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Our jobs setting up and putting away our RV - what are the things we have to do and undo

StressLess Camping Podcast

Our jobs setting up and putting away our RV - what are the things we have to do and undo. How do we divide up the work it takes to set-up and pack-up our camper and who does what job? What is it important to know who does what and why?

This is a good example of how Checklists make for StressLess Camping and why we have them and share them. Of course we also share some of our favorite gadgets and hacks for set-up and pack-up tasks.

We also talk about RVs with great outdoor kitchen and mention two of our own favorites.

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Wendy's favorite awning decor

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Automated transcription of podcast 208 of the StressLess Camping RV podcast

Welcome to the weekly podcast, all about turning the great American RV adventure into Stressless camping. Each week we explore tips, tricks, ideas, and destinations, and talk to the happiest campers in the RV world. Pull up a seat at the campfire as we enjoy some stress less camping.

Welcome to the campfire.

He's Tony.

And she's Peggy.

And we are too. RV industry veterans who travel part-time

In a small trailer

Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips, tricks, and discounts.

Indeed. We're gonna do something a little different this week.

Yeah, he's gonna be me and I'm gonna be He. Well, well no, but we are gonna talk about what he do and what she do. <laugh>,

That's the fact check. The point of this is that we know a lot of people who are in this RV world and they have defined jobs and it's like, well this individual always does that and that individual always does the other. But we know if situations where things went wrong and one person had to take over the other person's job and where that really comes into play is in the driving department.

Well, yeah, but not necessarily. But

Before we actually get started, do you know the way to Santa Fe with apologies to my family that live in San Jose

<laugh> and everybody who had to hear singing

And everyone who had to hear us sing. We are in Santa Fe, New Mexico this week. We are at a rally. A lot of times I've differentiated between camping and traveling. And this week we're kind of camping. We are with a group and we're doing some rally things, but we only went, you know, a little more than a mile. And then we stopped and then we're here for a week. So <laugh>, it's more like camping than traveling, right? <laugh>?

Yeah. Well it's uh, Santa Fe is what, 42 miles from our home. Yeah. Base in Rio Ranch. All in New Mexico. Of course it wasn't far. It was one podcast away from home.

That's right. We only got to hear one podcast <laugh>. But while we're here, we are going to, as we, as Tony said, we're gonna kind of go through the processes of setting up and tearing down. But instead of telling you what I do, Tony's gonna tell you what I do and vice versa.

So it's gonna be interesting.

Now some people call these pink jobs and blue jobs. Yeah. And I mean I kind of, I, I understand why they do and I get it and I sort of do that in my head too. But I don't want them to be thought of as girl jobs and boy jobs

Because No, especially if it's only one person. Right.

Especially if it's one person or two of the same gender. So we're gonna call them out. Wait, you don't wanna call it an inside job? Cause that would be weird too. So we're gonna call them outdoor jobs and indoor jobs.

Okay, that works. I like

It. Yeah. So typically Tony does what I'm thinking of as the outdoor jobs and I do the indoor jobs. Yeah.

I get kicked out and just can't go take care of that Buddy's

Try to kick him out and you might as well get something done while you're out there. Yeah. <laugh>

Besides, you know, look at the rabbits. There are a lot of rabbits here. Yeah. Oh, and we are in a full hookup campground, but we're not fully hooked up. And we'll get into that in a little bit as to why. But before we talk about RV parks and where we're camping, we want to speak a little bit about Boondockers. Welcome. We are a Boondockers welcome host and what that is, is people who have a piece of dirt and invite people to come and stay for a day or two on the property as a free overnight stay.

So the way Boondockers welcome works is you sign up for the service. It's essentially 79 a year. But you know, we have a discount. And there's also a discount if you're already a member of Harvest Hosts. Cuz effectively it's the same company,

Right. They are now <laugh>.

You basically stay at people's homes. It's a great freeway to stay overnight or a couple of nights if you're on your way to wherever. And we have been Boondockers welcome hosts in California where we used to live and now in New Mexico. And we have met the neatest people that way.

We have That is for sure. I can't think of anyone that we wouldn't love to have come back

<laugh>. That's true. We had a gentleman just this last week who built his own pickup camper. Yeah, that was pretty

Cool. We had a very young couple who was five days into their new full timing life full. Yeah. Which was awesome.

And they had renovated a fifth wheel and they showed us their fifth wheel and we showed them our Rockwood Mini light because they're like, Hey, what do these brand new rigs look like? So we showed them

In the past, we have actually had a Boone Doctor's welcome guest on the podcast. Remember the episode? We'll have to put the, in the show notes. She's a yoga instructor and he is a sound therapist. Yeah. And he brought his gongs out and did some gong playing for

Us. Gong therapy.

That was really cool.

I wonder if anybody is old enough to have been on the Gong Show <laugh> and they hear about Gong therapy and it, it's like, no, now I need real therapy or whatever. Well, I shouldn't say not real therapy, but you know what I

Mean. Anyway, so this week we got an email letting us know that we are quote unquote ultimate hosts, which is an honor and we love doing it so much. We would do it if we didn't get anything. But we happen to get, you know, for every stay we get an extra month of membership or something like that. So we use of course, as, as travelers, we used Boondockers welcome quite a bit as well.

Yeah. I mean there was a time we stayed at a dude's house and he had a rat rod and took us out for a ride. I'll put the video of that on the show notes for this episode, which is episode 2 0 8. You can see us going for a ride in his rat rod. It was so flippant. Cool. And just, you know, a lot of times these people are our veers or have been our veers and they just wanna hear your stories. But by the same token, there have been places we've stayed where we don't speak with the hosts really other than hate Go park over there.

Yeah. So it's, it's up to you. I mean, it's not a fully immersive experience if you don't want it to be,

But you don't have to go out and socialize or invite people in for a beer, but Right. That's just how we are

<laugh>. Yeah. But the thing is you, the only prerequisite is you do have to have a fully self-contained rv. So in other words, it has to have a bathroom and a way to prepare meals, that sort of thing. Yeah.

Your host is not gonna provide any of that.

Correct. Although now there are also hosts who are providing additional services such as water and or electricity. Sure. And potentially even dump ability. And those are additional costs. But if you just want to go and stay the night, essentially that's free. Other than the $79 or less membership.

Remember that our very first time using starlink was at a Boondockers welcome site and the man said, oh, I have starlink, go ahead and hook up. That was great.

Yeah man, it was super fast too. <laugh> I, I had never been hooked to internet that fast before. It slowed down a bit, but you know, there's just more people

Check out Boondockers welcome slash harvest hosts. It's a great program and you meet great people and you might even come stay with the ultimate hosts. <laugh>. <laugh>. Well, I mean some of the ultimate hosts

<laugh>. Yeah, I I'm sure there are others.

I'm sure we're not the only <laugh>.

Yeah. Well, back to our main topic of the indoor jobs and out the, the jobs people assume that is always theirs. And again, we want you to kind of think around that and make sure you know how to do all the jobs and what those jobs are. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now one of the ways to know what those jobs are are with checklists and we will get into that in just a little bit.

But what we're gonna do is, I'm gonna assume what Peggy does and Peggy's gonna assume what I do and we'll we'll check each other as it were.

Right. So we're gonna, we're not gonna cheat, we're not gonna use our checklists. We're actually going to

<laugh> by the way. We still do,

We still do use them, but just for this purpose so that if there's some kind of an emergency and the other person has to take over, how close would they get to doing it all the way around. Right.

Well and you have to remember last week you were on a camp out all by yourself. I was not invited because of my plumbing. Yeah.

I think that might give me the advantage because I have actually done the outside jobs probably more than you've done the inside jobs. <laugh>. Yep. I mean indoor <laugh>.

Yeah. You got the insider information.

<laugh>, I'm gonna say, let's start with like planning and this will be kind of short. It's not really a checklist so much. It's just kind of the things that we both do. I know that Tony, you know, makes sure that the truck has had its oil change and does most of the, you know, that monthly or or periodic maintenance and inspections and looks at the roof and checks the tires and things like that. And making sure that we're ready to go on a trip. And then as we're getting the day of and getting ready, he gets of course his own personal belongings all packed up.

I don't go and pack his clothes. He does that again, checks to make sure that everything is safe and secure and sound. All the outside vents and drains are all closed. Make sure the truck is ready to go. Checks all the tires. And then of course he does a majority of the driving when we're together. There's no reason I can't drive, but he just really loves to do it.

I do. I could have been a long haul truck driver.

Yeah. So he does most of the driving and while you're driving of course you wanna monitor all the gauges in the truck, monitor your tire pressure system, all those kind of things. Remember when it's time to stop for gas <laugh>. And of course remember when it's time to stop and get coffee. That's important too.

<laugh>. So just a side here, we've got a little bit of an itch for a more capable pickup truck with a larger fuel tank. But we realized that the fuel tank isn't the reason we stop frequently. It's more our own personal That's the bladder tank. Yeah. That that's why we stop. Yeah. It's like every couple hours or so. It's not like

We would go longer periods of time without stopping if we had a bigger fuel tank because we're going to need coffee or empty our bladders. So Right. <laugh>. So we just wouldn't fuel up every time we stopped, that's all. Which

Wouldn't be a bad thing. I mean I would, I wouldn't mind having a larger fuel tank. But anyway,

Yeah. So then when we get to camp, Tony's in charge. Most of the time of parking I get out and kind of, you know, guide him or watch for trees or make sure we're level and things like that. But he gets us parked. We work together on unhooking the truck from the camper and then for set up, Tony on the outside of course, you know, checks the, with the power watchdog and sets up the electricity, hooks up the water, hooks up the black and gray tanks to the sewer if there is one.

A lot of parks have maybe electric and water but don't have sewer hookups. He opens the propane tank so that we have gas inside. So our stove works

And furnace.

And the furnace works and then he opens the vent that's above the stove, the outside part of the vent because I have to get a step stool to reach it. So that's a, that's a tall person job regardless of <laugh>, what the title is. And of course if we're going to use the starlink or whatever, then he puts the flag pole up and sets up the starlink from the outside, makes sure that there's clearance for the slide to open before I push the button on the inside and he puts down the stabilizer jacks and I'm gonna say that's it.

So are we gonna correct as we go or are we gonna

Well we, we could, I mean,

Okay. I think that's good cuz then we've got all that one step in one time. So tell me what I missed there.

Yeah, nothing really except the order we, what we do is we like having that Hughes power watchdog and we, you know, everyone says, oh you could have one built into your rv and here's why we like the portable one. We take it when we first pull up to a campsite, we typically take the power watchdog and go plug in. Now this is assuming that there's electricity at this site. If the sun for sure it's kind of pointless <laugh>. But we take the power watchdog and plug in to the pedestal and turn it on.

And the power watchdog, one of the features is it will tell you if the electricity is good or bad. And if it's bad we just hustle on back to the camp host or office and say, hey, that site has a bad power pedestal. And it has actually happened a few times. But yeah, I think pretty much you, because you just did this last week,

Right?

<laugh>? Yeah, you, you pretty much got it. I can't think of anything I do to set up that you didn't in include.

So then in my defense we had a pull through site this time so we, it, it was super easy to get in. So we didn't check the watchdog before we pulled into the site.

No, that's true.

But to my admission last week, because it was my very first time backing into a site with this camper, I didn't make the, the camp host or whoever guided me to my side. I didn't ask him to wait until I checked the power. I let him help me back in and then I did it after. So if I had had an electrical problem, that would've been on me and I would've had to leave a site that I worked so hard to back into <laugh>.

Well, and and that's again, we're gonna talk a little bit about that in a bit. So here's what I think Peggy does for setup. So we're gonna start, we even leave and Peggy does a lot of the packing of the food. And that is, I mean that's several trips, right? Because our trailer has its own set of pots and pans, it has its own set of coffee making, although we changed that this week. But anyway, you know we used those arrow, arrow presses and we cheated this week and brought the coffee maker <laugh>.

But you know, it has a lot of that, it has its own utensils. But what Peggy does is bring in all the refrigerated things. She brings in all the dry goods, all the, all that food. If we have meal plans, we make sure we have all of that. And Peggy brings that in the spice rack, which we don't wanna forget all of that. So the, the food, the drinks, the coffee beans, all of the edibles, the coffee filters, <laugh> the coffee filters. By the way, we, okay, so this is why checklists are good and why deviating from what you normally do is can be interesting.

Yeah. So we decided this week, since we have full hookups and we're only gone for a week, let's just bring the home coffee maker. Right. And we did, we

Brought the coffee and we brought the grinder, we

Brought the machine, we did not bring filters. <laugh>. So I get up at five this morning and I'm like, well, you know, make some coffee. Nope, no filters. And so I shuttle my little self down to the supermarket and it doesn't open till six <laugh>. So I'm sitting there listening to podcast in the parking lot till six get filters, come back anyway. So there you go. Anyway,

The weird thing is that's not a checklist item because we don't normally bring that coffee maker. Right. So that was, that's a legit forget

And plus this is not a normal camping trip for us. It's so close to home. We figure if we lo if we forget something, eh, we could drive back home. We don't want to. Right. But we

Can. And we're so close to stores that if we forgot something that's replaceable then

Yeah. Right. It's not like we're camping on the moon. Right. We're in Santa Fe. I mean the store was 11 minutes away. Anyway, Peggy also brings all the bathroom stuff. So like the toothpaste, the soaps, all of that kind of stuff.

Again, we try to keep most of that stuff duplicated in the camper, but it doesn't always work.

Right. Yeah. I mean some of the things like the toothpaste, we don't have multiple toothpaste. Desist is

At the moment, but we will next week <laugh>.

Okay. Peggy also makes sure that the bed is ready for sleeping. So we have one of those RV super bags. It's kind of like a sleeping bag but the sheets come out and you can wash 'em and of course we do. And so Peggy makes sure that all the linens are inns, <laugh>

<laugh>.

And that includes the pillows because we do have only one set of pillows. Cause I don't know for, I don't

Know what happened during the move. I thought I saved two sets of pillows and there just is not a second set anymore. So I think they got lost in the, you know, got gotten rid of during our move. Well

But I mean that makes sense because it's so tough to find a pillow you really like. Yeah, that's true. That when you do, it's like that's my pillow and I don't, you know, even

No matter where I'm sleeping, whether I'm at home in the camper or in a hotel for some weird reason. Yeah. I want my pillow.

Well when we went to California, I don't know, a couple months ago, whatever it was, we brought our pillows. Right. That's just the way it is. We, we like the pillows we like anyway, so let's see that the food, I do my own clothes and shoes. I think that's it. Yeah,

I think I would just add that even before that time, I mean together of course we choose our destination. I wouldn't just go in and plan a trip to hey guess where we're going right now. Tony doesn't always know where we're going day to day, but he has an ultimate idea of our goal <laugh>. Yeah. And so I spent a lot of time on Trip Wizard, you know like figuring out, you know, when, not when we're just coming camping, but when we're traveling figuring out what our route will be. Yep. Oh, I guess I would add that half of the dry goods that he talked about go in a box in the backseat of the truck because they're all snacks for the road food

<laugh>. Oh yeah, you gotta have road snacks. I mean that goes without saying.

Okay, so what about when we get to camp?

Well when we get to camp then Peggy helps me to get the trailer situated and that can be backing in or pulling through or whatever. And included in that are making sure that we can open the slide because you don't wanna park so close to the pedestal that you can't open the stinking slide room.

Right. <laugh>, we've done it.

Oh we have, we totally have. We still are relatively new to the idea of having a slide. Our first trailer that we had for five years did not have a slide. I would prefer a trailer with no slide, but we have a slide so there you go. So you have to accommodate for that. And Peggy has a little trick. She knows just how wide this space has to be for the slide using her arms. So there you go. So the slide And then once we are, oh and Peggy also helps with leveling.

For example, in this site we had to raise the driver's side of the trailer a wee bit to make it level. So we have those beach lane levelers and they're kind of like a wedge. These are the best levelers we have found for travel trailers. We've tried.

Yeah. And what was funny is we got them last August and we didn't use them <laugh>. Every single place we went was level until two trips ago.

Yeah. We finally using them until, yeah, we finally had to open them. So we did. I mean we've tried just as an aside and I'll put a link to those beach lane levelers cuz they're so good. We have tried the Anderson ones and that was great with a single axle trailer. Not so much with the two axle trailer. We tried the CAMCO ones and truthfully they were garbage. Oh

Yeah. They fell apart.

They literally fell apart in the first couple uses. The rubber just literally skidded right off the bottom. So don't buy those. Yeah, these beach lanes are the, are the ones, they are the big daddy rabbit <laugh>. So anyway, so Peggy helps with leveling. Once we're leveled and we've chopped up everything, we work together to disconnect the truck from the trailer, getting the weight distribution off, moving the truck. And then from there she goes inside I stay outside and that's where we <laugh>, we split that part of the work.

And what do I do inside?

Well so we pack the chairs such that they don't flop around because if you don't know this trailer from the factory, normal people would have either theater seats or a couch in the slide. And we instead ordered it with nothing in the slide. So we could put an office. The chairs are those rolling around office chairs? Well you don't want those rolling around while you're driving around. So when we pack up, Peggy has this rapid thing that she puts around them so they lay down and don't go anywhere.

So she unpacks that and puts the chairs up. She checks all the things that have moved around and puts 'em back where they're supposed to be <laugh>. And then by that time the trailer has been set and so it's time to open the slide room. So we work together on that and open the slide room cuz we can open the slide room from the outside with the app that came with the trailer. But we still kind of do inside because you wanna check for obstructions, right?

For example, there is a smoke detector that hangs above the slide and we have seen where those have come off on some trailers and when you open the slide with the smoke detector laying on what is effectively the roof of the slide, you can damage the slide mechanism or the seals, whatever. So she checks for obstructions around the slide and then we open the slide and uh, I can't think of anything else. <laugh> Not yet.

That's pretty good.

There's not a lot inside necessarily. I do try to open all the cupboards in the refrigerator and push everything back. That was, that's trying to fall out.

Yeah, everything that went somewhere on the trip, you put back where it's supposed to be

And then I turn on a water faucet or too and, and I try to run the hot faucet more to make sure that the water heater's completely full before we turn it on and start heating nothing cuz that's really not good for it.

Right? Yeah. If you're using the electric side of the water heater, if you have a gas electric water heater as we do, you wanna be darn sure that there's no air in that water heater before you turn the electric heater mechanism on. Because if it's got air in it, you could actually damage that element very quickly. And so yeah, Peggy runs a hot tap to make sure there's no air in the lines. Yeah.

And that's about it.

Oh and I will have turned on the gas and uh, Peggy lights the stove to get rid of any air that might be in the propane line. True.

Yeah, I think you got it. Oh right. I, I think you could handle this job. So after we've had a lovely two or 10 or however many days of camping <laugh> and we're getting ready to leave, let's talk about what we each do to get ready to leave.

All right,

So I am not gonna talk about me, am I? I'm <laugh>. Oh,

You're talking about me. Hey what you talking about Willis?

So Tony's outdoor jobs are, I'm gonna try and do it in order so it might, I might stumble a little bit. The first thing of course is to dump the gray and black tank. Right now we happen to be parked a little bit far away from the sewer where the sewer comes outta the ground. So rather than leave the hose out to trip over for the whole week, I think he'll hook that up on the day that he's ready to dump. We've talked about this before and I'm not going to not gonna go through it in gruesome detail, but he hooks everything up.

He opens the gray water just slightly to make sure that there's no leaks. Then he closes

That. Yeah, you don't want, you don't wanna open the black tank. Yeah. First and discover that there's a connection failure. Right.

And then he empties and flushes the black tank and when he's satisfied that that is empty enough closes that valve opens the gray and dumps the gray and then of course puts everything away including remembering to make sure the bumper caps are on that we have magnetic bumper caps that the one side twists onto the end of the hose, the black hole, the slinky so that it doesn't get lost in the bumper <laugh>

And or come out the end

Or come out the end. But that also helps keep those bumper caps on. And then he will also un when I'm ready, unhook the water, unhook the electricity, put everything away once again look at the tires, make sure everything looks good on the truck and the trailer, make sure that the hitch is properly in place on the truck in case we've taken it off. Which we are lazy and we don't always do <laugh>. And then when we're ready he gets the truck lined up to the hitch and we start hooking up.

Oh you forgot a very important step.

Okay, good to

Know. Okay, so the slide room again.

Oh,

So I always have said if you wanna know the laziest way to accomplish a task, ask somebody who looks like me. In other words, I displace a lot of water in the pool and I don't like ladders, nor do I do ladders. So part of my packing up of the outside is I get my camera on a selfie stick and I look at the roof of the slide because if tree stuff or bird stuff or whatever have gotten up there, I want to clean the top of the slide room off because remember the what is the roof of the slide room is now indoors once the slide is in.

And again, you don't want any obstructions up there because you don't wanna damage that slide room seal. Right. Yeah that's super bad. So I check the roof of the slide, make sure it looks nice and clean. If it doesn't, I have my Mr. Long arm and my slide room, oh what is that darn thing called that? Oh that dog on it. Yeah, that U-shaped thing. And then my brush from almost heaven microfiber and I clean off the top of the slide room.

Then once that's clean I know Peggy has done her magic inside the camper so we can put the slide in. That's it. RV slide out sweep. I

Did forget that, of course I didn't forget to do it when I was camping by myself. I'll let you know. Although what I did find out is that I didn't have the selfie stick in the truck after all <laugh>. So I used the long arm and the slide sweep and I swiped everything off and then the only way for me to tell if it was clean was to stand on the tailgate of the truck and take a picture and look at the picture and make sure, hey that's legit. It's clean <laugh>.

All right, so now I'm gonna try to guess what Peggy does while I'm out and she's in, well I know that whatever has been on counters, on the bed, all of that, all of those things that can move around have to go back where they're in storage for transit and that includes like the toothbrush in the bathroom. All of the moving pieces have to go where they can't move. So that's, like I say, anything that's on the counter, anything that's on the floor, Peggy also looks at the floor and typically we, we sweep or sometimes we'll have even brought our battery powered vacuum and she'll vacuum the interior because little rocks and debris inside when the slide comes in.

I have done more than my share of basically helping customers when I worked at the dealership get those rips in the vinyl flooring repaired. So a little teeny rock can do some serious damage.

So if you have a slide in your rvn, I think most of them do, you do wanna make sure that the floor is nice and clean before you bring the slide in and just make sure there are no obstructions, right. Because that's a big piece of RV piece and here it comes motorized in. So if there's something that is in the way, it's gonna become a problem. So everything's put away and locked up and ready for travel on this trip we're gonna have to put away the coffee maker.

And now we have a lot of extra filters because I, they sold 200 at the store so that's what I bought. And so once everything is ready to bring in and that includes, you know, the stove has that folding top, the plate in the microwave, like I say, anything that has been taken out has to go back. We have a little folding table on the side of the counter, like a countertop extension that has to go down. We have folding tables that are our desks.

Those have to get folded. All the window shades go up, the chairs get put down and tied up for travel. And if the computers or other stuff stuffer out, then that they have to go in their little packs. So everything is now travel safe and it's time to bring in the slide.

Yeah, that's good. It's not really a long list, it's just a thoughtful process. I, what I do and Tony doesn't know and it's not like vital but I just do it just to make sure I have a good habit. I start at the nose of the trailer over the bed, make sure those cabinets are closed, make sure those blinds are open, make sure everything is stowed there. Then I check, you know, the slide and then check the kitchen area and then I check the bathroom. So I kind of move my way from the very front to the back where the door is and by the time I reach the door I better be ready to walk out of it.

<laugh>.

Makes sense. So that's kind of our wrap of you know, know the other person's jobs, if there are any peculiarities about your driving conditions. For example, when we don't have the trailer, I leave the trucks, there's a display that you can change on the instrument panel of the truck. And typically I have it in fuel use mode just cuz I'm a nerd and I wanna know how many miles per gallon, I'm not kidding. But when we travel I put it to monitor all the systems.

So I mean whatever our truck, we put it in tow hall mode. In tow hall mode. Yes.

Tow hall. Tow

Hall and that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean just know all the other person's jobs. One of the things Peggy did before she embarked on her journey by herself was on our property we have like a circular pathway around the front of the house. So she did a whole bunch of testing of backing up and she really got it quickly. But if there's anything that, if you're not the driver and you should learn to be the driver, perhaps find an empty parking lot or a lot of times churches or malls have lots that are empty at certain times of the week.

Go and practice your driving and back and then steering and, and whatever challenges you have. So you are able to be the driver if you need to be or just want to be. It's, it's good to relieve the other person of driving now and then if, if that's the case. Yeah, I

Think that we've shown that we could do each other's jobs. Now I've, I've been kind of thinking as we're doing this and I realize a couple things we didn't mention while Tony's driving, we are listening to podcasts but I'm also navigating making sure that we know where the gas next gas station is, where the next coffee stop is and making sure that we're, you know, on the right path. Also we never mentioned turning off the gas and closing the vent And those are also some of Tony's outdoor jobs when we're getting ready to leave.

Yeah, I do my little walkabout and you're right, I forgot about shutting off the propane and closing that vent.

That's why checklists make for Stressless camping. Hmm <laugh>. Oh and if you are now we don't really worry about this too much. We have fantastic fans over the bed and over the, in the bathroom and they have those really great scoop shapes over them so we don't worry too much about putting the vent lids down. But if you don't have that kind of scoop, you wanna make sure you put your vent lid down so the wind while you're driving doesn't tear up your vent

Lids. Yeah. They'll just destroy those things. That

Used to be on my checklist. But now that we have the scoops, we don't need that anymore.

Nope. Well and I had mentioned that we are at a full hookup site this week and are not necessarily taking advantage of full hookups and there's a reason for that as we've talked about week after week we have the ABC Upfitters master volt power system in our Rockwood mini light. Rockwood actually sought out a B, C Upfitters knowing how good a job they did and they designed this system that is the factory option, which we have. But A B, C Upfitters will also custom tailor a solar or power package if that's something that you are interested in.

And they do a really terrific job. They ask you a lot of questions about your style of camping, your camper, all of that so that they put together a system that works for you. I mean if you want a system that'll run your air conditioner, they can do that.

If you only do one day boondocking, they can make a system for that. So they're all custom tailored systems but our system, we can run the air conditioner and so we are not hooked to power right now because I want to see how far we can push this system. It's the first time we've had it in summer weather. It was like 92 yesterday and yeah we're running the air conditioner. Yeah it was working fine. It got down to I think about a 40% stated of charge by the time I shut it off.

We woke up this morning at about a 20% state of charge and it is already, the sun is out and it is charging up. It's a

Quote unquote outdoor job, but it's not during hookup or any preparation for anything. It's the whole time we're in a site. You know, one of Tony's favorite jobs is to go over there and check that monitor and look at what the power package

Is. You, I'm just a nut. But yeah, it's neat to see what you're capable of and if boondocking is your thing, one of the things I suggest you do is go to a full hookup campsite and don't hook up. Right. And just see how far you can push these systems so that when you are off the grid or not connected, you have a understanding of where you can go, what you can do without having to stress. In other words, Stressless, camping, less camping and those systems from ABC Upfitters are Stressless camping.

So the way to find out what you might be in for, what you might need is to just give Scott and his team a call. They're really good people, they are very positive and we'll put a link to them and their phone number in the show notes. So if you're solar curious or you are interested in an actual working solar system that doesn't give you nightmares, ABC Upfitters will do that. They can build a system that works as well for you as ours does for us.

So this is the time when we would normally do a gadget report, but listen, did you listen to us? We use the beach lane, we use the this brand, we use the watchdog, we use our checklists. So we've kind of already given you a gadget report just by yes talking about all the gadgets that we use as we set up and tear down.

We had mentioned more than once that checklists make for Stressless camping and we have an article about that. But even better, we have a bunch of checklists that you can download and modify right yourself so you can have checklists and enjoy some Stressless camping.

So of course we'll put that link to the article checklists make for Stressless camping as Tony said, download one if you'd like and modify it for your own uses.

Absolutely. And of course it's free as always.

So what we can still do, which is normal, is Tony can tell us about his RV of the week.

Well I was tasked with the job of writing an article about some great outdoor kitchens and so I looked around and talked to my friends at Keystone and they said, Hey, check out the brand new Keystone bullet two 60 R Bs travel trailer. Now when I was selling RVs, we sold a ton of bullets because they're relatively affordable, they are light, you know, relatively light right? I mean none of these trailers are are super light, but it's a good package.

And now Keystone has really stepped up. They have this thing called their innovation lab. And the innovation lab has come up with things like a laminate flooring that's all manmade material. They've done their own air handling type systems. So it's a better performance out of the existing air conditioning. Keystone really is taking a leadership role in a lot of these systems. And so when I looked at their outdoor kitchen, it has a fairly large griddle, a plumbed sink, so it's hot and cold running water and a drain cuz some of the outdoor kitchens have what they call a dog bowl sink.

So it's just a dish and you have to dump the water somewhere. Typically it's okay to just dump it if you're not doing gross stuff with it. And uh, this has a 4.4 cubic foot refrigerator. And one of the things I liked, now here's an interesting thing I ask Keystone cuz Keystone has also taken a leadership role in solar. So they have their solar flex package. All Keystone RVs come with at least 200 watts of solar and the wiring for an inverter and then they step up with theirs, the 400 I which has an inverter and blah blah blah.

So they've really done a good job with making solar easier on their products. And so I asked, I said, Hey, so does the outside fridge, cuz this has a little 4.4 cubic foot bar fridge, but it's a one 10 fridge. So I said, does the outside fridge run on the inverter if you install one?

No. Well, that's kind of silly. So that means the only way the outdoor fridge works is if you have full hookups. But then I was talking to Josh Winters, Josh the RV nerd, and he said, no, that's not true. The outdoor fridge is tied to the inverter and he showed me how it's done. And so it's interesting how quickly these things change such that, you know, production might change one thing, but marketing may not even be aware of it. So anyway, it does work.

So you can arrive to a campground with your beer cold. Yay. So it's a good outdoor kitchen. I really like it. Now, a few weeks ago I wrote a review of a Rockwood 25 0 7 and that, as you know, we really like Rockwood products. That one has an even better outdoor kitchen and it has both a flat top griddle and a two burner stove outside. So yeah, that one's my favorite, but that keystone is not a bad choice either.

The one weird thing is the outdoor griddle has like a, a windshield that goes that kind of flips up that blocks the refrigerator. So Oh, <laugh>, no cooking and drinking for you.

Well hey don't, so don't forget to get the eggs out before you turn this stove on.

Yeah, get the hamburgers out before you light the grill. <laugh>

Last week you guys did not disappoint me. When I ask what are your favorite and least favorite camping tasks? And there's no one answer, well, there's kind of some common answers, but I'm just going to sort of quickly look through these and read them to you because there's no way for me to tabulate this <laugh>. Shannon's favorite is setting up and Lee's favorite is tearing down. Now that is kind of the common tearing down or leaving is often on people's list of most awful things.

Brian loves to hook up the night before we leave because that's what makes it official and his least favorite is being the spotter for the person backing into the spot. Cindy's favorite is sitting outside with a good book and enjoying nature and least favorite is packing up and going home. William's favorite is cooking something on the griddle, which is he finds very relaxing, least favorite is getting in the site and getting set up.

He finds, uh, very difficult to find that sweet spot where he is centered and leveled and has the room that he wants to relax. Bill's favorite is walking his dog Zappo. I can attest to that. I've been on those walks and his least favorite because he is a solo traveler, is backing and leveling his trailer. Well Bill, don't ask Brian to help you, he's not gonna want to. <laugh>. Mike's favorite is hiking, photographing and the campfire. And his least favorite is cleaning up the mess left by other campers.

So let that be a lesson to all of

You. Oh, that is just, well that will go into our next week's, right?

That's true. Tony is full-time. So her least favorite task is any time of maintenance. But the favorite task is planning the route and making reservations. Williams is making the morning coffee is the favorite and breaking down to go home is the least. Carol's favorite is having the first cup of coffee. I wonder if she drinks the coffee. William made <laugh>.

There is something magical about the first cup of coffee in a day.

Yeah, for sure. Least favorite is washing all the laundry after she gets home. Kathy's least favorite is putting up the awning on their vintage trailer. She says she's too short for that.

The power awning has really been such a benefit, like the vintage. If you've never set up the awning on a vintage rv, it is,

It's a task. It's fiddly and that's why Kathy's favorite is the first sip of anything she can drink after the awning is set up. <laugh>. Yeah. And she says, to be honest, I love cleaning, organizing and restocking the trailer when we get home. So, uh, Kathy, if you ever wanna come over, <laugh>, April's favorite is sitting around the campfire making s'mores and the worst favorite is making the dang bed. So I told her she really needs an RV super bag.

Oh yeah,

Adam just says dump station all the way. Now he did not specify whether that's his favorite or his least favorite. And knowing Adam, there's probably a reason that he didn't. Amber's favorite is building a fire and least favorite is unpacking. Michael's favorite is building a fire and Lee's favorite is packing Everything to Go home. My sister Kathy says, her favorite part is cooking because she gets to do it in the outdoor kitchen and her least favorite is unpacking and cleaning the camper. After having all that fun, Mark's favorite is Building a Fire.

So I am seeing a theme here. Least favorite is sweeping the debris off the yawning as it's rolled up somehow. Always looking into the sun. <laugh> Connie's favorite is having all the things she needs in the rv. Her least favorite is packing up to leave. Dave's favorite is hooking up the trailer to go camping. And least favorite is hooking up the trailer to go home. Larry's favorite is Finding new camp, new Places to camp. Great. One and least favorite is Mosquito Bites.

I think Tony's with you on that one.

Oh yeah. Hey, by the way, in the Facebook group, which is where people are sharing this, there was a article that was shared about a new way of keeping mosquitoes away. And boy, if there's a mosquito in the county, it is finding me. Yes, that might be my least favorite. Yeah,

Thing Tom's favorite is setting up the camper at the site. He said, I don't know why, but there's something satisfying to me to get it all level and set up for a stay in a peaceful nature. Now maybe you need to talk to William because he said that's his least favorite. So maybe you can share some tips with him. And Tom's least favorite is unpacking the camper when he gets home because it's usually too hot to do that. <laugh>, Steve's favorite task is walking the dog. So him and Zappo could go for a walk together. And the worst task is laundry, especially in laundromats because they're very expensive and the machines never work like the ones at home.

Yeah, this is a true statement. Ezekiel's favorite is setting up the camper after arriving at the campsite. And the least favorite is the anxiety with driving when driving with the camper in tow.

I can feel that too. Wendy's favorite is pinning up her tee towels on the the awning. I will look for one of the photographs I have of that awning and share a picture of that because one of my favorites is seeing Wendy's tea towels pinned up on her awnings and her least favorite is unpacking, cleaning and reorganizing when she gets home. But a favorite thing in general, she says is smelling like a campfire. And that I, I gotta admit, I don't like to do laundry after because I like the smell of the campfire in my clothes.

It's funny how polarizing that is.

Yeah, there was a time, you know, in Northern California when it burned every year we didn't like campfire so much, we just were fire.

We had PTSDs

Over fire smell. But now that we have escaped from that a little bit and it's not such a constant threat, I'm starting to like campfires again. So that was a great, great list. I did see a little bit of pattern when I started reading 'em all together like that. And I hope that you all get to love your favorites and I hope that all your least favorites are very short-lived and don't mess up your ability to love going camping.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, we asked the question of the week in our Fun and Friendly Stresses, camping podcast Facebook group. Woo Man. And what is our question this week?

So this week, and I think that some of them were already answered in the last one this week, I wanted to ask you, what are your campground pet peeves? Now I know that there's gonna be some polarizing answers here too. Please remember, we are a fun and friendly group. If someone has a pet peeve that you think is a fun activity, please let's not argue about it. We can have nice discussions, but I think that this, when we talk about this sometimes it brings up some hard feelings. And so I wanna remind everybody again, fun and friendly, Stressless Camping podcast, Facebook group, take your answers, have some discussions, maybe learn a little from other people's pet peeves.

But let's have a fun and friendly discussion

And you can answer that as we say, our fun and friendly stresses. Camping podcast Facebook group, you can link to that from our website. In the upper right corner, there is a link to all of our places where we're social. But while you're on the website, did you know we do a once a week newsletter, which is free, but if you sign up for our email newsletter during the month of June, we are giving away a air gear Ultimate RV water hose to someone of you who signs up just gonna pick you at random at the end of the month.

And it's getting close to that. Yeah, so someone's gonna get a rv, ultimate RV water hose sent to you for free just for joining our little family of newsletter recipients. But in that newsletter, what are you gonna get? Well, stories, videos, podcasts, all the things we think will help you get the most out of your RV experience.

So you can just sign up anytime that you're on the website, if you miss the popup or you'd close the popup and then say, darn, I didn't mean to close that popup. I think every page of our website has an opportunity to sign up for the newsletter

Right there at the bottom. And of course, while you're on the website, you'll find the show notes for this episode number 2 0 8 on the podcast page, stressless camping.com.

Also on the website you'll find deals and discounts for a lot of the things that we've talked about today. All those gadgets and services and all the best deals on things you'll need for your stresses. Camping adventure.

Now we also have our podcast page there, which is where you can hear this if you, well, you probably already know where you can hear this, but you can subscribe on any podcast app because we always save you a seat around our virtual campfire. And you know, a review will help others find this podcast that just means the world to us.

As we said, if you've already written a review, then sharing is also very, very helpful. So if you find a Facebook post or a podcast episode or a blog post that you particularly like, please feel free to share that and get your friends, family, coworkers,

The person in line people. Yeah,

<laugh> enemies. We don't care. Everybody should be reading and listening <laugh>.

Well, we sure hope so. But anyway, we really appreciate your being here again with us this week. Hopefully the, there was something in here that was able to help you so that you can enjoy some happy camping, happy camping.

We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next Stressless Camping Adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure. And we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.

Do you know the way to Santa Fe.