Well, we're leaving northwest, Iowa
And just short of a two-week stay here
Got a good visit with my mom and my sister and her family came
So I was able to see them and my Aunt, had a good stay
But we're having to leave a little early to get to Des Moines
Brian's dad is having health issues and
We're wanting to get down there as soon as possible to see him. So
We're hoping for a trip down. It's about a four and a half five hour trip, in the RV,
a sunny day.
Man you can really
Hear all the locust. We're not used to that. It's been a while since we've been back to Iowa. Here. We are
We're back in Des Moines. My dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We had a really hard time deciding
If we really wanted to talk about this
make a video about it, but
She'll and I started realizing some things that we thought, you know
It's kind of important if anybody out there if you are trying to decide whether to do this full-time RV lifestyle
These are some things that you
You need to know
Michelle's dad passed away a couple years ago. She
Really didn't get that much time with her dad. Right? I wasn't working remotely
It wasn't an option at that time and used up my vacation. We did get to spend a couple weeks with him
But it was the last few days
It's still very thankful that I think at the time
That I had with him. We had this if we had this lifestyle back then I would have had more time
So that's just it and then being here for my dad. That's
When we really started to realize that I was able to be there for my dad all
Week long during the week. I had my work all caught up
So I was able to spend all this time with him. I think that's when it really hit us that
How thankful how grateful I am that
I
Was able to spend all that time with my dad
Be there for him
Every day that I would come there in the morning first thing in the morning heat I come in the room
And he's see me and he had this huge smile on his face. He
You know he knew
not just that I was there but he knew that he was going to be taken care of and
you needed move he knew that I would move him every second if I had to and
That really meant a lot even though it's hard for you to see your parent in that situation
Tell you
It means the world to be there for
Come on Dean you gotta do it
Never and everybody your stories call me a little Richie. I
See them pikes again. Hey
Are you working out?
Must be that coffee
Yeah
We're having our coffee day, aren't we dead?
Yeah
Michelle Paul, yeah. See you having her coffee, Andy
Ritchie Paul guy this coffee
Brian Paul, don't get coffee. Jesus gonna enjoy life as normal for the rest of his time
I'm going to pick him up right now
Ready go home
Now that we're in Des Moines I
Take Michele downtown so that she can go into the office whenever we come back to Des Moines
It's an agreement between her and her employer that she has to go in the office since we've been here
I have to take her down to the office and then drive back out where I'm taking care of my dad during the day
It's in home hospice
except
Currently right now. All we have is mainly all the equipment in there and every once in a while
Someone from hospice comes in. I'm kind of numb right now where I can't believe
What's going to be coming, you know sure there's a lot of you that's went through this
It's pretty tough. I'm very thankful
Very thankful
That at least you know, I get the time with my dad
Here comes Michelle
Hello hi Sunday morning today, I figured I would come out and get the blackstone grill out and
Cook some bacon and eggs
Bacon and eggs. Oh, it sounds good to me on a Sunday morning because
That's what my dad and I used to cook when I was young
We'd always have our bacon sandwiches or bacon eggs on Sunday morning soon
And she's not in the greatest tale
Obviously got him on my mind all the time. So we're gonna pop out the blackstone grill
Yes a whip up some bacon mains, but there's nothing to whip up
Already for breakfast and we thought since we're keeping it real won't even show you what we look like in the morning. All right
Change the plans. All right this morning
I wanted to talk a little bit about
The RV life when you go back to where you used to live as a family or wherever your family may be
Sometimes it's not all fun and visiting sometimes there's health problems
my father is doing in home Hospice with that said I've been
Taking care of him through the week. He needs somebody that can actually move him a lot because he's always so uncomfortable
I feel very fortunate to be able to do that every once in a while. He takes a nap
Sometimes it's short lived there for a while only
Every five to 15 minutes, he would wake back up and he'd be uncomfortable and needed to be moved
I think I mentioned it before Michelle
Her job is located here in Des Moines, Iowa. So I have to run her downtown and then
Backtrack back the other way to where my dad's
20 minutes downtown drop her off another 20 25 minutes to go back to where my dad's
Luckily, we were in Iowa when we got the news about my dad
We were up in northwest, Iowa visiting a mother Michelle small
Thankfully we were only two days away from when we were planning on coming to Des Moines
So we still got a lot of time with Michelle's mom
I guess, you know just be prepared if it ever happens you need to get home
You can always check with the campgrounds. See if you can leave your RV there. Sometimes they have storage
Sometimes they may just let you leave it where it's at if you're booked up so far in advance
Or you can take it to a storage place, you know and take a flight to wherever you're going you
got time, you can drive your RV obviously to wherever you're going that thing in this situation is
We don't know how long we're going to be here and there are no Thousand Trails
Campgrounds in the state of Iowa let alone right here in the Des Moines area. I think there's a passport America and a koa
outside of Des Moines
which puts us over an hour away from where I
Need to be with my dad it would call for a lot of driving
This wouldn't work out price that we would be paying there
Would be more or equivalent to what we were able to get it or here close by at Saylorville lake an Army Corps of Engineers
Can't grow another thing is they're booked during the summer every single weekend. Everyone other sites is booked
They do have some campgrounds one call a corn valley. That is a first-come first-serve
So you can't even make reservations there
The RV life has its pros and it's cons just like your normal sticks and bricks life. Sometimes you got to find a way to
Make things happen, but there's always an option
We have not ran into not one situation yet that we have not been able to come up with a solution
Probably another 15 minutes from where my dad's at. It's really tough to see him going through this
Just wanted to share our own personal experience dad wants to say hi to you. Go ahead
Hi, Michelle
Richie Paul says hi
Hello, we can
Came outside to get some fresh air and there's some field across the road here
He's got some cattle
That kind of reminds him of when he was growing up on the farm hard to see isn't it the cattle?
Kind of went and hid though
There were a bunch of him out there now they went and hid didn't he dad like you like
Is that why they usually do that? They take off when it gets hot?
Where do they normally go and it gets hot? Let it in the water
This farm boy would know
Remember when we used to
Have all those nuts on the table. We sit the table and crack those nuts with a nut cracker which and that was your favorite
Hey
You me and mom picked hazelnuts and Rathbun
As tree down by that River bridge like that a long time. Yeah
Stopped here at the funeral home and some of you I'm sure probably have experienced this already. It's
one of the hardest things you'll ever do in your life is
The whole thing, you know taking care of a parent and you know, they're terminally ill
Just got to realize life goes on I tell you
if we weren't doing this full time RV life, honestly, I don't know that I
would have been able to
Have all that time I did with my dad
To help take care of him something for you to think about if you do are you gonna be able to work remotely?
Or maybe you don't have to work
Maybe you're retired your parents live or any loved ones for that matter live so far away from where you currently live that
If you're in an RV
Remotely in all these different places it enables you to
drive to wherever that family member is and
stay there and not have to worry about time getting a hotel room and all that cost adding up now you might have
campsite fees
If you're not in an area that you can utilize your Thousand Trails membership because if you have that
then you eliminate that cost not a subject anybody really wants to talk about and we
really debated whether to even talk about this but
I felt it's important