The 300th episode of the StressLess Camping RV podcast
Looking back on 300 podcast episodes
This week on the StressLess Camping RV Podcast, we are celebrating episode 300! How did we get here? How have we been consistent for 300 weeks in a row? That’s nearly six years!
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Our most sincere thanks to Robert Morales, aka Traveling Robert, who is a great video creator and also a musician. Robert helped us put together our new theme song.
Tony worked at Redwood Empire RVs in Ukiah, CA.
Tony’s first podcast - the Curbside Classic Car Show
The bed and breakfast we owned is still out there - you can stay at the Featherbed Railroad Bed & Breakfast Resort too!
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 300
Peggy Barthel
Where is everybody?
Where's the Whistler? Where's our song? What is Happening? Uh-oh. A note. It looks like a ransom note. It says, see a Suckers. I've been whistling this song for 300 episodes and my lips are parched. I'm moving to a land where chapstick is free and nobody whistles all the time. What are we gonna do now?
Tony Barthel
Now, funny. We could get somebody to turn that into an actual song. Wait, I have an idea. Let's call traveling Robert. Robert. Robert help.
Peggy Barthel
Well, what'd you think? What do you think? It's probably still playing.
Tony Barthel
Well, let us know. We were very fortunate to be able to work with traveling Robert on a new song for the Stressless Camping, the whole entity. Part of the reason is every week when we upload to YouTube, they send us a notice that we are violating copyright and blah, blah, blah. Please take the music out. We have to argue with them. It's a pain in the neck. And we've been wanting to change the song just a little bit for some time.
Tony Barthel
And I, at Quartzsite, I talked to Traveling Robert, and basically that's what we came up with. So, so
Peggy Barthel
We would like your feedback.
Tony Barthel
If it's good,
Peggy Barthel
We would like your good feedback, man. We might be
Tony Barthel
Be doing
Peggy Barthel
Minor tweaks, but this is essentially what we're going with. So we hope that you like it. We hope that you enjoy today's episode, which is episode number 300. Yeah,
Tony Barthel
We're, we're gonna kind of go back and talk about us.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. We told you not to get too excited, didn't
Tony Barthel
We? Yeah, I know. We had ice cream earlier, if that's helpful at all. We
Peggy Barthel
Did have ice cream earlier. And we are, well, you know what we do? We introduce ourselves is to RV veterans who travel part-time in this Rockwood Mini Light.
Tony Barthel
We're gonna share big adventures and help you with great tips,
Peggy Barthel
Tricks,
Tony Barthel
And discounts.
Peggy Barthel
So today we're gonna tell you how we got
Tony Barthel
Got here.
Peggy Barthel
Here. Yeah. How did we, not only how did we get to 300, but what are we doing? Having a podcast in the first place, right?
Tony Barthel
Yeah. All of that stuff. There's a few of you who haven't been with us since the very beginning, and I don't blame you.
Peggy Barthel
You may not be with us till the very end.
Tony Barthel
Who knows? Yeah. So, but anyway, we thought we'd give you kind of the origin story and what our vision was and is and all that. And
Peggy Barthel
So we kind of do a, a shortened version of this a lot of times, especially when we're doing our, you know, seminars and people haven't met us before and you all have, but maybe you're new or maybe you haven't heard the whole story. So we just, you know, thought, well, let's just start from the beginning. My beginning back in the old days. Yeah. I maintain that. I was conceived on my parents' camping honeymoon and I, so I literally have been camping since before I was born.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
I came, I came from a camping family. You know, I have pictures of my grandmother camping with my aunts and uncles. When I was a, a little girl, we used to camp in my father's truck camper when my mom had five kids to take camping. And we lived in Southern California and we lived really close to the Mojave Desert. So we could just go any old time we wanted. And we did a lot. First in a tiny, like I've seen, I remember the trailer a little bit, but the pictures, you know, it's like a 16 or 17 foot what is now a vintage trailer.
Peggy Barthel
Back then, it was just a trailer. It, I cannot figure out how six of us slept in that thing. I
Tony Barthel
Probably outside or something.
Peggy Barthel
No, maybe we slept outside. Maybe. I don't remember. I really don't remember. I asked my mom, she said, well, you know, we managed, and then from the trailer we moved to a 1967 Winnebago, which was not only our camper, but our daily driver. And again, I only remember three or four bed spaces. So how did six of us sleep? Well, we managed, but you know, I come from a camping family. My grandparents belonged to a doom buggy clubs. So we would be out in the desert tearing up the desert with doom buggies, with huge gobs of people.
Peggy Barthel
You know, when my grandfather built a Baja Bug, my mom would take us on date, you know, little trips around and get us, get us lost, or get us stuck on the side of a hill. Things like that. So I really camped, you know, throughout my entire childhood. Then I married my first husband, and I camped quite a bit. He had a truck camper. He built a truck camper on the back of his pickup.
Tony Barthel
He was handier than I am.
Peggy Barthel
Well, you know, it was never completed, but we won't really go
Tony Barthel
There. Oh. Didn't realize we had so much in common.
Peggy Barthel
And so we camped quite a bit again in the Mojave Desert, death Valley Air. Well, what is now part of Death Valley Park, but wasn't back then. Saline Valley. And we, you know, we again, we just went out in the desert and parked somewhere and camped and drank beer and shot the beer cans and, you know, just had a a times in the desert. We did that as often as possible as well. Then I became a college student and a geology student to be more, more exact.
Peggy Barthel
And geology classes, geology college requires getting out there in the field and seeing things and doing things in the field. So I, again, camped a lot. And now I didn't have any kind of an RV at that time. I camped in a tent, or I camped in the back of my first, my RAV-IV. Oh no, first my
Speaker 1
Forerunner,
Peggy Barthel
Then my RAV-IV. And I literally bought the RAV-IV because it had a flat enough space to, I bought the forerunner because it had a flat enough space for me to camp in. 'cause that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to just go out in my vehicle and, you know, sleep in the car and, and have fun. So I went with a lot of college trips, a lot of college friends. And then I met Tony. We had a Jayco travel trailer. But I think I should stop because by the time I meet you, then we have a, a different story.
Peggy Barthel
That's us together. Yeah,
Tony Barthel
That's true.
Peggy Barthel
So why don't you tell us up until that point.
Tony Barthel
All right. Well, like, you know, a bunch of kids. I belong to one of those like boys can't one boys groups, you know, there's the Scouts and all of that. I belong to the Y Indian Guides, which is part of YMCA. And you know, we did our usual tent camping in a surplus army tent that you couldn't touch if it was raining, because it would leak. So we did that and then as a kid, we would go to the LA County Fair and Pomona every year. And all the normal kids would go look at the animals or ride the rides.
Tony Barthel
I would go and annoy the RV salespeople. 'cause I was fascinated. I'm like, oh, you could bring your house with you. That's so cool. And of course, I always wanted my parents to buy a VW camper. 'cause those were available then. And one summer, I think late in high school, or maybe junior high, finally there was some dude at my dad's work, and he had an old champion motor.
Tony Barthel
Well, it wasn't old then, but it was a champion motor home. And so there was some deal at work. My dad rented it from him for a vacation. So my sister and I each got to bring a friend along. And so we went on this trip. What a piece of junk, that thing. So you could sit on the toilet and look down and see through the shower, drain the road. And there was aluminum foil in the fuse box. It was a complete piece of junk.
Tony Barthel
We, at one point we were in, oh gosh, like banning or something, and the fan belt blew, and it's a Sunday, but there was some old guy who, my dad talked out of a fan belt or something. Anyway, but I still liked it. And I forgot to mention, you know, when, when Tonka came out with the Tonka Winnebago, the, it was a, you know, like a Tonka motorhome. I had to have one. So that was my first motorhome and just liked RVs and, and all of that.
Tony Barthel
Then I guess we got together.
Peggy Barthel
So I forgot a couple things. I looked at my notes while you were talking. I realized I forgot a couple things. When I was 10 or less, you know, 8, 9, 10 years old, my best friend Lisa and I would play in our basement. In my basement. And we would, I, I don't know how we had a, you know, I think my parents got a new washing machine or something. But we had a big cardboard box, maybe a refrigerator, maybe a something. But it was a big old cardboard box. And Lisa and I would sit in that box and RV across the country.
Peggy Barthel
That was how we played. That's so cool. That was what we did. And that was our, you know, like that's what we wanted to do. That's when we grew up. We were gonna RV across the country together. And obviously I have been doing that, but not with Lisa,
Tony Barthel
Though. We've stopped and visited her. We
Peggy Barthel
Have visited Lisa. Yep. Our lives went separate ways. And then also, I didn't mention that when I first got out of high school, I worked with my aunt Kathy at a company called Alpha Leisure. And at that time, Alpha made travel trailers and fifth wheels. After I left, they went to making motor homes. And they are no longer, sadly no longer in, in production. But I worked for the company when we've made travel trailers and fifth wheels, and I was the drawer builder. So for about a year, a year and a half or so, I worked building all the drawers that went in every Alpha trailer.
Tony Barthel
Wow.
Peggy Barthel
In the early eighties.
Tony Barthel
Wow. I back to, I, I don't know, I just remembered this too. You remembered.
Peggy Barthel
That's okay.
Tony Barthel
The Y Indian guide, the story was one time we went camping and I think it must have been like a Friday night that we went, because we got to the camp late enough. So my dad probably, you know, it was Friday night, so he had to get off work and all that, and we packed the car and we go and set up at a, at Darby Park in Inglewood. And like three in the morning the sprinklers go off and like, you know, those big commercial park sprinklers. And we had managed to set our tent right on one of those.
Tony Barthel
And man, what a mess. And so all of us, you know, all the kids who were part of this thing, all gathered at my house then, or you know, my parents' house. And somehow we got donuts. I, it must have been late enough in the morning that the donut shop had already opened. And then David Sperling, you ate all the donuts. Uh-oh. Oh, I only got one donut. I do. I, yeah, donuts, man. So anyway, this, you know, those silly camping stories and that old tent, what a piece of junk.
Tony Barthel
I mean it was, you know, it was old army surplus that we probably bought at an army surplus store. And then we had that shovel that always failed,
Peggy Barthel
Eh, the fold-in-half
Tony Barthel
One, the fold in half shovel that everybody had then. And the stove you couldn't light. And the lantern that you always forgot to bring mantles for and all. I like RVs,
Peggy Barthel
So it might not quite count, but didn't you do a trip where you were on a houseboat? That's sort of like an RV, right? Oh,
Tony Barthel
Yeah, yeah. That was really fun. So my parents took us, we did some pretty epic vacations, but they're all basically driving vacations and predominantly in California. So we'd go from Southern California to north. But yeah, we went on a houseboat again about, I was probably 14, 15, and they rented a houseboat in the Sacramento Delta. And boy, that was, I really liked that trip.
Peggy Barthel
Herman
Tony Barthel
And Helen's Marina.
Peggy Barthel
That is something I would not mind doing.
Tony Barthel
I wouldn't either. It's basically a floating motor home. Right. And yeah, I would totally do that. That would be, that would be fun.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah,
Tony Barthel
We would jump off the roof. We would, you know, the like the
Peggy Barthel
Into the lake
Tony Barthel
There's Yeah, into the Delta. So there's obviously the main deck, and then you could climb a ladder and get on the roof and we would all jump off and
Peggy Barthel
You climbed a ladder.
Tony Barthel
Well, I was young, I was younger then young and silly. I did a lot of dumb stuff when I was a.
Peggy Barthel
Okay. That's why you don't do it now.
Tony Barthel
Yeah, I've got, I got my myself. Still got outta your
Peggy Barthel
System. Yeah. So when Tony and I met, he was not camping. I was, you know, still sleeping in my car, going out to the desert with my friends on occasion.
Tony Barthel
She had a house too, but, you know,
Peggy Barthel
Well, yeah, I wasn't sleep, I wasn't living in my car. I was going camping in my car. And then we got together and
Tony Barthel
That
Peggy Barthel
Was, Tony worked weekends. So it was kind of, you know, it was, it was A, In our early years, I worked and went to school during the week and he worked on the weekends. So we didn't do a lot of, you know, going away type type of things. But if he had a weekend off, we would. And then
Tony Barthel
It was always weird because I worked basically doing events mostly. I started out as a DJ and then did a lot of event management. And we, we actually eventually bought a banquet hall with a partner and all that nonsense. And on the weekends when I didn't have a gig, it felt so weird.
Peggy Barthel
Yes, so
Tony Barthel
Strange. I always thought there was somebody who's gonna call and go, where in the world are you? Did you
Peggy Barthel
Forget to go to the we to the event this
Tony Barthel
Weekend? And I filled in a few times for people where that happened. Like my buddy Jack, I distinctly remember one time he called, he is like, there's a, there's an event and they need someone today.
Peggy Barthel
Oh man.
Tony Barthel
And I rushed up to the Antelope Valley or whatever. And
Peggy Barthel
It wasn't him that forgot.
Tony Barthel
No, no, no. Jack was very meticulous.
Peggy Barthel
I was gonna say he was pretty meticulous.
Tony Barthel
No, no. It was like, you know, he was in a pretty tight community and somehow some banquet hall was like, you know,
Peggy Barthel
Do you know anybody?
Tony Barthel
Do you know anybody? And here I, here I come.
Peggy Barthel
Nice.
Tony Barthel
Here I come to save the day.
Peggy Barthel
So when we did get a chance to take weekends off, oh, you
Tony Barthel
Know what, what? I wrote a book too. Oh,
Peggy Barthel
You wrote a book? That's right.
Tony Barthel
That's Wedding Horror stories and how to avoid them. And one of these days, I'll put it back on Amazon. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So
Tony Barthel
I've always, so my education was in writing and I used to fancy myself writing a syndicated column. And I actually did at one point write a car column. You know, it was about new cars that went and bunch a newspaper. So anyway, that's, that, that's,
Peggy Barthel
That's kind of important. 'cause that leads
Tony Barthel
Important
Peggy Barthel
To what you do now. Right?
Tony Barthel
It does lead to what I do now.
Peggy Barthel
So at one point we went camping together with some friends and they had, one of the couples had a Yeah, tent trailer. A pop-up tent trailer. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
An old Jayco pop-up tent trailer.
Peggy Barthel
And they, they eventually were divorcing and wanted to sell the trailer. And so we bought their travel trailer from them.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And we went
Tony Barthel
Camping. Well, the funny thing, this is legitimately, the husband goes, just sell it and I'll split it with you. Oh,
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. So
Tony Barthel
She sold it to us for 500 bucks. Yeah,
Peggy Barthel
She did not, she didn't worry about what it was. She didn't care. Didn't care. And we were happy to get that bargain and
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So then we got to go camping.
Tony Barthel
It was gross.
Peggy Barthel
Well, it was,
Tony Barthel
Remember the had been wet, the canvas, it had been wet and
Peggy Barthel
Put
Tony Barthel
Away, and we had to like bleach the canvases.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. It was pretty stinky
Tony Barthel
And it stunk. Not everything worked in that trailer. We, we fixed some stuff,
Peggy Barthel
We fixed it, but it was fine.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Basically it was just a little bit better than a tent. Right. And we have never 10, well, up until last year, we have never had, never tent camped.
Tony Barthel
Not together.
Peggy Barthel
We didn't tent camp together. So I used to say, Tony, I
Tony Barthel
Couldn't find a commercial sprinkler to put a tent on.
Peggy Barthel
So, so we had that tent trailer and we went on some really great trips. We went to Mammoth and we went
Tony Barthel
To,
Peggy Barthel
To,
Tony Barthel
We went to the races in the desert a lot. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
We went out to the desert a lot.
Tony Barthel
We used to sponsor a, a, a car in that would do time trials in the desert.
Peggy Barthel
We went to, was it like Malibu or, you know, up in
Tony Barthel
Area? Oh yeah, we went to Malibu.
Peggy Barthel
So yeah, so we had a good time with the travel trailer. And then we had a friend who manages like street fairs. Mike Bell. He manages like, Hermosa,
Tony Barthel
Shout out Mike
Peggy Barthel
Hermosa Street Fair. I, I think it's got another,
Tony Barthel
Oh, he did the LA Marathon. But he did a bunch of events. He
Peggy Barthel
Does a lot of things. And so in order to stay on site the whole time to manage these things, he would rent our pop-up trailer from us. And so he had that as kind of an office in Sleeping Quarters. And eventually then we decided that we wanted to have a bed and breakfast.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So if
Tony Barthel
You ever get the mood to buy a bread and breakfast, not so sure. That's a great idea. Sleep
Peggy Barthel
On it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Sleep on it. Well, and that was 2008 when we bought it. It was 2008. Bad timing.
Peggy Barthel
It was kind of a bad timing. But we, at the time that we bought the bed and breakfast and we, we relocated from southern to Northern California and we knew that owning a bed and breakfast meant we were not gonna be taking time off to go camping anytime soon.
Tony Barthel
Sometimes we would swap other B&Bs for rooms though. Right.
Peggy Barthel
We did do
Tony Barthel
Some, like, we'd go there and they'd come ours,
Peggy Barthel
But we sold, then we sold Mike that travel, that pop-up trailer Yep. So that it would still get some good use. And he got a lot of good years out. Yeah. He now he has a regular kind of travel trailer. Yeah. So we like to think that we got, you know, we introduced him to the, to the RV life.
Tony Barthel
There was a few times I worked with Mike and we all called ourselves Carnies.
Peggy Barthel
Carnies. Yeah. So we owned the bed and breakfast for about seven years. We really didn't camp in that
Tony Barthel
Time. No, we didn't.
Peggy Barthel
We traveled a little bit in the, like in the off season we would, you know, run back down to Southern California where it was warmer, but, you know, not camping. We would just do other things. And then
Tony Barthel
We did a lot of cruising. Well, not a lot, but that's a lot of what we did on those. We'd go in January and cruise and go on cruise ships. And that's about the time podcasting started.
Peggy Barthel
Right. So I don't remember the years that you had your first podcast.
Tony Barthel
I don't either. Well, I'm, oh, I do, because I just reposted the first one. But those were the years that, you know, it was kind of starting to happen. I started listening to John and Kathy Huggins, Livin RV Dream, Livin
Peggy Barthel
The RV Dream.
Tony Barthel
And, and there were a few others. And then I started listening also to Girl Camper. Right. And I felt kind of like, eh, I shouldn't be listening to this, but I did. And I, I thought it was great. And I'm like, I like this podcasting thing.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. But you also have a lifetime of listening to like talk radio.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. My mom. Right.
Peggy Barthel
That's the way that you, that's your entertainment source is top radio.
Tony Barthel
My mom would listen to on a transistor radio, she'd walk around the house and listen to KBC in Los Angeles. And then I listened to KBC in Los Angeles and I was like, that talk format. There was a dude, Michael Jackson, who, who was a good, no, not that I did for Michael Jackson, but of course that happened a lot because the same name. But this guy would interview all kinds of Newsmakers and he was a really good interviewer. Yep.
Peggy Barthel
Michael Jackson.
Tony Barthel
So anyway, I, I always liked that talk format.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. My mom would listen to her eight tracks of 1970s country and Western music. So that's what I grew up on.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay.
Peggy Barthel
So I still, you know, of course really love music. But anyway, podcasting was kind of new and fresh and we were, we were thinking and trying and doing, selling the bed-and-breakfast in those few years. And But you also had another podcast?
Tony Barthel
Yeah, so I had the curbside classic car show, which kind of dovetailed into the curbside online car show calendar and the curbside, you know, I did a lot of stuff in the world of classic cars at that point. And so my buddy Jim Cherry and I had the curbside classic car and I'm starting to, you know, I dug them up. And today I reposted episode one of the curbside Classic Car podcast. Oh right. And it's kind of interesting to listen.
Tony Barthel
And I listened to it and it was, it was interesting. One of the things we talked about the automobile driving museum, which unfortunately recently closed. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And
Tony Barthel
As a matter of fact, last weekend they had their yard sale and sold off a bunch of stuff. I wonder what happened to that 61 Corvair.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
'cause that thing was beautiful
Peggy Barthel
That you donated Right? Know.
Tony Barthel
No, we don't. It is something else
Peggy Barthel
There. I'm sorry. That was the Volkswagen. Sorry. So anyway, so Tony had that, that talk radio history growing up and listening. And then he had the podcast history and he had, you know, I think he said he wrote re he wrote reviews, but of kind of pre-production or brand new models of cars.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I gotta go to the auto shows and stuff and meet with all the car manufacturers. It was, it was kind of fun. Yeah. And so,
Peggy Barthel
So then we had the bed and breakfast and that's kind of what we did was the bed and breakfast. And after we sold the bed and breakfast, Tony did some county marketing.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I worked
Peggy Barthel
And things like that. So he is done a lot of different things. He built a lot of websites in that time period for different companies, especially around the area where we had the bed and breakfast. And I, you know, worked at the county. Worked at the county. But we saw that.
Tony Barthel
Well yeah, eventually then the county gig dried up. And so I was like, eh, I'll see what, what's out there. And I saw a job at Redwood Empire RVs and we were at a car show when I talked to Perry. Yes. The owner,
Peggy Barthel
Tony had gone for an interview and then we were at a car show, well I think it was airplanes or something.
Tony Barthel
It was the Wings, Wheels and Rotors. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Car
Tony Barthel
Show.
Peggy Barthel
He got the call from Perry. So we're like wandering around and he's talking to this guy and he said, well, do you wanna come work for me? I'm like, sure. And I don't even really know what's going on. Right. <laugh>.
Tony Barthel
Right.
Peggy Barthel
He is like, I just got a job.
Tony Barthel
I just got a job at an RV dealership. And so I worked there for a few years and I, I thought it was neat. But some of the shocking things to me was that a lot of the people that I interacted with from the RV industry didn't go RVing.
Peggy Barthel
Go RVing.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It's so, it was just so foreign to me. Now
Peggy Barthel
I think we kind of skipped a little bit.
Tony Barthel
Did we? Okay. Before
Peggy Barthel
You got the job, we bought our first travel trailer.
Tony Barthel
Oh dear. Yeah. That's our
Peggy Barthel
First Mini-Lite.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
We bought our first Rockwood Mini.
Peggy Barthel
We really should have have written a timeline. Oh, we did.
Tony Barthel
Oh, we did just
Peggy Barthel
Keep forgetting to look at it.
Tony Barthel
Right.
Peggy Barthel
So in 2016, in December, we, we, and, and I'll tell you that every time we were on a highway and there was a dealership.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
We'd look at our watches and say, yeah, we have an hour. And we would stop and we would, you know, take you through all the travel
Tony Barthel
Trailers. We looked at travel trailer, so many, many RVs.
Peggy Barthel
We looked at a lot of RVs. Which is good because then you really know it
Tony Barthel
Was fun
Peggy Barthel
What you're picking. Right? Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And so
Peggy Barthel
In December of 2016, we finally made a decision, this is a great, I love this story. We were there to, you know,
Tony Barthel
At the dealership.
Peggy Barthel
At the dealership to,
Tony Barthel
But not the one I worked at. No,
Peggy Barthel
No. A different dealership. We didn't know about his dealership at that time. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Which is odd.
Peggy Barthel
And so we were there.
Tony Barthel
No, we did. I said I want, oh, we went and I said, I want something with a Murphy bed and a single axle. And Perry goes, well we don't have any of that. Oh,
Peggy Barthel
Okay. Oh, okay.
Tony Barthel
I remember that. Oh yeah. I
Peggy Barthel
Had been there because I know we had been to the one that had a lot of really small travel trailers Right next door. A a few, a couple times as well. So, okay. So we were there to buy our travel trailer. We're signing the papers and you know, talking to the finance and all that stuff. And we're waiting to go in the finance office. And out of the finance office walks our friends, Joe and Jackie.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
We had no idea that they were travel trailer people. No idea they were buying one. No idea that they bought the same brand that we bought
Tony Barthel
A Rockwood
Peggy Barthel
And they picked it up the day that we did our initial, like two days before we got ours.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So that was really cool. And then our friends, Dave and Stacey camp at the, they, they were the ones that kind of started our camp at the beach on Christmas.
Speaker 1
Yep.
Peggy Barthel
And they said, Hey, we're gonna be at Doran Regional Park over Christmas, you know, see if you can fit, get a space. Well that place, like you have to get a space a year in advance. So we thought, well that's not gonna happen. But I got online and I found a spot that had been, you know, canceled or whatever. So it was empty spot. It was like in the very next loop from where Dave and Stacey were. Which is good. 'cause there's like two miles of campground. It could have been a really far distance. Yeah. It's
Tony Barthel
A fairly decent sort of place.
Peggy Barthel
And so our first weekend, our first Christmas after having a travel trailer, we blossomed, bloomed the, we camp at the beach on Christmas.
Tony Barthel
And that was actually, not only was it No, no. It was our second time camping. 'cause we went from the dealership to Clear Lake Campground.
Peggy Barthel
Yes.
Tony Barthel
And spent the first night there.
Peggy Barthel
Yep.
Tony Barthel
And then, then we did the camping at the beach and I bought solar panels. 'cause there's no power at that's, there's no services there whatsoever. That's, so I bought these two 80 watt solar panels.
Peggy Barthel
So that was our second camping trip. And then after, I don't remember if that, I don't think that very first year that we went to court site in January. I think we didn't do that.
Tony Barthel
He
Peggy Barthel
Was 19. So a couple years later
Tony Barthel
I had already worked at the dealership. Oh, that's right. 'cause Perry was like, are you gonna go there and sell RVs?
Peggy Barthel
That's right. That's right. So then we, you know, we were weekenders we would go camping at the local state park or at the beach or, you know, with our local friends and in,
Tony Barthel
In northern California near where we were. There are some spectacular places to go camping.
Peggy Barthel
Absolutely. Then we, then when Tony had the job at the dealership, there may be more to this story, but basically we became really close with Monia who still works there.
Tony Barthel
Yep.
Peggy Barthel
And she is a avid RVer.
Tony Barthel
Well that was one of the things that helped me get the job there was we were RVers and understood the RV industry. Well I understood RVing,
Peggy Barthel
Unlike a lot of dealerships who hire people who can sell, Perry likes to hire people who understand RVing. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
If you ever need an RV and you're in Northern California, two thumbs up to Redwood Empire RVs. Good people there.
Peggy Barthel
So you had a job there for a couple years. Yeah, we spent some weekend camping. We, you know, we just had our day jobs, our, you know
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Regular jobs camp. When we kept,
Tony Barthel
I kept hearing the same questions. People would come in asking the same questions over and over and over again. I should also say that the dealership, Redwood is small enough that I not only did sales, but I helped with the warranties too. So that was also eye-opening, talking to the reps, handling the warranties, and of course talking to customers. And I kept hearing the same question over and over and over again. And I'm like, Doc, somebody should answer these questions and make a website where these questions get answered and, and all of that.
Tony Barthel
And somehow have them be verifiable. Right. Not just, hey, this is my opinion. But, you know, so I started to develop contacts in the RV industry and somehow I got a whole contact list for Forest River. I don't know how I did, but then I started reaching out and then it expanded to Thor. And finally I said to Peggy, I think I'm gonna quit my job and I am going to start this whole website and write in about, well,
Peggy Barthel
But you actually started the website about a year before
Tony Barthel
You quit your job. Yeah, I think you're right. You're right. Yeah. You were on the website
Peggy Barthel
For quite a while before you left the dealership. And so like, I'd say about a year.
Tony Barthel
Okay.
Peggy Barthel
Because I know it was in
Tony Barthel
Yeah, you're right. In
Peggy Barthel
February of 2018 when we chose the name for the website.
Tony Barthel
Yes, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
We did, with the help of Leanne,
Tony Barthel
Leanne, we were like, what should we call it? What should we call it?
Peggy Barthel
We were on a road trip. We were all together in the car.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Us and our friend Leanne and her daughter and your
Peggy Barthel
Daughter Tia. And we were like, trying to come up with names, trying to be clever, and everybody's kind of throwing out things and throwing out words. And Leanne said, stress-less camping. And I was like on the, on the phone. Like, that is not existing website. Let's buy it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So we bought the domain. Right. While we're driving
Peggy Barthel
Down the highway, I bought
Tony Barthel
Somewhere between Northern California and Southern California on the, on the 15
Peggy Barthel
Five
Tony Barthel
Or on the five brother. Yep. On the
Peggy Barthel
Street. Five. Yep.
Tony Barthel
So,
Peggy Barthel
So a website was born.
Tony Barthel
It was. And, and it, and
Peggy Barthel
He did, so Tony did that on his, you know, when he wasn't at work and I still worked for the county. And then around, or kind of springtime, I guess 2019, Tony had had the podcast with the cars. And that, I
Tony Barthel
Can't remember that had stopped. Yeah. I started the podcast with Jim.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Well it was, it was 2022 was the, no, that can't be.
Peggy Barthel
I don't think so. But anyway, I know you were, I know you were, we were in the Kelseyville house, which
Tony Barthel
Right. We had the Kelseyville house,
Peggy Barthel
But, which not to most people, but, so it was after 2018 you were still podcasting with Jim and in 2019 you said, let's have a podcast. Well, I understood what a podcast was. I had no idea what I had forced
Tony Barthel
Her to listen to plenty of them.
Peggy Barthel
But, you know, the point was basically he just wanted to add my voice to his podcast in, in a kind of a way. Right. Like it was his baby. It was his thing. And so I said, yeah, sure, why not? I'll talk with you. It took me a while to get comfortable, you know, and we didn't do video back then.
Tony Barthel
Oh gosh.
Peggy Barthel
We only did our
Tony Barthel
Audio. No, no, no
Peggy Barthel
Audio. And so even just to know that I was wearing a microphone, I'd have a little bit of trouble getting comfortable. Hard to believe now. Right. I would like be, hi, this is Jarcelle's camping. And he said, you have to smile. You have to, you, I need to hear the happiness. You can
Tony Barthel
Hear the smile on, on a face.
Peggy Barthel
And so just before I started talking, he would reach over and poke me in the ribs and I'd kind of go, whoo. Hi. Yep.
Tony Barthel
Worked.
Peggy Barthel
And that's how I learned to, to have a,
Tony Barthel
I had always better
Peggy Barthel
Microphone voice.
Tony Barthel
I had always been very comfortable on the microphone.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. And as you know, he had been a, a
Tony Barthel
DJ. Yeah. I worked as DJ DJing and all that
Peggy Barthel
DJ for a lot of events and stuff. So he, he knew how to work a microphone and I just didn't. So
Tony Barthel
I have a face for radio. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
There's that. Now while we're on YouTube. But, so let's see, that was kind of tangled up a little bit.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So in July of 2019 was episode zero and episode one July 11, 7 11 was our Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1
Yeah,
Tony Barthel
Yeah, yeah. That
Peggy Barthel
Was our beginning episode. And that was 300 episodes ago.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Crazy.
Peggy Barthel
That was four trailers ago.
Tony Barthel
Four trailers, 300. Well five if you count the aristocrat. 'cause we bought a vintage trailer as a second trailer in
Peggy Barthel
About 2020 or 21. We bought a vintage trailer.
Tony Barthel
And oh, you know what else we didn't mention was the Corvair van.
Peggy Barthel
Right, that's true.
Tony Barthel
We had the Corvair van. Typical.
Peggy Barthel
That was a camper. Although we never went camping in it. We tried camping in the yard in it one time.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And I realized then that none of the interior door handles in the back worked. And I'm like, this is kind of, he
Peggy Barthel
Thought he was, he felt trapped. And I did. It's pretty small. I mean, it was an old, you know,
Tony Barthel
60 van. Well it was, yeah. It was a size of a VW van.
Peggy Barthel
It was pretty tiny in there. But we tried.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. We
Peggy Barthel
Never did camp in it, but we used it for a lot of day trips.
Tony Barthel
Oh. Went to a lot of car shows in that Corvair
Peggy Barthel
And a lot of drive-in movies.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Oh yeah. There was a drive-in movie in Lake County if you're ever up there.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. So, so then in 2022 we had a wild year. I'm gonna see how quickly we can recap it. We put our house for sale in May, April or May. We packed everything into either storage or the back of our camper shell truck. Truck. Shell not
Tony Barthel
Camper.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. The pickup. But the,
Tony Barthel
Well you can't see it.
Peggy Barthel
The shell on the truck. And we took off, oh, I guess I have to back up a little bit. In February of 2022, the original travel trailer, the one we bought in 2016, had a little minor accident. It hit, we hit a bump and it broke the frame. And we were no, it was no longer safe to take camping. Yeah. It lives on as a guest house.
Tony Barthel
Our friend house. Yeah. And a walnut orchard.
Peggy Barthel
And a walnut orchard. But we were not able to use that to go camping anymore. And that was in February. And we had done a trip in 2021 where we did all of Route 66. Yeah. So we were on the road for a couple of months and I said, you know, perhaps 19 feet isn't quite enough to spend this much time together.
Tony Barthel
And that's when we, we had already started the Facebook group four Rockwood and Flagstaff.
Peggy Barthel
Yes.
Tony Barthel
And we were pretty much a known entity there. And so when we were shopping around, a couple of brands had actually said, Hey, we want you to be our brand ambassador. We're like, yeah, but we really like this Rockwood and Flagstaff line a lot. And we got to talking to the Rockwood folks and bing bang boom. We became brand ambassadors and we bought a 20 22, 22 0 5 was,
Peggy Barthel
That was a tongue twister.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It was the first, it was a prototype of their power package. Yep.
Peggy Barthel
Through
Tony Barthel
ABC Upfitters, who I think you may have heard us talk about before.
Peggy Barthel
You might have mentioned, we might have mentioned ABC Upfitters. Yeah. Once or twice. Once or twice. So we had, we bought that trailer in May. We drove to Indiana and picked it up. We had that, a couple other prototype things. But all that prototype of the ABC Upfitters, you know, or the, the power package that ABC Upfitters puts in, they were building them, or they were working on making things that Rockwood could drop in as they built the, the travel trailers.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So when we picked up that trailer, is the first time we met ABC Upfitters. Now would probably be a great time to talk about them a little bit. We should.
Peggy Barthel
I think so.
Tony Barthel
And they had this prototype, well, with Rockwood, they knew we liked to camp off the grid. And they're like, Hey, not only you know, would we like you to be our brand ambassadors? How'd you like to try this new power package? Oh, okay,
Peggy Barthel
Sure. Why not.
Tony Barthel
And so that's when we met the team from ABC Upfitters and met the team from Mastervolt and learned just how all these systems work together. And the more we found out, the more impressed we were with this package that really communicates well with itself. It's all one source. And just that system worked so well in that trailer that we became fans and started working with ABC Upfitters and found out that they had plans to be able to offer these systems to more than just Rockwood and Flagstaff.
Tony Barthel
In fact, they had, they had talked to some other RV manufacturers as well, and were working with them. So it was a company that the RV manufacturers trust and the experience we had was outstanding. And we became partners with ABC Upfitters and have been big fans. And of course, as we always say, if you are looking for a reliable solar and lithium system for your RV, ABC Upfitters is a great company to work with.
Peggy Barthel
Yep.
Tony Barthel
They do custom installations. They listen to what you want, they work with you. They're reliable. They do a masterful job of putting these systems together.
Peggy Barthel
A masterful job with Mastervolt components.
Tony Barthel
Oh, I like it. That just works.
Peggy Barthel
That just works.
Tony Barthel
So, and,
Peggy Barthel
And so one of the great things about using Mastervolt, you know, I didn't realize the extent of this being true. The battery is Mastervolt, the charge controller is Mastervolt. The inverter is Mastervolt, the plugs, the wires, the everything. Right. So there's no piecemealing anything. It all is made to work together
Tony Barthel
And no finger pointing. Which a lot of times, you know, you could get great stuff, but if you know Brand A built this piece and Brand B built that piece and you have an issue, they're each gonna be Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
They're gonna blame the other. Right.
Tony Barthel
And that's not true there. So, so one installer, one manufacturer, it's all good stuff. So if that's something that you're interested in, 5, 7, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 5,
Peggy Barthel
That's 5, 7, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 5. Give ABC Upfitters a call and ask them about getting your own solar package installed.
Tony Barthel
And look at, there's a link on our website, which we'll put down below or in the show notes and look at some of the other things they're starting to offer in terms of
Peggy Barthel
Lighting. Yes. Yes.
Tony Barthel
They're doing some pretty cool stuff. Anyway.
Peggy Barthel
Anyway, so we had that first travel trailer that, well, second travel trailer, the 20 22, 22 0 5 tongue twister. We had that from May. And when we picked it up in May, Rockwood said, now we're not quite ready to talk about this yet.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Which was hilarious because Ben from ABC looked at me and said, well, we are.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Right.
Peggy Barthel
So we kept hush hush, except to our friends that were
Tony Barthel
With gigantic sticker on the back of our trailer. ABC
Peggy Barthel
Had put a giant sticker on the back of the trailer. This is true. But we didn't, you know, we didn't talk about it on the podcast. We didn't make it, you know, public. If we were camping with someone, we'd be like, you wanna see?
Tony Barthel
Check, check this out.
Peggy Barthel
And so they got a little pre preview. But anyway, in August, then we went back to Indiana for the Frog Rally. That's for Forest River owners group.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. If you have a Forest River trailer, you a Forest River RV rather, you can be part of this group.
Peggy Barthel
That's right. And so we went there for the rally, the international Rally in August. And when we were there, that's when Rockwood said, you are, we're a comfortable with you talking about the ABC system. We're going to start carrying the ABC system as an option in our manufactured trailers. And so we interviewed Ben and Stacey right. At the fairgrounds with the,
Tony Barthel
With the lawnmower guy
Peggy Barthel
In the background. And anyway. And so we really, really enjoyed that. We have loved that relationship and that, so that trailer had the prototype, that trailer now we're still in 2022. Mind you, that trailer was also totaled.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
By being rear-ended while we were waiting for some construction on a highway in Kansas.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So now we don't have a 20 22, 22 0 5.
Tony Barthel
That was a, that was a tough call to make. I, I remember
Peggy Barthel
Calling
Tony Barthel
My friends at Rockwood and I'm like, you're not gonna believe this. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Because what are they? You know, they, we worked with them to get that as a brand ambassador and we said, what do we do? And they said, well, this has never happened before. We don't know what
Tony Barthel
To do. Yeah. We were literally the figure this out. Yeah. We're the first Forest River brand ambassadors Yeah. To have destroyed a for a trailer. We were
Peggy Barthel
Among of the first Forest River brand ambassadors, I
Tony Barthel
Think. Well that, yeah. And then we're the first ones to destroy a, first
Peggy Barthel
One to need to replace our trailer. So luckily we had, you know, put out good insurance on it. We got a, we ended up in December of 2022, getting a 20 23, 22 0 5 s.
Tony Barthel
Yep.
Peggy Barthel
By the way, remember how I said we put our house for sale?
Tony Barthel
Oh yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So that was in May. In all, basically all of July, we lived in my sister's driveway in our new travel trailer. We bought a house in August, September, you know, signed the paperwork, went to the frog rally, came back for closing escrow. It was a wild ride, then lost that trailer. Then went back in December to pick up the second 2205, which we said, oh, yay. Now we have a trailer that we are gonna keep until we went to the Frog rally in
Tony Barthel
2024. Four. Well, that year, 20 that year we had two trailers, no, three, right. Yeah. We really had three trailers.
Peggy Barthel
Three trailers. We
Tony Barthel
Also sold a house in California because of the trailer to register it, we had to become South Dakota residents.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
My accountant that I had had since I was, I don't know, a long, long, long time, just up and quit. He's like, well, retired.
Peggy Barthel
He retired.
Tony Barthel
Well, right. He's like, I'm done.
Peggy Barthel
But, so we had, we had three trailers, we had three residence states because
Tony Barthel
Mexico Yeah. We, residents of states.
Peggy Barthel
We had, we did not change vehicles that year, but, you know, we kind of changed
Tony Barthel
Just about everything else. We started
Peggy Barthel
Doing a lot more travel for our business and all these things happened. And then, like Tony said, we lost our accountant, we lost our tax man. So we had to hire a new person
Tony Barthel
Who we left and explain. Yeah, she's been great
Peggy Barthel
Taxes. But we're like, okay, this isn't always gonna happen. Check. But we have three residences and three RVs and beside
Tony Barthel
And watch this.
Peggy Barthel
So what a crazy year.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
That was,
Tony Barthel
So anyway, sorry, back to the Frog rally. That's
Peggy Barthel
Okay. So things kind of calm down after that. We had a couple of really great years. We did a lot of traveling. We did, you know, 105 episodes or whatever in two years, whatever that time period was. And you know, I mean, you kind of have followed, if you have followed along, you kind of know what we've done. We haven't done anything life changing, like changing states or selling our houses or anything like that. And we were recently, we were going on pretty Steady and doing really great things.
Peggy Barthel
And then we went to the Frog Rally in 2024.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And Tony, one of his, you know, kind of passions and, and jobs is writing reviews.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. We, I write a fair number of reviews of reviews for a number of other people in, in addition to Stressless camping, you'll find RV reviews there. But I write reviews for a number of people. So we're Rolling through the various Forest River units.
Peggy Barthel
We were gonna review everything that Forest River had on display of the
Tony Barthel
Near at the Frog rally. They bring new units for us to, for people to check out.
Peggy Barthel
So we went in this one and we went in that one, and we went in some Class C's and we went in some Rpods and we went in some those big destination things. And we, you know, and we were just review, review, review. And we walked into the mini light 25 0 6 FK Front kitchen. And,
Tony Barthel
And they had this floor planned before, but it was different.
Peggy Barthel
It was different.
Tony Barthel
The bed was placed in, it was
Peggy Barthel
East-west,
Tony Barthel
East, west instead of in a slide. Right. And no, not in a slide. Oh. But they had an outdoor kitchen underneath it. Oh, right. And this long storage drawer at the back. So what they did is they twisted the bed 90 degrees and it runs parallel to the, you know, to the chassis. And they put the bath in the middle to split the front and back of the trailer.
Peggy Barthel
Well, the bath was essentially in the same place, but it used to be a bathroom on the left and a hallway on the right.
Speaker 1
Right.
Peggy Barthel
Correct. And what they did was make the bathroom go all the way across the trailer, so you pass through the bathroom to get to the bedroom. Some people hate that idea. Well, and I get it, but we, you know, why we love the idea is that we don't keep the same sleep schedule. And to be able to, one of the, one of the, like one of the two things that we didn't love about the 2205 s was that there was not a lot of separation for sleeping and making noise, you know, working or grinding coffee and things like that.
Peggy Barthel
And so there was a curtain and that was it. And Tony was always uncomfortable getting up early and trying to be real quiet. So it didn't wake me up. And so we love the fact that there is complete separation now from living space to bedroom space with two sets of door, you know, a bathroom
Tony Barthel
Door, bathroom, bathroom door, and a bathroom sliding door. There are also two door doors on the outside.
Peggy Barthel
It was outside doors. But we sat in that dinette saying, you know, as perfect as the trailer is that we have this trailer solves those like two little niggly problems that we have.
Tony Barthel
Well, and something I think a few of you who followed our little journey here know, is that at one point I had seriously considered building a custom trailer, starting with a cargo trailer.
Peggy Barthel
Yes.
Tony Barthel
And the floor plan that I kinda worked out is this floor plan, this is
Peggy Barthel
This floor plan.
Tony Barthel
So I'm like, oh, I don't have to, that's, I don't have to do that. I was, someone did it for me
Peggy Barthel
Happy. I was so happy the day we were driving around and he said, you know, I no longer have to worry about, or, or think about building a cargo van in exactly the floor plan because they have made us the exact floor plan that we wanted. And so we
Tony Barthel
Was like, oh,
Peggy Barthel
Yay. So we have been so happy with this. And we've talked about the 25 6 quite a bit.
Tony Barthel
So you can see our review. It's
Peggy Barthel
So, you know, and through all those things, every single Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, hopefully not Wednesday, very often we sit down on with mics and now in front of a camera
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And kind of update you on what's going on.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. We try to have tips and tricks and discounts and all of that. Yes. But we thought, you know, people have asked us about the origin story and all that. Yeah. So we thought for our 300th episode, we'd share a little bit about us, how
Peggy Barthel
We wound up here.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And I mean, we, we keep doing some interesting stuff. Last week we were speaking at the FR VA convention. We are in Texas at the moment, and we just taught a class for a group of women through Girl Camper, which is a really neat organization. So we taught our RV basic training class to a whole group of women. And the campground here has talked to us about offering it for their, having us come back, having Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Having us come back, having,
Peggy Barthel
Having the campground will organize this kind, this, you know, setup for us to teach again. I, I have, I don't know, a light bulb went on this last week. And this is the part I love the best,
Tony Barthel
Is doing the classes.
Peggy Barthel
Doing the classes as a part I love the best. That's interesting. So I actually, you guys, I don't think we've done it in a quite a while, but, you know, there was a good amount of time that whenever we had a guest on, which is as often as we can, because well, when we find
Tony Barthel
Guests that we really like, we, you
Peggy Barthel
Know, are people Yeah. Are people who are way more knowledgeable about a lot of topics than we are. So we love to have them come and tell us their expertise. We spring at the end of them, at the end of the, of the interview, we spring on them. The question, what, you know, have, what is your best or what is your worst memory about camping? And so I reworded that for ourselves. And I said, I I wanted to ask, what is your most favorite as best as part about, I don't know, being a podcaster or being Stressless camping and what is your least favorite?
Tony Barthel
Favorite is absolutely being, being in and speaking to groups. I love speaking in public to America's one of America's biggest fears and one of my greatest joys. And the worst is just any RV repairs on the road. You know, just the, just those little things that all of us have to deal with. It's like, yeah, I wanna just enjoy this and I don't wanna fix plumbing or whatever. Right. So that's mine. How about yours?
Peggy Barthel
So I have realized that this is my favorite. Being able to teach, not just speak in front of people. I don't care about speaking in front of people. I want to, to teach them. I want to be in front of a group of people and tell them something and have someone eyes go, I finally get it. You know? And that happens in, in pretty much all of our classes.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
I see a light click on in somebody in, you know, someone out there. And that to me is the, the most wonderful th i,
Tony Barthel
It's the most
Peggy Barthel
I am not by design an entrepreneur.
Tony Barthel
Nope.
Peggy Barthel
I would, if I didn't know Tony, and if Tony didn't say, let's have a business together, I would be an employee somewhere.
Speaker 1
Yep.
Peggy Barthel
That is my personality. That's who I am. I love that Tony got me outta my comfort zone. We do this business together, we get to travel and we get to work together. I love it. And I especially love when I know that I have, I have helped somebody in a way that they're not gonna forget. And I absolutely love that.
Tony Barthel
That's pretty cool.
Peggy Barthel
And probably the part I like the least is the weeks that it's Wednesday morning and we still dunno what we're gonna do
Speaker 1
For
Peggy Barthel
Our podcast.
Speaker 1
And
Peggy Barthel
We have to get it done in the next 12 hours. And it's a rush and it's stressful or, you know, the
Tony Barthel
Computer, I mean, it's not stress less,
Peggy Barthel
It's not stress less or the computer glitches and I have to restart something that I've done. And that's happened a few times. And it's just the, you know, just the, the running a business part, you know? Huh. It's not something that I, it's not something that comes naturally to me, and it's something that I have to really work on.
Tony Barthel
I, like Sunday, I have a bunch of articles due to one of the people. I provide articles too. And Sunday night when I've like written all this stuff and it's all ready and I, I post it to where they get it.
Speaker 1
Oh, shoot.
Tony Barthel
No, I like it. I'm like, oh, I did it again. Because sometimes it's like, what no wide, wide world of sports am I gonna talk about? Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. But
Tony Barthel
I always like, when I have good topics and things, I think will serve people. So, but I do like the, the feeling of, oh, I got more stuff done and, and all of that. So I, I don't, I like waking up early in the morning with a purpose that floats my bow.
Peggy Barthel
I like getting up when I want to and having some coffee. And then Tony has put us in car terms. He's like a, like a, a dragster, like a a, what is it called? Drag Race. Like, like he takes off shoo and he goes
Tony Barthel
From, yeah, I wake up, I'm like, on minute
Peggy Barthel
One he's on
Tony Barthel
And
Peggy Barthel
He gets up and he starts writing, he starts working. And I like a diesel, I sludge out of the bedroom and I Grumble over my first cup of coffee and I finally wake up. But, you know, once I get started, if I have to, I will chug along until bedtime. Like, if that's what it takes to get the job done, I'll do it. And Tony's like, shoo. And then he says, oh, that's it.
Tony Barthel
I warm myself. Yeah. About three in the afternoon, I'm done something. So that's just, yeah. And, and you know
Peggy Barthel
What, that works because that way you get your quiet time. I get my work time, you know, separate time and we get some time to do things together. And I think it all works out for us.
Tony Barthel
It's Stressless campaign
Peggy Barthel
Stressless camping.
Tony Barthel
Well, that's what we have for you this week. Hopefully you enjoyed being on our journey. And don't forget as always to like, share and subscribe. Let us know what you think of our new song.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And look for us in all the places where you like being social on Instagram and Facebook and Tik-tok and on and on and on. We're all, we're all in those places.
Peggy Barthel
Go on the website and sign up for our newsletters. Yeah. We can remind you every week that we got something to say.
Tony Barthel
Yep. And we, we really appreciate, I mean, some of you have been with us on this entire journey.
Speaker 1
Yep.
Tony Barthel
But we appreciate whether you've been here for one episode or all 300, thank you so much for being part of our little world here. We hope our goal has always been to provide as much value as we can to you.
Peggy Barthel
Yes.
Tony Barthel
And to bring information that is helpful and, and hopefully somewhat entertaining too, whether you're laughing at us or with us. But with that, thank you so much. Also, thank you, Robert, for your help with our new song and most of all, Stressless Camping.
Tony Barthel
Do you smell gas? I
Peggy Barthel
Smell sewer.
Tony Barthel
Oh, is that what it is?
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Is it open? Oh, it is open. Oh, I'm a dope.
Peggy Barthel
Are black tanks open?
Tony Barthel
No, the I didn't, just the white thing. I didn't put the thing on.
Peggy Barthel
Just the white thing. Okay.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Sorry.
Peggy Barthel
We should leave that. We should. There's our blooper. That's our outtake.
