This week on the Rv.
Advances in Ai are making it easier to
plan epic road trips.
Will explain in our interview of the week
about a powerful trip planner aimed at our
ears.
It's finally a buyer's market for those who
wanna purchase a new Rv.
Dealers are anxious and and more willing to
offer big discounts is their lots remain filled
for with un sold inventory.
On mike con jen story time segment, the
end of the show will tell you about
the most embarrassing
and the most costly mistake mistake that we've
ever made while Rv being.
Zion National Park plans to ban all large
rv from its popular east stern entrance
starting in 20 26
and hopes of on sn.
The parks often massive traffic jams.
All this, plus the Rv news of the
week and your questions coming up at episode
05:01
of the Rv podcast.
Hello, everybody. I'm Mike Gwen, and this is
my lifelong traveling companion and my bride and
Jennifer.
Well, this is now 501.
All the Hoop over 500 is over.
Back to the grind.
Yeah. I guess we won't have to be
more Hoop till 600.
Yeah.
But thank you. We had so many nice
notes and calls and in encouragement and
I was surprised how many of you say
you have listened to all 500 that you
started at episode 1. Wow. And,
it was really encouraging for us to to
hear from you. Hey, just a quick reminder
you that you can watch the video version
of this podcast on our Rv lifestyle Youtube
channel. That's at
Youtube dot com slash rv lifestyle.
And as the podcast is released, where with
70 of our followers at our groove and
gather with the temptation in the heart of
Amish country, and ship.
Yep. Ship,
Indiana, and we call it groove and gather
with the temptation because that will be kind
of a highlight of our week in
Amish country. This it's
temptation. Most of them still original members by
the way, of the Hotel group.
We'll be performing for our our gathering on
Thursday night, and we look forward to, telling
you all about that, but that's gonna be
a lot of fun. But that comes on
the heels of a very busy week that
we spent last week. Yeah. Last week, we
were reviewing 3
small class Ar vs. Yeah. We'll have a
complete video
on those is what we think of it,
and we'll try and do... Like we did
with our class b reviews. We're gonna look
at that small a segment, and we hope
to have those pretty quick.
Let's see. Also this past week, we got
Bow.
Microchip
and another,
and
unnecessary, but required Ra vaccine,
all that was necessary to fill out the
proper forms to qualify for these.
We've been telling about it now for a
couple 3 weeks. These confusing
controversial and much
criticized new guidelines required by the Cdc
to bring a dog back to the Us
if you visit another country
with your pet, even Canada. So,
I'm sure we'll be telling you much more
about that. I've have heard from so many
people
who are very upset with this, people who
have canceled long planned Rv vacations to Canada,
People complaining that performs they need are not
available,
vets complaining that they haven't heard a thing
about this and it takes effect August first.
And as I tell everybody, it makes no
sense at all, but we are dealing with
the government and that should go without saying.
Alright.
We will come back after this quick break.
With the social media buzz, lots of things
on your mind this past week and Wendy
Boy will report all about that when we
return.
After countless nights in the road, we have
finally found the ultimate comfort solution for our
home away from home, our Rv mattress from
Rv mattress dot com slash rv lifestyle. Now
let me tell you. This is a game
changer.
Everybody knows that the stock mattresses that come
in an Rv are not great. And whether
you are a weekend warrior or a full
timer, You deserve better sleep.
Rv mattress dot com has 22
plus size options, 5 height options, and 3
firm options. So you are bound to find
something that fits.
Jennifer and I got the signature hybrid mattress
in queen with the cooling cover, and we
love it. It truly has a sleeping just
as good in the Rv as our house.
In fact, so good, we actually got another
Rv mattress for our sticks and Bricks house.
Now swapping out the uncomfortable old stock mattress
for our new Rv mattress was easy. It
shipped from Arizona for free in a box.
We brought it into the Rv and never
looked back. This Rv mattress is plush comfort.
The best sleep we've ever had in an
Rv.
Every night feels like a luxury retreat, and
we highly recommend upgrading your mattress at rv
mattress dot com.
Trust us, you will not regret it. And
if you use the promo code, Rv
lifestyle, you'll get a really nice discount.
Again, go to rv mattress dot com slash
rv lifestyle.
Welcome back everybody time for the social media
buzz. And now, Wendy has been a tell
us about the hot issues most talked about
this past week on social media, and our
Rv lights style community group.
Hi, everybody. Over in our Rv lifestyle communities,
travel trips and tourist space, Cindy was recently
looking for campground suggestion for Michigan's upper Peninsula
anywhere between the Por occupied Mountains in Su
Saint Marie. And she got some great tips
I'd love to share with you. Lori recommended
Indian, Lake Rv Resort and campground and Indian
Lake campground. They're both in Man.
She said they're very clean, friendly owners beautiful
location. And she also shared her favorite boo
docking spot in the world is in the
upper peninsula East Lake H
national Forest.
Now, Cary, she recommended the Un as born
campground in Su Saint Marie, she had recently
stayed there. It's right on the lake. Those
was big ships come in and she said
it was absolutely sensational. And Melissa, she really
liked Woodland Park. Campground in Grand Mara. She
got a spot there last year overlooking lake
superior. Sounds like gorgeous views
and it's a great place to find up
light rocks, which you need kind of a
black light to find, but apparently they sell
them in town. So I had look up
what our Uber light rocks it very interesting.
They have this fluorescent glow to them kind
of orange color very cool. You need to
check that out.
Also in our community,
we had another question, this 1 in the
general Rv and camping space from A annette.
And she needed help finding an app or
some tool to help her find
fuel pumps that have da that's diesel exhaust
fluid at the pump. It sounds like they
made a recent trip. They stock it 3
different gas stations. They were truck stopped, so
she thought for sure they'd have it at
the pop and they didn't, and she didn't
wanna repeat the waste to time and money.
And she got some great tips. Some people
like Michael said you just need to stop
at the right gas stations for this, and
he recommended Ta Petrol.
Pilot flying j and loves.
Others like Richard suggested using an app called,
which uses Gps to help you find the
pumps that have this
in real time by using Gps, and it
sounds like Mark and Brenda also use an
app to help them.
They use a truck and travel app. So
good tips there.
And then meanwhile, over in our Facebook group,
we had a post from Cara, and she
wrote 1 thing I wasn't warned about when
we decided to go full time were the
May flies, and she said that she had
the third or fourth swarm of them. Hit
her rig in the last couple months and
she shared a picture and you wouldn't believe
what this picture look like. We're talking her
beautiful keystone Montana
in the back by the later just
splattered with dead may flies. There were so
many dead bugs on this. I thought it
looked like it had been sprayed with mud,
real heavy mud.
It was stunning, and I wasn't the only
1 who was surprised by this. Lots of
comments,
like Kim who said, I have never seen
anything like this before.
And then there were also many others who
had first firsthand experience with these may flies
and wrote things like ben there done that.
Now Carol was camping in Mississippi when this
happened, but it sounds like these may flies
are sprout all over the place right now
in different parts of the country. People were
chi in where they were and the bugs
they were experienced. And John, he shared a
picture of his rigs splattered with these things
last June when he was camping way up
in lake by Lake Erie. So,
more than 430 comments about May flies, and
sounds like if you get hit with them,
make sure you get them off your rig
right away because they can damage the paint
and finish.
But that's it for me. I'm Wendy Boy,
and I'll see you next time over in
the Rv lifestyle community or Facebook group. Yeah.
Those may flies, we have encountered in many
times ourselves. They just... Used to call them
fish flies. Mh. And I even saw some
last week, when we were testing out those
small class a's, we stayed at a Michigan
state park over in Southeastern, Michigan and
it was the proud lake recreation, and we
had some fish flies on those little class
a's that we were testing. So... There is
so much to be learned from what Wendy
shares. And
it's so simple when you don't know where
to camp and you put it out there,
I'm gonna be in an area and I
don't know where to camp and other people
love to tell you
where they can't and make recommendations of places.
And I saw some places that we have
can't because this is a Michigan question and
another place, I think that we need to
check out. Go to.
In if you look, we have 2 social
media sites that we talked about. 1 of
them is on Facebook, our Rv lifestyle root
there.
It has 401000
members.
As of today, probably 402000
tomorrow. But
You know all Facebook can get kind of
messy and ugly and nasty.
Even though we have a great team of
moderators,
as a result of all that growing, I
think, growing that nastiness that you see on
Facebook as a whole.
We kind of started a new,
group, a new community
off of Facebook.
So it's not subject to all those weird
algorithms,
nor is it being plagued by all the
Nastiness that you see on Facebook.
So that is the Rv lifestyle community and
you find it at community dot rv lifestyle
dot com. We invite you to come check
it out. Join it. It's join it. It's
free It is a really interesting group, of
of people who are there to help, encourage,
make friends, build relationships, build community.
Which is what the Rv lifestyle is all
about. Again, it's community dot rv lifestyle dot
com. Gone over there. You can send me
an instant chat when you do, and I'll
see that you joined, and I'd love to
say, hi you.
Alright. When we come back an Rv conversation
about
artificial intelligence and how
you can use Ai to plan truly an
epic road trip. That's coming up right after
this. Jennifer and I took a trip to
Las Vegas and Arizona to look at wind
mail acres a brand new Rv property being
offered by Western land and ranches.
They're selling off 1 and 2 acre parcels
starting at only 14900
dollars. Now these are big. An acre is
the size of a football field. The properties
are on a plateau with big valley views,
and the location is amazing. Next to Lake
Mead national recreation area.
We had a blast. There are so many
places to explore near the property, the Grand
Canyon. We took a boat ride on the
colorado a river below Hoover dam.
Boulder city was a fun little town.
That's right off route 66,
and, of course, we had to enjoy some
nightlife in Las Vegas.
It's a lifetime supply of fun things to
do when you own a camp at wind
acres.
The properties are now available.
This is 100
percent ownership, so there's no reservations needed when
you wanna hang out. Time limits or crowded
parks that you have to go through, you
can share your property. You can rent it.
Whatever you wanna do.
For more information. Visit
Arizona ranch sales dot com, or call 822232
land
Welcome back it's time now for the Rv
conversation of the week. And 1 question we
see often. On our social media platforms is,
why is it so hard to plan an
Rv trip?
Can't I find someone to just plan for
me? And today, we'd like to talk to
you about a great tool that greatly simplifies
trip planning, and even learns from your likes
and your dislikes, remembering everything from the type
of campground rounds, you prefer the amount you
like to drive a day The size of
your rig, things you like to see and
do and much bore. Our guest is Scott
Lang,
the chairman and Ceo of Adventure Genie and
app that helps you plan the perfect Rv
trip using Ai.
We had Scott on our program when adventure
Genie was just launching
more than a year ago, and we've been
watching the startup up ever since
and thought we'd bring that bet to catch
up on all things
adventure Genie.
Welcome back to the show Scott.
Great to be back here again. So for
those who may have missed the first time
you were on the podcast. Maybe you could
talk a little bit about,
your background and how you came up with
this whole idea for,
adventure genie. So after about 35 years in
the tech industry, most recent Lee with Microsoft
as a Cto in 1 of their divisions.
I retired in 20 17.
And with my wife Lisa. We started to
see a little bit more of the world
to explore the sights and sounds and smells
and cultures from the world around us.
That was our plan. Our plan was working
quite well for a couple of years until
we all know what happened with the pandemic.
Which met no more planes trains and, even
automobiles were a little bit weird.
And
after
several years,
friends of ours who had been big in
the Rv industry had been pest us to
go rv being with them. It honestly was
never a desire for. So we hadn't been
camping or rv being our entire life, but
we were pandemic babies. We we went out.
We went on a trip with them to
Nashville. It was 1 of the best trips
we ever had in our lives. We fell
in love with the lifestyle
We ordered and bought a a new Rv
from up in forest City, Iowa, so you
might know who that is. Picked it up
about 6 months later.
And drove it back home to South Carolina
where we live. We did some local travels.
It was easy, and then my wife lisa
had this brainstorm to go on a 6
week trip to the Nash parks of the
southwest,
and that's when it became way more complicated.
And we learned how hard it was
to plan a compelling journey across the Us,
finding places to go, things to see places
to stay, thing and things that do.
And that, of course, was the birth of
adventure Genie,
describe how it works, and then we'll catch
up on what has changed in the last
year and particularly
how Ai is is making things so much
easier
and and I think you can kinda help
us out. But start with how it works.
Sure, Mate. So
what we found in planning our own trips
in and checking the forums and the channels,
yourselves included. What we found was the way
that most people were planning their Rv trips,
and we found it through the the forums
and the groups and the chats and
material from folks like your self was that
people go through 3 phases. First, they shaped
their trip going from point a to point
b,
For us, we live in South Carolina. So
often we would say, we're going from bluff
into Asheville to Nashville, and then, let's say
to yellowstone or or Out to Arches National
Park. And we needed help in finding the
spots along the way that we're good driving
distance that had a good concentration of campground
rounds that were a good fit for us.
So that's shaping your trip. And we actually
give our users several ways to do it.
Ranging from going from point a to point
b to point c to just throwing out
an open ended query that says, I'd like
to take a trip
from
Virginia Beach down to key west and stop
at all the beach towns along the way.
So that's shaping your trip.
Number 2 is we give you through Ai
great
recommendations on campground rounds that are a good
fit for, let's say, Mike and Jennifer.
And
we will we will give you, like, top
3 pick of campground rounds because we know
what you like in a campground, what you
don't care about in a campground and things
you absolutely want to avoid in a campground.
So for each campground round that we make
a recommendation for you will give an Ai
generated summary based on this technology we call
sentiment
analysis. So it's the overly overlay sentiment
that we're learning, our software is learning about
each campground that we're that we're learning about
and we'll give it a score. And most
importantly,
we'll give it a percent likelihood
that it will be a good match for
you. So you might look at a rating
of a campground of 79,
say that's pretty good, but with a 93
percent certainty,
we will predict that it's that you are
going to like this campground.
Mike. And finally, the third phase of the
trip planning is things to do. Because we
know that you like to go hiking and
biking and walk your dogs, and we will
make specific
recommendations at your destination and along the way
for things
for you to do. So we do all
that research for you. We make the recommendations
for you. We put it into a trip
planner with an itinerary
with dates and everything else. So we do
the hard work and then let you have
fun on your trip.
So
talk about the Ai part of this. Now,
you've been,
well over a year into this,
how far has Ai come in terms of
helping our ears in that year's period.
And then based on that, where are we
gonna be in another year. Yeah. And it's
kinda funny because when we started developing
adventure Genie, Ai was just starting to pick
up a little bit in the mainstream.
We know that it's been around for decades
literally since like the 19 fifties and 19
sixties and always has been, like just within
our grasp, but Ai is coming. Ai is
coming. And there's actually a fair amount of
fear about what is Ai is it gonna
take over our world. And what we found
over the past couple of years is that
Ai is good and cool and helpful and
makes
recommendations and does the work for you and
kind of acts as your copilot.
Sitting alongside you, making
recommendations. It's with the advent of things like
like bing chat and open Ais chat Gp.
The end user is able to do very
simple queries
in these in these, Ai
conversational Ai systems.
But it doesn't put it into a context
of anything for you. We take all of
that and put it into a context of
a trip of a of an adventure of
an itinerary. So all the things that you
could... It's still not easy to use using
chat Gp,
but with with our Ai system lever the
best of the best Ai models out there.
We pull it all together, put it into
a single system. There's really 2 ways we
look at it. 1 is through. They call
it generative Ai. So create me a trip
that looks like this. That's generative Ai. The
next 1 is a conversational Ai, and that's
where it's going in Adventure Genie, and we're
actually releasing. We're preview some software
next
week at the time of this taping. That
will allow you to say, oh, thank you
for creating that great tip drip. Now add
a stop in Ama, Texas.
Or find me a great campground in the
keys, and you just do it completely in
English language without having to point and click
and find your menu items and do all
that's where we're heading with it. We currently
cover the lower 48
very well.
We also include Alaska,
And, of course, to get from the lower
48 to Alaska back, you have to go
through Canada. So we do the routing through
Canada.
And we have baseline campground grounds in Canada.
But,
admittedly, our campground brown database in Canada is
still up and coming. We actually don't even,
really announce or advertise, I should say that
we support Canada, but the reality is that
we do. So whatever you see today with
the richness and robustness of what we're doing
in the lower 48 and Alaska,
you will see it coming really soon in
Canada as well.
Scott, we, are are impressed with what you
have.
Tell us a little bit about the last
year. You run a couple of awards.
I'm hearing more and more people
talking about how handy and how easy it
is to operate.
Yeah. Over the past year, we've continued to
evolve the product every 3 weeks, literally, Mike
every 3 weeks we're releasing new software or
not sitting aisle by we're constantly evolving our
algorithms
and adding new features like the conversational,
personal Genie we call it that will be
releasing
shortly.
The other big thing that we're pretty proud
of is we've established a couple of key
partnerships in the industry. And what it has
allowed us to do is to become the
first and only
adventure travel plan or targeted at the Rv
viewers that lets you go from renting an
Rv
through our partnership with Rv share
to planning the trip to booking a site
with immediate availability,
checking on immediate availability,
with our partner spot tonight. So with these
2 big partnerships that we now have directly
integrated in our software you can go from
renting, to planning to booking
fully end to end, we've had a couple
of great
accolades
recently.
Honestly, over the past year, every month, if
not more frequently, someone is writing about us,
and we're not going to them. They're just
writing articles about us. Go rv rated us
as 1 of the top 11 trip planning
apps for the Rv.
A couple of months ago. And there's a
publication known as Travel Ai hub. They rated
us 1 of the top 4 Ai based
trip planners in the world, not just for
Rv. It's 1 of the top 4 Ai
based trip planners in the world.
We've been written up in, business insider in
Forbes and Cnbc.
So, yeah, we're
it's been an active
you're really, really exciting and we have great
plans there... Tell people,
if they're interested,
how can they get a get more information
about this, see how it works
the different plans that you have?
To subscribe to adventure Genie were just to
play around with it, go to Adventure, Genie,
dot com. And we have a basic free
plan that lets you do a lot of
things
including getting full access to our our Campground
brown database, some curated trips, prep plan trips
that we have for you, and It let
you play around with a little bit of
all of the Ai capabilities. That's up absolutely
free. And our professional plan, which you can
subscribe to at 9 dollars and 99 cents
a month or 49 dollars and 99 cents
and a year will give you complete full
access to the entire suite of applications, full
Ai
end to end trip planning. Oh, and we
have a 30 day free trial on that
1. Too.
Amazing to watch how technologies can take those
different stress sores that affect us all. We're
trying to get from point a to, and
you guys have done a great job.
Thanks for update, and we'll probably check back
with you on a regular basis as we
watch
everything get better.
Thanks a lot. Mike great chatting with you
again and be safe out there on the
road.
Well, I'm a big fan of adventure genie,
and it's it's so interesting to see how
they have just narrowed it down, and
every time you use it,
it it tailor
it's this this results it gives you to
what you have indicated before your preferences,
I think we're gonna use it to plan
our trip out to the Maritime
later on, and then our trip back, we'll
we'll use it as well. So it should
be pretty good. Alright. When we come back,
the Rv news of the week. Stay with
this.
Jennifer and I bought some land near Nashville
Tennessee a while, back. We got tired of
crowded expensive campground and worrying about reservations.
Tennessee is a gorgeous state with friendly people.
And it has been such a pleasure. The
same developer has some new property near us
close to the Natchez trace and Buffalo River.
Called the reserve at High forest.
Big properties, 5 to 41 acres. You can
build a house, a cabin or Rv year
round.
Prices started only 89900
dollars. Your property, your way 100 percent ownership.
The scenery in this part of Tennessee is
breathtaking
and the property is gorgeous,
garden, landscape.
Bring your pets, build what you want. There's
high speed fiber optic Internet, and it is
so private.
A great place to make your home base
ready whenever you wanted,
5 to 41 acre properties from 89900
dollars.
There's even great financing.
Check out the site and a video tour
at rv lands dot net. That's rv lands
dot net.
I time now for the news of the
week. And this summer is the best time
and a long time to buy an Rv
says the Wall Street Journal,
noting high interest rates and excessive
inventory.
Both new and used. The newspaper says consumers
have
way more negotiating power than they've had and
almost a decade,
the story cited thor industries, the world's largest
Rv
manufacturer.
T school third quarter sales were down by
40 percent. And earnings per share were down
by 2 thirds.
We've seen,
it play out as we travel and visit
Rv dealerships. Their lots are filled with un
soul 20 24 models. And the 20 20
fives are in a few months.
So there's a lot of deal making going
on. The same holds true for those looking
to buy a used vehicle.
The wall street journal noted that the number
of used units listed for sale on rv
d trader dot com is more than twice
as high as during the period of peak
demand during the Covid boom a couple of
years ago. Yeah. We were at some dealerships
last week and,
we were asking, you know, what the Ms
msrp is,
and we were just surprised what kind of
deals they were offering.
I mean, it was just a couple of
years ago during Covid that Rv dealers were
charging
Msrp plus in some cases.
I don't ever agree with that, but that's
what they were doing. And
now the the pricing, the deals were pretty
pretty amazing. So
It's also pretty amazing. How about this?
There's some good news because gas and diesel
prices are down again. I paid 3 dollars
and 26
cents a gallon for diesel today filling up.
And the gas price is now at about
03:48.
So diesel is actually now again cheaper than
gas.
It hadn't been that way for the last
several years.
But gas at 03:48.
That is down 8 cents from what it
was the week before.
And it's the largest weekly drop of the
year.
Diesel prices around the country, pretty much the
same as gas or often cheaper,
the experts. Are predicting. This is gonna get
even better with many states seeing un unlimited
regular gas,
they think going for under 3 dollars a
gallon in just a a few weeks. Why?
Well what year is this?
It's 20 24, a presidential election year
and high gas prices are the bend and
butter issue with a lot of voters,
and there's enough of regions out there in
our culture these days to be disgruntled things
going wrong.
So you can be sure that elected officials
are putting a lot of pressure
And everybody they can, oil producers oil companies
or the states you know, who tax gasoline
to keep fuel prices down.
Now you think I'm being too cynical, but
you do. Well, withhold your judgment, asking me
that back in, after November,
come back after those elections because I will
bet you anything. The prices are gonna go
right back up then. Now I know seasonal
blends do have some effect on pricing.
But politics
believe me as a journalist of over 40
years experience, politics has an even bigger
role to play in the pricing.
So the bottom lines is, we can enjoy
those lower fuel prices this summer,
and I'm not gonna complain.
And this is something interesting.
If you're planning on going to Zion National
Park and you got a bit of a
long Rv, listen up.
Zion National Park has... You know, it's long
been plagued by too many vehicles,
massive traffic jams and not nearly enough parking.
They've tried lots of things,
timed entry, permits,
more buses.
Now they have a new idea.
Don't let Rv in.
Starting in 20 26,
Zion will no longer permit large vehicles like
campers and buses to travel through the east
entrance of the park.
Vehicles taller than 11 feet and 4 inches
and wider than 7 feet
and,
10 inches will have to travel around the
park to the west entrance, adding up to
an hour of transit time. Any vehicle longer
than 35 feet and 9 inches will also
be forced to drive own.
The new plan is designed to make the
roads safer,
especially through the zion mount carmel tunnel. That
is a narrow tunnel. Yeah. It really is.
That tunnel was
designed more than a hundred years ago. And
at that, at the time that it was
developed vehicles were much smaller than they are
today, allowing them to safely make passage.
So through time, vehicles sizes have grown to
be incompatible with the tunnel size.
And Park officials say those tunnel escort happen
in about 50 times per day
and create massive traffic jams.
By keeping big Rv out of there, park
officials are hoping the congestion will ease. Yeah.
That is
it be interesting.
Now,
Zion probably is the most congested of all
of our nash optional parks just because the
way it's laid out
in the terrain.
But I bet this is an idea that
you're gonna see in other places,
because some
I mean, some of those Rv, there's big
class a diesel push are pulling, you know,
cars behind them. They're bigger than semi trucks,
you know? So
I bet this this goes on elsewhere. Interesting
thanks. I... It's gonna catch on. Alright. And
me come back a couple of your Rv
questions.
Stay with us. When we're asked, what's the
most important
modification we made to our Rv, it's an
easy answer. Battle borne batteries. Battle borne batteries
are quality safe, reliable lithium batteries
that allow us to stay out there all
the grid longer.
Lithium the batteries charge faster. They charge fuller
they're longer lasting their maintenance free. And battle
borne batteries are protected by a 10 year
guarantee.
Now in our case, they just drop into
the existing Ag g batteries that we have,
and they'll probably be the same on your
rig too. Valve battery experts can get those
in your rig just like they dead with
ours. They can also match you up with
the right cabling, the inverter, the charger, the
solar controller everything.
Jennifer
swear by our battle borne batteries. They allow
us to boo dock off the grid, check
them out. Go to rv lifestyle dot com
slash lithium. Rb lifestyle dot com slash lithium.
Welcome back time now for the Rv questions
of the week, and
we wanna remind you that we do love
getting your questions. We love your comments, anything
you've heard in the podcast today that you
wanna comment at or question, send them to
us at mike and jen at rv lifestyle
dot com. That's our our personal email. And
if you send us a question or comment,
chances are, we'll answer it. Right here, on
the podcast.
Alright. This first question is for you, my
dear. Okay.
It's sure isn't for me. And let me
just read this thing. It says We're on
a long trip west, and we stopped for
some photos along the way, and I was
shocked,
how bad I looked.
Granted, showers have been a couple of days
apart and sleep has not been the best,
traveling can be hard. She says.
But I look terrible in the photos with
my family.
How does Jennifer stay looking so good all
the time.
I know your travel schedule is even more
hectic. So
beauty tip time, Jennifer,
How do I look, good and fresh and
reasonably attractive when the road is taking its
toll on me.
Please share your secrets
and this from Darcy. I never figured I'd
be asked a question like this, and this
just makes me chuckle.
Well, what I could say is that a
good night's sleep is so important.
I mean, our sleeping in a different van
every night this a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah. It you just don't get the sleep
that you need.
And
sleep is very important don't feel wicked if
you sleep in or you need your sleep,
you need sleep.
And you you get pussy when you don't
get that rate amount of sleep and it
terrible enemy is eating out. You know, you're
starving to death and you grab some fast
food or even food, and just about every
restaurant out there. There's too much salt.
In the food and salt makes you retain
fluid, and that's not good for you.
But if you're really desperate.
Put out a hat,
you know, if if you... Because if you
really boom docking and you can't plug in
your hair dryer to maybe
get your hair a little moist and then,
you know, use the hair dryer to try
to make it look fresher or some product
to make like my hair is kinda naturally
wavy and kind of a mess and I
just put product in it and make it
more of a mess Like this typically.
Yeah. I just kinda mess it up. And
it's supposed to look this way. This is
this is the look.
So hair product hacks,
eyes.
Sunglasses.
If possible put on some sunglasses or maybe
some makeup
and a product that was recommended to me
many years ago, which I really like it's
lan,
and it's a night product that you put
on to just make your face
better.
And I try to use that every night.
I mean, the lack of estrogen as you
age
takes its toll upon a woman.
So... And I leave the estrogen in your
camp, whatever you wanna do. I had an
Ob g once in of my classes tell
me whatever you do.
Take a little estrogen, but, you know, that's
a whole can of worms. I don't wanna
open.
So,
the sunglasses, the hat, the product,
try not to try to make wise choices
when you eat out. Even though I will
say, don't put me extra salt on this
that or whatever that I'm ordering.
Man, I eat out, you know, the next
day My
I'm home and I weigh myself. My weights
have a counter or 2 because I eaten
out.
They just what they do to our food
and try to make healthy choices, but lack
sleep. Doesn't doesn't driving for, in a car
a long time. Doesn't that and yeah fluid
retention because I noticed, you know, like my
ankles and like, even like my wing will
get really tight. Mh. When I've been driving
and you kinda like puff up. Yeah. And,
like, trying to get you to stop and
run around the car a couple times you
get some exercise. You know, you I'm like
that. When When I'm driving, I wanna stop
because all those cars aren't past are gonna
pass me, and then I gotta pass them
again.
So we gotta get out there and we
gotta move around and why I I liked
a b
or a c
or, I guess an, a, motor home was
and get up and walk back and forth
as the driver is crazy and won't stop.
But moving around.
So I... Don't be so hard on yourself.
And also to make yourself feel fresh.
If you're in the hospital, they have different
wipes that they used freshen you up a
bit,
so,
get some of those and freshen yourself up
a bit so that you feel more perk.
Like can I honestly say,
this is a question that I absolutely known
nothing about? So...
I think that
I... Like, I can't sleep if my feet
are clean.
That's crazy.
So I I have deaf clean feet to
sleep, but now we're talking about taking pictures.
So
light.
Some light is horrible, then it doesn't help
at all. In fact, we had somebody come
up
to both of us. We were at Rv
show. They said, you look better in person
than on camera. And I,
you know, because I'm always saying to Mike,
We gotta be careful with the light. So...
Too much light, direct light on you. You
know, you wanna somewhat back or off the
line but... Because some light can really make
you look terrible. But I think we're talking
about messy hair and, circles under the eyes
and a puff ness. Alright, Darcy. I hope
that helps you, become as beautiful as you...
So are we gonna add outside. Tips every
week from Jonathan. No more tips from jennifer.
And I tuned out about half for you
okay.
Alright. Next question. This 1
I can get a little bit.
Most of the 01:10 outlets in our trailer
are not working. We're plugged into shore power,
none of the breakers fuses are blown. What
do Way check? Okay.
That comes from Jack, by the way. And,
Jack, the best thing is to go through
your trailer and look for an outlet
that either has a little sticker or somehow
designated
as AGC
protected outlet. That stands for ground, fault circuit
interrupt.
And it's required,
plugs or receptacle, you know, like receptacle in
a, that's in a location where... Yeah. I
know that could be exposed to water like
a sink or a faucet.
Or outside of the trailer, even sometimes in
the storage bin.
And what has probably happened in your case
is 1 of those G ci outlets have
tripped.
And,
not all of them have a reset button
because they're tied altogether on the same general
circuit. So if 1 of them
up to train kinda goes out and the
G sci
resets,
they're all dead. So you wanna look for
1 that has a little
reset button.
And most of them, if it's not working
we'll have a little light with it.
And usually a little gold light or a
red light that indicates it's not working right.
If it has a green light that usually
means it's good, but not all of them
have a light, but they all have a
little button. That's usually a little square button,
and you can just push it in with
the ball pan or the your finger tip.
Try resetting that. I am betting that you
will find that most of the G ci
outlets,
have a bunch of other outlets connected to
them in your case and you find the
1 that needs to be reset and they'll
all work. So click the button,
Why did trip?
I, it... Something could have bumped it.
2... I have 1, for example, in the
past few storage of our montana. And every
now and then, something will come across, and
it'll just it'll just hit it just right,
You know, if I have it loaded with
things floating around in there, which I shouldn't
do. But
it's happened.
But a lot of things could have caused
that maybe too many appliances were plugged into
the outlet, maybe running the air condition thinner
and somebody uses a hair dryer.
It could have sensed moisture.
Sometimes,
it... It's even just as a matter of
too much humidity and it sense too much
moisture.
If it does keep tripping
all the time,
then you better have it checked by electrician,
but I'm betting. If you just hit that
little button, that's all that it is.
That was a lot easier than the beauty
question. I I made it too long. No.
I went off on bunny trails, like I
always do. I'm sure He'll like it.
Alright. This is our new feature that we
have had a lot of great feedback with.
I hope we don't run out of stories,
but story time. We need little music.
Story time with my
and Jen. We need a little 1 green.
Yeah dream time.
Alright. So this is probably our most,
embarrassing
and costly
mistake, and let me just say right off
the bat,
I own it.
Okay.
Because
I did not listen to you when you
said... Let me get out and help you
park. Yes. And, Mike was
backing into a parking spot. Well, let's set
the stage because that was was not just
any parking spot. Oh We were in Tampa,
Florida,
at the Florida Rv super Show. It was
a brand new rate. This was our first
long distance trip in our fifth wheel. It
backing up parking too. It?
I think I backed up you know, a
little bit here and there, But this was
a this was a tough 1. That all
the rigs were very close. It was narrow.
The guy just sort of abandoned me that
drove me into it.
So
I I looked and
we were camped with all the other
media, Rv
Youtube influencers, and we know most of them,
and they're all watching.
They're all watching. I I don't they were
all. They were watching. Trust me. They're all
sitting there going, okay. We're gonna watch this.
So I'm very... Well the next time you
parked a group like that, they were all
watching. I know gonna do to entertain them.
But anyway,
you said,
let me get out and help you. And
why I said I can do this.
I have no idea. Because that's kind of
the way kinda guy you are. I can
do this. I thought I could. It's good
to have confidence.
So... Well,
in this that is. So I started
I started to back
in, and I got it somewhat regular. I
bought it out, you know, you... And it
was really tight.
And obviously, I'm really cranking it.
And I'm cranking it's so hard
that we hear this massive
crack.
We did. And bow was on my lap.
It was that see when this happened. But
in a second, that dog
could jump. The crack was the front
corner of the fifth wheel, which was cranked
at such an angle to our car
that it smashed out
our entire
rear window. Gladys everywhere. Just exploded.
Fortunately, it's that safety glass, so it's... It
wasn't bad. Nobody got cut.
But how bow a 70 pound dog could
leap from the back of that pickup truck
onto your lap. I don't know, but
he did. I was worried we'd never get
him back in that trunk. And of course,
word
spread.
Through the campground,
what I had done. I'm gonna sell pot
it. The next time we have to
park some place. Yeah. You probably could some
shares out.
And everybody was great. They all came and
he they offered us their shop backs, but
felt so embarrassed.
And, you know, the truth was, I did
not listen to my wife.
So the lesson is, listen to your wife,
but the lesson is get help when you're
backing up.
And
we now do that. And there's a couple
ways you can do it with Walkie talkie.
We have those you can do it with
cell phones,
you know, I... We prefer doing it with
just hand signals.
Stop. Stop. Yeah.
Instead of going... You know, now we have
signals, you know, this way, this way. Instead
it going. Yeah.
It's good.
Alright. That is our story contest. So Most
about what's you're most embarrassing and costly mistake.
I can't be the only 1 who does
stupid things out there. Well, somebody came out
and said they pop their window 2 and
there.
Truck. Yep. They didn't know. They're just trying
to make me feel good. But, alright. That's
the story of the week. That's the end
of the podcast. I still have embarrassed telling
that 1.
But, you know, they say that therapy is
good in admitting your mistakes. So hopefully that
won't happen again.
Thank you guys so much for watching. We'd
love to hear from you. Use our personal
email to reach us with your questions or
your comments. It's mike and jen at rv
lifestyle dot com. Thank you all so much
for watching. Happy trails.