but the larger question is are these roadside assistance programs worth it
along these roads we roam we find adventure through traveling camping
boondocking and exploring hello everybody and welcome to vlog cast
episode number 67 my name is Russ and I am Kerry and we are the roads we roam
what you're watching right now is our vlog basically we sit and talk about our
day or what's going on and we do this every day Monday through Friday if
you're looking more for like an on site thing so you can see what we've been
doing and what we're talking about right now go ahead and check out our Saturday
videos but there is a lot of information here that never makes it on to those
Saturday info videos you can also catch us live on Friday nights at 8 p.m.
Eastern we called that our Friday night Wine and Sundays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern
which is our Koffee with Kerry and Russ. I think I was supposed to say that but I
forgot. I got your back Babe! Don't you worry about it. Thank you. So we left Brantley State Park we are no
longer in New Mexico hmm we are in El Paso Texas. Yes just outside
of El Paso in Anthony I think this is this considered New Mexico? Okay yeah, I guess we are back in New Mexico
We went from New Mexico into Texas and then right over the border, I'm talking like the
one mile marker or the zero and a half it's actually we got off on exit zero
yeah so Russ is here for work so his day job he works for a company called first
Texas Products and he's going into the main office for a little bit so we had
to travel back through this area which we lived here for the last four years
yep so if you watch our faces and places video coming up this Saturday I'll
probably put some of that visit to the main office in there. I think that will be fun. However today was an
interesting travel day! Gee whiz, you know it started out with just a super super
super super windy day! Well and I think even before we left the campground we had an issue. Oh
man, yeah I've never had this problem before but I clicked the sewer
connector to our unit and when I opened up the
black tank to flush, uh, water.... not water but you know it's in a black tank just
came out like from the edges in so I shut that off real quick checked it and
I could not get that clamp it's the one that I always use to go on there tight
it with it was just kind of shaking all the time I don't know I didn't have time
to look at it and see if there is an issue I just switched out to a
replacement hose that we had but yeah you're right I don't even think about
that. That was the start of a bad day right there. Well I have two thoughts and
it just popped into my head what if could have been. If you didn't click it all the way at first...No, I
did.. but after it got wet a little bit then maybe it was slippery from the
pressure ...no you know the problem was is even I even noticed that, when I clicked
it usually you feel like this, you know, it's like a lot of resistance and then
boom it clicks I never felt that and I looked at it it was completely bedded
you know the way it is, there's really there's this little knob or this little
nodule that comes out and then a circle and when you feel that resistance when
it hits that little nodule and then it clamps right into that circle ...I don't
know maybe one of the maybe one of the clips is broken and I didn't see it.
Long story short, it was a mess and it... I was irritated. Just a little bit. Yeah. I
got out to see what was going on and then I proceeded to get right back
inside because we had grumpy Russ Yeah well you know when you got.....I don't blame you :)
When you got spillage all over the ground and well I wouldn't it wasn't
that bad cuz I shut it off quick but still you know I like to do those and
it's like maybe like three little little drops from the gray tank hit the ground
I'm like yeah this is good no this one I had to get the hose out and clean yeah
clean that all up back it was it was not a fun start of the day. And then...Well you
know, we were planning the trip......now if you travel from Carlsbad to El Paso on
route 180....First let's go to the wind, how bad the wind was
and then we'll go into that portion there. Okay. The wind was just horrendous
yeah ..Before we even left, the camp host told us there was reported 70 mile an hour gusts I don't know what
sustained winds were but it was definitely.... I mean you could feel that
when it would hit the... you know.... the trailer and our truck and I was doing
like 50 miles an hour the whole way, but you know we were getting horrible gas
mileage because these winds were coming at a diagonal right in we were driving
right into it. Well what I was going to start off was saying is before we left
Russ ran into town, filled up the gas tank because we had talked before about
how we like to fill up when we are unhitched, that way if you're in a town
with small gas stations and whatnot... So he filled up and then he came back, we
hitched up and then we went into town. Now between Carlsbad and El Paso, there
are no gas stations once you leave Carlsbad. Yeah
Which, it's... it was about a hundred and thirty seven miles our gps said from
where we were to El Paso on a full tank of gas, normally that is more than fine.
But as Russ said we were getting pushed all around on this road and we were just
noticing the gas mileage... Oh yeah, I mean we were averaging six miles per gallon
So we were just praying you know we're sitting there watching.... I'm doing the
refresh.. Russ is checking and it's like okay it's 18 miles to the next gas
station. We were getting close to town and Russ said, okay we've got three gallons
or four gallons of gas, we should be fine.... and a long story short, 1.9
miles away from the gas station ....yeah, you can tell when when Black Betty, our truck,
said "I'm done" it was just hmmmmm and then it kind of ahhhhh - it was like your
last gasp you know it did this "huh" like surge and then "urghhhh" and just enough to
get over to the edge. Yeah, I was going to say it was good that, you know, we were
kind of prepared for it and we were in at a location - yeah - that had at least room on the
side of the road. Yeah, you know a good portion of that road there was no cellular
coverage at all, you know, and and I did post a photo of you know the situation
and talked about the situation on Facebook. And you know, a couple of people
brought up some points, you know, and very valid points, we do the same thing you
know... one person said "we treated, when we had our teardrop, we treated a half a
tank as an empty tank" and we do the same thing, the only problem was that there is
no gas station - zero gas stations - between Carlsbad and El Paso and we left
Carlsbad with a full tank tank of gas. It was just these winds were so bad we were
struggling the entire way. Yeah. But the other ones, this was the kicker, we do
have a gas can in the back of our truck... yup... and you know, we didn't have any
spare gas in it. Yeah, you know even if we had I don't think I would have thought about
that because it's so far in the back. Because we haven't had to use it, it's all the way
up covered under the.. I think you need to reorganize again. Yup -again! So it's a little more accessible. There's a lot out
there with these roadside assistance programs
you know we signed up for Good Sam just as a regular Club member but then they
have their Travel Assist in their other stuff and there's a lot of others out
there but we happen to have OnStar with our truck. Yeah... So I thought it was
redundant to get any of the others because we have it. I am so thankful that
we had OnStar which made it a lot easier and one of the reasons we use OnStar, I
like it because we've lived out the desert for a while and there are a lot
of areas that do not have cell coverage whereas with OnStar you don't have to
worry if your phone doesn't have coverage they you can still get through
to someone with OnStar so that's why we've stuck
with that but the larger question is are these roadside assistance programs worth
it? I think they are. Yeah because when you're in a new area where you don't
know anybody just to get someone to come and give you two gallons of gas just so
you can get to a local gas station without waiting around for hours and
hours on end yep and I don't know how it works with the other ones but with
OnStar it was fantastic you just call and it
doesn't cost us anything additional. Yeah.. because we already pay ....I don't and
really you know we're not here to advocate either
OnStar or Good Sam or AAA or whatever, I just think if you're living
this lifestyle, if you can afford it, it's probably necessary and I think if you
think you can't afford it, if you're traveling a lot, you you you may want to
rethink it because it sure came in handy today and it's come in handy even before
we were full-time there was a time where our battery ...Yeah ...for whatever reason we
got into the truck and it just didn't start and we didn't know anybody, I
think it was right after we first moved here yeah so able to call them they sent
someone down give us a jump right away and you don't have to worry about
forking out a lot of that money you know when you least expect it I think from
the time that we actually called to having somebody on scene was about 30
minutes yeah which was pretty good yeah I mean and this is in addition to the
other steps that people mentioned, I ....Russ and I talked about this already that we
probably will now put a gallon or two extra you know in that spare gas can.. yeah we can, I
think you should probably just keep five gallons in it because we're gonna use it
for the generator, we're gonna be boondocking a lot more anyways so I
don't think it'll be I don't think we have to worry about the the gas spoilage
because we'll be using it quite a bit so yeah I think I think it's just something
that we need to do. Yeah, I mean lesson learned but at the same token I am still
a big proponent of those roadside assistance plans...oh yeah yeah yeah it came in
handy today and we were actually like two miles outside of El Paso and I know
people here so I think if worse came to worst we
probably could have gotten somebody but it was still during the work day so it
might have been difficult so it just worked out real well like I said 30
minutes from the time of call and they were here, you know? I'm just grateful
that it was closer to in town instead of way out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah... because the temperatures
are dropping this evening which is kind of crazy..it was 71 at the beginning of the
day... but with those winds... there's a part- and we have it on footage- as we're
coming into town it looked like a blizzard with whiteout conditions with
the road being covered and was all sand yeah this was one of the worst drive
days. You know to be 100% honest, I felt it... you know, I did, but it was a lot
better than what I thought it was I don't know if it's the aerodynamics of
Teddy or maybe it's the way the winds coming off of our truck over the top and
being curved like that but it really wasn't anything overly scary or or like
I I wasn't thinking oh my god I shouldn't be doing this maybe I should
be pulling over you know I went slow I went fifty miles an hour just about
the whole way and but I didn't go slow really because I felt nervous because I
didn't it felt like a regular day at driving just with a little bit more
movement but I just went slow just because I I knew to take it slow you
know just in case yeah and those kinds of situations when you're out driving
and stuff like that even if it feels like you can go faster you probably
shouldn't you know and better to avoid something than have to to react to
something that's the way I look at it mm-hmm you know also something else
happened would be as we were leaving Carlsbad and you plug in your
coordinates Google had us kind of avoid the town part by taking us through this
neighborhood way and it's been doing that notoriously yeah but it made me
think so yesterday during our QA Lewis outside I had asked about the
RV GPS units and he responded back again where he was saying you know he has a 22
footer but he's been in situations where he's in a town or Google will kind of
navigate or more importantly if you're using your phone for navigation and you
get a phone call yeah during the worst time and it always happens at the worst
time you know when you really need it Louis had pointed out that it would
bring him into certain areas where he didn't feel very comfortable driving his
22 foot break and that brought up a point I hadn't considered up to that
point and it didn't dawn on me until I was thinking about today when we were in
these neighborhoods that Google will often do that ways will often do that so
that leads credence to even more by these RV specific yeah you know I on
either one of these I didn't have any issues with the road conditions whether
it was small or what you know towing a trailer but the last two times Google
has taken us off track in neighborhoods you know it's been pretty bad
neighborhoods you know and I'm just gonna leave it at that it's been pretty
bad neighborhoods including this one you know and then also Google kind of took
us down a dirt road you know and had that dirt road been any worse
we may have had issues with the trailer going over it was a good thing we had a
rough rider package because that clearance there were several bumps and
whatnot with it so just some more thought for people that are considering
whether or not you wanted one of those RV GPS it's worthwhile to look into we
should look into it maybe yeah well it's got my.... it was one
of the things I never thought of because I just figured I travel with my GPS on
my phone, well you know again that's we're doing this channel and having
conversations with all these people they kind of bring up things that you don't
think of you know it's a it's a great thing for us because yes I think we put
a lot of information out there but we get so much more information back. Well
it's a whole learning process and then one last thing, we ran into a group of
people lesson at the campground and they were very curious about the
Little Guy Max and then this morning Russ actually talked with one of the
women from the group ...she was taking pictures talked to both the husband and
the wife the wife said can I go take pictures like yeah sure knock on the
door take them inside if you want good thing you didn't I was getting dressed
but no I mean we love talking about it but yeah if you definitely see us at a
campground and you're curious even though there's pictures online and you
know we show different aspects of it stop by say hello and if you want a tour
it don't feel shy about asking for a tour I mean it's not too long you stand
inside you'll see everything but we're more than happy to do so yes definitely
definitely and also you know guys please feel free to contact us you know if you
don't see us in the campgrounds that's fine there's still ways to get a hold of
us you know we have multiple ways to get a hold of us and we would really like
you to visit our website and use our leave a message the thing if you have
any questions or comments about the things that we talked about in the vlogs
everyday or even something that's not related to that something you've just
been wondering about go to our website the roads we roam calm you can do this
on your phone tablet or computer and you'll see a little orange button that
says send voicemail on the right side of your screen you can do that record a
message we will get that and then we may use those during our Q&A Tuesday's yeah
if you don't want it to be broadcasted just tell us that in the conversation
and we won't use it but at the very least we love hearing your voices it's
kind of you know like getting well it's not kind of it is it's like it's a
voicemail it's a voicemail you know and it's it's neat to hear people leave us
voice messages so please feel free to do that also you know another thing that I
would be worried about was oh my goodness you know if it doesn't sound
right they're gonna use it on the over the the next video don't worry about
that because you can reset it there's a button that says reset it'll let you
listen to your message and if it didn't work out they're quite the way you want
it reset it do it again listen to it again if it didn't come out the way you
want it reset you can do that until you get it
perfect, and once you get it perfect you just click send message and it'll be
it'll send an email to us and let us know mm-hmm well in addition to our
website you can get ahold of us at Facebook Pinterest Instagram and Twitter
and check out our podcast on speaker where iTunes all right well that's all
we have for today we will talk to you tomorrow all-right bye!