Small towns, amazing finds and hidden gems with best-selling author Nick Russell
This week’s StressLess Camping RV and travel podcast brings back bestselling author Nick Russell who shares some of his best tips for finding adventure in small towns and seeking out the back roads and hidden highways in America. Nick has written several guide books and given seminars on the subject and is always an interesting guest.
Then we mosey on over to Texas where we find a huge model train layout and one of the best barbecue joints we’ve ever been to. And listener Marilyn shares a recipe for Calico beans.
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Jeff Zbar - traveling to RV festivals and how to find them.
Nick Russell’s books on Amazon
Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal blog post about some of his favorite two-lane roads
Nick mentioned a vintage lumber mill in Northern California that has been restored - that’s Sturgeon’s Mill in Sebastapol
Another book Nick recommended is Road Food which also has a website
Our visit to Clear Lake Park near Dallas on Lake Levon and things to do in the area
Marilyn’s cast iron Calico beans recipe
Tony’s review of the 2024 Lance Squire SQ19 travel trailer
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.
Our trusted partners - RV Discounts and Deals
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 249
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 air conditioner. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
It's so weird. Last week, we had the heater on. Or last week, we were sitting around the virtual campfire. This week, we don't wanna no stinking campfire.
Peggy Barthel
It's not super hot, but it is muggy.
Tony Barthel
It's muggy. Yeah. I'm Tony.
Peggy Barthel
I'm Peggy.
Tony Barthel
And we are 2 sweaty RV industry veterans who travel part time.
Peggy Barthel
In a small trailer?
Tony Barthel
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips
Peggy Barthel
Tricks.
Tony Barthel
And discounts.
Peggy Barthel
So we gotta talk fast because I wanna turn the air back on, and I don't want the sound of it on the recording.
Tony Barthel
Well, we are coming to you from Livingston, Texas. We are having a great time here in the great state of Texas.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. It's been fun.
Tony Barthel
Had some barbecue. Oh, my gosh. Boy, I think I went to one of my favorite barbecue place, but we'll get to that Okay. Later. And our next stop, speaking of eating
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. And speaking of probably humidity, we're gonna Yeah. We're gonna go to Louisiana. Yep. And we're gonna stay in Eunice, Louisiana for about a week, but we're gonna go to 2 festivals.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. There's actually a Boudin Festival in the town of Scott.
Tony Barthel
And if you don't know what boudin is, we'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah. Boudin is a Cajun, I guess, sausage that has rice as one of the ingredients. Yeah. And it's good.
Peggy Barthel
Good. Good. And then, actually, in Eunice, there will be another it's called the I think it's called the brew Boot Brew Festival or something like that. It's a beer festival.
Tony Barthel
Brew. You had me a brew.
Peggy Barthel
So we'll do both of those things in the next week.
Tony Barthel
I really like going to these festivals. To me, it's a lot of fun. Trailer rallies, RV shows, music festivals, beer festivals, food festivals, Renaissance Festivals.
Peggy Barthel
All those things.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It's a lot of fun.
Peggy Barthel
You might remember that we talked to Jeff Barr from Road Road Trip Mojo a little while ago, and he that's why he travels. He travels for festivals, and we talked about finding those festivals out there and
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Using road trip mojo.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Well, one of the things that's common with a lot of these one way to do so is with a great solar and lithium power system. Yeah. And the best company we know in terms of solar and lithium RV power is ABC Outfitters. Right. They use master boat pieces which come out of the marine industry.
Tony Barthel
They're very high quality, very well designed. They actually have an engineer on staff. They will help you configure a system that's right for your camping and RVing style, whether that's just, hey, I wanna drop a couple of batteries in or I wanna go completely nutso o matic, which is what someone did last week. They shared a system that was just oh la la, off grid office. And it had 920 amp hours of battery, 2 35 100 watt combo master inverter systems, 1200 watts of solar on the roof and a 60 amp solar charge controller.
Peggy Barthel
Now is it only an office or an RV with a great office?
Tony Barthel
It's an RV with a great office. Okay. But, you know, they can do those systems. They can do a simple drop in battery replacement. And the good thing is they actually listen to what you want and will accommodate your preferences.
Tony Barthel
So if you would like to have one of these great systems or just talk to somebody about all this, give them a call at 574-333 3 225.
Peggy Barthel
That's 574-333-3225.
Tony Barthel
Yep. Or find them with a link on the show notes at stresslesscamping.com, and you can see a video we did with them and and all of that. So don't let the music stop.
Peggy Barthel
Okay. Well, I already said we're gonna talk fast so we can turn the air conditioner on. But once I turn the air conditioner on, I can download Nick Russell's new book and start reading it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's for sure.
Peggy Barthel
We are so excited to bring you today's guest, Nick Russell. The reason that we haven't talked to him over the past few weeks is he was just finishing up the next book in his Big Lake series. Yeah. And we were just giving him some time to do that. He uploaded it yesterday.
Peggy Barthel
So if you are already a Nick Russell fan, there's a new book ready.
Tony Barthel
That's always a good time. Yes. His books are outstanding. The the bad thing is I read them in like a day or 2, and then I'm like, uh, but he is such a prolific writer. Anyone who says, Oh, Tony, you write a lot of stuff, man, I ain't got nothing on Nick Russell.
Peggy Barthel
So we spoke to Nick Russell actually in episode 19, so long long time ago. And he told us about his fictional books, but also about his other books that are more RV related. And we just love his fiction as well as his other books, his RV related books, nonfiction books. He also wrote a blog post one time that really, really struck a chord with me, and we asked him to come on and talk about 2 lane highways, those kind of back roads of America that are far superior to the interstates for a lot of reasons. So let's hear from Nick about what those reasons might be.
Peggy Barthel
We're super excited to have back for the 2nd time Nick Russell. Nick was one of our very first guests, and we talked to him about his books because as a full time RVer, Nick, you wrote some RV books and then you also write some mystery novels that we adore. So we wanna thank you for coming back to talk to us. And tell us a little bit about your books first, and then we'll go on to some other topics.
Nick Russell
Well, thank you for having me back. Yes. When when we were on the road as full time RVers, of course, you know, we published the Gypsy Journal RV Newspaper for the eighteen and a half years that we were on the road. Yeah. And then I wrote several books on RV ing and travel.
Nick Russell
Uh, I wrote one called the frugal RVer, uh, one called work your way across the USA, another book called meandering down the highway, which was about our 1st year as sol timers. And then I wrote 2 books, uh, highway history and back road mystery volumes 1 and 2. And those were based on a lot of the things we found on those 2 lane roads that you might mentioned. Yeah. Little oddball stories that, you know, we know the history of something, but do we really know the history of it?
Nick Russell
And we tried to find those little things that most people drive right by and don't know about.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
And then I morphed into doing mysteries. And, uh, yesterday, my 55th book came out, and it's the 24th mystery in my big lake Small Town Mystery series.
Peggy Barthel
Awesome.
Nick Russell
It beats working for a living.
Tony Barthel
I have this aspiration to write a book, and I have half of it done as usual. It's it's half baked, and there you are with over 50.
Peggy Barthel
You gotta get busy.
Tony Barthel
I gotta get off my duff.
Nick Russell
Well, no. So what you need is some butt glue.
Tony Barthel
Uh-huh. Oh.
Nick Russell
You know,
Peggy Barthel
you need some
Nick Russell
butt glue and you glue your butt glue and you start writing.
Peggy Barthel
That's it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I guess that's that's one way to do it.
Nick Russell
My first mystery my first fiction book was Big Lake, the first book in that series. I actually wrote that book before we went on the road. Oh. I'd own small town newspapers and I'd written, you know, a lot of that kind of stuff, but I had no faith in my ability to write fiction.
Peggy Barthel
Uh-huh.
Nick Russell
And I actually settled that for 14 years. Wow. Terry read it. A few friends of mine read it and said, oh, do something with it. That was before the days of self publishing and ebooks and stuff.
Nick Russell
So Mhmm. And they finally convinced me to just send it out to some of your blog subscribers and, uh, see what they think. And everybody seemed to think it was worth a shot, so I published it to Amazon and it sold a few books. I released it in May of 2011 and sometime about September, some book review site reviewed it and said, this is the best first novel we've ever read with the ugliest cover we've ever seen. Write books, I need to get serious about covers.
Nick Russell
So I had someone make a a nice cover for me, and that it came out in September with the new cover. No. A cover Came out in October with the new cover. Sold about a 1,000 books, which was astounding to me. November, it sold us around 3,000 books.
Nick Russell
And Christmas day at December of that year, it went crazy, and it's sold a book a minute for 24 hours and made the New York Times bestseller. Wow. And the rest is history.
Peggy Barthel
So it's all about the cover. Who knew?
Nick Russell
The cover has a lot to do with it and and timing. That was also the year that everybody in the world got a Kindle. That was the hot gift that year.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. That helped.
Nick Russell
And I was just at the right place at the right time. It's not that my book is any better than anybody else's out there, but
Peggy Barthel
Of course.
Nick Russell
I was in the right place at the right time and because I had a big blog following, that helped a lot too.
Tony Barthel
To me, one of the things I really love about your books is I have the ability to follow what's going on and the characters. And there's a lot of times I'll get partway through a book, and I'm like, who was that again? And I just some somehow your writing just works with my mind. And, obviously, I'm not the only one based on the number of books you're able to sell. I like that they're serious.
Tony Barthel
There's a great plot, but there's also funny bits, and you really like the characters. And I it's just I'd give you more than 2 thumbs up, but I only have these 2.
Nick Russell
I'll take them. You
Peggy Barthel
can have my 2.
Tony Barthel
Okay. So now you got 4 from us.
Nick Russell
One of the biggest comments I get from readers is that they they love the characters. They and it's like somebody I know. This reminds me of my uncle or my cousin or my ignorant neighbor or, you know, whatever he is.
Peggy Barthel
And I think part of it is you you describe the person well enough that the reader can get a picture of that person in their brain so that they can picture it it helps. If there's no physical description of people, sometimes it is harder to remember which one was Bill and which one was Bob because you haven't got that mental picture of what each guy looks like.
Nick Russell
Right. And as as my list of books have grown, because I have 3 series out now, again, a few other ones too. But it's hard for me. I have to keep a list of who is who and which in which, uh, well, you know, this is this character this character belongs in this series, and and I have a actually a list of each one kind of their their traits and things about them that continues to grow as things change in their lives.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
I met a guy at one of the FMCA conferences who was talking about writing and shared with me a tool that I've now since been using called Scrivener to help with that. And you can one of the things he advocated is you could build sort of a dossier on each person and then refer back to that.
Nick Russell
Yes. I know a lot of authors that use it.
Peggy Barthel
There I know authors that don't do that because I've caught things like, wait, I thought that person was blonde, and now you're talking about their auburn hair. What's going on here?
Nick Russell
Those mistakes are easy to make sometimes. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Russell
Yeah. In one of my books, I have a restaurant. I can't remember which one it was now. But in the next book, it's different people on the same restaurant. They want it for you know, if if it was passed out in the family, but it's a completely different family.
Nick Russell
Oh, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
So I think you have 3 kind of series of mysteries. Our our kind of first one the first ones that we read, I think the first ones you started with were the Big Lake series, and they take place in Arizona where you've actually spent a good deal of time and where one of your travel guides is actually about.
Nick Russell
Yes. Overlooked Arizona. Yeah. I actually forgot about those 2 books.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. That's why I was like, wait. Did you say those?
Nick Russell
Yeah. Overlooked Florida and Overlooked Arizona. Yes.
Peggy Barthel
But every time we take a trip that goes through Arizona, I wanna go through that the area the Big Lake area. I know it's fictional town, but it there's actually a lake in the other cities that you talk about in the in the big lake series books, it's like we're always going through in December, and I think it's gonna be too cold then. But I think actually this June, we're actually gonna get to finally route ourselves through there.
Tony Barthel
We can go through Xolo. I've read about that a bunch of times.
Nick Russell
Sholo was our hometown. My daughter still lives there, and I owned the weekly newspaper there for about 10 years.
Peggy Barthel
Okay. So then you full time RV'd for how many years?
Nick Russell
About 18 and a half years.
Peggy Barthel
18 and a half years. And one of the many wonderful things that came from that is a blog post that you wrote about traveling on 2 lane highways and the Yes. The greatness of those roads and getting off of the interstates and actually
Nick Russell
Danny is gonna be the same. Flying j is gonna be the same. Everything you see is gonna be the same. But it's those two lane roads where you really get to know small town America. You know, you get to get off and and you stop in a diner and, you know, the waitress calls you honey and slaps you on the shoulder.
Nick Russell
She walks by. And by the time you get done having lunch, you can you know, who who got their truck repossessed and and, you know, gonna run off to college. You know? So we just love those 2 lane roads, and and sometimes they're a bit of an effort to travel in a motor home, you know, through them, but, uh, it's worth the trip.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. That's something that we I think we took from you when we first started this adventure, and it has just played out well. I mean, last year, we went all of Route 66.
Peggy Barthel
No. That was actually Was it 2 years ago? Almost 3 years
Tony Barthel
ago now. Yeah. Okay. It's almost yeah.
Peggy Barthel
It was in 2021. That was our first really big get on the road and go somewhere kind of a trip. And we went from Northern California down to Santa Monica and started and then drove all of route 66 to Chicago.
Tony Barthel
I guess we did it backwards.
Peggy Barthel
We did it backwards.
Nick Russell
I think that's a big trip for a lot of people. Uh, I spent a lot of time in 66. When I was a kid, my dad was a border patrolman.
Tony Barthel
Oh, okay.
Nick Russell
And my family was was in Ohio, but we were down on the southwest border. So we would take 66 back across the country, you know, to go home and visit quite a bit. I remember the old Wigwong Hotels and
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yeah. All the
Nick Russell
little tourist traps along the way and things like that.
Tony Barthel
The thing that impressed me because we tried to stay on as much of 66 itself as possible, is as you said, the two lane roads, that's where the unique food is and just the the cool things to see. And what impressed me about 66 is there is still enough of it left to remain interesting, but there's a lot of new stuff that's like a tribute.
Peggy Barthel
Kind of a revitalization. Yeah. Yeah. And people are trying to turn modern things into more Route 60 six ish things.
Nick Russell
Kind of a retro look to them.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I think the movie Cars helped with that a lot.
Nick Russell
Yeah. I think so. Yes. One of the things about, you know, 66 is it's sad that so much of it's been gobbled up by interstate highway.
Tony Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
There are still enough portions if you take your time and and study ahead of time that you can get off and experience some of the real part of it. You know, the the longest continuous stretch of 66 is between, uh, Williams, Arizona and Kingman.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
And that's just a great road to get on and and follow that, you know, up through there.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. We did that. We went we actually, that was one of our first Harvest Host stops was at the Keepers of the Wild Yeah.
Tony Barthel
That's right.
Peggy Barthel
On Route 66.
Tony Barthel
And that's, uh, like an animal sanctuary.
Nick Russell
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
And we got to spend the night listening to lions roar.
Nick Russell
Don't go walking in your sleep. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Right? Then you are dinner.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
That's right. Yeah. I always tell people when when you're doing these roads like that, do that. Stop in the little restaurants. You know, experience some of the local food.
Nick Russell
A grand slam in Denny's is the same no matter where you're at.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And and nothing special.
Nick Russell
Go to that little mom and pop time. Someone always told me that when I was a kid, that you always go to the truck drivers go. And Right. That's the best place with the best place to
Tony Barthel
park. But
Nick Russell
Yeah. We love it. Don't be afraid to talk to the people. Yeah. We we learn so many things about local area just by talking to you.
Nick Russell
Hey. We're just passing through. What's there to see around here?
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
And there's a lot of things we never knew existed until something like that.
Peggy Barthel
Right. We noticed that, like, every town you pass through, there's a Route 66 Museum, and we thought, well, we can't do them all. I wish we would have kind of just taken you know, we were unfortunately, even though we were trying to slow down on the back road, we were still rushing to get somewhere all the time.
Nick Russell
Right.
Peggy Barthel
We didn't go to very many museums because there were just so many, but we stopped at a little, I forget where, a little town in Oklahoma and had the sandwich with the pork loin or whatever
Tony Barthel
That's right.
Peggy Barthel
That was, like, bigger than the plate on a Pork tenderloins. Yeah. Pork tenderloin on a regular bun, but the pork tenderloin would've would've filled 4 buns.
Nick Russell
Carrie's making that for dinner tonight. Alright. They said about the museum that was there?
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. The people said, oh, this is like the best museum. And so we turned around and went back to that museum and it really was a great museum. And I wish I could think of we'll put a link in the show notes because I know we talked about it, but I can't think of anything else
Tony Barthel
that I know. That one in Kingman, the old powerhouse.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
That's another good That's
Nick Russell
a great one.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And you had mentioned some other neat two lane roads. There was one there that that really floats my boat, but we haven't been on the Natchez Trace Parkway.
Peggy Barthel
No. We haven't.
Nick Russell
That's a trip you have to take. That you absolutely have to do that one. I started Natchez, Mississippi. It's 2 lane road all the way. There's no commercial traffic.
Nick Russell
So there are no 18 wheelers, you know, on your bumper. Lots of places to pull out and just take your time and do it. It's I think, 400 and some miles, uh, goes up into near Nashville.
Tony Barthel
Wow. And
Nick Russell
it's just an amazing trip. An amazing trip.
Tony Barthel
That sounds good. And
Nick Russell
Yeah. We got off. You know, we stopped in Tupelo, saw Elvis's birthplace and that sort of thing.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
Meriwether Lewis memorial there is where he died and things like that. So it's well worth the trip, and it's just such a laid back trip. You don't you don't feel like you have to hurry at all. I think the speed limit's 55 miles an hour. Enjoy.
Tony Barthel
That's our kind of place. Yeah. And then when you mentioned that I have been on many a times, and I I couldn't agree with you more, highway 101
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Tony Barthel
In California. Oh, it's just
Nick Russell
Oh, yes. Yes. California and then up into the Oregon and Washington area is
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
Absolutely beautiful on highway 101 that every along the Oregon coast, I always tell people every every turn is a magnificent vista
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
Of oceans and mountains.
Tony Barthel
And one of the amazing things about that is the people are it's it's a whole different it's almost a stereotype of the hippies and stuff in certain sections of 101.
Nick Russell
Yes. It is. In California, especially. There's a place, and I I would have to look it up to tell you. I'm sorry.
Nick Russell
I can't think of it now, but it's in California, not far south of the Oregon border where a man has a old lumber mill type building that he's brought back to life. And they bring in young people and they teach him to build furniture and they teach him the old time crafts done the old way. And we spent a day there just absolutely fabulous.
Tony Barthel
Oh, man. That's something that I haven't seen that, but I'd love to see that. That sounds
Peggy Barthel
great. We'll have to look that up. We actually have some friends that live in Newport on the coast, kind of mid Oregon coast.
Nick Russell
I absolutely love Newport.
Peggy Barthel
The last time we went up there was that's what we did was just follow the coast from where we lived in Northern California up to Newport. But that's only half the trip. We gotta get back on and finish our way up into Washington.
Nick Russell
I've been every inch of it and sit many times. I actually got my start of the small town newspaper business in, uh, Grays Harbor, Washington, which is on the coast there. And, uh, absolutely love that area. There's so much to see and do, and it's still when you get on the Olympic Peninsula, it's still so unspoiled.
Tony Barthel
And such a different coastline from, like, Northern California to Southern California.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, gosh. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
I mean, just night and day.
Nick Russell
Yeah. Once you get in the northern part, it's it's just the stress just melts away from you.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
There's not as much traffic. There's not as much traffic.
Tony Barthel
Because there's a whole lot fewer people.
Nick Russell
Yeah. Yes.
Peggy Barthel
Not so much traffic, not so many people, and it's just such beauty, such gorgeous Yeah. Views like you said.
Nick Russell
You mentioned Newport. That's one of our favorite towns. Like, I could absolutely, you know, live there. We really love it. And, of course, the aquarium there and and those things are just fabulous.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
Yeah. The sea lion caves, south of there, if you ever been to them, they're
Peggy Barthel
I went with my grandparents in 1979. And as I'm have to say every time I talk about going somewhere, we didn't have time to stop the last time we were up that way. But it's, uh, one of my hopeful plans for next year.
Nick Russell
Newport, Florence, all through their Coos Bay. Uh, of course, Florence is famous for the exploding whale. I'm I'm sure you know
Tony Barthel
that story. Oh, yeah. I I remember somewhere reading an interview with that guy who said, I hope I don't go to my grave being known for this Too late.
Nick Russell
Yes. That story is just famous up there. They actually have a a whale park now in in memoriam of That whole area, Tillamook, you know, if you get up to Tillamook, uh, Tillamook cheese factory is is Oh, yeah. Fabulous, and they have room for RV parking and things like that. If you've gone to the Oaks, the Oaks Lodge in, uh, Florence and the Oaks Lodge in Newport, and some of the others have RV parking there too and, uh, hookups so you can use.
Nick Russell
Alicia loved to camp at the one in, uh, in Newport because it's just a 3 or 4 blocks from the waterfront. You wake up to the sound of all the sea lions. Oh, man.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Tony Barthel
That would be great.
Nick Russell
And, of course, in the lighthouses.
Tony Barthel
Oh, yeah. Yeah. The lighthouses are incredible. I mean, you could do a tour up the either coast and even, you know, other places where there's a lot of water. Like, we were I was surprised at the ones on the Great Lakes.
Tony Barthel
But Yeah. All up and down California, those lighthouses are just I I just love them.
Nick Russell
Yeah. I did a story once on the, uh, the Lake Michigan Circle tour about all the lighthouses just on Lake Michigan itself.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, okay.
Nick Russell
I read somewhere there are more lighthouses on Great Lakes than there are on the Atlantic and Pacific coast together.
Tony Barthel
Wow. Oh, that doesn't surprise me. A lot of rugged coast, not rugged, but Yeah. A lot of convoluted coastline and such.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
You wouldn't want ships running into bridges or anything like that. No. I wouldn't want that. So you had also mentioned one that I had never heard of, the Lolo Pass Trail.
Nick Russell
One of our favorites. Yes. When we were teaching at Life on Wheels, uh, we it was in Moscow, Idaho for a lot long time, and folks aren't familiar with it. It's no longer operating the man who started it died, but it was a week long course in RV ing, and we were instructors for that. And when we would go there, we would usually coming from the east, we would take highway 12 starting in Missoula, Montana and follow that all the way across.
Nick Russell
And it's just beautiful. As you're going along, there's the, um, I I believe it's clear the Clearwater River. Yeah. It's on once on your side and just again, every every turn every turn is something different. We saw elk and moose and deer and bear and you name it.
Nick Russell
They're out there.
Tony Barthel
Have you found that any RV can mostly traverse these, or would you advise maybe something smaller
Nick Russell
or Most of those you know, we had a 40 foot diesel pusher for either our an MCI bus conversion or a Winnebago diesel pusher for us. But, no, most of those you can do in a 40 foot RV with no problems. There are gonna be some places that you can't get into, unfortunately. Mhmm. But as far as the highways themselves, you know, most of them are US highways, which they're made for 18 wheelers.
Nick Russell
So that's not a problem. Now I will say this, if I'm going someplace on a US highway and I come to a major city, I will get off the two lane and get on a some kind of a loop road and go around it, you know, on the interstate or something. Yes. Because I don't wanna drive an RV through Dallas or Fort Worth.
Tony Barthel
Oh gosh.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. We did that on Monday. Yeah. I mean, not Monday, Thursday. But yeah.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's no fun. Any big city is always no fun to go through. And you always end up you think, oh, I'm gonna go through here, like, 1 o'clock, and then it's 5, and you're, like, daikon it.
Nick Russell
Yes. We've we've done that more than once and never again. Something else that we get a lot when we're traveling these 2 lane roads, I'd I'd always stop in the little small town chambers of commerce or some places, you know. What what is there to see around here? Because there are so many things you never heard of.
Nick Russell
I always call it putting a pen on a map. We would put a, and, in fact, I did seminars on this. We would put a pen on the little town. So say, Showell, Arizona. And then I would do a circle 25 miles in every direction.
Nick Russell
What is there to see? Mhmm.
Peggy Barthel
And
Nick Russell
then 30 miles in every direction and 40 miles. It's amazing how many things there are to see and how many little bits of trivia you can pick up that, you know Sholo, Arizona is a good example. It's it's we lived there for many years. Why is it called Sholo, s h o w l o w? It was named by the turn of a card.
Nick Russell
2 old pioneers that settled in the area, they started to ranch together. And as time went on, it started to get bigger and bigger and more successful, but they weren't getting along very well. So they decided they're just gonna play a game of cards, and whoever wins owns the place.
Peggy Barthel
Wow.
Nick Russell
And they were drawing cards, and one of them said to the other, show low and you win. And he picked the deuce of clubs, and that was a low card, and he won the the ranch. Wow. The main street is called deuce of clubs boulevard. That's interesting.
Nick Russell
Stories, and you find those everywhere you go.
Tony Barthel
And that kind of trivia is just so neat, you know, to to look into and to learn about, and that that's what makes travel special. That kind of Absolutely. Uncovering the magic of of any specific area is what I dig anyway.
Nick Russell
Yeah. We met someone one time where we were full time in Livingston, Texas and met someone, and and they were telling me I was talking about Alaska at the social hour. And he said, that's a wasted trip. He said, I went up there and back. He said, we left June 1st and we were back July 4th and blew 6 tires on the trip and never saw anything.
Nick Russell
Well, no. You didn't. No. I could take the whole summer just to do route 66
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
Or 101 or any of those roads.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Absolutely.
Nick Russell
Slow down and take your time there. Those like I say, those little oddball stories, that's what my 2 books Highway History and Back Road Mystery volumes are those little stories we found in some little town.
Peggy Barthel
We gotta study up on those before we start rounding ourselves on these two lane highways.
Tony Barthel
Absolutely. Yeah.
Nick Russell
We stopped in some little town in Missouri. The name escapes him right now, but toward Daniel Boone's homestead. We always think of Daniel Boone as being in Kentucky.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
But the real reality is Kentucky got too crowded for Daniel Boone. He was a pioneer. His idea is build a cabin, and this is my land. Well, along came lawyers and and civilization, and pretty soon he was mired in suits because people state claims the land. He didn't bother for those kind of things.
Nick Russell
And he actually left Kentucky and said, damn you, Kentucky. I never wanna see you again. Mhmm. And he went to Missouri, and he lived out the rest of his life there.
Tony Barthel
Uh.
Nick Russell
Well, when he died, this is kind of, uh, takes a minute to tell a story, but it's really worth hearing. Uh, they were getting up there in years, and Rebecca, his wife, those were the days you couldn't run down the store and buy something. So he made 2 coffins, one for his wife and one for himself, and and they stored them under their bed. Uh, they were practical people, and they used them for linen storage. Well, they went to see they went to see their daughter who was 13 miles away.
Nick Russell
And in those days, 13 miles was quite a trip, obviously. Mhmm. And Rebecca Boone died while they were there.
Tony Barthel
Oh, boy.
Nick Russell
So Daniel Daniel went home, got her coffin, brought it back, and they buried her. Went by a few more years later, he died. Well, when they opened the grave this is according to the story from the local people. When they opened the grave next to hers, they found a skeleton in it, which was probably a slave. So then they buried him at the foot of her grave, and they had a monument that said Daniel and and Rebecca Boone.
Nick Russell
They wanted to bring Daniel Boone to Frankfurt, the capital of Kentucky, and they created a tomb for him there. And they actually went to court over it, and and Frankfurt got the or Kentucky got the rights to dig him up. They opened the grave next to Rebecca's, and they found some bones, and they took him to Frankfurt and they turned him
Peggy Barthel
there. Wow.
Nick Russell
There's a beautiful monument in Frankfurt, Kentucky to Daniel Boone, but the people in Missouri say he's buried here. And they actually it came up at one time when someone was touring the Missouri home. He was a Kentucky colonel and a state senator for Kentucky. And he said, no, no, Daniel's in Frankfurt. And I said, no, he's not.
Nick Russell
And they actually did DNA on the bones and found they were an African American of about 5 foot 10 inches tall. Daniel Boone was obviously white and and a fairly short man. And but Kentucky still says we have him and Missouri still has. Those are the little stories that I would have never known that except getting in some little small town talking to people.
Tony Barthel
That's so cool. Yeah. Exactly.
Nick Russell
A couple of other great roads too, I I might wanna suggest to you, and you may have been on some of those, is US 60, which we've followed from coast to coast all through Arizona, uh, goes right through shallow as a matter of fact. And whenever we were were going west, that was our chosen route because it's pretty much into Texas all the way as just 2 lane road. Then you get into a couple of big cities, you have to go around it. But that's another great road, and then lots of places to pull out. You go through Fort Sumner, New Mexico where Billy the Kid was killed and things like that.
Peggy Barthel
Yep. We actually have been there.
Nick Russell
That's another great one. And the Lincoln Highway, you just can't beat the Lincoln Highway. You know, that was America's first transcontinental road from New York
Peggy Barthel
to San Francisco. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
That's where you make that turn, and there's a big building and it has the Lincoln Memorial Highway painted on it. You know, that sign?
Nick Russell
Yes. Yes.
Tony Barthel
That's always a big landmark to me. Mhmm. It is a big landmark. It's painted on the
Nick Russell
That side of the building. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of places in Midwest. They they call them the flyover states because people just fly over them or fly through them.
Nick Russell
Yeah. And there's so much to see in those places.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
Those little small towns. Winterset, Iowa and the home of John Wayne and those kind of things. Just you know, where where the Madison County, where the bridges were. Mhmm. Bridges Madison County were.
Nick Russell
There's so much of that kind of thing to see, but you'll never see it on the interstate.
Tony Barthel
We went to the Manna Colonies not long ago. We're actually we liked it so much for going back.
Nick Russell
Yeah. Wonderful place.
Tony Barthel
Mhmm. You're right. I mean, the the Midwest is has always you know, I've always heard, oh, there's nothing to see there. And the more the more places I see, the more there is to see.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
If that makes any sense. You know, you're like, oh, this is you know, I like this state or that state a lot more than I thought I would or or, you know, I've seen it. That was plenty.
Nick Russell
Right. Yeah. I mentioned the man who went to Alaska and back in a month, and someone else said that they stopped full timing after a year because they'd seen everything there was to see.
Peggy Barthel
In a year?
Nick Russell
I couldn't see all of New Jersey in a year. Yeah. In a year's time, they'd seen everything I was to see. They were done.
Peggy Barthel
I bet you can't say that after 18 and a half years.
Nick Russell
No. Exactly. There was so much even now, there are things that we didn't get to see or wanna go back and see again. You know, going up to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and and camping at the Elks Lodge there right on the peninsula and watching the ships go through the locks.
Peggy Barthel
Nice. You
Nick Russell
know, the Soo locks, things like that. Boston and the freedom trailer, you know,
Tony Barthel
is, you know, some people just have to tick off certain national parks or whatever it happens to be. And really, within a 100 miles, 200 miles of your home, wherever that happens to be, there may be a lot to do. Yeah. Any final thoughts that you have to share with our I think you've got some great tips here.
Nick Russell
One thing that all new RVers do, in the 1st year, you're gonna run the wheels off the rig. Yeah. You you wanna see everything in a year. And you've got all the family, all over the country, you've gotta go see them. And I understand that.
Nick Russell
I always tell people, don't base, especially full time in RVing, on the 1st year or even the 1st 2 years. Yeah. Because it takes about that long, and that wears you out. And it cost a lot of money too. You know?
Nick Russell
We we got to the point where we would go someplace and stop, and we might stay overnight, but we might stay for a month. There are many times we went into some little town, some places, and said, well, we're just gonna stop for the night and found out that there's so much to see and do that we were there for a week or 2. And a lot of the small towns also have, you know, free campgrounds or little small campgrounds, you know, that you can stop.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
So you don't have to go to a big commercial camp on there. Right.
Peggy Barthel
You know,
Nick Russell
I'd we did a couple of books on free campgrounds and fairgrounds camping and things. There's a lot of those kind of opportunities out there that you can use.
Tony Barthel
Mhmm. And the funny thing, they're still there. There's a lot of people who say, oh, it's, you know, camping is full, and and we don't find that, but we're not staying at the brand resorts either. That's not our style.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
Right. Yeah. We, you know, we had a book. I'm sure it's out of date now. A booklet we published that you may have it or not.
Nick Russell
I'll send you a copy, but it's over a 1000 free campgrounds and overnight parking spots. And some of them are just a wide spot in the road, but a lot of them were small town parks with full hookups.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. You
Nick Russell
know, they're in Levelland and Littlefield, Texas, which are about, I think, 20 miles apart. Both have a city campground. I think back then, one was $10 a night. The other was free. Uh, but we spent probably 3 weeks between those two towns.
Nick Russell
Just you could stay one for a week then the other one for a week because there was so much to see and do in that area of of Texas. There's all through Texas, all through the country. The Midwest is full of little towns that have a little free campground or it's $10 a night or whatever it is
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
And well worth it. And then I tell people to go spend some money in town. You know? Go go that that 30 or 40 or $50 or whatever it is these days for a campground, go spend that having dinner in town.
Tony Barthel
You know,
Nick Russell
talk to some of the people, just wander around, and you'll be surprised how alike we really are for all the differences in our country.
Peggy Barthel
Yes.
Nick Russell
How alike we really are. When you when you forget the politics and all the things that that is on the nightly news and you just talk to people. Yeah. It's it's amazing. You know?
Nick Russell
We one example, I'll tell you another one. We were at a little tone 2 lane road, and we weren't in our RV at the time. We had gone someplace, but we wanted to get into kayaking. And we were someplace since, I think, in Southern Indiana, and I won't even swear to that. But I online, I'd found a place that sold kayaks and did you could rent kayak, take them down this river of things.
Nick Russell
We knew we were near the place, but we weren't sure where. And we were just in our truck. Our our camp our RV was in a campground, um, 50 miles away. But we couldn't find this place, so we stopped in this little store, little like a convenience store, not a name brand store, just little mom and pop convenience store. And I said, I'm trying to find such and such.
Nick Russell
And the man behind the counter, there was a couple of young girls, teenage girls here, and the fellow, heineken, said, well, you go down past the Jones place. And he turned left. I said, I don't know I don't know where the Jones place is. So you know what the cemetery is? No.
Nick Russell
I don't. You don't enter from around here, are you? Nope. Alright. Girls, watch the store.
Nick Russell
Follow me. And he jumps in his car and takes us down the stairs to to where we needed to be. You know, that's you're not gonna find that in Philadelphia or
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
Toledo or any place else.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
No. It that's small town USA, and that's what makes this such a great country.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Is that kind of experience.
Nick Russell
Border to border and and coast to coast, there's just so much to see anywhere you go. There there I cannot believe the places we never got to. It's like, how did we miss that?
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. You
Nick Russell
know, in places we never knew about. Someone says, gee. Did you ever go there? No. I didn't know that.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
No matter what you're into, if you're into quilting, the, uh, Paducah, Kentucky has a great quilt museum. There's another one in Tillamooka, Oregon. If you're into lighthouses, obviously there's lighthouses everywhere. These places are all over no matter what your interests are. If it's airplanes, there are so many old airplane museums.
Nick Russell
No matter what you like to do, no matter what piques your interest, you can find it on those two lane roads. Mhmm. Yeah. And the other thing is maybe you'll find something you never thought you'd enjoy.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
Yeah. You might say, I I don't have any interest in that. My my wife loves textiles and fabrics, and she's a weaver and all these things. And we went to a couple of quilt museums because she wanted to see them and was like, this is fascinating. This is absolutely fascinating.
Nick Russell
Yeah. Or get it I mean, the Amish country, and the Amish are so different, but yet so much like us. Yeah. Respect their religion. You know, don't poke a camera in their face and
Peggy Barthel
things.
Nick Russell
And everybody thinks the Amish are just in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. No. They're Amish in Indiana, Wisconsin, a lot of
Tony Barthel
Oh, no. We go to Elkhart a lot. And one of our favorite things is the the Amish things there, like the Amish donut.
Peggy Barthel
The Amish bakery that they call Yeah.
Tony Barthel
They call
Peggy Barthel
it crack donuts. Amish crack donuts. These are so different.
Tony Barthel
Because they're so good.
Nick Russell
In Shipshewan area. Yeah. 2 other things I would there's a book about a lot of these 2 lane roads we're talking about, and I'll have to find it and I'll email it to you. Okay. And also there's a great book called Road Food.
Nick Russell
Road Food. I'm in. They travel the country finding oddball restaurants. Oh. And some of those are are just fantastic.
Nick Russell
You know, we found 1 in in that book for a place in Rockport, Texas called the boiling pot. And you go in and and it's boiled shrimp and and crawfish and stuff, and they come out there, they put a big piece of butcher paper on the table and they just pour it out.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Nick Russell
And you just eat it. Uh, that sort of thing. There was a place we found in Alabama, and I wanna say it's called the brick pit, but I'm not sure about that from the same book. But it's an old ranch style house.
Tony Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
And you pull around and they cook it out back, and you go inside, and the walls are just covered with paper where people have signed their names and stuff. And some of the greatest barbecue you'll ever have in your life. Wow. It's funny. You you go to the bathrooms.
Nick Russell
There's there's a men's room and a women's room, but there it's a house. It used to be a house. Yeah. And you go in in the men's room, there's a toilet stool, and then a shower stall that says you're an old man. It says go ahead.
Nick Russell
Everybody else does. Get into those places and eat eat that local food, and some of it's gonna be the best you'll ever have.
Tony Barthel
Uh-huh. The amount of great food around is another thing and different. I mean, I had never heard of boudin until last year. Now we're going to a boudin festival.
Peggy Barthel
That's right.
Nick Russell
Mhmm. The other thing is, things like barbecue is so different from Texas to Memphis, let's say.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
Or here in Alabama. Yeah. Where we are now, and everybody knows they have the best barbecue. So sandwiches done. People fight you over that.
Nick Russell
They'll they'll tell you which one's best.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, yeah. Of course.
Tony Barthel
People are very passionate about what they like best.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
Yes. Very much so. Barbecue is one of our favorite foods, and we've been to a lot of different places. And we were someplace it was a place in Arizona, and the waitress is walking around in house slippers and housecoat. She just walked down and swapped some silverware on and I said, I'll have a Coke.
Nick Russell
And she said, well, we got a Coke, we diet. I said, well, she said, no. You need a dinner. You're fat. Oh.
Nick Russell
She wasn't being rude. It was just that, you know, because there you go. But those kind of places, you just can't find everywhere.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Nick Russell
And they've got a personality all their own.
Peggy Barthel
So Yeah.
Nick Russell
Yeah. We were on a couple of 2 lane roads. We were one someplace, and older lady drove around and stopped and looked at our RV. I forget where we were parked now. And she got out.
Nick Russell
She kinda looked at it. She drove away. And then she came back. And I say older lady because we we started full time when we were in our forties. So she was probably my age now, 70, 70.
Nick Russell
And she came back. She looked at us again. Terrence said, she must want something. So I was like, can I can I help you, ma'am? And she said, I've always seen these things, and I've always wanted to wonder what they look like inside.
Nick Russell
Oh. So come on in. I'll show you your room. So we took her inside, and she was amazed that our RV had a washer and dryer, 2 televisions. She was just amazed that in a bathroom, and and she just oh, this she got ready to leave and she was spent probably half an hour with us.
Nick Russell
She got ready to leave. She said, can I ask you a personal question? I said, sure. She goes, where does the poop go? When you flush the toilet, does it fall out in the street?
Nick Russell
So then I had to show her the whole sewer bag. She thought that's fascinating. Those kind of experiences just live with you a long time.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
That's awesome. But you're right. That's what makes travel magic.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. You know, it's it's
Nick Russell
not the little postcards or the little decals you put on your, uh, refrigerator, little magnets or whatever. It's just getting out there and seeing those things because they can take your house. They can take your car. You know, a fire could wipe all that out tomorrow, but those memories that you have, those experiences are gonna be with you forever.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's that's what life is, a great collection of awesome experiences.
Nick Russell
And we've been off the road for 7 years now, and sometimes Terry and I said, gee, do you remember we did that? And we started talking about whatever it was, you know, something happened. And sometimes those things, you know, I won't lie to you. There are things happen on 2 2 lane roads that get kind of scary sometimes. Oh my god.
Nick Russell
I can't get under this bridge or whatever it is.
Peggy Barthel
I think
Nick Russell
there's some adventures down the road. The things you talk about down the road, but we'll see. Yeah. You know, we had we're just talking about some place we had dinner. She's, where was that?
Nick Russell
I think it was so such and such place Florida. No. I think it was in Alabama, and we just, you know, some little restaurant that some something happened. You know?
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. So
Nick Russell
Yeah. So my my advice to your to your listeners and to you is every day is an adventure and forget the highways. And sometimes you've gotta get where you need to be. We we were vendors at at a lot of RV rallies. We had to do the interstate sometimes.
Peggy Barthel
Sure.
Nick Russell
It's my way to get from point a to point b. Yeah. And I'm sure you're you're business too. But whenever you have the time, you know, get on those 2 lane roads and and just don't ever get above 50 miles an hour if you can help it.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
You just drive along. If there's no traffic behind you, slow down to 35. You're got to get it. You're home. You don't have to be in a place.
Nick Russell
You're already home. Yeah. Take your time and, you know, get to see it. And pull into a real little wide spot in the road and just have a sandwich and look around you. You know?
Nick Russell
And you'll be surprised the things that you're gonna find, the things you're gonna learn.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. And, plus, you'll get better gas mileage too.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Nick Russell
Oh, definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. We we've been places where in some little city campground or wherever where someone comes along and they they bring us, here's here's four ears of corn.
Nick Russell
We just picked corn this morning or, you know, uh, a basket of strawberries or something like that. You know, just Yeah. Amazing things like that. There's local people. And, you know, they they wanna talk to you just as much as you wanna talk to them.
Nick Russell
We talked to a lady one time in West Virginia someplace at a little country store. She had been born upstairs from that store. Her family's
Peggy Barthel
Oh, wow.
Nick Russell
Home and business. Wow. She was in her forties, and she had never been more than 15 miles from that spot. Wow. And she couldn't believe that we'd been over why would you go wanna go over those places?
Nick Russell
There's no there's this is where I'm from. Why would I wanna go anyplace else? And, boy, that's kind of fascinating, but it's also kinda sad. There's something she's missing out of.
Tony Barthel
I think there's some study that a lot of people never venture more than, like, a 100 miles from wherever they
Nick Russell
call them. Yes. Well, that's true.
Tony Barthel
To each their own. I I like our way better.
Nick Russell
I do too.
Tony Barthel
Well, Nick, thank you again for your time and your fantastic books. We really appreciate you quite a bit.
Nick Russell
Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you guys too and look forward to talking again sometime.
Peggy Barthel
You bet. Absolutely.
Tony Barthel
Anytime. It's always a pleasure.
Nick Russell
Alright. Thank you.
Peggy Barthel
Thank you. Love to Terry.
Nick Russell
Safe travels to you.
Tony Barthel
You too. Thanks, Nick. Bye.
Peggy Barthel
I sure do love talking to Nick. I know. That was so great.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Nick Russell
So you
Peggy Barthel
know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna use our RV trip wizard, which is part of the RV life suite, And I am going to make a whole trip plan called Nick's Trips in my mind.
Tony Barthel
Oh, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And I'm just gonna put all these 2 lane highways that he talked about onto a Trip Wizard planner so that when we're going somewhere, we can remember, like, oh, well, hey, as long as we're going through this area, we might as well get on that road and check it out.
Tony Barthel
One of the things that is a real highlight feature of theirs is that it does RV safe navigation. So you put in the size of your rig and it won't let you plan trips that might put you in peril. Right. There are campground reviews and gas stops. There's so much that you can do with that.
Tony Barthel
We have a link to get a discount and Mhmm. We have a 1 month free trial
Peggy Barthel
That's right.
Tony Barthel
At our home on the web at stresslesscamping.com. So if you've been looking for a great way to plan your routes, not the ones that you have to die periodically No. But your journey
Peggy Barthel
Hey, what
Nick Russell
you're saying?
Tony Barthel
Not then. RV Trip Wizard is a great tool.
Peggy Barthel
We have been having some fun adventures this past couple weeks.
Tony Barthel
Yes, We have.
Peggy Barthel
We spent last week at Clear Lake Park. I think it was a state park, and it was on LaVonne Lake.
Tony Barthel
I thought it was,
Peggy Barthel
uh, Army Corps. You keep you keep reminding me that. I think it is an Army Corps park. And we stayed there because we it's in the vicinity of a couple of people that we know from our past lives. Even one person that was they were guests of ours at the bed and breakfast.
Tony Barthel
Who took us to a barbecue place.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. But we've stayed in touch with them for, like, 15 years or whatever it is.
Tony Barthel
That's so crazy.
Peggy Barthel
And they actually had us meet them and they bought our lunch, which was super nice, at the Hard 8 barbecue and the way that the heart and that's in, uh, the colonies, which is right out, you know, a suburb of Dallas. The place got its name because he was in the guy was in Vegas or wherever he was gambling playing craps, and he got a hard 8. That was the seed money for the
Tony Barthel
barbecue joint. That's a legend. This place is truly legit. I mean, they smoke all their own meats. You walk in past all these pit smokers.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And I mean, that alone, you're I mean, just as you pull up, you smell it. And then you walk in, and you just buy the meat by the pound. So you could get, like I got 3 ribs, think a half pound of brisket, some bacon wrapped shrimp.
Peggy Barthel
Just say, you know, slice me off some and they slice it as and, you know, a serving. Yeah. And if you want 2 servings, just tell them to put more on the plate.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Or you just take a bunch of them, whatever it is. So there's this whole tray and it's all this different barbecue. And so you get that, they weigh it, and then you go and there's these sides and desserts and, you know, all the other stuff too.
Peggy Barthel
But then what the great thing is if you dine there and not take it out, there's, like, a pot of beans and you can eat all the beans you want while you have your barbecue. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And they also have 2 kinds of barbecue sauce and heated dishes, whatever.
Peggy Barthel
And probably Tony drank a gallon of sweet tea.
Tony Barthel
Oh, easily. You know what? If I lived in the South, I would wait twice as much as I do.
Peggy Barthel
That's not good.
Tony Barthel
Because I love sweet tea. Oh my gosh. That is my Achilles' heel. I love sweet tea.
Peggy Barthel
So what we did, we'll tell on ourselves, we ate lunch at the Heart 8 barbecue. And then we went to another place we'll talk about in a second, and then we went back and had dinner at the Hard 8 barbecue. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Well, it was that good. I mean, and we weren't that far away still.
Nick Russell
So Right.
Peggy Barthel
So in between lunch and dinner, we went to Traintopia.
Tony Barthel
Traintopia was a g scale. I know, you know, if you like model trains and I think you all know I am a huge train nut. G scale is the larger size of model trains for the most part. Steve Sanders built this spectacular g scale layout and it was sort of a tribute to places that he either had been or really liked in his life. Like, one was old time downtown Dallas.
Tony Barthel
Right.
Peggy Barthel
So it was like from the time when he grew up, fifties sixties, and there was a scene from mountains in Colorado
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And New Mexico. And Arizona
Peggy Barthel
scenes, but he didn't just take some random layout and fake it to look like a scene in Colorado. He had pictures of the scene he wanted, and he had the mountain built. He had the trees built so that they were the right species of of pine tree are on that mountain scene.
Tony Barthel
It's amazing.
Peggy Barthel
Really really accurate and spectacular.
Tony Barthel
And it's this giant room full of these incredible displays and then they run the trains. The trains are all run by computer. They have a drive in movie theater
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Not for you, but for, you know, to scale Mhmm. That shows movies.
Peggy Barthel
But it does have a little projector in the movie house and they show movies on it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And there's all these funny things. But one of the things that Peggy and I really like, there's a scavenger hunt. They have 4 different scavenger hunts.
Peggy Barthel
And it was fun.
Tony Barthel
It really opens your eyes to some of the intricate details of this Traintopia. Yeah. I mean, the level of detail I saw a Corvair too. Oh. But the level of detail on this thing is incredible, And I do have a video which we will put a link to in the show notes.
Tony Barthel
Gives you a little taste, but if you're ever in Frisco, Texas, which is where this is Mhmm. Don't miss it. It was great. Now they also have full size real trains, and they have a huge collection. Plenty for me.
Tony Barthel
I was very pleased with it.
Peggy Barthel
Another place that we ate was called The Yard and that was in McKinney, Texas. And what a cute cute little town that is. Yeah. I would have liked to be there. Maybe we were there on, like, a Tuesday night, and it was pretty quiet.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
But I can imagine during the summer or on a weekend how that place must just be hopping with all the restaurants and stores and bars and, actually, this is gonna stick with me for a long time. I have read a book recently where this fabric artist moves into this town and starts making these, like, tree scarves. And I was trying to imagine what they would look like. Well, McKinney, Texas has them all over their trees, and they're not just a scarf wrapped around. They're actually like knit sweaters
Tony Barthel
Yeah. The trees kinda have sweaters.
Peggy Barthel
For trees. They're so cool.
Tony Barthel
And this is like one of those old late 1800. It's like a town you'd find that Andy Griffith would live in.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And it's just been kinda brought back to life and there's all these restaurants and stores and and all of that. They put lights across the street. It's really nice. I really like McKinney.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. So Joe was saying it wasn't that long ago that it was just almost kind of a ghost town. There was just nothing to it, and it's just really revitalized. And it looks like I mean, it was a great place to visit even, you know, when it was really quiet because then we got to walk around and do what we wanted. We had some gelato after we had our barbecue and
Tony Barthel
Gelato.
Peggy Barthel
We had a really nice time. And, uh, it's probably a place I could spend a few afternoons or evenings
Tony Barthel
hanging out. Without a doubt. Now the place we stayed, Clear Lake Park, was on Lake LeVaughn. It was not really that that close nor that that far from either of these places that we mentioned.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
But it's kinda out on a peninsula, and it's an Army Corps of Engineers park. There's a graveyard in the RV park.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Like, literally, you could walk around and there's a whole bunch of headstones.
Peggy Barthel
And somehow, I managed to pick the campsite that was closest to that graveyard. I think because I was looking for the northern exposure for Starlink Perhaps. And it looked like the best one. But now that we know if we went back, there were some sites that are right on the edge of the lake and they would have fantastic views, although we don't have a back window. So No.
Peggy Barthel
It was really, really nice. There were some a couple of the sites, including ours, it's gravel road, but then blacktop camp
Tony Barthel
sites. The blacktop was
Peggy Barthel
You know how mud can get those divots from car car tires and stuff?
Tony Barthel
The blacktop was in terrible shape. It was all crumbling.
Peggy Barthel
The blacktop had melted around the tires of the vehicle that was sitting there. Ruts. Like, big ruts, but they were bigger because they were chunked up blacktop instead of mud.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. As I was back in the trailer into this site, I was actually concerned about scraping the bottom. Yeah. It was that high.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So the sites, like the electric, it well, they were full hookups and we paid, what, $30 a night.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
So I mean, the value was there. There was a really nice shelter that you can go under. Really, some of the better barbecues I've seen at campsites and fire pits too and picnic tables. So there was a lot going for it, but boy, that blacktop was rough.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
But full hookups for $30 so it was fine.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. And there's, uh, we never really did go and try to look for it. Well, because I found out that it wasn't gonna be open when we were there. There is a wildlife sanctuary near by.
Nick Russell
Oh, yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And they when we checked in, they said if you listen, like, 7:30 in the evening and 7:30 in the morning, you'll hear all the big cats growling for their dinner. It's a just has cats.
Tony Barthel
Not like house cats,
Peggy Barthel
by the way,
Nick Russell
but like
Tony Barthel
House cats. The kind of cats that
Peggy Barthel
Tigers and lions.
Tony Barthel
Oh my.
Peggy Barthel
Oh my. If we go back to that area, I think I would like to try and schedule a tour.
Tony Barthel
Oh, without a doubt.
Peggy Barthel
Especially a feeding time tour. Those are always the best. I think those are only on Saturday, those tours.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Since we're in Texas, well, you know, there's either beans or no beans in chili, but we have a recipe that was shared with us that is beans.
Peggy Barthel
It's just a beans. Yeah. It's not a chili recipe. It's called calico beans. And that recipe was shared with us from Marilyn Owen who was at our quartzite meetup and shared some great potluck deals.
Peggy Barthel
And we didn't actually get to eat these, but this is a recipe I think I could put together and love very much. It is Marilyn's calico beans, and that is our recipe sauce because everything needs sauce. Right? And and then sauce because everything needs sauce. Right?
Peggy Barthel
And that's a combination of ketchup and brown sugar and mustard. So you get that sweet and that tangy and that all those right flavors that you need for a bean dish such as this.
Tony Barthel
I like this recipe because number one thing, a pound of bacon.
Peggy Barthel
Right?
Tony Barthel
I mean, how can you go wrong?
Peggy Barthel
So this would be a great thing to put in a Dutch oven even and put over coals.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
You could put it in pretty much any baking dish and put it in the RV oven. Cast iron, of course, would be fantastic. A tip that Marilyn and I talked about was if you wanna make these during a camping trip, maybe you fry the bacon and maybe you even fry ground beef and onion ahead of time. And that way, you don't have to deal with frying bacon. You know, that's always an outside job whenever possible.
Peggy Barthel
I mean, not at home necessarily. But when you're camping, that's so much better to be done outside. But it's also nice to just have that all ready to go and then you just pop it out and add the rest of the ingredients and put it in the oven and have beautiful, delicious, yummy beans and meat and smokiness.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. This would be a great winter dish.
Peggy Barthel
It would be a great winter dish.
Tony Barthel
It's a cowboy dish.
Peggy Barthel
And, you know, I don't even mind this kind of a bean dish served cold.
Tony Barthel
That's true. Well, did did I mention a pound of bacon?
Peggy Barthel
And a pound of ground beef. Yeah. There's some good hunky, cheeky meat in there.
Tony Barthel
Absolutely.
Peggy Barthel
Check it out. That is linked on our website, Maryland's cast iron calico beans. So do you have an RV to share with us this week?
Tony Barthel
I do. I was really fascinated with this. I saw an ad on good old Facebook. It was an ad for the Lance Squire. And I'm like, what in the wide wide world of sports is a Lance Squire?
Tony Barthel
So I think I've mentioned before that RV companies are starting to do what they call decontenting. During the pandemic, as they could sell anything that would roll down the assembly line, they tended to make higher priced and more content rich RVs. In other words, more fancy gadgets. Now that interest rates have gone up and RV sales have slowed down, they are focusing more on core RVs, and that comes in different forms. Some of them, Grand Design, for example, has their AIM series.
Tony Barthel
Amber has their E series, which are the essentials. Camper maker Lance has come up with something they call the Squire. When I talked to the people at Lance, we came up with what this essentially is, is it's a Lance from about 5 years ago. So before Lance started adding things like Truma Climate Controls, their own suspensions, dual pane Euro style windows, Lance Campers were really well made, solid, kinda essential, for lack of a better description, campers. Well, that's just what this is.
Tony Barthel
This is a 5 year old Lance 19 95 that you can buy today. So no windshield, no dual pane windows, no Truma air conditioner or climate control, no lance suspension with shock absorbers.
Peggy Barthel
But still
Tony Barthel
good. It's still a lance. Yeah. So it's a good solid camper. For example, still has torsion axles, still has a 22 inch oven, still uses max air fans, still uses their CNC routing to do all their cabinets and the walls and all of that, they still do wiring harnesses.
Tony Barthel
So while many RV companies, the wires are just pulled by the assembly line workers based on need, Lance does like your car company and intentionally wires these things. All the core Lance stuff is here. It's just not as much fancy stuff. And truthfully, for a lot of owners
Peggy Barthel
You don't really need all that. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And so this is Lance quality and features that, in many cases, are still better than the average travel trailer, but at a more mainstream price. And they're still building them out there in Palmdale, California.
Peggy Barthel
That's right.
Tony Barthel
Lance has been building campers since the sixties, started building travel trailers in 2,008 when the economy went to heck. They still build trailers. They're still good trailers, and I would have 0 qualms about recommending the Reliance Squire. And for a lot of campers, it may be a better solution. There you go, Lance Squire.
Peggy Barthel
Great. Thank you. I know Tony has dug some of those Lance campers in the past. So
Tony Barthel
Lance 2075 That's 2075. That thing.
Peggy Barthel
Yep. As I keep alluding to the air conditioning, we did turn it on for the first time this year this morning. And we wanted to kind of remind you that as part of your roof maintenance, you wanna make sure that the filters and the air conditioner system are free of debris so that it runs as designed. You know, go check out, make sure a bird or something didn't build a nest up in that Yeah. Cover over the winter.
Tony Barthel
You know, all air conditioners generate condensation. Make sure that it's all clean and clear under that shroud.
Nick Russell
And if
Peggy Barthel
you didn't think to do it when you winterized and put your camper away, you might wanna check those inside filters and rinse those off right quick.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's true.
Peggy Barthel
So that is our little maintenance reminder. Last week's question of the week, we asked, when shopping for an RV, did you consider road mode?
Tony Barthel
Road mode as our buddy Josh says. As our
Peggy Barthel
buddy Josh likes to call it. A lot of people said yes. Chris said they can use every part of their class a. Jean said access to the bathroom was vital. Shannon wanted to make sure that they could get into the bathroom and kitchen.
Peggy Barthel
Mark said it's not just road mode. It's also load and unload mode, which is a good point. If you have to park it in a place where you can't open your slide, you need to be able to load and unload with the slide in. Hani didn't know when they shopped, but they still love their 2104s and but would like to get to the fridge without having to move the slide. Eric didn't, but their 2506 s does have full access to the kitchen.
Peggy Barthel
There were a lot of mini light answers in here. I recognized some of these these models. Mark definitely did. Kathleen did. Wayne has a flagstaff 21 f b r s or which is equivalent to 20 109 s, which is just a teeny bit smaller than what we have.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It's what our buddy Bill has.
Peggy Barthel
Floor plan as same as Bill. Brenda said that she loves that they can just pull over and use the bathroom or fix lunch in their class c. Janet's Keystone Passport 229 r k is fully functional with the slides in. Teresa can access the bathroom fridge, etcetera, and her grand surveyor. David said it was an important decision when choosing the 2205.
Peggy Barthel
Yay.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's one of the factors in our decision of why we
Peggy Barthel
Absolutely is. We actually kinda picked the 21 zero nine s because we didn't wanna go too big. But because we were getting that power package and it was kind of the first generation or pre generation of the power package and they needed the drop frame for the extra space. And so we got the 2205 and turned out to absolutely love it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It still worked out really, really well.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. For sure.
Tony Barthel
This is a good floor plan.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Jill said road mode usability is at the top of their list. Kate said it's also one of the things that sold her on the 2205. Steve said, yes. It's important to be able to get to your own personal bathroom.
Tony Barthel
Yes. It is.
Peggy Barthel
Kathy said they didn't, but they love the 250 6 so much that they weren't gonna be hindered by not being able to access everything.
Tony Barthel
That's a fair
Peggy Barthel
So that's fair.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's fair.
Peggy Barthel
At least you considered it. The Rockwood 2608 b s has most of the kitchen accessible at the front door and the bathroom accessible from the rear door.
Tony Barthel
So there
Peggy Barthel
you go.
Tony Barthel
Good. Yeah?
Peggy Barthel
Donald's able to reach all those important places. Mike said they considered it and that's why they don't have a slide out so they could keep it simple. Russ said bathroom access is required. Brian said they knew what they were getting into and they realized the limitations, like limited road mode, but they would buy it again. Tammy said, definitely, I wouldn't have a 5th wheel without access.
Peggy Barthel
Marilyn said, nope. But we can access the bathroom and kitchen without moving in this moving the slides, which is, you know, that's 2 thirds of the battle. Right? Yep. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Bill said 100%. He had actually considered a very expensive brand of slideless trailer.
Tony Barthel
I wonder if those are made out of aluminum.
Peggy Barthel
But they searched around and found the 2109 s and he travels alone now so he can keep the slide in if he spends a night on the road. Because one of the only limitations really with the 2109 and the 2205 is one side of the bed Yeah. Is blocked from the slide. But if you get in on the other side, you're all good.
Nick Russell
Yep.
Peggy Barthel
Tom said they really considered road accessibility when they were choosing between the 2109 and the 2104. And Monica said, I made this mistake 23 years ago with our little 25 foot 5th wheel, couldn't get in the bathroom or the fridge. So now they pay more attention when they are shopping.
Tony Barthel
Makes sense to me. Of course, you know, my favorite, I would love a trailer without a slide.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah, I know. Maybe one day. Yeah. Next question of the week is, what's your favorite two lane road? I guess you know how I came up with that question.
Tony Barthel
Gee, I can't imagine.
Peggy Barthel
Do you take the time to slow down and enjoy the scenery?
Tony Barthel
Nick really is an inspiration Yes. On looking at these great two lane roads. Is this something you do? Do you look for these two lane roads? Do you like to stop at the local cafe or things like that?
Peggy Barthel
And when you tell us your favorite two lane roads, I'm gonna add more. I might have to change the name then in my Trip Wizard. If I call 1 Nick's Trips and then a lot of you give me other two lane roads, I might have to call it, I don't know, stressless campers trips
Nick Russell
or something.
Tony Barthel
Oh. But yeah.
Peggy Barthel
2 lane trips. So as you probably already know, you can answer that question of the week. Any question of the week, you can ask your own questions. You can post pictures of your campouts at our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook group.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And did you know we do a once a week newsletter that's completely free with links to the stories, videos, and podcasts that will help you get the most out of your RV experience. And we have started sneakily dropping some of your names in to win a prize. That is just keep an eye. Read the whole newsletter.
Tony Barthel
And the newsletter. See your name, reply. We have stuff for you.
Peggy Barthel
I remember a news letter that we used to get that would intentionally put a misspelling in there. And if you replied to them and told them where the misspelling was, you got maybe entered into a drawing or something. Uh, I like
Tony Barthel
that idea. Well, anyway
Peggy Barthel
Maybe if it gets too easy to find your name, we'll get we'll make it a little harder by that sort of an Easter egg since it's Easter. Oh.
Tony Barthel
There you go. And no, of course, we only send one email a week. Period. End of story.
Peggy Barthel
You also can find the show notes for episode 249. On the podcast page at stresslesscamping.com.
Tony Barthel
Hey. That's also where I think there are these discounts and deals for the best deals on the things you'll need for your stressless camping adventure, including RV Trip Wizard. We got 25% off there and So we need discounts and deals. Yeah. There are a lot of great things.
Peggy Barthel
And if you know of a deal that we don't have, please reach out and let us know. We love to have that page full of good discounts.
Tony Barthel
Absolutely. And did you know you can reach out on any of the social places that you might find yourself? You can also start at stressuscamping.com and find where we're being social out there.
Peggy Barthel
Just jump off from the website onto all those little icons that are up in the top of the page. Yep. And also, if you don't wanna miss a future episode of the Stressless Camping podcast
Tony Barthel
It's free.
Peggy Barthel
It's free to subscribe on any podcast catcher, and we are saving you a seat around our virtual air conditioner.
Tony Barthel
Of course, you know, a review will help others find this podcast. And the more listeners we have, the more we can continue to get these great guests, including New York Times best selling authors
Peggy Barthel
and Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Just some really neat people. So thank you for sharing, reviews, all of that. It it truly does make a big difference and we appreciate it.
Peggy Barthel
It does. And one quick reminder that if you like to share but you're not really sure, our newsletter has full instructions and so does our website. So Yep. Check it out and share share share.
Tony Barthel
Sharing is caring.
Peggy Barthel
That's right.
Tony Barthel
Well, we are caring about you. We appreciate you putting us in your ears week after week. It just blows my mind how many people out there have have chosen to join our little virtual campfire here. So thank you, one and all. Every one of you means a lot to us.
Tony Barthel
And most of all Stressless camping.
Mark Ferrell
We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next stress less 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.
