Speaking with the Escapees RV Club - who they are and what you should know
Who is the Escapees RV Club and is this a membership you should have? We speak with Kerensa Durr on this week’s StressLess Camping RV podcast to learn about the reasons you might want to become an Escapee member. There is a lot of value in a very affordable membership.
We also talk about a new RV that’s very different and enjoy a slice of really delicious no-bake pie that you can make in your RV!
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Girl Camper - a great organization for women who love or aspire to camp. We’ve interviewed Janine and Lesa in the past for this podcast episode.
We also offer an RV Basic Training workshop to help you learn more about your RV. If you would like to organize one of these for your campground or dealership or just want to learn more - here’s the information on our RV Basic Training workshop.
More information about Passport America campaign discount program
Our affiliate link for the Escapees RV Club
Our time with Escapees at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta
Peggy’s recipe for no-bake peanut butter pie that you can make in your RV. It’s so good!
Tony’s Honest RV Review of the forthcoming Palomino Pause Reboot 19.4 travel trailer
Our podcast episode with Kimberly Crossland - RVing with kids can be StressLess Camping
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.
We drove through Escapees world headquarters in Livingston Texas. Here are some pictures. Unfortunately we drove through on Good Friday when they were closed - not our best planning.
Our trusted partners - RV Discounts and Deals
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV Podcast episode 247
Mark Ferrell
Welcome to the weekly podcast all about turning the great American RV adventure into stress less 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 camper fireplace.
Tony Barthel
We're coming to you from Roswell.
Peggy Barthel
Oh. If you don't hear from us again, it's because the aliens got us. He's Tony.
Tony Barthel
And she's Peggy.
Peggy Barthel
And we're 2 RV industry veterans who travel part time
Tony Barthel
In a small UFO.
Peggy Barthel
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips
Tony Barthel
Tricks.
Peggy Barthel
And discounts. Absolutely. Hopefully, we are not gonna be in a UFO anytime soon.
Tony Barthel
No. Although, we can be sometimes our own UFOs, but whatever.
Peggy Barthel
An IDO, identified driving object.
Tony Barthel
Oh, there you go.
Peggy Barthel
I have a question
Tony Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
For the folks at home.
Tony Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
I saw this question on Facebook the other day and it got me thinking, do you do a lot of, like, 1st come first serve type parks, like state parks and stuff a lot of times you can't make reservations and if you do, how do you pay? Do you take the little envelope and put cash in it? Do you write a check? I know sometimes there's like, a QR code so you can use a credit card or something. I remember that our friend, Monya, one time went to a state park and paid cash and put it in an envelope, and it got, like, stuck in the tube somewhere.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. And then the ranger came by and they're, like, hey, you didn't pay for your spot. And she's, like, I did pay for my spot. And I don't remember. She ended up writing a check.
Peggy Barthel
I think she ended up paying twice. Maybe they found it eventually, but I forget how the story actually ended, but I remember the story.
Tony Barthel
Jared Yeah, I remember the campground even.
Peggy Barthel
Jared Yeah, so it makes me a little nervous now to put an envelope of cash in there because what if it gets lost?
Tony Barthel
Pete Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So we actually carry a checkbook almost solely for the purpose of writing a check at a campground that goes in a tube. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Well, the reason we got it is when we bought our house, they only accepted checks for a few things, so we had to buy checks, and now we have them, and, yeah. That's pretty
Peggy Barthel
much the only time
Tony Barthel
we use checks. For that. And I feel like I'm a 100 years old writing
Peggy Barthel
a check, but
Tony Barthel
whatever. They said I'll write checks at the grocery.
Peggy Barthel
Well, anyway, we are back on the road.
Tony Barthel
Yep. We are headed to Texas.
Peggy Barthel
Tonight, we're in Roswell, but by the time you hear this, we'll be in Texas and we'll be teaching Girl Camper College in North Texas.
Tony Barthel
We're very privileged that Girl Camper has asked us to work with them to teach a 3 day version of the 1 hour walk through that we say.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
We also have it that you can do through our website. So you could do it through Girl Camper, and it's a lot of fun because they're camper guides. Girl Camper is organized into regional guides, and those guides put these camper college sessions together.
Peggy Barthel
Or sometimes hostesses, but so far, it's been the guides have been the hostess.
Tony Barthel
And they do so much fun stuff. Yeah. They really do know how to camp.
Peggy Barthel
Like a girl. Well, that's their slogan. That's right.
Tony Barthel
It's it's just super neat to as a dude, I feel so privileged to be part of it because they have so much fun. And and it's also, of course, learning.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
But we also have the RV Basic Training, which is essentially the same class, and we'll put a link in the show notes. If you have a group or a dealership or a campground, and you'd like to schedule an RV basic training class, it's just something to look at and think about.
Peggy Barthel
So Yeah. Just use the contact us on the website. Let us know. Send us an email. Ask for information.
Peggy Barthel
We've got some details.
Tony Barthel
Like I said, I'll put a link in the show notes.
Peggy Barthel
To the actual page.
Tony Barthel
To the actual page
Peggy Barthel
about Sorry. Gotcha.
Tony Barthel
RV based retreat.
Peggy Barthel
Sometimes it takes me a minute.
Tony Barthel
Now, one of the things we don't share much details about the Camper College because one of the neat aspects of the way Girl Camper if you don't know, there's an organization called Girl Camper, and it's for girl campers and was founded by our friend Janine Pettit, and it's a great resource for women who want to go out and camp of all sorts. Everything from tents to backpacks to big class a diesel pushers, whatever. Yeah. But girl camper is very careful about sharing where they're going to be. They don't publicly share, oh, we're gonna be here.
Tony Barthel
And and that's, you know, fully understandable. So we don't wanna share where it is other than it's in Texas.
Peggy Barthel
So on our way to Texas, and then after Texas, we're we've got some other plans going on. But tonight, we're in a campground, but we're not gonna always be in a campground. Sometimes we're gonna be boondocking.
Tony Barthel
In fact, tonight's campground, Peggy found through Passport America. Yeah. So if you're not familiar with them, I'll put a link in the show notes about them too, because this is such a great deal.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. We paid $20 tonight.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Legitimately, Ira as well. And We're past sport America.
Peggy Barthel
I don't know if you could just hear a few seconds ago, there was a train going by. So we'll probably get to hear the train all night, but that's okay. We like trains. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And it's not that close.
Peggy Barthel
It's No. It's not that close.
Tony Barthel
Right on the other side of the fence. But a lot of the camping that we're going to be doing on this trip is off grid camping. So we'll be taking advantage of our solar and lithium system that was configured by our friends at ABC Upfitters, and it just as we've said before, it just makes it possible for us to run the Starlink in the microwave and just not worry about where we're getting juice from.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
We're getting it out of the sky.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And then it goes in a big battery and makes us so happy.
Peggy Barthel
We even found out that the battery system will run the fireplace all night long because we were at a we were at a place with hookups one time. We didn't know there had been a problem, and somehow when the power went down, like, we don't always have the inverter on, we usually only turn it on when we're not plugged in, but for some reason it was on, so we didn't know the power went out and so we were using battery all night long with the fireplace running for heat and in the morning we're like, oh oh, the water heater wouldn't work.
Tony Barthel
Right.
Peggy Barthel
And that's when we figured it out. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So one of the systems not wired into our particular system is the water heater, the electric side of the water heater. So it wouldn't come on, or what the heck's going on? I looked at the because I'm a nerd. I mean, you know that. Right?
Tony Barthel
And I love to look at the little panel and see how much power we're getting in, how much power we're using, blah blah blah. I looked and, like, what? What? What? What?
Tony Barthel
What? And we're down to, like, 25% or something, which made no sense since we were plugged in. Right. And I looked out the window at our Hughes power watchdog and it was off. Like, oh, I guess we do not have any juice.
Peggy Barthel
So we know in the worst case scenario, we can run the fireplace to stay warm at night. We don't usually unless we're we don't unless we're hooked up, really.
Tony Barthel
I mean, that we have a furnace, apparently.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. We have a furnace, but if some weird crazy dire emergency happened, we could survive a cold night.
Tony Barthel
The point of that is it was just so seamless that we didn't even know that we had been unplugged, and that's one of the beauties. The system just works. So if you are solar curious or if you're interested in lithium systems I mean, this past week, I saw ABC Outfitters basically just installed a couple of batteries in a rig, and that was all they needed. But they also installed last week this ludicrous system on a big old class a.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
I mean, that thing was I I shared a video last week. It was just like, wow. So they customize the systems for what you want, And if you're interested in a really great solar and lithium solution and a lot of their systems use Mastervolt which comes out of the marine industry, give them a call. 5 74333-3225. Again, 574-333-3225.
Tony Barthel
Or, of course, a link in the show notes.
Peggy Barthel
Of course. Well, if you're curious about solar, of course, you're gonna talk to ABC. If you're curious about RV clubs, maybe you wanna talk to Carenza.
Tony Barthel
Well, maybe. Carenza is with Escapees. And if you haven't heard of Escapees, it is really a terrific organization. And without any further ado, let's let's hear from Carrensa and learn more about Escapees.
Peggy Barthel
Today, we're very excited to speak with Carenza with Escapees RV Club. Carenza, thank you for spending some time with us and helping our listeners learn more about escapees.
Kerensa Durr
Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Tony Barthel
Alright. So if somebody doesn't know, what is the Escapees RV Club?
Kerensa Durr
That's a big question, isn't it? So Escapees RV Club is a total support network for all RVers. So we have many services and many things that we do to make your life on the road easier, and that's everyone from full timers, we have a lot of support services for them, but also part timers and weekenders. We do everything from, like, having a magazine that is filled with helpful tips from other RVers. We have camping discounts.
Kerensa Durr
Uh, we have our own campgrounds. We have many commercial discounts, tire programs. We have a lot of events throughout the year and we have member interest groups. So you can get together with other people who like to do the same things that you do whether that's quilting or boondocking or you're solo. And and then, of course, we have our services like our mail service, which is a huge thing, mail forwarding.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Kerensa Durr
Yeah. It's we are the largest mail service in the US for RVers, and it's a
Tony Barthel
I think your story to that end is not unusual. I think a lot of people when they're looking for a mail forwarding service, see the one from Escapees, and they're like, oh, well that would be a good reason to join. Yeah. And then, all of a sudden, they find the b o f or the birds of a feather chapters and all of the discounts and all that, all of the things.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. We actually joined the first time because we were going to quartzite. It was gonna be our first time boondocking. And the the answer to the question of quartzite is always, Oh, just camp wherever you want. And we didn't feel good with that.
Peggy Barthel
Right. We like, that did that seemed too open of an answer. And so we actually joined escapees so that we could camp with an escapees group that we knew was out there, and that just started that.
Kerensa Durr
That's great. I mean, because there are so many groups that meet up in Quartzsite because it is so easy in the winter for everybody to get to and pull in and then camp in the desert in a way, kind of wherever you want, but they set up the those camps, and it can be as big or as small.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
So it's an easy place to do it and I know we have so many of as you mentioned, BOS. That's our birds of a feather interest group. So that do that like the boomers are always out there. The solos always have a camp out there. We actually have an event every year.
Kerensa Durr
Um, the sound card called Party on Plumosa and it used to be our national happy hour, if anyone remembers that. It's just a few hours one day, but we have food and we have a band playing and it's out there on Plumosa Road just right around all those camps too. So, it's always kind of interesting driving around down the road and you see all the signs for the different groups that are camping together and having fun out there.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It's just to kinda show the depth of escapees. Last year, we went to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, and we couldn't find a regular, you know, camping pass. And we learned 2 years ago when we moved to New Mexico that there's no getting in if you're not there at the before the crack of dawn. Like you're there to help lift the crack
Kerensa Durr
of dawn up.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So we found that there was a a boomers group that was like, that had camping and crewing. And so we got in on that. And that's how we got to spend last year at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Right. Our escapees membership.
Kerensa Durr
Right. It's Yes. And it's so much fun because you get to be right there on the grounds with other people, with like minded people and friends. And and it's, um, I know the boomers and balloons, they always do it. Usually, they have a hop and we have Escapers Convergence that goes to the Balloon Fiesta.
Kerensa Durr
That's actually was the first Escapers Convergence. And I got to go to that one. And so my husband got to crew on there while we were there too. And it was a lot of fun.
Tony Barthel
And it was really an incredible experience in that we crewed with the youngest pilot on the field Yeah. And he took everybody up who wanted to go up. Not at the same time, of course.
Peggy Barthel
But Right. Yeah. We had a great pilot who made sure that anyone who wanted to go ride got to ride, and he was terrific.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It it was
Kerensa Durr
Oh, that's nice. That's an awesome experience.
Peggy Barthel
So you said Convergence, and I know party on Pluto, so that's a a one afternoon thing, but there's convergence, and then for some reason, it's escaping me. There's another big event.
Kerensa Durr
Oh, yes. I'll just kinda run through the events Okay. Great. Perfect. Sense of it.
Kerensa Durr
So let's start with our biggest one. Uh, we have a national rally every year called Escapade. That's it. And this year, it is coming up in June, June 16th through 21st in Rock Springs, Wyoming. And that one moves around every year.
Kerensa Durr
So next year, it'll be in Tucson in March. And that is like a homecoming for all escapees, but also we have so many newbies that come and get to learn everything because it's just full of seminars all day. There's, like, 4 seminars going on at a time. So you can just learn so much and get a real sense of RV ing and RV life and kinda figure out, um, what you wanna learn about while you're there. And then on top of that, there are socials every day with the different groups and other, um, maybe vendors hosting it.
Kerensa Durr
And then we have entertainment at night. So lots of bands dancing. Sometimes there's been a magician before. There's just different things. Um, we had native American dancers last year.
Kerensa Durr
There's just, like, a lot of great stuff happening. Everybody, you know, comes in and sees people they know, meets new people, and there's just so much going on. So that's for the whole club. It's really like a big national rally and homecoming for that. Then, we would, I would take it down to hops, which are is our head out program.
Kerensa Durr
We call those hops. And it's a little bit more white glove than a more casual event. And I mentioned they do that at the Balloon Fiesta. So there, they have the Balloon Fiesta, but they also offer meals most of the time. Um, it's also destination.
Kerensa Durr
So, they do the rose parade. So, Hops also do like the rose parade and they actually help build a float. So, these are kind of sometimes once in a lifetime unless you just want to go back every year.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
But in destinations and they'll also do cruises or go overseas. They're also in Alaska. So there's all these great things and they arrange tours. You might have a tour bus and meals and and you, but you're in your RV unless you're on a cruise or overseas. Of course, that that doesn't work as well.
Kerensa Durr
And if we go from there and we'll go to hangouts And those are a little more casual than the hops, so not all the meals are included. They might have a few. And they have a lot of activities that you can choose to add on, but you don't have to. But they're in a campground and they do really interesting things too. We had a mind body one which has yoga and meditation, but then we also had one where they were helping to bottle bourbon at a place.
Kerensa Durr
So, yeah. Which was just kind of a neat little thing to do and so, they'll did go hiking. They're pretty active and adventurous things, but there's stuff happening all day. And this is kind of under the escapees banner. And when we get into what it called convergence and mentioned the Balloon Fiesta being the 1st Escapers Convergence, we're talking about escapers, which we haven't mentioned yet.
Kerensa Durr
But escapers is actually a lifestyle group within escapees that's geared towards working HRV'ers. So, that doesn't mean you have to be working or even working age to be a part of the group, but what it does mean is that there's just resources geared towards working age groups. So, we have stuff that's geared for people who are working resources for that on finding remote jobs, taking care of family. Uh, we'll write blog posts for that about being on the road with family And then our convergences, the activities start later in the day during the week, so that if you're working during the day, you're not missing out. Right.
Kerensa Durr
Uh, you're not you're not paying for something where you're like, I can't I can't do it because I'm working all day. Yeah. They'll start maybe around 4 and then and really kick up on the weekends too. So again, you don't have to be working age, but that's why they're set up like that.
Peggy Barthel
To Okay.
Kerensa Durr
To make sure that those people don't miss out if they're working. But we have people from all ages. People who are early retired that like to come to those. People who are just retired, you know. It's really where you find your people and truly, I mean, I know people who go to every event.
Peggy Barthel
Right. So, they go to
Kerensa Durr
Hops, Hangouts, Convergences, Escapade, you know, everything. And then within Escapers too, we also have a a bigger rally once a year in January in Lake Havasu, Arizona called the Escapers annual bash.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
And so that's kind of the big one for Escapers. And so there there's some stuff happening during the day. There are some seminars and other things going on, but not not as fully packed as escapade. And there's a lot more entertainment, So there's not as many seminars during the day. There's like a lighter schedule of seminars, but the entertainment is more packed.
Kerensa Durr
So it kind of flips between escapade, tons of seminars, and then some entertainment at night. They always have something, whereas the annual bash, the Escapade annual bash has a light light schedule of seminars and tons of entertainment at night or things going on.
Tony Barthel
And then there are also part of being in the escapees club. There are huge discounts. So you have just pages and pages of discounts on stuff we RVers need and want.
Kerensa Durr
Right. We absolutely do. I mean, I've I've used a lot of them. Um, we have a Goodyear discount on tires and it encompasses their other brands too. We just got a new to us RV in October and that was the first thing we did because those tires were old.
Kerensa Durr
We changed out our tires on Goodyear. And on a previous motor home, we used our Michelin discount, which also encompasses their other brands. Because, uh, Michelin tires on the big motorhomes are always great. So we've used both of those, but we just have so much more. There's batteries.
Kerensa Durr
We partner with different companies or providers for things that hopefully have an exclusive discounts for escapees members or offer some kind of service that you can't get, and and sometimes, that's even within our own ranks. We have people who deal with health and wellness, and we have discounts on programs through them. And like I said, batteries, tires, all that kind of stuff you need as a RVer. And then, we just have commercial members. So there's just just a plethora of stuff to go through and figure out, you know, what might appeal to you because there's just a ton.
Tony Barthel
One of the things I really liked about escapees is you actually have a website that's really good.
Kerensa Durr
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
Tony Barthel
Now, another thing that you offer, and this is not part of membership. It's a it's something you can get, but it's a really good roadside assistance program.
Kerensa Durr
Yes. Something else we take advantage of while we're members because the it is one of the lowest priced, but, you know, worth the value. It is the same service that's out there elsewhere, but we have the best price on it, and it's still roadside. You can call as many times as you need. It's one of those things that you hope that you never have to use.
Kerensa Durr
Right. But, yeah. When you need it, you want it. It's just it's peace of mind to have it and it's always good to have. We've had to call ours years ago, one time.
Kerensa Durr
We're a tire. We picked up our RV and evidently, when we were on our way back. Thankfully, decided to stay another night in the campground we were at. Instead of driving for hours, had a tool in it. And so when we got there, we're like, oh, our tire is now dying in flats.
Kerensa Durr
Oh. So we had to have Yeah. Someone come out, uh, with a tire to change it. We're not changing it ourselves on a big motor home.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
Yeah. Yeah. Right? So we had to use it. And so it's always nice to have.
Kerensa Durr
It's one of those things that's really recommended. But, yeah. It's a great price, and I encourage everyone to check it out and make sure you have roadside just in case.
Tony Barthel
Right? Absolutely. Now it sounds like there's a lot of really great reasons to join Escapees whether you're a beginner or experienced. Is it expensive to join?
Kerensa Durr
It is not. It is 49.95 for a whole year and that gets you access to everything that we have. So, you get your magazine and you can read that digitally because I know as many full timers and part timers, when you're on the road, you don't you don't really need the paper, but you might you gotta get your mail somehow and then you don't want to have to have that shipped, but you can read that digitally. So you can get that anywhere. And then you get all your discounts to our own parks, and you get to stay at the co op parks too.
Kerensa Durr
Um, those are those were built and they're owned by members. So only escapees members can stay at the co op parks. And then, you get all your other commercial discounts we were talking about, all the member discounts. And then, you can you can attend any of the events, because you do need to be a member to attend the events, except for escapade. You can do that if you're learning, you know, you wanna check it out.
Kerensa Durr
But the other ones, you should be a member. And the chapters, the BOS we've mentioned, all of that. And then you can, of course, get your roadside assistance, get the mail service, all of that. So there's a lot of things included in membership. And actually, something I should mention, uh, now too, that's included in membership.
Kerensa Durr
Right now, it's a it's a limited time through May of 2024 here. But you get one of our RV courses, our online RV courses for free. You have access. You're able to enroll for a year. So our RV foundations course, which is operation safety maintenance, you can enroll in that for free.
Kerensa Durr
And that is usually sold at a 127 for non members and a 107 for members. So right there Wow. That's like, yeah. Worth it.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Kerensa Durr
You know, you but then you get all this other stuff with it. So it's a great thing.
Tony Barthel
So tell us about those courses because that was something I wasn't familiar with.
Kerensa Durr
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I'm gonna jump back and mention there's RVers boot Camp, which is the in person one, because that came first. Came before we there was really such a thing as online courses. That's really where RV Foundation's Operation Safety Maintenance came from and was built out of that.
Kerensa Durr
So that's in person. And if you wanna have an in person experience and be able to talk to the instructor right then and there, it's a great option. But, you know, there's only so many of those that can be put on a year. Right. So if you wanna, like, do it anywhere in your home, in your RV, uh, wherever you are, you can do our RVers online university.
Kerensa Durr
And right now, there's a couple courses in there. So we have the RV foundations, operation safety and maintenance, which deals exactly with what it says, operation safety and maintenance. And it's based around the RVers boot camp, but you get to go at your own pace and you can look back at it. You can jump in at any point. If you just you bought in, you're like, I gotta I have to winterize right now.
Kerensa Durr
You can jump to that point. It goes from everything from hooking up at a campground for the first time, to generator maintenance, to understanding your electrical system. Just everything you need to know, and and be safe out there. And then, our other course is road map to full time RVing. And this one, like it says, we give you a road map to hitting the road full time.
Kerensa Durr
And you can take these together, so you get more of that foundations of RVing. But then, um, with road map, that when it goes into more of that kind of those things you don't think about. That you need to know to take your life from being in a what we call sticks and bricks as our viewers. We all Yeah. Hear that.
Kerensa Durr
Being in a house or or something like that too and stationary to taking your life full time on the road. So those those things like banking and, um, even kind of deciding what type of RV makes sense for
Peggy Barthel
you. Mhmm.
Kerensa Durr
And what you need to think about. And not just, you know, look at the pretty RV and go, oh, this is awesome because there's all that stuff you have to think about. What type of camping you wanna do, what size tanks you might need, you
Peggy Barthel
know? Yeah.
Kerensa Durr
You can they can make it all pretty, but you gotta make sure it works for you. Right. We'll try to get into that.
Tony Barthel
On the discounts, something that I caught, there is a company that will weigh your RV, and they're in several places throughout the year.
Kerensa Durr
That's actually one of our own services, and so it's called SmartWay. And this is important because you do not wanna be overweight in your RV. You're putting stress on the RV and on your tires, and it can lead to things like a tire blowout. And nobody wants to deal with that.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
That's why you need that roadside of service. You don't want to have to call roadside assistance if you can just manage the weight properly. Yeah. And it's better than, like, if you go to a CAT scale, like, at a truck stop, because that just does your front 1 axle at a time. Right.
Kerensa Durr
You can do it 1 axle at a time. But this is 4 corner weighing. So, like, um, we've done done it where we've done the CAT scale just, you know, to make sure we're okay until we can get to SmartWay. Mhmm. But the SmartWay is 4 corners.
Kerensa Durr
So they do they measure each tire, the weight on each of your four corners. And they can tell you where it's too heavy and so that you can shift things around if needed.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
Maybe it's something like, you have the water tank on one side, so it's a little heavier. So you shouldn't put all your cast iron in that tank on that side. Maybe this should be on the other side or if you need to remove things.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That RV weighing was very expensive for us. It cost us tens of 1,000 of dollars because we ended up with a bigger truck.
Kerensa Durr
Oh, okay.
Peggy Barthel
She's like, wait, where did you go?
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I don't know I don't know who decided that the word light should be in our travel trailer, but it wasn't in what the scale told us.
Kerensa Durr
So That definitely happens. I've known people who move up and just go, okay. We're just getting a bigger truck. Yeah. To tow this thing.
Kerensa Durr
But, you know, all that stuff does matter. And the way pulling your hitch, and just all these things and, but they help you understand it too. So you're not just giving
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
Giving these numbers and then you've gotta figure it out.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
And if you need to go back and rearrange some stuff and get weighed again, you can do that.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Yeah.
Kerensa Durr
Uh, it's a great service, and it's at 3 of our parks. So there's one in Florida, one in our our headquarters in Livingston, Texas, and one near Phoenix, Arizona. And then, of course, we have it at boot camps when we do it, and we have it at escapade. So I think we actually need to get weighed in this new one, at escapade this year.
Tony Barthel
I'd be curious to have our truck and trailer re weighed.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. We probably will get to that sooner or later.
Tony Barthel
So are there any other things that we haven't really thought about that are part of being an escapee?
Peggy Barthel
I kind of wanna go back to the birds of a feather just a little bit. So you don't have what you call chapters. You have birds of a feather. We actually have both. Oh, okay.
Peggy Barthel
So there are chapters and also birds of a feather.
Kerensa Durr
The chapters are more regionally based.
Peggy Barthel
Okay.
Kerensa Durr
So chapters are regional or statewide. You know, sometimes there's, like, the one in Indiana and things like that. And a lot of a lot of people who are based there so people weekenders or part timers or people who are off the road now but they still enjoy meeting up with their friends.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Kerensa Durr
And they welcome anybody who is driving through and wants to attend an event. They're very gracious that way.
Peggy Barthel
Okay.
Kerensa Durr
And then we do have the birds of a feather interest interest groups. So they're interest based.
Peggy Barthel
Okay.
Kerensa Durr
But, yeah, we actually have both. They're just, um, 2 different types.
Peggy Barthel
That's good because I was kind of curious, like, if they were regional, and so regional typically are gonna be chapters. Birds of a feather are gonna be interests. And what if we looked at the birds of a feather group and didn't find one that appealed to us, could we start a birds of a feather group?
Kerensa Durr
You absolutely can. We encourage that. If there's one that you would like to see started, you have an interest, and you know that or you at least think that other people would be interested in it too, you can definitely start one up. Our chapter and BOF director would help you do that. There's just a form you can submit and she'll help you get started.
Kerensa Durr
BOFs, there's just everything from jeepers and yoga. There's one for motor cycles, boondockers, aviation history museums.
Tony Barthel
Wow. Yeah.
Kerensa Durr
There's just so many different kinds of things.
Peggy Barthel
It's not that I looked at the list and said, I need something different.
Kerensa Durr
I don't know.
Peggy Barthel
It's just I was just curious, you know, like, they so they're just they're kind of started by
Tony Barthel
I didn't see ones for beer lovers.
Kerensa Durr
Oh. Really? That's kinda surprising.
Tony Barthel
Well, maybe I missed it.
Kerensa Durr
I missed so many. I don't know. Is that just so basic general RVer thing? I'm not I'm not actually a beer drinker.
Peggy Barthel
That's everyone in the I usually RV with so many. Right? Every member. I
Kerensa Durr
feel like that. I've been to so many breweries, and I don't I don't drink beer, but, like, I I've been to so many breweries since I hit the road. Yeah. With friends. But that that's actually kinda surprising.
Peggy Barthel
We'll have to look.
Kerensa Durr
Someone said something about a weekend or one the other day, and I was like, on social, I'm like, well, why don't you start it up? And Right.
Peggy Barthel
I think
Kerensa Durr
I think that would be a good idea.
Tony Barthel
There you go.
Peggy Barthel
Let's talk more about the mail service.
Kerensa Durr
Our mail service, like I mentioned, it is like the largest service for our viewers in the US and it's just an an amazing service. Like I mentioned, it was the reason I joined when we hit the road. We needed something to be able to get our mail. We know people do it many different ways and some start with friends and family. And if that works for you, that's great.
Kerensa Durr
Especially if you think you're going to be full time for maybe a year.
Tony Barthel
And Mhmm.
Kerensa Durr
I will say we tend to giggle at that because most people, they stay on for much longer. And then people say a year, and then it's always much longer. But sometimes you you start out that way and then you graduate, you need your service. So with the meal services because I know when we're full time, that is the number one question we received from people was, how do you get your mail? Right.
Kerensa Durr
And they make it easy. So you have an address with escapees where all your mail is sent, and we have a service where you can have it scanned. And I do that now. I didn't do when we started out because we didn't get that much mail. But then, really, truly, I turned it on.
Kerensa Durr
I would turn it on sometimes for, um, tax season, and then turn it off.
Peggy Barthel
But Oh, yeah.
Kerensa Durr
Now that I I've turned it on, I'm not going back. Because I love being able just to see what I get, and I can just say, I don't need that. Trash it.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
Or, okay. Scan the contents. Yeah. And then I get the stuff the contents that I need, and then I can again trash it and I don't have to get all of my mail.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
It makes it so much easier and I guess a lot of it you can deal with online, right? Even if you get a bill, a lot of times, you can still pay it online if it's if like say, a medical bill that they're going to send you a physical thing. You can still then pay it online and not actually send you need to have sent sometimes. And, you know, too, just to think about you need an address. You can't just wander around without a Right.
Kerensa Durr
Legal address. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Free form.
Peggy Barthel
The government gets upset with that. Right?
Kerensa Durr
Exactly. They they like to know where they can send things like taxes and a driver's license and things like that. Yeah. So you you actually need something. You can't just hit the road and not have a actually need something.
Kerensa Durr
You can't just hit the road and not have a permanent address.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
And I say permanent, but it doesn't have to be permanent. You can decide, you know, to choose somewhere else later down the road. But once you're on the road and you need your mail, all you have to do is call us up or send an email or use the app or go online and choose to say, I need my mail sent to this address, and here's how I want it sent. And they can send it by priority mail or 1st class or UPS or FedEx. I mean, I often do FedEx 2 day, um, which actually comes out sometimes cheaper than 3 day just to, you know, they they turn me on to that and get my mail.
Kerensa Durr
And then I have it in hand 2 days or few days later.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
It's a day to process and and then you can actually get your physical mail wherever you are. So it's a great service and one that's sorely needed by RVers when they're on the road.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Kerensa Durr
And our service actually does go into some of the full timer services too because you can use it as a domicile.
Peggy Barthel
That's what I was gonna ask. Oh, okay.
Tony Barthel
The address is based in Texas. Right? Because that's where Escapees is.
Kerensa Durr
So our main facilities, the mail facility is in Texas, and so you'll always have a Texas address. But you can choose to domicile in Texas, Florida, or South Dakota.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, okay.
Kerensa Durr
Because we have satellites in South Dakota and in Florida. We actually have a park in Florida. You're not getting most of your mail sent there, but that would be your legal address.
Peggy Barthel
You get
Kerensa Durr
things that you have to get sent there, but I actually was in Texas for a long time, and then we switched to Florida. And the Florida that county is very easy. They even sent our they knew escapees. I mean, the Polk County in Texas where we're based, they they know escapees. They're very easy to work with.
Kerensa Durr
They've we've been there for 45 years. So it makes it very easy to get your stuff. They sent, like, our license plates or something directly to But you can you can domicile on any of those.
Tony Barthel
There's tax service?
Kerensa Durr
We do have the tax queen as a partner. So Yes.
Tony Barthel
Well, and also something that intrigued me. You have an insurance broker. So that's someone I'm gonna contact too just to see what I see.
Kerensa Durr
Right. Yeah. Absolutely. We have used Heather with Tax Queen personally, and she's great. And she she was a full timer herself, so she understands
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Kerensa Durr
Her situation with our being RVers and traveling around. And then, yes, our insurance we started out at different places. Our companies kind of went and left. So we we went with our insurance. We have a couple insurance actually in our commercial directory.
Kerensa Durr
It works out well because they're they're also familiar with RVs and work with RV clubs and stuff a lot. So it's nice to have people who understand what you're doing. Yeah. And you're not having to explain Right. Oh, yes.
Kerensa Durr
I'm I live full time in this. Well, what does that mean?
Peggy Barthel
Awesome.
Tony Barthel
Sounds like, you know, if you're not a member of Escapees, you should be. And there are just so many great reasons to do so. We really appreciate your time, but we also have a couple of questions that we like to ask, especially our RV ing guests.
Peggy Barthel
That's right. Okay. We like to hit people with this one because I love the reaction. Can you tell us your best camping memory?
Kerensa Durr
Oh, my best camping memory. Let's see. The first one that popped in my head, so I guess that was the best, was actually the last eclipse. We were camped with friends out in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, and we just had created our this little community of friends there for a couple weeks because we were worried that it was going to get full. So, we were we were boondocking on some lands.
Kerensa Durr
We It was a 16 day max. So, we made sure to get there 15 days early, so that we would be there all day, and have a spot. Right. So we just We created our own little, uh, community there, and the Eclipse was amazing to watch and experience with friends. So that that was such a great time.
Kerensa Durr
I had a lot of fun with that.
Peggy Barthel
Excellent. That's cool. And this was not part of the question, but are you are you gonna be in a place where you can see the totality for the next one?
Kerensa Durr
So we may be at the escapee solar event and the eclipse event. It is going to be in Paris, Texas, and it does have totality there. There's over 4 minutes which
Peggy Barthel
is Oh, wow. Crazy.
Kerensa Durr
Yeah. Right? That's so much. I think we had like a minute when we saw it last time. That should be a fun event.
Kerensa Durr
And again, you know, we were with a bunch of friends and everything Right. Which just makes the experience even better for me. We had a lot of fun last time, so we're looking forward to it.
Peggy Barthel
We'll be it's a driving day, unfortunately. I couldn't really get it scheduled right, but I'm going to look and make sure that we're sitting still half an hour early Yeah.
Tony Barthel
There you go.
Peggy Barthel
And give ourselves an hour and a half to just sit there and wait for it.
Kerensa Durr
Oh, that will be awesome.
Tony Barthel
And then, conversely, do you have a worst camping memory?
Kerensa Durr
Um, you know, there's definitely things we've had mishaps happen, and and fortunately, I haven't had any of the sewer ones myself. My husband has had that. So they're not the worst for me. But you know, I I've taken lessons from everything and nothing that's been too bad, nothing that really stands out to me as a worse memory. I mean, there's been a few kind of random things like we've had I think of them as funny now.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. That's good.
Kerensa Durr
Right? They're just kind of funny things happen like I I saw a picture recently and I remember this happening. Something was kind of flapping on our RV and we had to pull off on the side of the road and thankfully, we always carry this just flat metal strips and we just had to like make shift something to keep it together until we got somewhere to really fix it. It was like this weird thing just stopping and I don't remember exactly where we were, but in the middle of nowhere kind of thing. You know, I had trying to do it on a a drive day, but Right.
Kerensa Durr
Now, I just think it's kind of one of those funny things, like, oh, it wasn't too bad.
Peggy Barthel
And now, you know that you're prepared for other bad things.
Kerensa Durr
Exactly. Exactly.
Tony Barthel
Well, we sure appreciate you making some time for us and sharing all the neat things from Escapees. And now we look forward to even more, hopefully, crossing paths at one of the events that Escapees is holding.
Kerensa Durr
Yeah. I hope so. We'd love to see you guys. That would be great.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. That would be awesome.
Tony Barthel
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Kerensa Durr
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Tony Barthel
Alright. Take care.
Peggy Barthel
Awesome. Right? We are escapees, and we joined the very first time just so that we could know that we had a safe place to camp in Quartzsite.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That was
Peggy Barthel
You know, if you haven't gone to Quartzsite and someone says, oh, you're going? Just park anywhere you want in the desert. Okay. But where? You know?
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Still, if you haven't been there, it's still a little intimidating even knowing that you could go anywhere you want. And so we knew that a group of escapees was going to be out there, so we joined. Specifically, the first time we joined was just so that we would know that we were in a spot that wasn't, quote unquote, someone else's spot. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And I mean, they had all these organized activities, but they also brought a boatload of monster telescopes. So they're all looking at the stars.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And you know what else? We've mentioned Girl Camp earlier. We camped with Janine Pettit.
Peggy Barthel
We camped with Janine Pettit. That's right.
Tony Barthel
Our our first quartzite year was awesome for a lotteries. Yeah. Definitely. And as we said, Janine Petit's the founder of Girl Campers. So
Peggy Barthel
Well, now that we are, you know, a little bit more veterans of escapees and hopefully are gonna be doing more of their activities and go on some of their trips, we were able to get an affiliation with them.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So if you heard from Karanta and you're like, oh, I gotta join Escapees, on the show notes, there's a link to join Escapees, and it helps us out just a wee bit and lets you join Escapees, and it's just a good thing
Peggy Barthel
all around. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So if you're escapees curious, it really is. It's a great organization for a lotteries. This, you just heard, if that's something that makes sense for your travels, it always helps us just a wee bit when you use our affiliate links. And so thank you.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you.
Tony Barthel
And that will be in the show notes.
Peggy Barthel
A week ago when we were recording, which was a couple days before the actual day of the podcast being published, we said we're going to eat pie
Kerensa Durr
Yeah. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
On March 14th, 314, which is pie. We did. But on March 14th, we decided that the pie we must eat was peanut butter pie.
Tony Barthel
Now, this is cool, literally and figuratively, because it's a no bake pie, and we did a few cheater things as part of our no baking it.
Peggy Barthel
We did.
Tony Barthel
One of which is just bought a pie crust.
Peggy Barthel
Right. So you can make a pie crust. I think this would be good with graham cracker crust. It was really good with that, like, chocolate cookie crust. But if you're making this in your RV and you don't wanna deal with making a crust, buy a premade 9 inch crust.
Peggy Barthel
And then you're gonna take well, I want you to go to the website and make sure I get this right. But I think what it was was a about a cup of peanut butter, a brick of cream cheese, cream that together, add about a cup of sugar, and then separately, whip up a cup of heavy cream.
Tony Barthel
Heavy cream. Yeah. Heavy cream.
Peggy Barthel
Now, that's the part that if you only travel in your RV and maybe you don't carry a mixer with you, that's gonna be a lot of hand whisking. So you could get Cool Whip Cool shit. Or something like that, something already whipped
Tony Barthel
Right.
Peggy Barthel
And use it. But we happen to have a hand mixer, and so we whipped our cream with the hand mixer.
Tony Barthel
We made the pie at home before we left. Yeah. But one of the things you can also do let's say you don't happen to carry powdered sugar with you.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Tony Barthel
We do have a battery powered blender that we do carry with us, because we could make smoothies or margaritas or Or whatever. Whatever. And we use that to make powdered sugar, and it's pretty simple. Yeah. You put in the sugar, you turn on the blender, and then
Peggy Barthel
And it's powdered. Yeah. Powdered sugar. Could also just use sugar in this pie, but I think that powdered sugar you don't have any danger of, like, the crystal and texture in your pie.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So, I mean, that's fine. Maybe you're the kind who likes texture in your pie, and you even wanna use, calm down, chunky peanut butter. No. No.
Tony Barthel
No. No. Crunchy peanut butter is wrong. No. No.
Tony Barthel
No.
Peggy Barthel
Anyway, and a little splash of vanilla.
Tony Barthel
Oh, right. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Then you fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture, put it in a pie crust, chill it for a few hours, and then we actually whipped the rest of the cream in the carton with a little bit of sugar and vanilla and made whipped topping. Yeah. Oh, my heavens.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It was super, super,
Peggy Barthel
super good. Super good.
Tony Barthel
And you know what? It was even better the next day after it set. And that's Yeah. I think some of the recipes. Now there speaking of recipes, you can find this, and you can download it right from stresslesscamping.com.
Tony Barthel
And some of the recipes say, you know, chill it 12 hours or whatever. Yeah. Like, you're not gonna wake up in the morning and go, there's pie in the fridge. It was better the following day because, you know, all the ingredients kinda merged. They all had a little party in the pie pan
Peggy Barthel
at night. Overnight party. Yeah. So it did taste really good the second day and the third day.
Tony Barthel
I can't believe we let it last that long.
Peggy Barthel
Well, that's it. 3 days. 3 days of pie. Yep. Anyway, then I found out about another pie recipe that I'll probably tell you about next week, but I just wanted to recommend peanut butter pie.
Peggy Barthel
And if you're gonna make it while you're on a camping trip, make sure you throw a hand mixer into the camper so that you don't have to whisk your whipped cream by hand.
Tony Barthel
Well, I mean, you could if you wanted to, but
Peggy Barthel
It's a lot of work. So the other night, we were coming home from a friend's house, and I was driving because Tony had been having some beers. I had not been having some beers.
Tony Barthel
Let me drink beer.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, I know. And so I was driving, and off a side street, I saw a car
Tony Barthel
come
Peggy Barthel
up the side street to the stop sign, like, really fast. And I could see that they were stopping, but they stopped for a split second and then they pulled out and I had to slam on the brakes. I wish that before that time had downloaded the dash cam app that Tony uses because if there had been an accident, there was no camera.
Tony Barthel
Okay. So we had a dash cam that we bought. That was okay.
Peggy Barthel
It's good.
Tony Barthel
Except if you wanted to get the videos off of it. And then somebody sent us a dash cam to write a review of. This thing was impossible to use.
Peggy Barthel
The first one, you could download them pretty easily.
Tony Barthel
You had to take the dashcam, take the chip out
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Download them on it was I mean, it was I don't
Peggy Barthel
think it was doable.
Tony Barthel
It was doable. It was
Peggy Barthel
a lot easier than the second one.
Tony Barthel
Right. The second one, it had to be powered on. The only way to power it was with a power port or cigarette lighter adapter. Then the software was terrible, and this company sent this thing to us to review. And the quality of the cameras were really good.
Tony Barthel
Plus, there was an indoor, you know, like a one pointed at the passenger compartment and one pointed out the window. That was good, but, oh my word, getting these images off this thing was impossible. So I'm like, oh, it's easy. I'll pull the chip. I pull the chip and the computer's like, this is not that I recognize.
Kerensa Durr
No.
Tony Barthel
And it was just like, come on guys, you the software just ruined that dashcam. Yeah. I thought, you know, I always have a camera with me, and it's built right into my phone, and my phone sits on the dashboard in a mount that I bought from a company called Bullet Point Mount.
Peggy Barthel
Right. It's always up there so you can see it for the GPS. So as long as it's always sitting in the window anyway
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I'm like, I wonder if there's a good dashcam program. Well, at least on the iPhone, I found one and downloaded it, and it's called Dashcam.
Peggy Barthel
What? I mean, I gotta write that down so I don't forget.
Tony Barthel
Right? And I think it's okay. It's not the greatest dashcam app, but it's not bad. And there is a paid version, but works fine free. It's kinda neat because if you do the recording where the phone is vertical, then it puts a little map on the recording, so you can kinda watch the recording and see specifically where you are.
Tony Barthel
And, of course, it records date and time. But because it's on my iPhone, it's really easy to get the videos off.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Because they're already there.
Tony Barthel
Right. I mean, they're just you just download it right to the photos library. I'm sure there's something similar to this on Android, although I don't have an Android, so I don't know.
Peggy Barthel
Now Now maybe the fact that it's a free version puts a little bit of limit on how much data you can save. So, really, I think we should make a habit maybe at the end of the day, just get rid of everything that wasn't Yeah. Wasn't an accident. Right?
Tony Barthel
Right. Like all of these apps well, okay. Since we got our 3 quarter ton truck, the previous dash the actual proper dash cams, every time we hit a good bump, like, one of them No. Put this little bell sound
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong.
Tony Barthel
Like, you had crashed or something.
Peggy Barthel
And if you're on a bumpy road, it did it over and
Tony Barthel
over and over. Yeah. It did. And this dash cam app also will save a video if it thinks there's been a collision. Well, I have to go back and delete those because I
Peggy Barthel
Which is fine.
Tony Barthel
We don't
Peggy Barthel
need all that video of every hour that we're on the road.
Tony Barthel
Although, I wanted something. Now, unfortunately, I had forgotten to take off the old videos, and there was a bunch of those, you know, quote unquote crash videos, So it was full, and you can tell it how much data it's allowed to use on your phone and how long the it loops the recording, how long those loops are. So there's a bunch of neat settings. As I said, it's it's a free app on the iPhone. I'm sure there's one on the Android, and with that bullet point mounting bracket that we have on our RAM, it works out pretty well, and it's free, and it's really easy to use, and it tracks your speed and and all of that.
Tony Barthel
And you can set parameters like these are side street limits and a little thing will pop up if you go too fast. It it's just a it's a neat little app and the price is right free. Yeah. So, and it works. So what the heck?
Peggy Barthel
Alright. That was our gadget of the week. Do you have an RV for this week?
Tony Barthel
I do have. Alright. So Palomino has been an RV company since 1968. That's when my sister was born. Yay.
Tony Barthel
So my sister was born and an RV company was invented all at the same time. And Palomino is now part of Forest River. And Palomino makes everything from pop up pickup campers to travel trailers to really big 5th wheels. And now, they have this line called the Paws, like p a u s e. Right?
Tony Barthel
And these are hardcore off road adventure trailers that are really something different. And for those of you who know me, you know I love these off roading adventure trailers. I mean, I've talked about Amber plenty of times. These are like Ember on steroids. They use aluminum cabinet.
Tony Barthel
There's no wood in this structure. They have 3 d printed interior walls. They have, uh, composite floors. They're an aluminum chassis. They have an air suspension, which is pretty neat.
Tony Barthel
Just a lot of super neat features. But because of that, you know, they they are very premium, and so they're expensive. This is something I got privy to. It's called the Palomino Paws reboot 19.4, and it's really a good floor plan with a queen-size bed up front, a dinette. It's kinda the same floor plan as our 1st Rockwood.
Tony Barthel
So a queen-size bed up front, a dinette, a nice bathroom in the back, and nothing extraordinary other than how this thing is built, which is much like a tank. And again, the air suspension, it's got a rack on the back that the spare tire sits in, but you can pull the whole rack off. Now you have 2 receiver hitches. A lot of the outside storage compartments are like, molded so they're water resistant. It's got 2 compressors on board, believe it or not, because of that air suspension and a lot of neat things.
Tony Barthel
But here's another thing, not just how they build these things, they're options. So typically, an RV company's options are, do you want the blue cabinets or the brown well, nobody has blue. Do you want the brown cabinets or the tan cabinets? Here, there is a whole upgrade path. So the typical AC is the Dometic and the suburban furnace and all of that stuff, which none of which are very spectacular, but you can get the Truma Aventa and a Truma Vario Heater water heater and Max Air fan as an option.
Tony Barthel
So you can really upgrade this thing. There are also some terrific solar and lithium options. The basic package is 200 watts of solar and includes a 270 amp hour battery with a 50 watt solar controller. But you can go nuts. The next upgrade is 900 watts of solar Yee.
Tony Barthel
Which is 600 watts of rooftop panels and something I've never seen, 300 watts of portable panels. And, well, I've I've seen it because we carry portable panels. But this is neat because it comes from the factory with this option. And that also includes 540 amp hours of lithium. But there's more.
Tony Barthel
You can get a system with 1400 watts of solar.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, come on.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. 800 watts of rooftop panels, 600 watts of portable panels, and a 1,080 amp hours of lithium batteries.
Peggy Barthel
Come on now.
Tony Barthel
So I I will put a link in the show notes to my review of this rig, but I have to tell you, usually, I post a review. This one's on RV travel. I post a review, and, of course, the keyboard warriors go nuts, especially if something is not, you know, the cheapest thing on the planet. These people there has been a bunch of comments, and people really like this thing.
Peggy Barthel
That's good. And I
Tony Barthel
have to tell you, it's a it's a neat offering. So if you're looking for an adventure trailer, this might be a good one to consider.
Peggy Barthel
Well, excellent. So last week's question of the week, we asked, what are your best practices for moochdocking in a parking lot?
Tony Barthel
Oh, there are some good answers.
Peggy Barthel
There were some great answers. Mike said to get in late and leave early, especially in hot weather, which makes sense because you don't wanna run the air conditioner. Kimberly said she always makes a purchase if they have something for sale, and she leaves a small gift or a thank you note if she can. And she does the same at Harvest Hosts as she does at the barrels and the well, the barrels and the marts. Well, and
Tony Barthel
Kimberly is is a really neat camper.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. She is. We've or you might get stuck there in the parking lot until it clears out around lunchtime. He said it happened to them when they had dinner one time at Cracker Barrel, So, they turned around and had breakfast too, and sometimes they do that on purpose. They call it double barrel.
Peggy Barthel
Amber says they stay hitched, and unless the weather is super bad, they leave the stabilizers up. They park as far away as possible and try to remain as stealthy as possible. She stayed in Albuquerque, New Mexico Cracker Barrel during a winter storm. They allowed generators and extra days due to the road conditions. I ate almost every meal there as a thank you, she says.
Peggy Barthel
Bill says my dog and I are boon barrelers and we always confirm overnight parking is okay and have a meal. No matter where we stay, I always clean up after the dog. Zappo. As Ingalls said, Zappo needs his own Facebook page. He's He's a really dog.
Tony Barthel
A great camper. Yooper dog.
Peggy Barthel
Brian answered that it's unfortunate that they have to put their slide out in order to access the bedroom and bath. So they always park on the end or next to one of those greenery islands. So, it sticks out where it doesn't interfere with anyone else's parking or driving, or they park so far out that no one comes close to them. They are
Tony Barthel
far out. Put a tube outside.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. They put a table. So, Wendy said, Thank you for the question. They are almost ready and they are got a lot of plans for their 1st month long trip. And she said her husband was wondering, When you're parked just for the night, do you use your levelers?
Peggy Barthel
And nobody responded. So, my question for this week is, when you are parked just for the night, do you use your levelers? Also, do you unhook? Even if it's at a campground. Now this is a little bit different question.
Peggy Barthel
Sometimes even at a campground, if we're just for 1 night, we don't unhook. We just make sure we're level and go for it. And I'm pretty sure she didn't mean leveler, she meant stabilizers because you always wanna be level. But when you're stopped just for 1 night, do you unhook? Do you use your stabilizers?
Peggy Barthel
What shortcuts do you take? And that is my question for this week.
Tony Barthel
And where can you answer that?
Peggy Barthel
You can answer that question, both of those questions. Ask your own questions. Write your own comments at our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook group.
Tony Barthel
Oh, that sounds good. Hey, while you're on the Confuser looking around, did you know we do a once a week newsletter and it's completely free? What? Absolutely. It's got links to the stories, videos, and podcasts that'll help you get the most out of your RV experience.
Tony Barthel
Just visit our website, and you can sign up under the hamburger menu on the contact us. And, no, of course, we never share your information ever, ever.
Peggy Barthel
Never, ever. And also know that we only write one email newsletter a week because we ain't got time for more.
Tony Barthel
Ain't that the truth? We can't spam you because we got other things going.
Peggy Barthel
While you're on the website, you can find the notes that we keep talking about, show notes for this episode 247 or any episode at the podcast page at stresses camping.com.
Tony Barthel
And while you're there, don't forget our discounts and deals for the best deals on the things you'll need for your stresses camping adventure. Oh, and if you're like escapees and you have a deal for our audience, let us know.
Peggy Barthel
Let us know. Of course, you can look for the recipes, the hints, the tips, the classes, all those things on our website and if you're done reading and you've read all the things you wanted to read and you still have more time to goof around, just jump off on that top right corner to any one of the social places where you can find us.
Tony Barthel
And, of course, if you don't wanna miss a future episode of the Stress Less Camping podcast
Peggy Barthel
It's free. Free.
Tony Barthel
Yep. Subscribe on any podcast app.
Peggy Barthel
And we are saving you a seat around our virtual campfire.
Tony Barthel
And don't forget that a review will help others find this podcast and more listeners we have. Well, the better our affiliates and partners become, which works out for you. Yes. So thank you to all of you who have left reviews and shared this with your friends and or even shared this with people you didn't like.
Peggy Barthel
That's right. And thank you all for sharing. I know that some of you share everything you see by us and we sure do appreciate that, John and Kathy. But if you do see something that you like that you think someone else would like or that you don't care if your friends like it or not, just go ahead and hit the share button. Put it on your own page.
Tony Barthel
Well, the goal is to be helpful. So if you find a post or content on the Stressless Camping website that you feel is helpful. Boy, we sure appreciate
Peggy Barthel
your time. Exactly.
Tony Barthel
Well, with that, from Roswell, New Mexico, we look forward to hopefully being back with you
Peggy Barthel
next week.
Tony Barthel
And until then, stressless 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.
