Maintaining your slide rooms - things you need to know to avoid trouble and camp StressLess
What do you have to do to maintain the slide rooms in you RV? What kind of things do you need to do to keep your slide room running well so you can enjoy StressLess Camping? We speak with Dustin Simpson from California RV Specialists about some of the troubles he’s seen with slide rooms and how to avoid those.
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
We referenced Green RVing Tips from Progressive Insurance
Our podcast interview with Lauren from Leave No Trace - be better for the world while enjoying its beauty
Dustin Simpson comes to us from California RV Specialists in Lodi, California
Tips to improve your fuel mileage while towing or driving your RV
More information about the Forest River Owners Group - FROG - rally in Indiana
The Family Motor Coach Association - or FMCA - is holding a sale on renewal memberships. You can find out more about the FMCA here.
Join our weekly email family for more tips, tricks, articles, hints and hacks.
StressLess Camping podcast Facebook group
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 212
Mark Ferrell
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.
Peggy Barthel
Welcome to the Campfire.
Tony Barthel
I'm Tony.
Peggy Barthel
I'm Peggy.
Tony Barthel
And we are two RV industry veterans who travel part-time
Peggy Barthel
In a small trailer
Tony Barthel
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips, tricks, and discount.
Peggy Barthel
We saw an email recently from Progressive Insurance that talks about green RVing tips.
Tony Barthel
Wait, but my RV isn't green.
Peggy Barthel
Well, these are some tips to make it more green.
Tony Barthel
Oh,
Peggy Barthel
Doggies. So you start with a can of paint Uhhuh. No, I'm kidding, kidding, kidding. <laugh>, the other kind of green, you know, environmentally friendly.
Tony Barthel
Oh, I see. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
It's just a couple of tips. One of them is, it says to look at what you're bringing and the picture is a picture of someone using rechargeable batteries. Hey,
Tony Barthel
That's us.
Peggy Barthel
That is us. Well, wait,
Tony Barthel
Our whole RV is rechargeable batteries
Peggy Barthel
<laugh>. So our RV is a rechargeable lithium battery. All of our tools are rechargeable RBI batteries. And even the little things like our nightlight is a re is rechargeable batteries, and we keep one small recharger for the small batteries. It will charge up any of those batteries that we use.
Tony Barthel
It also suggests that you stay at a camp Green K oa, but I suspect any like boondocking, you know, if you're following the leave no trace and all of that, that's pretty green because you're using your own resources. Right. Especially if you have a great, you know, if you have a way to be off the grid as efficiently as possible.
Peggy Barthel
Right. But I think there are COAs that are doing steps to be more green. And I think there's actually a designation in the K OA organization that says this is a green camp.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Which is pretty cool.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. And the other idea is to conserve energy, of course. And you can do that by maybe instead of running your air conditioner, use some shading, close your windows, use reflectives in your windows, you know, just not burning electricity when you don't have to. Well,
Tony Barthel
And another way to save a surprising amount of energy is just to slow down on your way there. Uh, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
But
Tony Barthel
The difference in fuel mileage between on our truck 60 and 67 is pretty significant. Uh, so we kind of take it a little bit on the slow side and we, we even have an article about how to save fuel on your journey. So we'll share that in our show notes. And those show notes are at the bottom of the webpage for this podcast, which is episode number two 12.
Peggy Barthel
That's right. And keeping it to 67. Well, that was too fast for me, <laugh>. Oh
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I'm saying, I mean, that's kind of the upper end for us.
Peggy Barthel
Sure, of course. Yeah. We'll talk some more about my last trip and how I soloed solo soloed, all the different things I did. Yeah. And one of them was driving in the mountains by myself, and obviously in the mountains did be crazy to drive 67, but even on the freeway, I was like, oh, I think 62 is beautiful <laugh>.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And we don't wanna, you know, each vehicle is, is designed differently. Sure. We don't wanna tell you how quickly to drive. Uh, just I was saying on our specific rig, the fuel mileage difference just between 62 and 67 is, is rather surprising. And they, you know, that's a factor of how aerodynamic it is and how it's geared and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Peggy Barthel
And wasn't in fact that in the seventies or whenever when they made 55, the speed limit that was hugely because of saving gas,
Tony Barthel
Right? Oh yeah. It was, that was designed to save a lot of fuel. I don't know how effective it ever was
Peggy Barthel
<laugh>, because you know, like Sammy, a lot of people couldn't drive 55. Right. Well,
Tony Barthel
That was me. I couldn't drive 55 <laugh> the early eighties are when I had driven multiple times. Well over a hundred miles an hour. But anyway.
Peggy Barthel
All right. So
Tony Barthel
This weekend you got to test out our power package from a B C Upfitters.
Peggy Barthel
I sure did. Quite thoroughly. Yeah. So I was in a US Forest Service campground just south of Taos, New Mexico, and it as a Forest Service campground didn't have any hookups, which was fine with me because we have the power package from ABC Upfitters. That means we have a great lithium battery. We have,
Tony Barthel
We have a thousand watts of solar,
Peggy Barthel
A thousand watts of solar on the roof, even though it was a very tree. Is that a word? <laugh>? Yeah, sure.
Tony Barthel
Why
Peggy Barthel
Not? A very tree location. And it was a very narrow spot, which I'll talk about some more too. There was plenty of light coming in through the trees. And at the end of the day, every day I would check and I was at a hundred percent power. So the power package worked fabulously.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It, it's, it's just such a great system. And, uh, this past week, ABC Upfitters showed two, uh, upfits that they did on their various social media. They had a 2205, a Rockwood 2205, like ours woo woo. And they had a class a motor home that they did, and last week they did a a van and, and just the, the places that they put these systems are, are impressive. And that's sort of the point.
Tony Barthel
ABC Upfitters customizes each system, not only to the rig, but to what your expectations are of camping. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they will be with us at the Frog rally in just a few weeks. Yeah. So if you're going to be there, you might want to go on a tour or if you schedule an upfit, they're having a sale just for us Frog Rally attendees. But here's a hint, if you're not an owner of a Forest River product, because Frog is Forest River owners group and you're there during the frog rally anyway, I bet you they'd let you in on that design.
Peggy Barthel
Mention my name, you'll get a good, mention my
Tony Barthel
Name, you'll get
Peggy Barthel
A good seat.
Tony Barthel
That's right. Anyway, again, our friends at A B C F fitters, if you have questions or just you're solar curious or interested in a really well-engineered system, give them a call. They are good people to deal with and they do a very professional job and we've been very pleased with our system.
Peggy Barthel
Absolutely. Speaking of people who do a really good job.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Well, we had the, Dustin Simpson and I have worked together at, um, RV Travel and we've done some videos together and such. And Dustin is from Cal RV Specialists and is one of those people who really knows his stuff. And part of that is cuz he's seen a lot That's right. And continues to see a lot daily at, uh, Cal RV specialists. And so,
Peggy Barthel
So I think that Dustin could have probably given us lots of tips and hints on any topic we threw at him today. We happen to throw at him the topic of slide rooms.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Maintaining slide rooms and some slide room tips. So without any further ado, let's push out our slides. Sit back and here's Dustin. We are here with Dustin Simpson from California RV Specialists.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you for being here with us today, Dustin.
Dustin Simpson
Thank you guys for having me.
Tony Barthel
Hey, it's a pleasure. And you have probably already watched some of Dustin's outstanding videos online or read his articles on RV travel or just all over the place. So tell us a little about California RV Specialists. Well,
Dustin Simpson
Thanks again so much for having me. I guess a little bit of background on myself first. I've been in the industry now almost 28 years. I've pretty much started at the bottom and have done everything as from a entry level clear up on to, you know, management to owning my own RV repair shop. I've been a self-employed owner since 2003. I've worked for different box stores such as like Camping World, bigger dealerships that had three locations and then an old store that my, my original store was a give a RV repair here in Lodi, California.
Dustin Simpson
And that's where I kind of fell in love with RVs. I started doing posts and stuff here a while back to try to help our RV community. So I've been everything from a service manager, parts manager, shop foreman, RV tech warranty admin, done RV inspections for different court hearings and my nights and weekends and now early mornings.
Dustin Simpson
I usually am on some type of social media <laugh>, you know, helping Yeah. Owners that are at their wits ends that can't get into a repair shop, they can't get help. We're a full repair facility here at California Specialist. We pretty much do anything from clean the toilet to remodel the coach <laugh>. We do minor paint and body. We do usually about 50 to 60 roofs a year. Side sidewalls, rear caps, flooring, major damage, dry rot, the stuff that nobody else wants to touch.
Dustin Simpson
That's the stuff that we're, you know, known for I guess you'd say.
Peggy Barthel
That's awesome.
Dustin Simpson
We, you know, do all the appliances. All the accessories and so on.
Tony Barthel
We could totally go down a rabbit hole because we stop most of yours about
Peggy Barthel
Your facility. It's in Lodi, California.
Dustin Simpson
Yeah, it's in Lodi, California. Okay. There's 13 of us here. We pretty much get three to five units in and out each day. A lot of moving pieces down here. Yeah,
Tony Barthel
You're, you run a busy place. So we are talking slide rooms and slide room maintenance. There's been a few posts recently that I've seen where people are really not understanding what it takes to keep these things operating and that with a little bit of maintenance you won't likely have problems. So that's what we're here is find some great slide room tips. Yeah.
Dustin Simpson
When I'm talking to our customers here about site out rooms, we want them to know the brand and what type of system it is. Who makes it, who manufactures it. So an issue where, let's say you go out Tony and you're out camping in a campground. If you were to break down in that campground and you whether through factory warranty, extended warranty, or you're just paying out of pocket and you find an RV tech that's mobile that's gonna come out to assist you, they may or may not be trained on those slide outs.
Dustin Simpson
So having that information, they're more than likely they're gonna be able to find out what's wrong and fix, fix it or help get it in for you. But mm-hmm. <affirmative>, clearly you can say, you know, Hey I've got this brand, are you familiar with that? Yeah. And if that person says no, then you need to call the next person until you get somebody that is so it's just a money saving thing. Time and and money. Yeah. They're
Tony Barthel
Actually a only, a very few number of manufacturers of room mechanisms. Right. And there are a few different types and I think a lot of people have not such good things to say about certain brands <laugh>, but with proper maintenance they can work very, very
Dustin Simpson
Well. Oh yeah. Most of the swim tech problems we have not seen maybe very little to none on motor homes though. Schwinn techs aren't having the issues. And I feel personally that it's because of the suspension system.
Peggy Barthel
Interesting.
Dustin Simpson
Hmm. You know, so when we say we do a lot of swin texture at the shop, I would say every few months we're throwing away a pickup truck full of them. Wow. Hmm. Right. And most of those have all been travel trailer fifth wheel. Okay. You know, systems are basically like a drawer guide and so if it's you know, too heavy, you've added something in it too much weight, or you're going down a rough road that's just going to cause all kinds of damage to those systems.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. You can overload those slide rooms.
Peggy Barthel
So can we talk about that for a minute? Yeah. There's a limit to how much those slides can hold onto in transit. And also let's talk about while it's out, whether you should have anything sitting in it while it's going out. Whether you should sit in it while it's in, you know, kind of <laugh> before we even get to the maintenance. Let's talk about how to actually use these things.
Dustin Simpson
Exactly. So we'll go back to the Schwinn tech since that's always a hot topic for everybody. Right. When Lipper is designing those and building those, they're producing a frame. Then it's up to the manufacturer where the manufacturer, you know, what are they adding, you know, they're constantly making changes, constantly altering stuff based off of problems or issues that they're finding after the fact. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the slide out right from the factory can be overloaded accidentally.
Peggy Barthel
Okay. Before you even,
Dustin Simpson
Before you even purchase it. Okay. Doesn't necessarily mean that it's from the design of the slide out, it's, they don't know what's going in that slide out. That's mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the importance of like the maintenance side of it is constantly inspecting it. Is it aligned correctly? Is it open and closed correctly? Is there any weird noises? Are you doing your part to lube it properly? Are you luning conditioning your seals? Because if you're not luning conditioning the seals and that creates a drag on the room.
Dustin Simpson
Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is your voltage and your batteries low? Do you not have enough batteries? Right. So there's a, there's every kind of thing you could think of.
Peggy Barthel
Everyone with a slide out should assume that their slide out is experimental and not assume that their slide out is something that everybody has done a million times and we know and everybody knows it's terrific
Tony Barthel
<laugh>. Yeah. It's a little bit brightening
Dustin Simpson
<laugh>. Every new model is an experiment. Yeah. Wow. You know, they know roughly how much weight they can put in them. They know how many, roughly how many cycles they should last for. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But think about, I mean I think Tony, you've been to Lippert, right? Oh
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I went to the slide out school.
Dustin Simpson
So when you went to the slide out school, they tested the slide out cycles running in and out. Correct? Correct. Yeah. Did they test it for shaking and vibration? Probably
Tony Barthel
Not. Not to my knowledge, no. What I've seen a lot also are people not maintaining the seals. Yeah. Around the outside and then improperly lubricating the mechanisms. Yep. So any tips for seal maintenance?
Dustin Simpson
I've pretty much tried every product out there. Again, it's, it's trial and error and I like to use the protect all brand that's made by Thetford. There's a spray bulb seal treatment mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then there's also a star bright spray bulb treatment that's in a bottle, like a Windex bottle. Okay. What those two products are designed to do is to protect it from the sun. So it's basically got a UV inhibitor in it. It's got a conditioner to keep the bulb seals soft and flexible.
Dustin Simpson
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So those products do that as well as they reduce the static from it dragging on the coach. Some of 'em have stuff in it that's gonna prevent like dust and dirt and putties and sealants and stuff that bleed out of the different flanges on the coach from sticking to the bulb seal. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's kind of like an all, all-in-one product that does multiple things to it. The main one that we see all the time is the top seal will pop off. Either you'll see it on Facebook groups or it's popped off or it's melted cuz it's got so hot from rubbing that it's literally disintegrated it.
Dustin Simpson
Wow. And so that's a tattletale sign of like, hey, let's start using bulbs, seal treatment when it is, you know, rubbing, making contact, rubbing.
Peggy Barthel
That's a telltale sign that you should have already way long time ago started using treatment <laugh>.
Dustin Simpson
Well it it, you know, so if you came in and you bought a new coach and we were just talking side outs, Hey Dustin, what do I need to do to my side out? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, every time you use that room, check it. You know, if you're running at it, you're going on a trip, you run it in and out, go in and out, look at it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> look underneath of it. Is there anything that's shifted or moved? Is there anything coming loose? You know, how's my slide out topper? You know, if you're gonna have that room extended for any long period of time for, you know, half of our customers live in the coaches full-time, so mm-hmm.
Dustin Simpson
<affirmative>, they'll have the room extended out all year round and they never retracted in. Oh boy. So when we identify that they're living in the unit full time, we're asking them to run that room in and out once a month. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> clean the gears or cables or tracks or seals, you know, every three to four months. Right. Lubricate it, you know, and different manufacturers have different recommendations. So I mean, it's best always, you know, look at your owner's manual and, and go by their recommendations.
Dustin Simpson
But you know, it's just again, their recommendation. They don't know how you're gonna use it or not use it. Right.
Tony Barthel
You have to be very careful about sweeping or vacuuming the floor before you bring that room in because those little teeny rocks will peel that vinyl flooring right off.
Dustin Simpson
And we see that weekly. Oh boy,
Tony Barthel
Boy.
Dustin Simpson
When we're doing a site out service or like, let's say you're, you know, consumer or just somebody listening to this podcast, no matter what kind of room you have, you can run that room almost all the way out and get in there with a, you know, I've had owners use a leaf blower, like a cordless 12 volt leaf blower, get in there and run their room out, leave it, leave it cracked open a couple inches so that it's in, that's not making contact and below the bottom edge of that whole slide out, out from the inside out. Ah,
Tony Barthel
That's a good idea.
Dustin Simpson
Swift or sweepers, you know the little dusters and stuff. Yeah. Those look great. Don't be afraid to crawl underneath and peel those seals back to see what's in that track. You would not believe the stuff that comes out of there. Screw those tools, connectors. I mean, you name it. I just went and looked at a lawsuit and one of the complaints was I wanna purchase a coach that has a slide out that has a manual crank on it or a manual way for me to get it in. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they happen to be a swin tech. Typically the control boxes and stuff are in a compartment or an area where you can access them.
Tony Barthel
For our audience, the way those Schwinn tech slide mechanisms work is there's like a little wavy gear on each side of the slide box and there are motors that spin a gear that draw the slide in and out and that little control box keeps time on those motors so that they, you know, if it takes 40 turns to bring it in and out, it counts both sides to make sure it's, it's correct.
Dustin Simpson
Yeah. It counts the revolutions of it. And then that's why they talk about like re-seeing the slide to make sure that it's kind of retirement itself too. So on that particular slide out that I went out to look at, besides all the other stuff that was wrong with it <laugh>, they put the slide out control board above the floor underneath the center of the slide out. So if that room was in all the way, you couldn't access it. If it was out all the way you couldn't access it or wherever the room positioning was, you could physically not get to that box.
Dustin Simpson
Each one of those motors has a wiring harness that goes to that box. In the event that you wanted to test the motor or to see if one side or the other, you could simply just unplug the connections and switch from the left to the right. Oh yeah. To see if there's any difference. This one you could not get to. They actually had a 14 foot harness on one side and a 35 foot harness on the other side. All wound up and stuffed.
Peggy Barthel
I think it's important to go back and talk about this a little bit more retiming, those two individual gears. I've heard and seen way more people than I wanna think about <laugh> that put their slides halfway out so they can run in the bathroom and then they come back. There are slide mechanisms that are fine with that and there are slide mechanisms that are not fine with that. And I think it's really important, again for people to know what, what kind of mechanism they have and then understand whether it's okay to sneak past it once in a while.
Peggy Barthel
<laugh>
Dustin Simpson
Exactly. That. You know, as technology keeps getting more advanced, these rooms are basically like a smart room. You know, it's got two motors, it's got harnesses, it's got different sensors and things that you know, and that, that are counting those revolutions. So again, well first thing I would say is learn what kind of slide out room you have. What's the brand name? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, learn the particulars about it, what do I need to do to maintain it? And then what do I need to be aware of so that exactly right. Peggy is, you know, hey can I run my swim tech out two feet so I can squeeze by to go use the restroom.
Dustin Simpson
You know, it's designed to run all the way out or all the way in. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it wasn't really thought of. I don't think at the time when they were engineering it to people, were gonna run it partially. Right. It actually can cause damage to those rooms by not opening and closing it all the time. There's recommendations in there to retime it after so many uses. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Tony Barthel
And that can be on Schwintek slides open and close that room completely five times.
Dustin Simpson
You know, it needs to be synchronized. Think of it like you're stretching before you get up to go exercise <laugh>, you know? Yeah. You need to do something. It it's, that's just the way they designed it because it's two different motors that's mounted in the capture of the wall itself. You know, they're back, they're hitting now those motors are also just floating motors. If you're on the outside of the coach and you're cleaning the conditioning or slide out seals. Some other things that I would like you to inspect is, so let's say you're on the forward of the slide out and you were to peel that seal back, there's a set screw there and that set screw is is through the aluminum in a notch of that slide out motor.
Dustin Simpson
Just keeping it in place. Keeping it from jumping out or skipping out. Oh Huh.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Now your example that you just said, you know, you go camping, you let it out, you're going home, you let it in, you go home, you let it out, you unload, you let it in. That doesn't count as retiming because that's in a different position every time and you're jiggling it around in between. Right? Yep. So what you're saying is after you've done all those times, then that's the time to just sit still and do your reset. So there's other systems or at least one other system. Oh there's,
Dustin Simpson
You know, there's above floor systems, which is rails that are, let's say in a bedroom or they put the mounting rails above the floor that are hidden underneath your bed. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, there's rails that they call below four rails for typically like a heavier room. Those are like a rack and pinion. And that's what we have. We have lots of pictures and examples too on all of our Facebook groups. So encourage you to, you know, check those out. But there's a lot of different individual places to lubricate clean, tighten.
Dustin Simpson
So it's not just, you know, turn the key and go. They require maintenance. Right. And adjustments and lubricating and retiming.
Tony Barthel
And people ask me why I prefer an RV with no slides.
Dustin Simpson
<laugh>. Exactly right. Yeah. I mean it's, it's made it wonderful to have all that extra space. Right. And I've had plenty with sight outs and plenty without sight outs and we see every day horror stories. I think you talked about one that you'd seen that had a customer that did the repairs and it ran out. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
It
Dustin Simpson
Literally, it fell outta the coach
Tony Barthel
Extended so far it fell out of the trailer. Yeah. I'll put, I'll share pictures of that. When these slide rooms go all the way out, there's a seal that forms when they're all the way in a seal forms, but when they're partway in or out, it's effectively there's no seal.
Peggy Barthel
So I don don't want people to get the wrong idea too. So on occasion, well actually now currently every time we push the slide room a couple of inches out because we wanna tuck our cable for our star link mm-hmm. <affirmative> through the slide room wall, which means we better be extra careful of looking at that seal all the time because we are compromising that seal. Yep. And then once we get that wire through, then we complete the cycle of out or in whichever way we're going. I had someone get really panicky that they couldn't stop and then finish the job with whatever mechanism.
Peggy Barthel
It's not so much that you can't go partway out, your finger slips off, you panic, you think, what am I supposed to do now? Just go ahead and finish the direction you were going. Exactly. That's okay. But don't leave it partway because then you're not sealed and don't panic and go back in because then you've messed up your timing. As much as we wanna make sure that people really pay attention and really maintain and take care of their things, we also don't want you to panic and <laugh> and not understand what they can and can't do.
Dustin Simpson
No matter what brand the rooms are. Whether it's a cable driven room, you know, those cables can stretch out whether it's above floor, below floor system on those styles. Not, not the swin tech cuz it's different design, but on those styles of the room, I tell everybody run 'em like 95% of the way in or out and then just bump the button to let it rest against the wall. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you pull those buttons all the way out, you know back on, and I'm sure you've seen it, Tony, back on the day, you, you run a button and you hear it run all the way out and then ching, ching, ching, ching ching, ching ching, it's hit it stop.
Dustin Simpson
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. That's, or you run them in and you hear it, you know, make you know, you know, make that like whoa, okay.
Dustin Simpson
That's causing too much damage. So if you have a below rail system and you run that room in too far on the bottom, it's now kicking the top of that room out. Mm. Which is gonna allow water to get into that top and either set on top of the roof or rain enough to where it drops down in sides and starts causing damage to the floor. Right. Also, when they go in and out like that, basically we call it the flange, but it's the picture frame of that slide out room. Mm-hmm.
Dustin Simpson
<affirmative>, well that picture frame is now, you know, resting against the wall of the coach. So when we're pulling it in or out too much, we're constantly flexing those flanges what we refer to as a T flange. And as you see the screws that are on the sides of that aluminum that's attached to the wall again as that picture frame. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, those do come loose.
Peggy Barthel
I feel like we got distracted and we, I Yeah. I don't feel like we've really given a good answer to when your slide is closed. Yep. Can you step in it or sit on the couch that's in it?
Dustin Simpson
I would not, when it's in the out position and it's rested and it's supported by the wall, then that would be okay to sit in it when it's in the closed position. I would not carry any products in it and I would not sit in it that
Tony Barthel
Okay. Is That's good to know. Yeah.
Dustin Simpson
You would say you have a big tub or an ice chest and you maybe threw a blanket on the couch, maybe you strapped it to the couch, whatever. Right, right. Or you're now putting that extra weight in that room that's shaking and flopping going down the road
Peggy Barthel
And that's a significant amount of weight. Maybe if you just put the blanket, you're gonna be okay.
Dustin Simpson
Yeah. Blanket some pillow. Something like if you
Peggy Barthel
Lay down on it while your husband's driving <laugh> don't do that. I'm just totally kidding. But even I, I met someone this weekend who, for various reasons, her slides stayed in the whole weekend, but then when we were in there she sat down on it and I, I just, I didn't think that was the right thing to do and I, but I wanna be educated enough to explain to people so that I'm not just speaking from opinion or hearsay. Yeah. You know, it's really not a good idea to do that.
Dustin Simpson
If it's a motor home and it's a under the floor slide, it's designed to be set in, you know, it's gonna have a couch with seat belts and stuff like that. Okay. If it's in a, you know, a motor home where it has an area to sit down in. So
Peggy Barthel
That would be the exception to the rule is if it's a couch with seat belts, then you know it's okay to sit in it when it's in. Cuz obviously you don't need seat belts when it's out <laugh>. Yeah,
Dustin Simpson
Exactly. And, and that would be, you know, again, if it's in a motor home, if it's in a travel trailer or fifth wheel, a slide out that's under the rail, it's probably okay to sit in it. But keep in mind it's designed to be extended out, which is now supporting the weight differently. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and it's supporting the weight with it being floating above the floor that it's lifted on. So we worry about, you know, hey I'm gonna get something underneath the floor and it's gonna cause damage underneath. Well when you're sitting on it and it's in the closed position, what are you doing to that room? You know, is it distorting it somewhere or throwing it off or mm-hmm.
Dustin Simpson
<affirmative> damaging those floor rails or, or rollers or what, you know, I mean, can it hurt it?
Peggy Barthel
Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Justin, I think you've given us a lot to think about For sure. Worry about <laugh>.
Dustin Simpson
Sorry. Well, I mean that's why, you know, learn what sight out rooms you have. I'm constantly trying to put info out there, Tony, to help people.
Tony Barthel
Thank you so much for your time today. We hope to have you back on many times because this has been fantastic.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah, absolutely.
Tony Barthel
Thank you so much for being here with us. Where again can we find you?
Dustin Simpson
We are based out on Lodi, California and it's California rv specialist.com as our website. And then if you go to our website, there's many bars up top there. You can see like articles written by Dustin. You can see all our face group links are all there and we need to add you guys to that as well. That
Tony Barthel
Would be great.
Peggy Barthel
And then also your YouTube videos.
Dustin Simpson
And then our YouTube. Yeah, it's California every specialist Dustin Simpson. So any social media platform, if you look us up, you're gonna see us on something, something somehow, some way.
Peggy Barthel
Okay. That sounds great. Thanks again for spending some time with us, giving us a lot to think about and we hope that we get to talk to you again really soon.
Dustin Simpson
Yep. Thank you guys again for having me. We really appreciate it.
Tony Barthel
Our pleasure. Thank you.
Peggy Barthel
We also got an email this week from F M C A letting us know that for everyone who is up for renewal, and that doesn't mean like you're expiring any minute now, but anytime that if you're in any way deciding that you want to renew your F M C A membership right now you can get a discount and save $10 on your renewal. So we have renewed at really weird times and for really weird reasons and so it can renew anytime. So hop on into F M C A and renew your membership and save an extra $10
Tony Barthel
And not your personal expiration.
Peggy Barthel
Your membership, your membership expiration. Of course if
Tony Barthel
You're about to expire, well you should probably call it doc first.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Maybe you don't need another year. Oh that's awful. Oh my goodness. <laugh>. Just because you don't feel well today doesn't mean everyone's expiring. Oh god,
Tony Barthel
This went off the rails.
Peggy Barthel
Oh it did. We mentioned a couple times I went on a solo trip, I wrote a story about it because I really felt, I don't know if I like this word or not, but I felt empowered, I felt so proud of me for the things that I did that were new to me and a little bit scary. Well, and a lot scary two times this summer I have gone on solo trips with, you know, with women's groups, one with sisters on the fly and one with girl camper. So it's not like I'm literally solo my whole entire time gone.
Peggy Barthel
But making the trip and parking the camper and setting up and using the electricity and <laugh>, finding starlink IL and all those things, I did all those things for the first time and one of the
Tony Barthel
All by yourself
Peggy Barthel
For the first time by myself. Right,
Tony Barthel
Right. And here's, here's another aspect I'm very proud of Peggy cuz she, you should see the campsite she had to
Peggy Barthel
Wiggle into with that trailer. I was, I I, well,
Tony Barthel
But she had to do all of this without being able to call me. Cuz there was zero cell signal, zero
Peggy Barthel
Cell signal.
Tony Barthel
And it turns out there was zero starlink because I didn't renew properly. Speaking of renewals,
Peggy Barthel
<laugh> <laugh>. So I did it and I wrote about it because I just really want to, what I said in the article at the end is that a lot of the girls that were at camp with me said, you can't be telling the truth. You teach classes about how to be an rvr. And I said Yes, but that doesn't mean I've ever been on my own backing into a site. By the way, this is only the second site I've ever backed into with this trailer. With this trailer, with this trailer. So it's the, you know, I've never backed into a site that was a narrow site that was kind of a sharp turn that had drop-offs all around that was in the trees that, you know, it, I mean, I said I had butterflies, I think I had pterodactyls in my stomach.
Peggy Barthel
<laugh>, I was nervous,
Tony Barthel
Had terror
Peggy Barthel
Pterodactyls. But you know what? I did it in two shots. Not only did I do it, I did it in two shots. I didn't fall off the edge of the hill. I just really have an amazing amount of excitement for myself. And I want everybody to know, particularly the women, of course you can do this, sister, you
Tony Barthel
Can do
Peggy Barthel
It. Everybody can do this. And no matter how scary it is, you can do it and you'll be so happy and pleased and you'll get to be camping. And so that is so worth it. Anyway. Well you
Tony Barthel
Were with the whole group of women who were proving that, right?
Peggy Barthel
I mean Well I was, but the other weird thing is that I, because I got my reservation late, I was pretty far away from the rest of the group and by the time I was backing in I hadn't even really figured out where anybody else was. So I couldn't even whistle like, Hey can you come spot me man, I just was on my own <laugh>
Tony Barthel
That would even, I would not really, like I do always want a spotter Yeah. Behind just cuz of low branches or campgrounds. Love to put all these stupid little things that are right at uh, right below your field of vision. But right where they do the most damage.
Peggy Barthel
Well, I'll tell you that I got out three or four times in that two Oh yeah. In that two backings up. I kept getting out and checking and making sure I knew where I was and what I was doing. So, uh, look at you guys, everybody can do this. Right. That's my moment of zen, my <laugh>, my moment of, of, of encouragement is don't be too scared. I of course be cautious. I'm not saying just whip it in there and you know, don't even worry. Be cautious. Be smart, but be brave.
Tony Barthel
There you go. Sounds great to me. And you saw some nifty stuff too.
Peggy Barthel
I did. So I was camping just south of Taos and girl camper guide. Bonnie was the one that organized this event and she was so nice to me to make sure that I didn't just sit in the camper and read all weekend cuz I will do that <laugh>. And so she made sure that I got out and we went together with some other ladies to a winery. We did some driving around. I got to see most of the high, I, maybe probably the whole high road to Taos in the long run, which is a beautiful mountain drive.
Peggy Barthel
We went with Bonnie to the city of Taos, the town, uh, I guess city or town on Saturday because they have their farmer's market and she lives there so she knows the farmer's market and she's gotta do her shopping. So we, we went with her and she did her shopping and we got some things and we actually rode on the ski lift.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. That wouldn't, which my also very fun and exciting and with no snow obviously. And we were on this like expert run. So it was, we were like going straight up the mountain and I asked Kitty who was next to me, I said, so is that mountain under our feet? Is that where people ski? And she said, yeah, the really good people do <laugh>. And I saw kind of a pathway snaking back and forth. I said, so if you mess up you just take that path. And she said No, this whole thing's under three feet of snow, you can't see that path.
Peggy Barthel
If you mess up, you take your skis off and walk down <laugh>.
Tony Barthel
Wow.
Peggy Barthel
But at the top and even on the way down, what a fabulous, spectacular view of the valley. It was just so beautiful. And then we wandered around town a little bit. There's, you know, it kind of reminds me a little bit of Santa Fe in terms of that old Adobe architecture and stuff. And lots of little shopping stores and stuff like that and beautiful old churches. And so what a great visit we had. I can't wait to have Tony have a chance to go with me so we can do more exploring of Taos.
Peggy Barthel
And now I have a little kind of a guide in my mind so that I have some ideas of where to take him. <laugh>. Oh,
Tony Barthel
I can't wait to go Cuz it looked really beautiful.
Peggy Barthel
It really was. And it was like 20 degrees cooler up there than it was
Tony Barthel
<laugh> right now. That'd be great. It is. It is bloody hot all over. So Yeah. Hopefully you all are staying hydrated and, and not that hot.
Peggy Barthel
Right. One of the nights at camp, we actually had a taco salad night. But you know what? We didn't have
Tony Barthel
Walking tacos. Yeah. So walking tacos, what it is, is you take a bag of chips, like typically Fritos or Doritos or something like that, you slice off the side of the bag and then you fill it with taco ingredients. So let's say you're into ground meat or cheese or sour cream or guac or lettuce or tomatoes or salsa, you know, whatever, whatever you qualify as taco filling. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you just fill it on top of the chips and now you've kind of got a bag of chips that have taco filling on them and you can walk around.
Tony Barthel
So it's called walking tacos. And
Peggy Barthel
Because you, you're saying you have to walk around eating it.
Tony Barthel
Well you don't have to, but you can and it's
Peggy Barthel
Nice. Yeah. But you walk through the line to fill it.
Tony Barthel
<laugh>. Yeah. So the nice thing about walking tacos is it's one of those things a lot of people ask us, so what, uh, what should I have my first night at camp? Cuz I just, you know, we've been driving all day. We set up the camper. Yes. Blah, blah, blah. I don't feel like cooking. Well walking tacos qualifies cuz you could pre-make whatever meat that you wanna put in and you could offer multiple choices. Right. So you could pre-make the meat and then just either heat it up if you have a microwave or if you have one of those meal sealer things that we've all bought from Costco that usually it's like, I know half of it is, but not the other half.
Peggy Barthel
Well, those make good boiling bags. Yeah,
Tony Barthel
They do. So you could, and if you are with a campfire and don't even have an rv, you could have your campfire and you could put a pot of water and heat up your meat and bing bang, boom, you're done.
Peggy Barthel
And, and you wanna pre, pre chop all your vegetables. Yeah. Yeah. So pre-chopped and kind of put into bags or little containers or something, all your vegetables. And then, so the good thing is with walking tacos, you carry your own plate around too.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So when you're done, you just put it in the trash can, you know, with the empty bag and put it in the trash can. And also if you have picky eaters, like let's say you have kids who don't like cheese or sour cream or whatever,
Peggy Barthel
They don't put theirs their, their taco. Everybody
Tony Barthel
Makes their own. Yeah. So you make like a little buffet line type of deal and you put all these in ingredients and people do their own thing. So it's a great, uh, social meal. If you have groups, you could have like, you know, the Smiths are responsible for the meat and the Johnsons are responsible for the
Peggy Barthel
Vegetables, whatever.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. You know, that's another good thing about it. So kind of cool.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. And super easy. And by the way, he said throw that uh, bag in the trash, please don't put it in the fireplace. Mm. That is not burnable.
Tony Barthel
No, no. That's something we've been seeing a lot of is, uh, friends who have campgrounds talking about the things they find in the fire pit. That might be a good podcast.
Peggy Barthel
It might.
Tony Barthel
And it's also a little bit sad. So <laugh> Yeah. Have a trash can and put all of your trash there, including cigarette butts, if that's you.
Peggy Barthel
Those are also not burnable.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's not for the fire pitch.
Peggy Barthel
So when I got to the campground near Taos, I backed in our Rockwood mini light to axle trailer. Tony, is your RV of the week that easy to park? Well,
Tony Barthel
Not exactly, it's, it's similar but it's 30 feet long.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. I don't think I would've
Tony Barthel
Fit. No, you probably wouldn't. But what it is is it's a really interesting bunk model. It's a keystone Cougar 30 bhs. And the neat thing is a lot of bunk models have a lousy dinette and they have, some have theater seats, some have a trifold couch. The way this thing works is it's really a good camper whether or not you use the bunks. And when I was selling RVs, how many statements start with that?
Tony Barthel
When I was
Peggy Barthel
Selling RVs? When I was selling RVs,
Tony Barthel
A lot of people, and I'm gonna say grandparents age, people would come in and wanna buy a rig to take their grandkids with them. And a lot of times the grandkids wanted no part of that.
Peggy Barthel
So then they had bunks they couldn't use. Right.
Tony Barthel
Well this is a better camper whether or not you use the bunks. I like that Keystone put like an L-shaped dinette at the very, very back of this rig before, right before the bunks. And then it has an ottoman and a free, free-standing table that you could use. It does have theater seats and you could use the table there or at the bunks or just take it away or bring it outside. I like the free-standing tables and I like the way they did this L-shaped dinette with the ottoman.
Tony Barthel
It's just, it's a neat setup. But there are these two bunks in the back. They're large, they're nice space, but the bottom one flips up and you have this huge cargo area in
Peggy Barthel
The back. Oh, that is a good design. Oh yeah, I like that. You
Tony Barthel
Could, yeah, you could actually use this to put two E-bikes back there. The other nice thing is there's not only a side door where you can get to this space, but also a back door where you can get to this space. Oh, so it's a really, yeah, it's a really well-designed cargo and bunk area. So even if you never use the bunks, you will not have bought something that's like, ah, shoot, I bought this and now the bunks are worthless. It also has a king-sized bed, but obviously you could shrink it down.
Tony Barthel
Wow. And it's another thing I really like the bathroom bisects the trailer. So there's the bedroom in the front and then a bathroom that goes all the way across the rig. And then the living area and then the bunks.
Peggy Barthel
I know a lot of people don't like that, but I love that design because it puts the adult sleeper far from all the other noises.
Tony Barthel
Right. And another nice thing, Keystone put a door specifically to the bedroom and a door to the rest of the trailer. So there are two side doors, two entry doors in this. And it's fully accessible with the slide in. So you can get to the bathroom from the bedroom. Now you have to use the two different doors, but you can get to the bathroom through the bedroom door and you can get to the main living area through the main entry door and everything is usable. Nice. So just, and then Keystone, there's a lot of things that I outline in the article, but Keystone really does a good job.
Tony Barthel
They have this innovation lab and they've really come up with some things that do make a difference for we veers. So anyway, Keystone Cougar 30 bhs. It's a bumper pole travel trailer that I really like.
Peggy Barthel
Fantastic. You might have noticed we didn't have a question of the, the week last week.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. We were talking about ourselves.
Peggy Barthel
Right. And the week before, I wasn't here and I let Tony and Mike go for it. And I think that their question of the week was great. Tony, why don't you talk about that?
Tony Barthel
Well, we talked about how you like to do your hot dogs and hamburgers and I think one of the conclusions is buy good hotdog.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
That makes such a difference. And you know, some butcher shops have these awesome hot dogs, but Mike Trobe had a really good idea at the end of the night when the campfire is, you know, is kind of subsided and you have those great hot coals. Oh man, that's a late night snack. You just put the weenie in those Kohls and
Peggy Barthel
Oh, and it gets those blisters on it. Hmm. Yes.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Lori was talking about smash burger tacos and what they did is they use a hamburger and you know, they have quarter pound balls of hamburger and smash 'em down on their Blackstone. And then after a couple of minutes they add shredded cheese and then put a tortilla and Oh, it just, that sounds really good.
Peggy Barthel
I would love that. I love a good tortilla burger.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And you can put taco ingredients or you can put hamburger ingredients, kind of your own preference. Yeah. Speaking of tortillas, my favorite way to make a hotdog is with the tortilla. And then take chili and make a chili dog wrap. You do have to include a pickle and cheap yellow mustard
Peggy Barthel
And cheese. Oh
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And cheese, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And then Tom. Yeah. Good crisp hot dogs that give a snap when you bite them. Ooh, doggies. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Did anybody talk about dirty dogs? That was something we started doing recently.
Tony Barthel
Dirty Mike and I talked about it. Oh, okay. And what dirty water dogs are is you can either take beer or like beef broth or whatever. So in other words, the water's not just water,
Peggy Barthel
Not just pure water.
Tony Barthel
So you're boiling the hot dog with some sort of flavored water. And we've been doing that a lot. And in fact we've been taking the Costco dogs are not bad. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
I like them.
Tony Barthel
And so we've been taking the Costco dogs Fri from Frozen and putting them in boiling <laugh> dirty water as it were. And I use beef bion and they come out really, really well. So dirty water dogs. And apparently that's a thing in New York.
Peggy Barthel
So that was asked, I think because Tony and Mike were talking a lot about hot dogs and hotdog cookers and electric, all that stuff. So because of what I just did. Now my question is gonna be this for this week, what is the most scary thing that you have overcome in your camping experiences? <laugh>.
Tony Barthel
I like that. And of course, as always, you can answer that question or ask your own questions. In our fun and friendly Stressless camping podcast, Facebook guru, which is linked at the top of Stressless camping. If you forget, go join our little family. It's been very polite and we keep it that way. Dogone it also hot, dogone
Peggy Barthel
It, hot Dogone it. Also, something that's on our website is a chance to sign up for the once a week newsletter. Now we just send out one newsletter a week, unless you're a winner of a contest. And then you gotta answer Hello? Yeah,
Tony Barthel
<laugh>. Yeah. Well, we're gonna pick a new name out of the hat and someone who signed up for the newsletter in the past month or so is gonna have their name in the newsletter. Watch for it. And you're gonna get a free water hose from our friends at Air Gear. And it is the best RV water hose out there period.
Peggy Barthel
Right. Also in the newsletter, you're gonna see videos and stories and podcast links, things that we think will help you get the most out of your RV experience. Yes.
Tony Barthel
So you can sign up. We only send one a week. It's absolutely free. And of course, we never share your information
Peggy Barthel
Than no.
Tony Barthel
Another thing you'll find at Stressless Camping is the show notes for this episode, which is episode two 12 on the podcastPage@stresslesscamping.com.
Peggy Barthel
Another thing you'll find on the Stressless Camping podcast page is our deals and discounts for the best deals on things that you need for your Stressless camping adventure.
Tony Barthel
Yep. And of course, if you've got a great deal to share with our audience, let us know.
Peggy Barthel
Please do.
Tony Barthel
We are in all the social places, including threads now.
Peggy Barthel
Ooh.
Tony Barthel
You can start@stresslesscamping.com. In the upper right hand corner are links to all the various places where we like to be social. Well except Threads. Threads doesn't have a link.
Peggy Barthel
<laugh>
Tony Barthel
Ass Levy. That's another way to communicate with us. Go to stress camping.com. Upper right corner links to all of our social places.
Peggy Barthel
Now, if you enjoyed this episode or if you have enjoyed any of the past episodes, we want you to remember that you can subscribe for free on any podcast catcher. But also what's really, really helpful to us is that you write a review on that podcast catcher. Yes. And let people know that you think that there is value to this podcast so that more people will be able to listen. And if you have already written a review or you don't wanna write a review, thank you. But you'd like to share. Well not thank you if you haven't written one.
Peggy Barthel
Oh yeah. But yes, <laugh>, I didn't hear all the words I said if you'd like to share, there is a whole page and we will put a link in the newsletter of how to share things that you find on the Stressless Camping website that you think that other people would like to see If you have already written a review and you still wanna help, sharing is caring.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And it's free for you to do. And it really makes a difference to us. So
Peggy Barthel
Absolutely.
Tony Barthel
Well, that's what we have for you this week. Are you more scared of slide rooms than you ever were? Because I have not been shy about my wish for RVs with no slides and this just makes it even more so. But that's just me. But anyway, we really appreciate you being with us here again this week. Thank you so much and happy camping.
Mark Ferrell
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.
Tony Barthel
Terror Dactyl. Terror, dactyl.
Our trusted partners - RV Discounts and Deals
