speaker 8:It works great.
Speaker 7:I mean as opposed to the one that will come on automatically and all that.
Speaker 8:So I haven't. I've had to use it once. Wow, I was parked under some trees and wasn't getting great sun and it was kind of cloudy anyway, so I plugged it in and you know, with our system, I can turn down the system to adjust what kind of power flow it'll take in. So I just turn it down to take in 10 amps from the generator, which 10 amps from the generator is 100 amps going into my battery. It doesn't take long to charge. You know, charge it back up a little bit and so that that's enough. It's enough to charge it up. You know, run a coffee picker if you need it. Just, you know, as a backup, um, you don't need a giant generator if that's all you're trying 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 hot and he may need his air conditioners on, then he needs a bigger generator.
Speaker 1:Some of us call it RVing the wrong way.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. I would just add that in the boondocking world, the people that have the generators, they're not using them. They're not starting the generator to run their RV and turn on all kind of stuff in the RV. They're just using the generator to run their RV and turn on all kind of stuff in the RV. They're just using the generator to recharge their batteries. Because it's been storming for four days and there's no sun, it will also run things in the RV. I don't mean to take away from that. The generator will still allow you to run the microwave, but the main purpose for the boondockers are to recharge your batteries and that's why they carry a small generator for that.
Speaker 1: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 system anymore, it's a backup, and or it's slightly cloudy and I need to get going somewhere and I want to pull in a little bit more before I stop for the night, just to have enough capacity to get through the night, kind of a situation, yeah, and like Susan said, you know, if you just have a small set of batteries or you really need to run air conditioners or whatever, then you need a bigger generator.
Speaker 8:I'm going to avoid being hot at night whether I go pay for a spot to plug in or I just move. It's got wheels. Get the heck out of here, let's go Okay.
Speaker 1:So because I know we're on, but was there a question that I just missed? Was there another question?
Speaker 8:back there somewhere.
Speaker 1:I just watched you do that. That's why.
Speaker 8:I was Thought I saw one.
Speaker 3:I wanted to bring up, if I could, for just a minute, mr Caldwell back there, my good buddy Jim. He texted me and said talk about apps a little bit, and probably our most common question is what app do you use to boondock? And my answer again is yes. All of them. Campendium the dirt freecampsitesnet. Rely on reviews. Rv Life campground reviews.
Speaker 1:I overlander.
Speaker 3:You can filter.
Speaker 1:Very good.
Speaker 3:You can go into Campendium, for instance, and filter free sites, but read those reviews. You have to kind of logically look at it. Throw out the nightmares and throw out the best ones and look at the meat in the middle and you know if you've got 60 foot of rig going down the road and it says you know horrible switchbacks to get to it.
Speaker 8:Don't go there and stop, but challenge accepted yes, oh yeah, not anymore oh, I'll wait for it at the bottom I'm sorry, leslie, that you have to deal with that but but it, it.
Speaker 3:You know, look at them and and ask, um, there, there is not. Oh, I only use you're missing out on a lot of stuff. I mean, you know, know, use all of them. So Jim suggested the DIRT. It's got some really good filters that will narrow it down to what it is that you're looking for.
Speaker 4:D-Y-R-T.
Speaker 3:Yes, the DIRT.
Speaker 4:Yeah, both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think both is the answer.
Speaker 4:He asked do we use the paid version of that or the free version? When you travel with the whole group, someone usually has the paid version and I'm still using the free version.
Speaker 3:I'm a sucker on paying for apps. My AccuWeather app, I think it's the best. I pay $20 a year to get wind forecast 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:So hang on, hang on, hang on. I was going to address that, so that actually just made a switch. So Campendium and Road Trippers is a big company, kind of like RV Life, that owns a bunch of different little things. Campendium is being absorbed now by Road Trippers. So if you're looking for the Campendium app, you actually are looking for the Road Trippers app. All of that information is in there. The only thing you're going to find you can nod your head. No, but the company told me that, and so whether or not it's actively good right at the moment, 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 it will redirect you to the right service app. Okay, so there. So you may need to update your app potentially. There's always that option too. So, oh gotcha. So yeah, there might be a little bit of a glitchy moment there while they do that integration stuff, all right.
Speaker 1:Let's chat water, because nothing goes with electricity like water. That's just what I was going to say. So you guys travel down the road with full tanks all the time. Right, don't actually nod. Yes, please Do you really. Yes, sir, Did you okay. So I asked if, because he's got a mic and didn't use it, he said he actually does travel down the road with full tanks Did you do anything to reinforce it or did you just roll with what Alliance did?
Speaker 3:Nope, the 310 and the 370, both. I see how they're installed. There are some rigs. Early build avenues did have a bit of an issue with reinforcement. Now generally we have great water at our house. We haven't been inside and slept in our house in four years but grandson lives in the area. We'll fill up and use Now if we're going through Shreveport or Baton Rouge in southern Louisiana. I don't fill it up, but I don't hesitate, but do so carefully. Alliance doesn't recommend that you always fill it up and bounce down the road.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, and we carry a 60-gallon water bladder with us that's easy to fill and easy to transfer to your coach.
Speaker 8: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 a place to fill up somewhere closer to where we are, and that's the recommendation that Alliance will give you and most people will. I mean, yes, it's great to have all the water in there, but it's a lot of weight and it does bounce around a lot. So when you're planning your trip, you've got to find a place to dump, you've got to find a place to fill with water. If you can fill up right before you get there, that's a better way to do it.
Speaker 4:Yep. So traveling across the country, boondocking, we have always found water. Country boondocking, we, we have always found water um, and we have found some water. That's amazing and it's coming literally flowing out of the side of the mountain, on the side of the road. And we do, we, we do carry with us on these boondocking trips of 50 or 60 gallon water bladder. So our rig is parked um and we're there for weeks and as we, as we go out and explore, like we'll go to a nearby national park, we'll take the water bladder with us. And while we're inside the national park, they always have little camping areas, usually too small for my big rig and but it's a tent camping area. Well, every one of those has a water spigot. So we just asked the nice folks there do you mind if we fill up our water bladder while we're here? And they've always said yes.
Speaker 1:So we bring water back to our camp campers and fill, refill our tanks from using this water bladder I know we have a couple of different versions of alliance rvs here, but does everybody have the same size freshwater tank or is one smaller than the other between the three of you guys?
Speaker 4:The Deltas definitely have smaller, but the fifth wheels, I think, are all the same Right around 100 gallons 100 gallons.
Speaker 1:How long can each of you guys make 100 gallons last for you out there In boondocking mode? Let me rephrase that not just full bore, using.
Speaker 3:If we expand it a little bit, freshwater tanks and waste tanks, it is a 98-gallon tank. However, 12 of that is considered to be water heater. Most I've ever gotten in my freshwater tank from Dead Empty is about 86 gallons. I've got a little meter that I put on, but a lot of it is just your usage. We have a friend that wants to go boondocking. He said the only problem is I take 30 minute showers. I said well, it's going to be an issue. But with 53 gallon kitchen, 53 gallon shower, 53 gallon waste, we have a bidet on our master bathroom toilet and we can go 13 days on the black tank, about a week. The hard thing is for a lot of wonderful, beautiful people is you can't leave a dirty dish in the sink. So you know you wait a little bit, you can dump that water outside. But my experience has been we run out of fresh water long before we run out of storage capacity.
Speaker 1:So just do the man a week we on fresh water like bullet point version there at the end. Yeah, we're about the same. We were about a week if we are in the conservation mode. But obviously what goes in, like we're just talking about, must come out. So you, I was gonna say, say we also carry around about a 60-gallon water bladder. It's just the just in case, and if you have, you can either get an external pump to pump it in. But if you have a winterization feature on your coach, which I think all alliances should, you can siphon it in, and so you just have to have a hose that doesn't have a connector on the one side. As far as if you guys want to stay out for, let's say, three weeks to a month straight out there and you're not going to move the RV, there's the caveat.
Speaker 4:How do you get rid of the out version of water? You have to. There are some of these bladders water bladders that are black tank bladders. You can transfer your waste into the bladder and take it into a town to a dump station.
Speaker 8:Macerator pump.
Speaker 4:And we use a macerator pump to fill that bladder. You can also just use your Blue Boy tote. You know, you've got to get it into the bed of your truck and take it into town and it's heavy when it's full of crap, but sorry, but yeah, I mean you can't just dump it on the ground out there, so you've got to get it.
Speaker 1:So would you guys prefer to, just when your black tank's full, it's time to just move and go ahead and do a dump and then find a new place. Is that kind of your line?
Speaker 4:Most of the time we we will have moved on in in two weeks. In fact, most of the public lands. There are a set number of days you'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 you come in there's a sign that says you know, 14 days max stay. So you're going to be moving on anyway, gotcha.
Speaker 1:So we have time for a handful of questions before we have to wrap up and they kick us out of the building. Does anybody have any questions? All right, then I'm going to ask one what's your favorite boondocking site you've found so far?
Speaker 4:And I'm saying this because I want to know for myself and we're going to tell all these people yeah, we're all thinking of the same, some of us at least thinking of the exact same place.
Speaker 1:So now you all have to answer with a separate location, so good luck with that. Whoever's not talking first?
Speaker 4:The favorite location of them all and we have had some amazing places, but the favorite place for us is a little place called Island Park, idaho. Just an amazing scenery. We were camped right along a small river or creek. It was a branch off of a river but just literally the campers. When you open your door, the water's right there, everything was scenic and beautiful and we literally had moose female and bull moose walking down the water, like for me to that table. It was just a great location. About 15 minutes from yellowstone yeah, oh sorry. Yeah, right outside of yellowstone. We we would go into yellowstone every day and enjoy the park and we had our. Our campsite was free and it was amazing views. Um so, and I I have the GPS coordinates. Anybody that's going there I'll share.
Speaker 6:it's not the faint of heart getting to the site we were in, though. Yeah, it's a little spooky.
Speaker 1:She said it's not the faint of heart getting to the site if you didn't hear her back over here we did one of my favorite spots and it wasn't as much Island Park is mine too.
Speaker 3:There really aren't words and the pictures are just. You know you show them they're like no, that's not real. But one of my favorite spots was in north of Jackson Hole, wyoming, near the little town I believe it was Moran. It was a highway department gravel storage yard that they have open for boondockers, built in security for all their mounds of gravel. But when you open your big beautiful windows in your Alliance you're looking at the Grand Tetons. It's free that that if it's free, it's for me, but it was we. We tend to travel as a group and we'll have other allies, will see us and will join and kind of circle the wagon type thing. But that's one of my favorite spots.
Speaker 1:You're not getting out of this, Steve.
Speaker 8:I think it's hard to pick, but there's a spot we found, kind of by accident, in Beulah, wyoming. It was on some state land. It's a little parking, public access to the river People float the river Little tiny parking lot that we circled around and got our stuff all situated in there and then, I don't know, two other rigs somehow squeezed in there too, situated in there, and then I don't know, two other rigs somehow squeezed in there too. But from here to you know, the wall over there there was a beautiful 10-foot waterfall and you know the river was running through about knee deep and if you stayed in it for more than about 10 minutes your ankles froze. Um, trout were swimming right past us. I mean, it was. It was a pretty cool spot, but it was.
Speaker 1:You know it's what you find so are there any spots on the bucket list that you haven't made it to yet, but you definitely want to try and get to, like, say, this year or next year yeah, we're trying to head west, northwest this year, so we don't know what we're looking for yet. We'll figure it out as we go. That's next week's problem. Yeah, gotcha, uh, so oh, perfect.
Speaker 7:One more question so two of you have kind of mentioned this already. But proximity to other campers that are boondocking what are kind of the rules on that? And then also, what are the same like think about that. What are your rules like when you run your generator? What are the same like think about that. What are your rules Like when you run your generator? What is the general like unwritten expectations of not running at certain hours or so boondocking etiquette kind of a question.
Speaker 8:So some of the places you go have designated sites. You know you can see them, the pullout, and it's probably got a marker or a fire pit or something with it. So you need to stay within those and those are generally spaced out pretty far. It's when you get to just some random like this place, we were kind of tight in there with our. The three of us were tight, we were okay with that. The other people came in and they were tight too, but everybody was pretty respectful of each other. I think if you just be respectful and you know during the day, run your generator if you need to or talk to them and say, hey, you know I'm getting low on battery or I need to do something tonight, is it okay?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, Steve.
Speaker 8:No, I don't know of any hard and fast rules.
Speaker 3:The one good thing too and it sounds like a flippant answer and I don't mean it 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 Alliance RVs they have wheels, we do. There's generally a whole gaggle of us that are together and so we kind of park in a way to kind of prevent somebody from being around on top of us. But yeah, that was what Steve said, respectful.
Speaker 1:I was going to say too, and I've shifted over here but my general rule of thumb too and we're out there if we're by ourselves is do as we would want to do. So if I didn't want to be right next to somebody, like what, if I was in their position, where would I prefer me to be, kind of a thing. And then I generally take the rule of thumb is first come, first serve, kind of a thing. If there's like one really cool spot and I have to get within feet of somebody else that I have no idea who they are, haven't talked to them, nothing, then they got the spot good for them. And then I shift down somewhere else that I would feel comfortable if I were them being at. So that's just kind of something we do.
Speaker 9: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 the east coast, any places there?
Speaker 8:With the size of rigs that we have, it's kind of difficult. We did our first big trip two years ago to the east coast, all the way to Maine and back, and we planned it to stay in parks because we weren't really experienced yet at boondocking or weren't comfortable. We did harvest hosts, we did several of those and that worked out great because there's enough room for us. But everywhere we drove we were looking at campsites or trying to find places in the national forest and they're just not made for for what we're hauling around. You can find them. There's places out there. You just you really have to hunt around. Even like state parks are kind of tight. They're not made. They were built in the you know 20s and they haven't fixed them yet.
Speaker 1:So it's tough I was gonna say the east coast is just for rvers as a whole. It's a slightly more difficult area to be in, how west everything's kind of more wide, open bridges seem to be taller, all that stuff because the routes out east are a lot more prohibitive as well, especially if you have a 13 foot six inch rig, which we all pretty much do here.
Speaker 3:So it's the one thing that I've found free. Campsitesnet has a tendency to kind of list a variety of you know we're. I'm all about blM land, our land. It's generally wide open, the dispersed camping In Florida. There's the water management districts that you have to make reservations but in that reservation they give you the code to the gate and you go in and it's just beautiful and again free. But that's where a lot of the apps come in to find different kinds.
Speaker 4:So we've talked power, we've talked water, and one question was brought up earlier about you know what's one thing that you've learned boondocking. That you didn't know but you do now. So I'll throw this out there to say it was a surprise to me. But the hardest part of the boondocking especially when you do it all summer and when you're doing it out Midwest and West the hardest thing to do is to get rid of your trash. It sounds crazy, but it's easier to get water, it's easier to dump your tanks, it's easier to do everything except your trash. They won't allow you to use any dumpsters out there to put your trash in.
Speaker 4:So my tip for those that are either experiencing or going to experience the problem of getting rid of your trash is save your walmart bags. You know your little plastic bags from when you get groceries. If you put your trash in one of those every time you make a trip to town or trip to a national park, that that little bag will fit in a normal trash can, 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 sharing that with you all that if you're just starting, you're going to have a problem getting rid of your trash.
Speaker 3:And a combination of what Charles said with with the little bags. Don't throw stinky stuff in your big trash bags, because you may have that trash bag for two weeks and it gets worse. So you put your stinky stuff in the little bag and whatever stinky stuff is to you I'm not, we have dogs, so you just whatever and but the big stuff. If it's just paper products and no food products, it'll ride good for two, three weeks.
Speaker 1:Recycle or recycle.
Speaker 8:Yep, well, recycle spots are hard to find too. It's amazing that you're in Colorado and you know it's all tree hugger type things and you can't find a place to put aluminum cans.
Speaker 1:it's kind of one more question then we're gonna start wrapping her up you guys are obviously out in the wild.
Speaker 7:What do you guys do when for self-protection, whether it's animals or unwanted visitors?
Speaker 4:Great question. That question is asked almost every year. When you travel in a group, it's a lot easier, even if you're just traveling with one other camper. It's easier because, for safety-wise, when the whole group leaves and goes to the park and hikes on a 10-hour hike well one vehicle is always left back with the camper, so it does look like there's somebody home. If you're by yourself and you're taking your vehicles away, it's just. I would at that point advise to invest in security cameras and things like that. But we carry a shotgun or some protection from wild animals, should it occur, and we take it serious. We have that stuff available. It's not like packed away where if we need it, we can't get to it. I mean it's uh, it's there and available. We've never had an issue uh, no, no, no even stories to tell about. Almost you know it. Just we have. We've always found that the areas we've been in have been uh, safe, uh, we've never had things stolen or broken into.
Speaker 3:Bear spray in the door of my truck.
Speaker 4:I've had more closer encounters of wildlife while hiking in the national parks than I do back at the campsite.
Speaker 1:And just to expand it from our point of view too. This came up in the full-timer panel yesterday. If you go full-time, if you're're in a spot you don't feel comfortable or something's going on, the best security system I've ever found is right here in my gut. And if you you get there and you feel a little meh about it, just like anything else that happens at RV parks sometimes it can happen the nicest places just move, go. That we've said it multiple times now.
Speaker 1:The, your rig has wheels, just shift to somewhere you're more comfortable. I mean, it might not be the most easy option. And then just to piggyback on that a little bit is Internet, because if you do have like being able to have whether it's a Starlink, because you're out west of Illinois, or T-Mobile 5G, whatever it is like we still work full-time and these guys all work a little bit in some capacity. And so why are you laughing, steve? And so why are you laughing, steve?
Speaker 1:Just trying not to, and so you know having that internet and our security system to be able to, so that if Lauren and I are just off by ourselves, knowing that I can pop a camera up and I can kind of see around my rig because we're gone and it's just us, so our rig's sitting there by itself is comforting in a way. Or I'll get a motion notification if there's something going on by it. Comforting in a way, or I'll get a motion notification if there's something going on by it. So essentially the question just so everybody hears it was Charles said that he had a firearm on board and she's asking about kind of I'm going to add state to state in addition, because that's a fun thing too, as well as crossing borders like in Canada.
Speaker 4:So I have not been through Canada. I know there are specific rules about what type of firearm you can carry through there and they're extremely strict. From what I understand, mark has gone through Canada so he could expand on that. Mark has gone through Canada so he could expand on that. As far as state to state, so I'm retired from 30 years of law enforcement and so I still carry law enforcement credentials and I'm probably the worst one to ask because I can just tell you I'm going to have my firearm in whatever state I am, whatever state I'm in. But it would be best to, you know, look up the state's rules about what you can carry in and out of their state.
Speaker 1:That's what I was going to say is just don't put yourself in a bad situation, and that goes for the like whether it's a security issue, where you know you can be okay, versus the other side is just understand the laws and regulations of the state country, whatever you happen to be going to before, and I'm sure those 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 dogs microchip now if you're going to go into Canada or back into the U S from other countries, like going up to. Oh yeah, that's a whole new thing. Leslie, I just saw your face go Yep, and that's who knows, I mean, when it's going to go into effect, but it's been passed, so there's always constant laws changing with crossing borders, states or countries.
Speaker 1:Alright, well, I know these guys would probably be happy to chat more, but I know whoever's next in here is probably going to start wandering in. But do any of you guys have social 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 of the install company? Just so you guys have the solar install stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So Mark and I own a solar install company. It's called Unplugged RV Solar, Unplugged RV Solar. And more and more we learned. If you add and more, you could just do anything.
Speaker 1:Tank cleanings.
Speaker 4:But we have a Facebook page. You could look us up there and you could Facebook messages.
Speaker 1:We'll answer any questions anytime Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for being on the panel and thank you guys for coming in. If you have any questions, I'm sure we'll linger for just a little bit until they officially kick us all the way out. So thank you guys for coming. Thank you.
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