WHY, PERHAPS, YOU SHOULD NOT SELL EVERYTHING AND MOVE INTO AN RV. (BUT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY DO SOMETHING...)

(Beware of things that go bump in the night… or in the day)

It was Thursday, August 27, 2020, 3pm. The heat was peaking on one of the hottest days of summer. Once again, I found myself on my back on superheated black asphalt. Moments prior it had happened – a huge thump – causing fear and PTSD in each of us. We looked at each other terrified. I stopped what I was doing and ran down the retractable steps of the Traveling Time Machine – the 26,000 pound, 38 foot RV we had set out in just 4 days prior.

The outside temperature was in excess of 95 degrees and the high humidity led to a “real feel” metric above 100 degrees leading to immediate sweating from all my pores. I looked at the rear hydraulic lifts – they were fine – partially retracted, ready to return to their upright and locked position. Then I lay down near the front of the RV and saw it: the shiny cylindrical steel tube connected to the “foot” of the front right hydraulic lift – but I could not see the foot because it had punched through the asphalt and was wedged 12 inches below the surface, unable to retract.  

I rolled over and returned inside, tiny pieces of gravel sticking to the sweat on my back and arms. “We are screwed – we are not going anywhere, maybe ever,” I announced a bit melodramatically. “Oh dear, what now?” Jordan asked frowning.

“When I was lowering our leveling hydraulic lifters, the right front hydraulic punched through the asphalt and is now wedged a foot below the surface and is now stuck.  We can’t move, we can’t be towed, we are anchored to this driveway. We are never leaving here.”

We sat down to deliberate our options and one of us said it again, “Can’t we please have just one day without some kind of catastrophe?” This was only day 4. 

It is NOT a vacation – it IS an expedition:

Traveling in an RV full time, unfortunately, is fraught with risk, uncertainty, and the propensity for something to go wrong. In hindsight it makes sense. Imagine taking your current house, condo, or apartment with all its tubes and wires (and careful notes), plumbing, heating, air conditioning, plates and glasses, cabinets and furniture, refrigerator, freezer, drawers and closets, fuses, breaker boxes, stove, oven, gas, electric, toilets and plumbing and throwing them on top of a Freightliner Truck Chassis and 300HP Cummins Turbo Diesel with fuel and propane and a generator and gas suspension and brakes and hydraulics and fluids and then setting out at high speeds across bumpy roads weighing in excess of 13 tons. For sure sh*# will go down. Things will fail, things will fall, cabinets will open, bottles will break, fluids will leak and perhaps, just perhaps, you’ll have an unintentional yard sale.  

Days prior to our first official stop with Gary and Monica in Lake Geneva, my daughter and I set out on an inaugural test run in the RV. Kat and I headed 3 hours to the beaches of West Michigan excited to camp overnight at a Harvest Host vineyard and to run down the dunes of Lake Michigan and go for a swim. We pulled out of our parking lot by my condo, just a few days before our move-out date and headed toward the highway. A sudden loud “thump” intruded on our excitement. “What was that?!” She said. I looked around – all the bins inside were closed. Perhaps, I thought, it was just the shifting of things in storage or the fridge. I kept driving. We made a left. A sudden sliding sound and another deep thump. We both looked around and I said, “pretty sure everything is battened down – no idea what that is… can’t be good though.” And then the next thump… and then another. At this point I slowed and decided to look in the large rear-view mirrors – to discover that our largest storage bin underneath the RV was wide open – its narrow metal profile slicing through the wind, capable of decapitating anyone I might have passed too closely on the right. I stopped, flashers on and Kat went out. “Nothing left in there…” she said. We had had a yard sale for the last 2 miles of about a dozen items – chairs, camp table, tools, kitchen table, ladder, umbrellas.” I searched for a place to turn around and pulled into a parking lot with a rather steep incline. As I backed out there was a huge scraping sound and then another thump and then we suddenly lurched to stop – no brakes involved. I jumped out and ran out into the street where I was now blocking traffic in both directions. The trailer hitch had wedged itself into the asphalt due to the steep incline while we were backing out. Sweating, I ran back inside and pulled forward to the tune of a hideous moaning of steel on asphalt making the RV shudder. Slowly we pulled away extricating our anchor from the asphalt. After waiting for the traffic to clear and we took a careful new angle out and managed to escape the driveway to go collect our belongings, Kat repeatedly darting out of the RV into the busy street, returning with each item. Eventually, we recovered everything we lost except our camp table – still new in the box – gone forever to some enterprising quick scavenger…\

There is a lot to remember to avoid catastrophe…

Six weeks after our first yard-sale, we were leaving South Dakota, descending from a lovely pair of days boondocking and bike riding in the Black Hills when the frantic honking started. A car next to us was waving, honking, and flashing its lights, pointing… creating immediate PTSD. Sure-enough the main bin was open AGAIN, despite our tight 2-person double-checking procedure invoked back in Wisconsin. I pulled aside and sure enough, almost everything was gone out of our largest bin except my OneWheel (which would have been a total disaster.) We made an ugly multi-part U-turn and retraced our steps for 30 miles. Nothing that we could see on the other side of the highway, so we U-turned again, and still found nothing. All of it gone, forever. My bike helmet, the kitchen table (again!), my presentation projector, my LED lights, some tools – all strewn across the apron of an unnamed highway in South Dakota. We resumed our journey toward our next stop - a winery - and just moments after we passed our original U-turn spot, I noticed something in the rearview mirror - something shiny bouncing out on the tarmac. I said, “I think we just lost a hubcap, again.” So, we stopped, and Jordan ran out and dodged traffic to collect the hubcap and decorative bolt covers.

 All these delays put us well behind our schedule – we try to make sure we never park after dark – but sure enough, we arrived at our next Harvest Host Winery stay in Nebraska well after sunset. Following the directions on where to park, we found ourselves winding down a very narrow pine-tree lined lane where we were instructed to make a right turn into a parking lot to check-in. As I made the right turn the screeching of the pine branches scraping the roof turned to a different louder, duller scraping as the RV rocked. “That can’t be good,” I announced. Sure enough, hidden behind the pines was a metal fence post that dented several of our storage bins and left ugly deep scrapes in the paint all along the rear of the RV. I was sick to my stomach. I said that old refrain again, “can’t we just have one day without something going wrong, for once?!”

It is all a part of it… the uncertainty breeds excitement, and… you get better at it.

I am writing now 3 months later from Las Vegas. We are alive, safe, and after a few repairs, the RV is almost as good as new. We have had extended periods without any incidents, but they do still come. Like the time we heard coyotes howling at Hartmann Rocks in Colorado and we discovered Kiki (our cat) had jumped out of an open window, his eyes luminous 100 yards away in our headlamps about to become prey. Or the time we almost ran out of gas after a rather remote stay with a Harvest Host winery in Paso Robles, followed by passing a burning wreck of another RV just moments later (see the first photo of this post). Or the time we stopped for water at a “regular” gas station for cars, that did not have the 15’ overhangs of a truck stop, and when pulling out, I hit the overhang, gouged the roof and nearly popped the whole endcap off the RV:

Or this one, the first of a category we call “refrigerator incidents.”

We were about a month into the trip. Things had stabilized enough that I then made the fateful mistake of saying, “nothing bad has happened for days.” We were at a truck stop fueling up and I decided to pour myself a cold glass of Coke Zero while I waited for the 80-gallon fuel tank to fill up. I opened the fridge. An unopened 2 liter of Coke Zero tumbled from the top shelf. I attempted to save it, but it fell all the way to land upon my octagonal 35 lb free weight that happened to be there below. The 2-liter hit perfectly on the convex surface of the neck, creating a tiny puncture wound. The shaking of driving combined with the 5-foot fall and the tiny opening created a Mentos worthy explosive moment. Brown carbonated liquid sprayed out the upper side of the bottle and it careened about as I attempted to grab it. In less than 10 seconds it managed to spray dark brown liquid over the entire length of the 38’ RV – the spotless white bedroom with its white bedspread and white pillows, the entire white paneled wood ceiling dripping brown stalactites, the couch, the settee, the light gray floors, the white wall sconces, the white window treatments – all coated, all dripping with Coke Zero. What took 10 seconds to take place took 40 minutes for the two of us to clean up. This later happened again with a mango lemonade and a few other less messy items. Now we open the fridge like there is a bomb about to go off – because it might.

All that aside, let’s return to the beginning of the trip, and eventually that fateful day, day 4, in Wisconsin: 

We were exhausted. This will sound surprising given my athletic background but selling everything and moving into a tiny new space is absolutely exhausting. Getting rid of all your personal belongs is not only logistically challenging (think of a never-ending series of taking photos, posting things up for sale on multiple sites, answering questions, taking calls, meeting someone that may or may not show up, negotiating, carrying heavy objects (or boxing and shipping)) but also the psychic toll of making decisions on whether to part with things to which you have an emotional attachment. Ultimately many of the things I had emotional attachments to I decided were not actually sacred… but… many that were not particularly monetarily valuable were also things that I did NOT want to end up in a landfill. Lots of those items went to Goodwill, but others, like team USA gear, bags, jackets, and uniforms – as well as old trophies from world cups and other competitions – were donated to the local speedskating club. Two of the belongings that were the hardest to part with belongings were 1) one of my earliest race-bikes, a 1968 Schwinn Paramount that was already retro-cool when I raced it more than a decade later when I was 13 and 14, and 2) my 1987 BMW 325i convertible that I had purchased 27 years prior in 1994 with the $10,000 given to me for winning an Olympic silver medal. Part of me felt that that car was a part of me…

Friends offered to store her for free and drive her lightly so I could keep her, but in the end, I decided to sell her as well to a young man who was going to restore her to her full glory. And so it went, gone was the motorcycle, the vintage Bentley, all the furniture, 9 bikes, furniture and gear. I did keep my vintage audio (Kef 105.3’s and 104.2’s, Hsu subwoofers) and our giant COVID couch bought just months prior but almost everything else went.

The last few days before departure:

We were running out of time and the apartment was still cluttered with boxes and odds and ends. The last few days were 15 hours a day filled with a zombie apocalypse-like traverse to-and-from the condo carrying poorly sealed boxes down the stairs going to one of 4 destinations: 1) The trash 2) Goodwill 3) the RV or 4) our 10X10 storage unit.

Those boxes seemed to get progressively heavier and bigger and the last couple of days I physically took a beating carrying them. Between opening and closing a minimum of 5 doors to transport them (apartment, inner lobby, outer lobby, car door or trunk pt. 1, car or trunk door pt. 2 – then RV door or storage unit door or Goodwill door…) my shins and forearms became more and more bruised and scraped. The final item was my 110 lb safe which I carried down, loaded into the trunk, unloaded from the trunk, and carried into the storage unit, its metal edges digging into all my soft tissues. By the time we made it to Monica and Gary’s place she could not quite hold back, “Jeez! You’re so bruised you look like a heroin addict,” and then her father who piled on telling her, after seeing me, “Your business partner, wow, he’s aged a lot in the last couple of years.”

The other hard part - finding things:

Near the end of our move, Jordan read on an RV site something like this, “If you are going to move full time into an RV, you’ll need about a year to plan, pack, sell, organize and prepare.” I bought the RV July 16, arrived home July 20th  and we moved out August 23rd. We had 4.5 weeks to sell everything and organize our new home. Guess what went out the window? Organizing the new home. Near the end we just stuffed things into the RV wherever they would fit. Of the 300 objects in the RV, I probably knew where 10 were at any given time. When we went kayaking with Monica’s father, I had not shaved in over a week – I simply had no idea where my razor was. Combine that with exhaustion, poor diet (we had to eat out most of the final days), no sunshine, and voila – I was briefly a tired old man.

Back to the start – Lake Geneva, August 24 – 27

We ended up leaving a full day after my official move-out date – I just wasn’t ready in time. However, the new tenants were not due for a few more days so it was not a problem. Finally, we were getting on the road. That said, I, who am almost never tired was too exhausted to be excited. In hindsight, it probably was that fact that I had oral surgery 3 days before we left to fix a broken tooth and was on some pain medications. I don’t take Advil or Tylenol – ever – but I needed to control swelling and bleeding, so I suspect these medications were to blame. Later Jordan observed, “It is the only time I can ever remember you saying, “I am tired.” It was only a 2-hour drive to Lake Geneva but I was ready to sleep when we arrived early in the evening and we did a terrible job of pretending to be sociable. As we readied for an early bedtime, we leveled the RV using the hydraulic levelers, and then I tried to push out the main room’s slide-out. Nothing happened. I tried it again. Nothing. I called Trevor (previous owner) to double-check our steps and we had done everything right. So, we called for a mobile technician who showed up an hour later. Both of us laid down under the back of the RV sweating on the still-hot asphalt and he showed me the problem, “the motor is blown – out has to be replaced – I ran electric power directly to it and it did not respond.”

So… on the first day of the trip, we lost our main living space. The next day, as well called RV repair shop after another we received a consistent answer due to CO-19, “we are booked up for 2 months straight – we can schedule you for late October”. And then, “Oh, and we don’t have this part anyway, you’ll have to call the manufacturer.” We called and their answer was, “well we don’t carry that anymore – we can make you a new one but that will take 8-10 weeks.” So, one of the primary features of this large RV – the slide-out in the main room was constricted to a narrow passage where Jordan and I would have to shimmy past each other for the next 3 months! Frustrated we resigned ourselves to the limited space.

The next day we began the process of re-organizing, sitting outside crouched under the bins in the heat trying to figure out where things should go. It took us two full days to organize the RV and once again we were so exhausted that our social skills were limited and we went to bed very early.

That night, August 25th, our second night in the RV one of the strongest storms to ever hit Wisconsin rolled through around midnight. The lightning was striking all around, the thunder was shaking the RV, the wind gusts of 40+ mph were rocking us despite our hydraulic lifts being down, and then the large pea gravel sized hail started. It sounded like we were being shot at – like being in a giant tin can being used for shooting practice. Jordan was terrified and couldn’t sleep. The storm lasted 4 hours!

Over the next two days we slowly decompressed and became better neighbors to Gary and Monica and then it was time for us to head on to our next stop. I will now return to the moment where the hydraulic lift had punched through the asphalt of their cul-de-sac, a chrome Achilles’ heel tethering us to our very first stop on our 6-month journey.

After deliberating for a bit, I said, “I have an idea. “If I re-fill the air suspension, we should raise up about 8 inches, which might be enough to pull the hydraulic lift out of the hole.” I headed to the driver’s seat,  flipped the switch, and turned the key, starting the big diesel engine. The console buzzed as it does as the air suspension slowly filled and began lifting the chassis. Anxiously we watched the pressure build on the dials and then, with a flush of fear and relief, there was yet another huge thump. I ran outside and sure enough the right front hydraulic foot was clear of the asphalt and raising itself up. We were free, finally, to go.

filling the hole

We said our goodbyes and then headed off toward Milwaukee and another set of friends (Nick and Emma) and their driveway for our next stop. As we lurched toward I-43 (avoiding I-94 due to the protests in Kenosha) the RV quickly filled with the smell of rotten eggs. Considering we had not really used the black tank hardly at all I knew it couldn’t be full – but we had showered and used the sink to wash dishes – including our morning breakfasts of eggs… Sure enough, the tub/shower (which is the overflow for the grey tank) would not drain. “I can’t stand this smell – we have to dump the greywater,” Jordan said. I said “OK – well we can just pull off and do it somewhere – it is just shower and sink water – there are no chemicals – nothing hazardous.” So, we pulled off to the empty parking lot of a large church near the interstate and I began to ready for our first tank dump of the trip.

The process, if a little icky, is pretty straightforward. Pull out the flexible hose, rotate it to lock in place over the gray / blackwater outlet, and then pull the appropriate lever to release the liquids. In this case we were only emptying the greywater (shower and sink water) so a lot less potential for things to be gross than the blackwater (toilet wastewater).

Sitting on the hot asphalt, ducking my head under the overhead bin and sweating profusely in the heat, I carefully attached the hose, which was stretched over to the ditch, and pulled the greywater release lever. Immediately I was drenched from head to foot with warm, disgusting smelling rotten egg water surging all over. It was spurting from all sides of the hose attachment clamp area. I pushed the release valve back in, swearing a string of curses that echoed off the façade of the church and back across the empty parking lot. “What the ….!!!!!” I took off the hose, put it back on, rotated it in place until it locked, and then carefully reopened the valve. Yet again I was doused with warm, nasty-smelling greywater. “I don’t get it! I’ve done this dozens of times before and never had this problem!” (I had previously owned an RV, so I assumed I knew what I was doing.”

I sat there in a puddle of stinking warm water on the hot asphalt in the 100-degree temps smelling to high heaven for several minutes not knowing what to do. Eventually, something caught the corner of my eye. There on the ground just behind me was a circular black rubber filament – the O ring to the RV dumping hose. It had fallen out. I carefully tucked it back into its slot, reattached the hose, opened the valve, and voila, 47 gallons of greywater came neatly flowing out into the ditch with nary a drop spilled elsewhere. “It is always something,” I thought.

A minute later I re-packed the hose, closed the bin, and then gingerly headed back into the RV to shower. Even though it was only greywater I didn’t want to touch anything. I took my clothes off and headed into the tub/shower and turned on the hot water. It felt good to clean away the sweat and stink. I reached over to pump some body wash from its pocket hanging from the shower curtain… and then, the entire shower curtain collapsed and fell, distributing soap, shampoo, and various other products all over the tiny bathroom floor.

It really was just a small thing – the compression rod shower curtain was not tight enough to handle the downward pressure of the pump of the body wash, but for me, it was the accumulation of 100 small and large problems, the last straw, the final curtain to a long series of mishaps and I just screamed, “aaaaggggghhhhhhhh!”

I scared Jordan half to death, and she came running in, opening the door saying, “Are you OK? What happened???!!!” Then she saw the mess on the floor and said nothing else and started cleaning up. We re-attached the shower curtain, I finished my shower, and we drove, uneventfully, to Milwaukee where we had a lovely evening of grass-fed ribeyes with our friends Nick and Emma, and the next day a super cool tour of the bike trails through Milwaukee during a thunderstorm with my friend Jose Alcala.

It gets better, easier, faster… but freedom has a price

RVing is not for everyone – but for those willing to take on some risk and uncertainty, it does offer an incredibly liberating feeling to just up and move. Tired of the scenery? Just up and move. Missing old friends? Up and drive to them. Want to get off the grid? Just up and move.

Right now, we are boondocking in the Mojave Desert – all alone at the base of a 700-foot sand dune. I just used the outdoor shower, went to reconnoiter the trailheads on the OneWheel, and will head off for a fat bike ride to the top of the dune before returning to fire up the camp stove to sear 2 sous vided ribeyes after we eat a Caesar salad and an appetizer of mussels in lemongrass broth. We will watch the sunset, listen to some music, layout under the stars in our bubble tent and then perhaps read, watch a movie or listen to a podcast before turning in. I set the furnace to 60 degrees and we sleep with the window cracked. (at 36 degrees it was too cold to sleep in the bubble tent.) Mornings are in some ways our favorite. I get up, turn up the furnace to 68 degrees (which also heats the floors, play some light ambient music and make two cups of pour-over bulletproof coffee watching the sun light up whatever the newest backdrop is. The smell of coffee will pull Jordan out of bed and then the inevitable question will be voiced. “What should we do today?”  

The answer? “Whatever we want.”