Celebrating 8 Years of StressLess Camping
What do we mean by StressLess Camping? This week we look back as we embark on year 8 of the StressLess Camping RV podcast with an explanation of who we are and what StressLess Camping is all about. Plus we have a song that a follower shared with us and - it’s fantastic.
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Our experience with and review of the WeighSafe Hitch
Our hitch review videos and RV towing resource
Robert Morales - Traveling Robert
Checklists make for StressLess Camping
The RV Life suite comes with a maintenance log
Our three-day version of your one hour walk-through - RV Basic Training Class
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 368
Larry Richardson
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
Welcome to season 8.
Tony
How does the years go by so quickly?
Peggy
I don't know. It seems like only last week that you asked me if I wanted to start a podcast, and here we are. 8 years— well, I guess 7 years later.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
And starting season 8.
Tony
Wow, wow, wow. Do you ever ask yourself, what do those guys mean by stressless camping?
Peggy
So do we.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Let's see if we can define what stressless means to us.
Tony
We have this week's podcast along with the notes and all the stories that go with this episode, plus discounts, deals, helpful tips, and more at our home on the web. Say it together. At stresslesscamping.com.
Peggy
We really appreciate you being here for the last 7 years and your likes and your shares. And thank you so much for joining us coming into season 8 for podcast episode 368.
Peggy
Stressless Camping.
Tony
After all these years, I'm still Tony.
Peggy
After all these years, I'm still Peggy.
Tony
And we're still 2 RV industry veterans who travel part-time.
Peggy
Rockwood Mini Lite.
Tony
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips, tricks, and discounts.
Peggy
We have a lot of things to share this week, one of them being that it's season 8, in case we haven't mentioned it 10 times already. And also though, we have a friend, Carl Wergen, that we knew from California, and he wrote us a song.
Tony
Yeah, he just messaged us, he just messaged us, and he's like, You're not going to believe this, but check this out.
Peggy
So I took some time and I put his music to a little video, and I had such a good time going through old photos, finding pictures of all of our wonderful friends that we've met on the road.
Tony
It's been— I mean, looking at the job Peggy did with the video, it just reminded me of how awesome it's been to Just meet so many wonderful people and go to— so many times I, I look on Facebook particularly and someone says, oh, have you seen this? And I'm like, yeah, I've been there.
Peggy
So I will play that whole video. I'll put that at the very end of the episode.
Peggy
So I really encourage you, even if you scroll past all the stuff we say, I really encourage you to go to the end and listen to Carl's song and see if you spot yourself in there.
Tony
Yeah, you never know.
Peggy
And I'm begging you now, if we have met somewhere on the road and I missed your photo, please tell me because I will update that video.
Tony
I mean, when you think of how many years it's been, just like remembering, oh yeah, we were here and met these people or those people, and it's just so cool.
Peggy
Yes.
Tony
Okay, so everybody raise your hands if you're sick of going on people's websites and it's just pop-ups and annoying ads.
Tony
And oh my gosh, Google takeovers, and then videos play with sound and ugh.
Peggy
Yeah, when you're at work trying to pretend like you're busy.
Tony
Oh, you're sneaking, yeah, you're pretending to work and all of a sudden here comes an ad for that stupid emu bird thing or whatever it happens to be.
Peggy
Well, we hated it too and we decided to do something about it. And so we no longer put Google ads on our website.
Peggy
That's not to say you won't see ads, But the ads are either made by— well, they're all made by Tony, and I need you to explain how it works.
Tony
Okay, so basically this whole business is ad supported, right? It's people who we feel do an outstanding job in this space, and we approach them, or sometimes they approach us and they're like, hey, we really want to partner with you because we like the messaging you have. We get a lot of those offers and we don't take a lot of those offers because it's like, nah, it's not something that we would use or something we like. So one of the ways a website makes money, if you don't know, is you can have Google automatically put ads and you can tell it, you know, only put ads here, only put ads there.
Tony
And there are all these different things you can do with that. To like, don't show video ads or don't show political ads or don't show ads for wacky medical stuff, whatever. And so we did all that and put in the code and it was working fine. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wait, what's this ad? And it's for some medication that, well, I don't really want.
Tony
Really irrelevant.
Peggy
Yeah. Pop-up in your face.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Video.
Peggy
All the things we told it not to do.
Tony
All the things we told it. And then so we'd go back in and check all the And make all the changes and it was fine. And then here it comes again after a while. And it's not the experience I want to look at.
Peggy
It's not the experience we want you to look at. And it's not the experience we want you to have to look at. Yeah.
Tony
Because our website is still sort of the cornerstone of what we do.
Peggy
Sure.
Tony
So I went on, we have a tool that we use, of course, to build the website. And I'm in several groups for that tool. And I went on one of those groups and I said, hey, I want to write our own ad server so that we only show the ads that we specifically put. And I got a few responses and one of those was a dude, turns out later, a dude in Nigeria whose name is Prince. So a prince from Nigeria.
Tony
But he and I worked together and developed this ad server. And so now the ads on the website are ones that we specifically have chosen and with whom the people who we want to partner with. So if you see an ad on Stressless Camping or in the podcast, well, in the podcast there are some auto-sourced ads still.
Peggy
Yes.
Tony
But on the website, if you see an ad, know that it's someone whom we vetted, who we think does a great job serving you, and that's who's there and that's it.
Tony
So if you would like to be one of those people, or you know someone, you're like, oh, you really should talk to blibbity blah, let us know. I mean, you can reach out. It's happycamper@stresslesscamping.com, or there's a contact form on the website that you can fill out and say, hey, you know what? This is good because the people looking at our website are us, right? RVers, people who want to have a stressless camping experience.
Tony
And they're not going to see a ton of ads, just certain few. And it's very targeted. It's people who, again, it's us. So if that works for your business, give us a hit us up, as they say. HMU, as they say.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
We have this weekly email newsletter and that those people following us and saying, yes, you may send me once a week email, that just keeps growing and growing. And that gets a very high open rate, which is unusual, but people know we respect your time and your adventure. And the other nice thing about this ad server is it's much lower bandwidth. So if you're in a campground, you're not waiting forever for a stinking page to load while all of this goofy ad junk shows up.
Tony
So anyway, that's something we did last year, and hopefully it serves you better.
Peggy
Okay, so another change that we've made, and I actually did this last week and nobody called to complain, so I guess you liked it okay. We've changed the way the video looks a little bit. I've always joked, like, I don't understand why you'd want to just sit in front of your television for an hour and watch us talk. Like, I don't get it.
Peggy
So I try to put some interesting photos and stuff behind. And so last week and this week, I have taken all the background out for the most part through a lot of the podcast episode and put background things, which hopefully you're seeing right now.
Tony
Wait, that didn't make sense. You took the background out and put background things?
Peggy
I took the actual background we're sitting in front of and put stuff going on behind us.
Peggy
Hopefully that's what you're seeing right now. Also, this frame that's all the way around the screen, that's new. And that was done— we decided to put that there to kind of mimic the artwork that we use for the podcast and just kind of bring everything together and make it a cohesive look. So again, if you have any comments about that, we would like to hear them. We may or may not make changes based on your comments.
Peggy
If they're great comments and you like it, then I really want to hear it because I, I want to know that you're enjoying watching us.
Tony
Yeah, and, uh, something to know, you know, when we started this, it was purely an audio podcast, and of course it grew and grew and grew over the years, and then And then YouTube was like, hey, you should put your podcast in video form on YouTube. And we're like, yeah, no, that ain't happening. And then now we're on YouTube.
Peggy
Now we did it.
Tony
The funny thing, if you don't know, Apple, who's one of the larger podcast distributor places where people go to watch podcasts or listen to podcasts, now supports video.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
And Spotify now supports video. And I'm surprised at how many people are watching on Spotify. So Apple, we still haven't jived yet on that, but video is the, is the way things are going.
Tony
So, and I mean, truthfully, what you can do with the doggone phone nowadays is pretty amazing. So anyway, yeah, we're not getting any better looking, or at least I know I'm not.
Peggy
I'm sorry.
Tony
But video is, is really the direction we're going. Although we always respect our audio listeners.
Peggy
Yes.
Tony
And frankly, you are the absolute vast majority of people who Listen to this podcast.
Peggy
Yeah, and we appreciate comments on that too. I, I can always rely on our friend Bill if we have done something that doesn't, that doesn't work out in audio, whether it's just sound quality or whether we're talking about something but we're forgetting to describe it because we hold it up in front of the screen. Bill lets me know before I'm awake on Thursday morning.
Peggy
I have a text from Bill saying, hey, I just listened and this could have been changed.
Tony
It sucks!
Peggy
I really, really appreciate that feedback.
Tony
No, we do.
Peggy
This is for you, right?
Peggy
We're trying— we're doing this for you. I mean, yes, we like to hear ourselves talk, but do you think we want to sit this close to each other for an hour every week? I mean, of course we do.
Tony
By the way, uh, something else. The past few— this is like the housekeeping episode. Yeah, the past few weeks I bought New cameras. We got a bunch of stuff, and it's been a miserable failure. Yeah, we've had so many technical issues with all this new junk.
Tony
And so we are again trying something different this week because you don't see the giant mics in front of our faces.
Peggy
We're trying that. Some people have said it's a real distraction.
Tony
Other people have said, could you get bigger mics?
Peggy
They want us to move it a little bit higher, but we are trying to do it.
Peggy
To do without the big mics. They— we feel like they actually have the very best sound.
Tony
Oh, they absolutely do.
Peggy
But the mics that we're wearing right now, you can't tell because we hid them inside our shirts, but the mics we're wearing right now should be doing just fine a job.
Tony
We tested them and it seemed to be working.
Peggy
So, so again, if this week sounds really weird and awful, let us know because we can only hear what's in our ears.
Tony
Hey, if it sounds really weird and awful, but that's not unusual because, you know, Because of what we're saying? That's different. If it sounds unusually awful.
Peggy
Yeah.
Peggy
Oh my gosh. So today we're going to talk, if we ever get around to it, to what makes stressless— what makes camping stressless, I guess. Or what— where did— you know, why are we called Stressless Camping? I guess that's really the question. And one thing that really helps our travel become more stressless is our Weigh Safe hitch.
Tony
Yeah, that's one of those companies that reached out to us, and we had tried several hitches, and they were okay.
Peggy
We've never hated a hitch.
Tony
No, no, we've been really pleased. We have— there are 3 hitch review videos on our website, and we don't hate any of them. But what I really like about the Weigh Safe Well, it's the way it's built.
Tony
It's very well made. It's very easy to hook up, and it has an app, and you can adjust the hitch easily to accommodate varying weight in your trailer. And you might go, varying weight? Yeah, what if you add water? In our trailer, 54 gallons of water times 8, that's over 400 pounds of water.
Tony
That changes the front to back.
Peggy
Right.
Tony
Or if you just have bikes on the back this week, but you didn't last week, or whatever. You've loaded extra pairs of goofy socks.
Peggy
If it's winter instead of summer, so you put parkas instead of bikinis or whatever.
Peggy
For you, not for us. Oh, okay.
Tony
Because I stopped wearing bikinis years ago.
Peggy
Years ago.
Tony
Oh my gosh, what a horrible We're both fat.
Tony
I apologize. Anyway, the Weigh Safe has the ability to adjust the force on the hitch to accommodate the different tongue weight of your trailer. And there's an app, and when you see the scale on the hitch, you make a little adjustment to the hitch. And you're just— the, the good thing about a weight distribution hitch, even in like our truck is a 3/4-ton truck And we're towing a 3-ton trailer, which is not unusually heavy. But you still want to equalize that weight between the front and back wheels because you don't want to lighten the load on the steer axle, the front wheels of your truck.
Tony
So anyway, it's just a very well-made hitch that we really like, and it allows you to make adjustments, and it lets you know Oh, clever.
Peggy
All right, so stressless camping.
Tony
If you have ever camped with me, you know that I am relatively high-strung.
Peggy
Yeah, stressless, Tony has said on many occasions, is very often more of a goal than a reality.
Tony
Absolutely, it absolutely is.
Peggy
And that's just his life.
Peggy
That's not camping.
Tony
No.
Peggy
Specifically, that's just how Tony's brain is wired. He likes to be stressed.
Tony
I think of all the stuff that can go wrong with anything.
Tony
We were going to go on a bike ride with friends, and all I could think about is, what if the battery on the bike dies? What if I get a flat tire? What if it's hot? I mean, it's like my mind can think of all the stupid stuff that can go wrong. Then I see pictures of all of our friends at this coffee— well, not all of our friends, but I see all of our— all the people who wanted to go on this bike ride at the local coffee shop.
Tony
It's this really cool thing. And I'm like, man, why did I—
Peggy
Why didn't I go?
Tony
Why didn't I go? Oftentimes the demons in my brain are so much worse than the demons on the road.
Peggy
So, so stuff happens and we get it. And yeah, there's stress at home, there's stress when you're camping, there's stress all the time.
Tony
There's stress living with me. There's stress being me.
Peggy
Oh, I do want to point out though that we did have help figuring out the name.
Peggy
We were on kind of a road trip with our friends Leanne and her daughter Tia.
Tony
Tia!
Peggy
And Leanne and Tia actually made that trip more stressless.
Tony
Oh my gosh, yeah.
Peggy
Because it was a stressful trip.
Peggy
But anyway, we were driving home and we were just chatting and saying we should start a website and blah blah blah and what would we call it. And we were coming— we were throwing out all these words and throwing out all these names and Leanne said, stress? Less. And I got my phone and I looked it up and it didn't exist, and I bought it immediately.
Tony
Yeah, the URL, the URL, like literally there somewhere on the 5 between NoCal and LoCal.
Tony
Peggy bought the name.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Peggy
So, um, the first kind of thank you after thanking everyone is thank you, Leanne, for coming up with the name Stress Less.
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
Peggy
The concept Stress Less is, you know, what we want to achieve here, what we try to do is bring in experts in different topics and, and have topics and talk about things that some people might stress about, things that cause people to have problems or have stress or have concerns, and bring those up into the light and talk about them and try to eliminate the stress of whatever that problem might be.
Peggy
That's our goal, is to just help people stop worrying and stop stressing about different aspects of going on a road trip or camping or RVing or whatever.
Tony
Yep.
Peggy
One of kind of the stressful times for us— we, by the way, we are very pleased with ourselves that we are starting season 8. We are on episode 368, and we have never— well, We've never missed a Thursday except the times that we didn't schedule it properly and it came out on a Wednesday.
Tony
Yeah, but we have never—
Peggy
We've never missed a week of an episode.
Tony
Over the past 7 years, now going on 8, we have never once missed an episode.
Peggy
Even when in 2022 we sold our house, we bought— well, we ended up buying 2 campers because 2 campers got totaled. Yeah, we changed residence, we We're South Dakota residents for a short time. Our accountant retired.
Peggy
All these things that caused us stress. Hopefully you didn't know it. Hopefully we smiled through our episodes and continued to bring you good content. And that's, you know, that's our goal.
Tony
Yeah.
Tony
So our goal is to, is to really help. We do have good experience from being in the RV industry. If you don't know, Peggy worked at Alpha Leisure building RVs many moons ago.
Peggy
Way before even drivable, before they made motorhomes, when they just made travel trailers and fifth wheels. I worked for Alpha Leisure.
Tony
Amazing. And then I worked at a dealership and I sold RVs, but also I managed a lot of the warranty department. And that experience really showed me a lot of how things work. And since then, We have really made good friends within the RV industry. I'm, I'm just— we know a lot of people, and a lot of people have confided stuff in us.
Tony
For example, uh, an RV that just went live on our YouTube channel, we are the first to see that. They— well, obviously the people who built it saw it first, but— We were the first ones to see it.
Peggy
And by invitation.
Tony
Yeah. I feel so grateful for people like Koryan and Alyssa and Christopher Barth, who, like, they brought RVs out for us to see.
Tony
Like, they brought all these RVs for us to go. I made a trip to Indiana and videotaped all— videotaped. Videotaped.
Peggy
Okay, boomer.
Speaker 3
Stay off my lawn, you.
Tony
And videoed all these RVs to share with you. I feel very grateful to have these, these people who trust us to be honest about what we thought.
Peggy
So anyway, and so as we've gone through these changes from being RV industry to owning a bed and breakfast to doing other things and other things and other things, you know, I've heard that even wonderful, fantastic, exciting life changes cause stress. Yeah, it could be kind of a good stress, but they all cause stress. And so, you know, being stressless is again a goal.
Peggy
Yeah, that we have for ourselves and for helping you.
Tony
Yeah, so that's the whole point of the website and the podcast and all that, is to figure out ways to make this an easier task or Stressless tasks.
Peggy
Stressless camping.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
All right, so another couple people that I would like to thank, and we have gone off on and off of using, um, Larry Richardson and Mark Farrell.
Peggy
Both were so kind when we very first started our podcast to record a little intro and a little outro for us. Now we don't have them on video because that's That's when we were doing only audio. But we do love very much Larry and Mark and appreciate that they made those recordings for us. They're such wonderful people. And now that it's kind of come to the top of my mind, you'll probably hear that a little bit more.
Peggy
We've, we've kind of gotten away from using it when we didn't have video to put with it, but I'm figuring out ways to change that so that we can play those little audio clips a little bit more.
Tony
Um, also I'd like to thank our good friend Robert Morales, AKA Traveling Robert. I don't remember exactly the circumstances, but we used to use this whistling song. Okay, so here's more going back. The reason that—
Peggy
We get the behind the scenes.
Tony
This was my, my side of the thinking. I wanted the feel of this podcast to be kind of like The Andy Griffith Show, right? Like no matter how challenged Andy Griffith was on that show. He was always just like, yeah, no problem, I got this covered.
Tony
Like, bad guys holed up in barns and, and just all this crazy stuff, and Andy's like, I got this.
Peggy
Let's whistle and go fishing.
Tony
Yeah, let's whistle, go fishing, and, and eat some fried chicken, right? From Aunt Bee.
Peggy
And yellow cake with chocolate frosting.
Peggy
Oh yeah.
Tony
Anyway, That was the feel. And so when we were originally putting the podcast together, I found a company that sells what's called royalty-free music. Now, the reason you want that is— boy, this is real behind-the-scenes stuff.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
If you are a musician and you write a song or whatever, you are absolutely entitled to earn money from that talent that you have shared with the world. That whole rights situation of they own the rights to this song, And there are so many nuances to that. Like, if there's words, they own— someone might own the words. And if there's sheet music, someone might own the sheet music. Anyway, all that to say that if you have a song, you are entitled to be paid for it.
Tony
But you can also buy songs that are called royalty-free. So you can buy these songs and you buy the rights to be able to use them. And I was very careful to buy a song that had rights not only on an audio podcast but also on YouTube, because that could be different. Well, as typical with all of the world, somebody bought the company that sold that song, and every stinking time we put the podcast out, we would get a takedown notice.
Peggy
For months.
Tony
For months.
Peggy
Week after week after week.
Tony
And it was so frustrating So, even before I bought that song for the very first episode, I had this song in my head, this whistling song. And somehow, I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I was talking to Robert Morales about turning that into an actual song. And he's like, dude, I got this.
Tony
So, I sent him the whistling bit, and he turned it into the song you hear at the beginning and end of—
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
most of our episodes. And of course, because it's my original whistling bit and Robert isn't probably gonna sue us for royalties—
Peggy
I hope not.
Tony
I do owe him beers though.
Peggy
He will sue us for that 6-pack.
Tony
Yeah, I promised him a 6-pack. That was a while back. I owe you, buddy.
Tony
I owe you. I understand. But anyway, he turned it into the song you hear at the beginning, and I really like it. And it does have that Andy Griffith kind of easygoing, whistly. I whistle a lot.
Peggy
Yeah, he does.
Tony
And so it's got that easygoing Andy Griffith-y whistly bit, and we don't get takedown notices anymore.
Peggy
The other day we were recording, and we weren't going to use any of the sound, but we were recording some video for an ad for someone, and Tony goes, oh wait, let's do that again, I think I whistled through it. And I couldn't tell him if he did or not because he whistles so much. I didn't pay attention.
Tony
This is a weird thing. I wake up with a different I have a different song in my head every single day. There is never a day that doesn't start with some song, and some of them are so random in my head.
Peggy
Okay.
Tony
Anyway.
Peggy
All right, so we are going to give you 1 or 2 tips for making your RV or camping experience more stressless, but this has turned into more behind the scenes, and that's fine, but I have more notes than we probably need. So let's just come up with a couple things to help you make your experience more stressless. And we've talked about these things a lot, but checklists make for stressless camping.
Tony
And we have a bunch of those for free on our website. So we always say checklists make for stressless camping because it's true.
Tony
You know, a pilot, before they take off, they always go through their checklist, and that's really no different from How we do things, right?
Peggy
So no matter how many times you do it— like, I've gotten lazy in the past. I've said, oh, I know this checklist by heart, I don't need to use it, until I forget something. And then I realize I do need to use my checklist because I think I— but if I get the least bit distracted—
Tony
Oh yeah.
Peggy
And I might skip a couple of things on the list, and sometimes those things don't matter, and sometimes they matter very, very much. So We recommend using checklists. Use something on your phone that you can mark off every time like we do, or use a piece of paper and throw it away every time, or laminate it and use a grease pencil, whatever.
Tony
Snap bracelets on your spring roll.
Peggy
Snap bracelets if you just have a short list.
Peggy
But anyway, stressless— no, checklist.
Tony
Stressing makes for checklist camping.
Peggy
Checklists make for stressless camping.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Another kind of tip Just in general idea is maintenance helps prevent repairs.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
So, you know, make the checklist for your periodic maintenance, your every trip or your every month or your every season or your before you winterize or after you winterize, you know, when you're unwinterizing. Checklists. It goes all goes back to checklists, right?
Tony
And there are some apps that help you maybe keep track of repairs.
Tony
Like we have an app that keeps track of the repairs on our truck. So when I fill up, then it logs the miles and it's like, oh, you need to spend a whole bunch more money on a transmission service or whatever.
Peggy
Yeah. And a lot of people don't realize, but if you have RV Life, the RV Life Suite actually comes with a maintenance kind of log that you can use. So that's also very helpful.
Tony
Another thing I like to say, buy the best and cry only once. There are so many times where And I am totally guilty of this. You buy something because, oh, that's, you know, it's cheap, it'll be fine. And then it's garbage. And it's like, no, just buy the best and cry only once.
Tony
If you're buying an RV, we actually have RV shopping tips. And I'll tell you, I was, again, I was just in Indiana. I saw, I think, 50 RVs. And the difference between the really price-focused models and the ones that are more quality-focused is substantial. So anyway, we have our RV shopping tips, which is kind of another checklist.
Peggy
Yeah. Um, okay, so my next note says, to plan or not to plan, which is more stressless? And that, in my mind, that was more about a road trip. Like, do you just get in the truck and start driving, or do you like plan every inch of the way? And we love when we get that opportunity to not plan.
Peggy
Like, hey, we have 7 days to get 400 miles, let's just take off and stop when we want to. Unfortunately for us, or fortunately, because, you know, we're always on a— on the way to another exciting adventure. And so we We usually do have to plan, but last summer when we got that chance to spend 2 weeks getting from Texas to Indiana—
Tony
Oh, it was so great.
Peggy
And we just drove until we didn't feel like driving anymore.
Peggy
We found a Harvest Host and spent the night, and it was the best thing. Now, is there some stress involved in that? Sure. What if you can't find somewhere to spend the night tonight?
Tony
Yeah, but that really wasn't the case.
Peggy
It wasn't the case at all.
Tony
We're also not going to the A-list state parks. National parks.
Peggy
Yeah, we, we went to Harvest Hosts, you know, the B.B. King Museum in Nowheresville, Mississippi.
Peggy
I don't remember the name, sorry. But it wasn't some— it wasn't like a destination that's on very many bucket lists, but it was a fantastic stop. And we only got to do it because we decided, yeah, you know what, let's turn right here instead of left. Yeah, and we weren't even in Albuquerque. We made the left turn in Albuquerque.
Peggy
So if it's so stressful, why do we spend so much time on the road?
Tony
Stress less.
Peggy
We love to see new places, of course. The goofier the better. And as Tony said, we don't— we know our goal is not to see all the national parks.
Peggy
Our goal is to see all the goofy places and the odd museums and the Harvest Hosts and the alpacas.
Tony
We have nothing against the national parks, obviously.
Peggy
They're fantastic.
Tony
But our— when we're like picking something, it's either going to be involving, well, for me, trains or beer or something ridiculous.
Peggy
Something ridiculous.
Tony
Or cars.
Peggy
Yeah. So we make a lot of road trips and they always have a purpose. And that's usually to go to a convention or go to a rally. Or my favorite is to teach RV basic training.
Tony
Peggy loves teaching that class.
Peggy
I love teaching that class. And maybe I should have been a teacher. But I love teaching basic training camp. It's, if you don't know, it's like a— we call it the 3-day version of your 1-hour walkthrough.
Peggy
And we go through the, the parts of your RV that are hard to understand, you know, how the electrical system works and why, you know, how many water tanks are there and things like that. And I love doing that. And 2 of my favorite parts are When someone uses their propane appliance for the first time, their water heater or their stove, but they've turned on the propane, which they've never done because it frightens them. And when someone hooks up and dumps their tank successfully and then they're not afraid anymore. Tony is the best backer-upper teacher.
Tony
Oh yeah, in fact, I even got an invitation to go to Florida and teach this towing class, but we're gonna be in Indiana.
Peggy
Ah.
Tony
And so that's where we will be in August at the Forest River Owners Group, or FROG Rally, teaching classes there. Dirty, dirty camper, but my buddies Matt and Will gave me something to try. I got a sneak peek of new LiquiShine Wash and Wax, and it's all-in-one.
Tony
Uh, you wash and wax all in one. Really easy to use product. But since this is a sneak preview, I'm gonna put it inside an unmarked container. Okay, we've put it in the top secret unmarked container. So all you're supposed to do is just spray it on.
Tony
Wipe it off with a— oh my gosh, this really is easy!
Speaker 3
There's—
Tony
wow! This is easy! That's what I was thinking, Bailey!
Tony
See, even the dogs approve!
Peggy
Hey, Tony! What are you doing there?
Tony
Oh, nothing!
Peggy
That looks—
Speaker 3
whoa!
Peggy
I'm glad I got my shades.
Tony
That's amazing. Yeah, it really is. It really smooths it out. Let me dry it off here.
Peggy
I can feel the difference.
Tony
Yeah, you totally—
Speaker 3
wow.
Peggy
Huh. Yeah, it's all smooth.
Tony
It's shiny.
Peggy
What is that top secret stuff, Tony?
Tony
I can't tell you, but I can lend it to you.
Peggy
Oh yes, please!
Tony
Wet— you squirt it, wet rag, dry rag.
Speaker 3
Okay.
Tony
It's that easy.
Peggy
All right, I stole the top secret stuff from Tony.
Peggy
I'm gonna see if it works on mine. So spray it, wipe it. A little bit more.
Peggy
And this is supposed to clean and shine. All right, dry rag, buff it off.
Peggy
Oh, those streaks that I just had on there did go away. So did the bugs.
Peggy
I can see a difference.
Speaker 3
Hey Kate, what you doing? What are you doing?
Peggy
Nothing, nothing. There's nothing to see here.
Tony
Oh, I can actually see the camper through the bugs on this side.
Tony
Oh, well, you know what?
Peggy
I found this top secret stuff that Tony's been using.
Tony
Wanna try it? Yeah.
Speaker 3
Okay.
Speaker 3
Don't tell.
Tony
Top secret.
Speaker 3
Spray on. Oh, nice.
Tony
Doggy approved.
Peggy
So what do you think, Bill?
Tony
I didn't realize my camper was white.
Peggy
Can we see? Oh, look, I can almost see Bailey in there. Michael approves.
Tony
Yes, he does.
Peggy
I think Tony will notice that we stole it.
Speaker 3
Stole what? I don't know.
Tony
You can buy LiquiShine Wash and Wax.
Tony
They have bug remover. There's 4 different products that they have now. You can buy it right at liquishine.com or through the link in the notes below. LiquiShine is stressless camping. Well, anyway, that's where— that's kind of the inside look at stressless camping.
Tony
That's some of the behind the scenes, some of the reasons that we're here.
Peggy
You are the reason that we're here.
Tony
Well, that's true, right? You are. But that's what made us think, hey, you know what, we can, we can help people and collaborate with people who really know what they're talking about and maybe make all of us enjoy some stressless camping legitimately.
Peggy
Yeah. So we will not skip question of the week.
Tony
Nope.
Peggy
We, uh, ask one every week, and last week we asked you to share Your pet's favorite camping memory. And that has been really fun to read stories about pets, and sometimes a little scary, like Lonnie's story about her dad and dog falling in the river when they were— when she was a little girl.
Peggy
Luckily, that all came out okay. But thank you all for sharing. We love your pets. We love you, love your pets, and we love the stories that they tell.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
And this week we— because I just mentioned it, if you were to attend an RV basic training camp, what is the one thing that you would hope to learn from that camp?
Tony
You can answer that at our fun and friendly— and you all keep it that way.
Peggy
That's right.
Tony
Uh, Stressless Campers Facebook group.
Peggy
So join us on Facebook, like our episodes, share our episodes.
Peggy
Talk about our episodes in the grocery store line. Subscribe to the podcast or subscribe to the YouTube channel or both, whichever you like. And just really thank you so much for being here, watching episode 368 and all 367 episodes. Well, there's an episode 0, so—
Tony
No, that's out on our website too.
Peggy
I know.
Tony
So this is really 369.
Peggy
Right. The podcast. We so look forward to the upcoming year of helping you keep the RV adventure stressless camping.
Tony
We hope you enjoyed this week's adventure. Time to get out on your own journey, but don't forget to leave the review on your favorite podcast app and visit stresslesscamping.com for photos, stories, an RV calendar, and more. I'm Stressless Camper Larry Richardson wishing Happy camping! And now, uh, for those of you watching this, wherever you're watching, uh, we are going to play Carl Worgan's song, and you will get to see what Peggy has done with maybe pictures of you.
Peggy
Feedback requested.
