All right.
This is a raw, unfiltered look at our crazy lifestyle.
Today, we're hitching up and we're beginning our journey towards Chicago.
Technically towards Pennsylvania where we'll be boarding a plane to head over to Chicago,
to then run the marathon.
The goal is to get out of here around 9:00 AM, which is a miracle for us because we're
never on time to leave the campground, but we have a long drive the next few days.
There's a timer for something.
I don't know what the timer's for.
It's how it rolls around here.
A little bit chaotic sometimes on moving day.
The timer is for toast because I'm making us some food before we hit the road.
I also need to shower, because since we've got a two travel days back-to-back, we probably
won't hook up the sewer at the next campground.
Lauren just mentioned she's going to shower, and that means I need to go empty the tanks
because I haven't done that yet.
As you may know, I call the gray tank, "Lauren's tank."
It can quickly fill up if you're not careful.
I just need to find my sandals.
Did you record that?
I am all congested today.
I feel terrible.
My sinuses are all clogged, which is not good because I'm going to run a marathon, which
I have not trained for.
My hair looks like crap and I have bedhead.
Wow, this is really raw.
Oh, gosh.
His flip-flops are in the truck.
This is probably why Daniel records most of the time, because if it's going to be me,
then you're going to get to see it all.
If you were to look at some of our earlier videos, we would probably look a little closer
to like YouTube [inaudible 00:01:55] versus now.
Clearly, I have not shaven and I'll look like a mess, but that's okay.
Dad life.
Dad life, yeah.
Shout out to Nolox, the Nolox airstream solution.
No, not sponsored or anything, but my friend gave us this shirt and I dig it.
Been wearing it a lot, it's long sleeve, it's been chilly out so, don't really have a lot
of clothes so this is really nice.
Did you dump the tanks?
No, I forgot, I forgot.
What do you think about that?
Is that funny?
Daddy went outside to do a job and he forgot.
As you can see there's plenty of tree coverage, which has been amazing.
The downside is that the sailor connectivity has been a little rough.
So our AT&T and Verizon cards are not really working all that well, and because of the
tree coverage I've had to... well, let me just show you.
We're in my Starlink dish all the way out here on this hill.
For you Starlink users out there, you know, you'd get like a 75 feet of cord.
Two days ago, I was looking through my window and I saw the long guy coming through, just
blazing through this area and I was like, "Oh crap, he's going to run over the cord."
So, I ran out here and I'm like, "Stop."
And I caught him right before he ripped through my 75 feet of Starling cord.
And it is not an easy cord to replace.
It's proprietary, has proprietary connectors and all that crap, but literally if you have
Starlink and you run it out like I just did, be on the lookout for people cutting lawn
because they will cut your cord.
Okay.
So, the tanks are now officially dumped.
Going to spare the details of showing you that because you don't really want to see
me dumping tanks.
Make sure that when you're dumping tanks you wear the appropriate footwear.
This is not it right here.
You should not wear sandals.
You should probably wear something close-toed, and maybe with some Gore-Tex just in case
you get a little bit of splash, the graphic there, but that's RV life.
Over the last two campgrounds, the water pressure has been abysmal, probably like 35 to 40 PSI.
So, ideally, it would be closer to 50 as we get some water pressure coming out of the
shower.
An unfortunate thing is when it's like 35 to 40 psi when you're taking a shower, it's
like dribble, dribble, dribble.
So, not great for getting the shampoo, conditioner out of your hair, but there's always campground
showers as well.
But it's been cold so, we haven't really gone over to the campgrounds.
The reality is we haven't showered that much this week.
The good news is we're going to be staying in Marriott in a couple of days in Chicago
because it's close to the start and finish line and we'll be taking some long hot showers.
After we eat breakfast, then we have to head over to the studio trucks so we can meet with
the hair and makeup team and get ready for our YouTube video today.
Not really, not really, no.
There's no hair and makeup team.
Of course, you already know that.
But yeah, that's what's going on right now.
We're just going to eat some fancy breakfast.
Hey.
First of all, I usually make pretty good breakfast every morning I make breakfast.
Sandwiches, I make smoothies, right, Dash?
But today is a travel day, and we're supposed to be out of here in exactly an hour, Daniel,
and you haven't even started anything outside.
We are already behind schedule but, if you've been following us a while, you'll know we're
never on time except for fairies.
Daniel loves peanut butter and honey toast.
He said he read it online somewhere.
This is actually pretty tasty.
Paper plates means I don't have any more dishes to do this morning, right, Baby Dash?
Yeah, that's a win.
21 minutes to go.
I don't think we're going to make it.
Putting on some cool socks here that a friend gave me.
I got this, the Starling travel case.
Obviously I'm not sponsored by Starling because I don't think anybody is, but it's been pretty
nice.
It's pretty durable, it gives Starlink a kind of a safe place to put when we're moving campgrounds.
So, that's been kind of cool.
It's kind of pricey.
It's about 250 bucks, so, not cheap.
But I also didn't want to break the Starlink because we move a lot.
One thing I always forget to do, is the absolute only way the satellite's fitting in there
is if you put it in stow mode, kind of like a transportation mode.
And I always forget to do that on my phone, so I'm usually completely dissembling it,
trying to put it in the case and like, "Dang it.
I forgot to put it in stow mode."
So I'm going to do that this time.
This is probably the first time ever I've done it before disconnecting everything.
Obviously, it's up like that, facing the satellites and hit stow mode.
And now it's ready for transport.
Just that simple, that one little step.
I forget every single time.
Try to wipe it down a little bit before I put it away.
Well, that is just, there we go.
Good.
And I bought a kit to do a professional install where the router will eventually be on the
inside of the Airstream.
And the reality is, I bought that kit two months ago and I have not made, can't say
I haven't had a spare moment, I haven't made a spare moment to go ahead and finish that
install.
So, I've been keeping this in the wheel well, I probably shouldn't say that but I have and
it's been working great.
Last steps, take the stand, put in there like that.
I am going to take this, nice and snug in there.
So while there are clearly obviously cheaper options, it's pretty slick.
Hi, got the baby to go to sleep.
So now for that shower, it's time to go into hyperdrive mode because we are 16 minutes
past when we were supposed to leave.
Thank goodness, technically our checkout isn't until 11.
We used to just plan to be out by 11 at checkout time, but we'd probably be out at one o'clock
if we did that these days.
Okay.
That water pressure is making us look like a liar, but I promise it's only going to last
like 30 seconds.
See?
Told you.
So, water pressure was pretty rough.
Pretty sure I still have shampoo and conditioner in my hair, but I also realized because I'm
hanging out with you this morning, that I could probably turn on the water pump and
just solve that problem.
Some things in RV life you just got to live with because you don't think a book all the
way through.
RV showers is probably the number one thing that I could swap with the sticks and bricks.
I had every intention of actually blowing my hair dry but somebody took the world's
shortest nap ever.
You've probably also noticed this ridiculous box that we have and that we're passing back
and forth throughout the Airstream.
We're using this when we go to Chicago to put Dash's bed in for it to travel on an airplane.
We thought this was a good idea, and ordered the box about two weeks ago, but it's been
basically the world's biggest pain in the butt.
We're hoping that this is going to be worth it because the alternative was to rent a bed.
We decided this would be the easier way.
I'm kind of regretting that now to be honest with you.
Stay tuned for how that's going to go.
Hey look, stay with Mommy.
Mommy so fun.
Mommy's already got [inaudible 00:09:49] for you in the truck, it just has to be grabbed.
Just grab some, grab some binkies for the truck too.
You're probably also wondering what the heck this is.
This is actually a really cool new addition to how I do laundry around here, especially
when we're traveling.
Basically sticks to the top of the wall, and I can hang stuff to dry because I actually
don't like to throw everything in the dryer, and that's not real convenient when you don't
have your own washer and dryer, but this work is great.
I have traveled with this multiple times and it actually stays up while we're on the road.
Now that I've said that on video, probably won't today but usually does.
So, I am all hitched up, everything except I just realized here.
It's got my Anderson levelers.
I'm just going to roll forward just a little bit so I can slide those out.
I keep those in the rear bumper, towards the back here.
It's got my X-shocks back here, as well as my little wedges here go with the Anderson
levelers.
Some people put their dirty stuff here, like black hoses and kits and things like that,
but I have more than would fit in here because I've got a Magnum PIG, which if you're not
familiar with Magnum PIG, that's our little pig that sits on top of the sewer.
I couldn't use them here.
You can't use them everywhere just because for instance, this sewer is raised up off
the ground here.
So what the magnum PIG does is, I fill him with water, it's a pink pig and he sits on
top of the sewer connection there and he keeps it from bouncing off.
A lot of campgrounds, you can kind of screw in the connectors but some, it's just sort
of a rock with a hole.
So in those situations where it's a rock with a hole, it's good to have Magnum PIG guarding
the hole.
So we don't have any runaway stuff.
I don't want to get too graphic here, but you know what I'm talking about.
So, got everything set up, got all my water hoses disconnected and stored.
I've just added some DEF to the truck as well.
One of the fortunate things about owning a diesel truck, you've got to put some DEF in
periodically as well.
Everything connected here.
I smashed my fingers when I was connecting the... when I was putting the equalizer weight
distribution hitch on there.
And if you are familiar with what it's like to knock your fingers when it's super cold,
it hurts like hell.
So, I smashed my finger and it's freezing out and it was just like, "Ah, why, God, why?"
Is one of those things.
But I'm over it now, mostly over it.
Everything but the crying.
So, time to move on.
This is my box that I put all the decorations in, around the airstream when we're traveling,
and I stuff all the cabinets with the breakable stuff with towels because seems to make things,
well, not break.
And then, I put it in the bathroom because, well, it's kind of a tight and closed space
and it works.
Hey, this baby Dash, we're getting close to being ready to go.
You ready to go?
Will you be coming on the ride with this dude?
It's a little bit cold.
So the PSI is really, really low right now.
Granted, it'll warm up as we're driving, but...
As a rule of thumb, I like to keep the PSI at a minimum of 65, knowing it'll probably
heat up to around 70 or so once we get on the road.
This has the gauge, but to be honest with you, it's not really that accurate.
So I've got this digital gauge.
If you don't have one of these things, not endorsed by VIAIR, but VIAIR makes a great
air compressor here.
Super easy to use, and I always, always, always check my tire PSI before we hit the road.
I also torque my lug nuts as well, every 500 to a thousand miles.
Since Dash's bed is on legs, I figure it's probably not safe to travel with it like that.
It's too easy to move around.
So, we remove the legs every time before we move, and I store the legs in the back on
the bed.
Got a lock in the pantry so it doesn't cause a mess, and make sure those are clicked in
too.
The torque wrench I just mentioned.
I torque to about 110 foot pounds of torque, but your wheels may differ.
So, just because I torque to 110, yours may be 120 or 90 or whatever it may be.
So, always consult the wheel manufacturer.
Essentially what I do is when I'm torquing the lug nuts, let's just say, for instance,
I start with this lug nut right here.
I will not do them sequentially.
I will skip to the one on the exact opposite side, give that a little torque, and then
I work my way over here to the top one again, and I kind of do like a twelve-six approach,
one-seven, two-eight, and so on.
There's not 12 lug nuts, but you kind of get the idea.
Inside of the Airstream is officially ready to travel.
You'll see around here that there are some little things that are a little bit of everywhere,
but if they're hanging out, it means that they're not heavy enough to actually do damage
or be damaged by moving around in the earthquake that is about to happen inside here.
Last but not least inside thing, the trash.
But we'll give Dee that job.
Now, I just have to remember this is up here.
I'm not saying we've hit the highway before realizing this was on the back of the truck,
but it may or may not have happened.
I can neither deny nor confirm that.
Well, now that we are finally about to leave, it's 10:39.
So, we crushed that goal of getting out on time, didn't we, dude?
I'd like to blame it on RV life with the baby but, I'm not really sure that's very accurate.
Actually, it's not accurate at all because we've never been on time even before this
little guy joined us.
Bye, baby Dash.
See, he knows better.
Time to hit the road.
Switching it to tow mode.
And also, we filled up last night, fuel up before you hitch up.
So, if you're a newbie RVer, I'm going to say this every time so you don't forget.
Okay.
So, according...
It is 10:43, and it says we'll arrive at 2:26 PM.
We're traveling with a baby, so, it says the total drive time is three hours and 43 minutes.
Arrival at 2:27.
We'll see how accurate this is.
Obviously, we're going to have to stop because we have baby Dash, and maybe for some body
breaks too.
I mean, you know, we need those in there, and maybe we'll just get hungry.
So, this is day one of a two-day travel track.
And, to be honest, we don't love doing these RV travel days.
They're not the greatest, but it's kind of a requirement for us to get to our next stop
before we head to the marathon.
That being said, we're feeling like this kind of RV travel is kind of for the birds, and
we're probably going to be mixing it up soon.
Let's do this.
Fast and furious.