Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. We sold our loft
Speaker 1: in Chicago, moved into an r V, and now we're
Speaker 1: talking in the Country of All Time with her dog Finn,
Speaker 1: exploring America's national parks. And today we're airing another episode
Speaker 1: of Boon Docking with Brad, we are talking about hooking
Speaker 1: up your r V. Um So, I guess this one's
Speaker 1: one that Matt definitely won't jump in a lot. I
Speaker 1: want him to when he can and when he wants
Speaker 1: to talk about it, because there's definitely a point where
Speaker 1: he's going to throw something in my face, in particular
Speaker 1: about Santa Fe. But okay, so we should actually start
Speaker 1: at the basics. What is hooking up your V? What
Speaker 1: does that mean? Um? So, that is when you are
Speaker 1: going to like a campsite and you are going to
Speaker 1: be using their electricity and their water inside of your
Speaker 1: r V. So what I'm gonna do is I'm i
Speaker 1: tell you how to do that. I'm gonna describe it
Speaker 1: to you so that way you can learn and find
Speaker 1: the ways to research it. So if you're trying to
Speaker 1: get into this lifestyle, basically you are ahead of the
Speaker 1: game and you know what to ask next. Right, everything
Speaker 1: here is just the beginning because I don't have visuals, UM,
Speaker 1: so I want you to just listen and learn how
Speaker 1: to do this because these are things you're gonna do
Speaker 1: all the time. UM. Hooking up and d uh disconnecting
Speaker 1: your RV happens almost daily sometimes. UM, it's definitely a
Speaker 1: weekly thing, if not a monthly thing. So when you
Speaker 1: first arrived to in r V park, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: a map of the campground when you check in, and
Speaker 1: then that r V park will most likely have a
Speaker 1: guide that will take you to your RV spot, and
Speaker 1: so you're gonna pull into your r V spot. Now
Speaker 1: sometimes they're back ins, and then there's also pulled through sites. UM.
Speaker 1: So those are the two main sites. So back in
Speaker 1: is one that you back into. UM. And when you
Speaker 1: do that, you're gonna want to disconnect any V vehicles
Speaker 1: you have or any trailers because most of the time
Speaker 1: those are for like a smaller site, so you would
Speaker 1: park your vehicle or your trailer in front of you
Speaker 1: or on the side of the road. And so disconnecting
Speaker 1: a car or a trailer, it's about your ball hitch
Speaker 1: and it's how your hitch set up works. UM. The
Speaker 1: nice thing about the trailer that we were pulling around
Speaker 1: with us the lat past year, it had an electrical jack,
Speaker 1: so basically you didn't have to crank it up and
Speaker 1: crank it down with a chalk block. You pushed a button,
Speaker 1: you held it down, and it like raised the trailer
Speaker 1: off of your hits for you. It was really really
Speaker 1: nice to have in those situations. But because it was
Speaker 1: a trailer, we always had to call the r V
Speaker 1: pack ahead of time to ask them about like where
Speaker 1: do we parked this? Can we park this year? Some
Speaker 1: do allow it, some don't, Uh, can we use a
Speaker 1: parking spaces are a special storage area. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of different questions that you have to get into even
Speaker 1: before you arrive, to make sure that they can accommodate
Speaker 1: you and your setup. This was really annoying for us
Speaker 1: u UM, but luckily most places had somewhere there's only
Speaker 1: one or two. But luckily we actually had friends nearby
Speaker 1: so we could go drop it off at their place
Speaker 1: and then we have to call them and ask them
Speaker 1: where they want it and that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: so these are definitely technical details. Of when you're on
Speaker 1: the road of what you have to deal with. So
Speaker 1: once you get the car or trailer disconnected, Um, you're
Speaker 1: going to back in in this situation, so you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to make sure your level when you're backing in,
Speaker 1: So you're gonna find the You're gonna do a walk
Speaker 1: around of your vehicle and of the site beforehand because
Speaker 1: sometimes they're gonna have different dips in the grounds or
Speaker 1: things like that. So you'll have your own chalk blocks.
Speaker 1: And those chalk blocks are whether going to help you
Speaker 1: level out, so as you're backing in, your kind of
Speaker 1: putting these chalk blocks below to help level out your
Speaker 1: RV because when you have a crooked RV, it kind
Speaker 1: of feels like like you have vertigo, um, and you
Speaker 1: just get dizzy or you're like whoa, Like, are you
Speaker 1: missed step a lot? Because you're thinking you're on flat
Speaker 1: surface but you're not. So these chalk blocks come in
Speaker 1: handy definitely. UM. And then once you're on those chalk
Speaker 1: blocks and your level, you're gonna want to put in
Speaker 1: your emergency break right UM. And that's a really quick
Speaker 1: way of putting that together. But there's this is a
Speaker 1: very important step. There's times where it's taken me five
Speaker 1: minutes because I'm on flat ground, and then there's times
Speaker 1: where it taking me half an hour to get it right,
Speaker 1: um I, and that's because I didn't have the right
Speaker 1: chalk blox at that point in time. UM. So I
Speaker 1: had these ones that you basically there are four by
Speaker 1: four in square almost and you basically stacked them on
Speaker 1: top of each other like a pyramid. So there was
Speaker 1: like four pig holes almost like a lego. And so
Speaker 1: I had two of those and then I put one
Speaker 1: in the center of that, so that way it created
Speaker 1: a ramp, like you put three legos together, one two
Speaker 1: and then one in the middle that connects them both right,
Speaker 1: and so that's how you start to get a level,
Speaker 1: but you have to like moving forward or backwards to
Speaker 1: ending on where you're at. But then there's some r
Speaker 1: vs that have auto levelers for you, so you literally
Speaker 1: push that button, it levels itself and you're golden. So
Speaker 1: it all depends on your specific r V site and
Speaker 1: are set up that you that you get um and
Speaker 1: these are all great things to look for when you're
Speaker 1: buying an r V. Right, Uh, we would love that
Speaker 1: it would be a beautiful thing to have, and then
Speaker 1: you have to get different jackpads and things like that.
Speaker 1: A jack pad is the thing that goes on the ground.
Speaker 1: UM that will basically the auto level goes into and
Speaker 1: it's subway. It doesn't poke a hole through the ground,
Speaker 1: and then it doesn't level itself. UM. So once you
Speaker 1: get your vehicle all level, and the first thing you're
Speaker 1: gonna do in most situations is plug in your electrical cords. UM.
Speaker 1: So if you have a trailer like ours where the
Speaker 1: it's permanently put in hooked up into your RV, basically
Speaker 1: you're gonna pull out this long thirty am extension cord
Speaker 1: that will go and plug into electrical outlet box UM.
Speaker 1: And some r vs they're not like permanently attached, so
Speaker 1: basically they'll be in like one of your storage areas
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna come out and plug it into
Speaker 1: your r V and then into that. So there's us
Speaker 1: like two different types of setups there. But when you
Speaker 1: get over to that electrical outlet box, you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to make sure that the electricity breakers, the circuit breakers
Speaker 1: are turned off. Uh. And that's just because you don't
Speaker 1: want to create a surge with into your r V,
Speaker 1: UM because your a C is still on on accident
Speaker 1: or something like that. UM, because all these things can
Speaker 1: create these surges which then can ruin your r V
Speaker 1: and then you have to go get warranty work done
Speaker 1: and you have to pay more money to do it.
Speaker 1: So it's always better to be safe than sorry, and
Speaker 1: that's why we use a surge protector as well. And
Speaker 1: so we plug in our surge vector into the thirty
Speaker 1: amp outlet for us. We then plug the search protector
Speaker 1: into our extension cord that came out of our r V,
Speaker 1: and then we turn that circuit break on to feed
Speaker 1: power into our r V. There's a lot of electrical
Speaker 1: equipment within your r V, and protecting it is probably
Speaker 1: the most important asset UM to r V living. UM.
Speaker 1: We've had an issue with our generator breaking, but that's
Speaker 1: more for boondocking, so I'll get into generators on another episode.
Speaker 1: But UM, you're gonna want to go back in. You're
Speaker 1: gonna check that your fridge is working because it will
Speaker 1: be auto gas and off so when you're driving, it
Speaker 1: actually works off of your stored energy. In your UM
Speaker 1: house battery, there's two batteries in an RV normally sometimes more.
Speaker 1: But basically, to break it down simply, you have your
Speaker 1: engine battery for your chassis, for your normal vehicle, and
Speaker 1: then you have your house battery, which is in the
Speaker 1: back right, and so those two will charge off each
Speaker 1: other and connect to each other, but then there's different
Speaker 1: breakers in between them again to help with those electrical
Speaker 1: surges and such. So when you're driving down the road, um,
Speaker 1: your fridge is on gas, but it actually runs off
Speaker 1: that house battery as well. They work together to make
Speaker 1: sure that your food stays cold while driving. Um, So
Speaker 1: when you have that on auto, you just want to
Speaker 1: make sure it's a solid green light once you plugged
Speaker 1: in that thirty MP outlet. Uh. The other thing you're
Speaker 1: gonna do is you're gonna go over to your A
Speaker 1: C or your heat panel to make sure that that's working,
Speaker 1: and then you'll turn on your lights and live life
Speaker 1: with electricity. Right, So, I bet you didn't know there's
Speaker 1: all that involved in and we're only on electricity. The
Speaker 1: next easy part is water. Right. It's like hooking up
Speaker 1: a hose too from your car to uh a spray nozzle.
Speaker 1: Like it's just that easy, except you want to make
Speaker 1: sure you have regulators on there. There's a water pressure
Speaker 1: regulator you can get almost anywhere Walmart's, Amazon, anything, UM
Speaker 1: five to ten bucks cheap. But if you don't have
Speaker 1: one of those, some water parks water levels are so
Speaker 1: high with pressure that it could actually blow out pipes
Speaker 1: within your RV. So you get this little five to
Speaker 1: ten dollar thing and you put that on the spicket outside.
Speaker 1: Then you plug your hose in your water hose. You
Speaker 1: don't want to use your dump pose or your your
Speaker 1: dump cleaning hose because they're gonna be two separate ones.
Speaker 1: So you have that water hose basically, and then what
Speaker 1: we do is we have a water water filteration system UM.
Speaker 1: So that way it filters the water that's going into
Speaker 1: our r V so we can drink with it, cooke
Speaker 1: with it. Because we don't know where this water has
Speaker 1: been and how it's been used in these different local municipalities,
Speaker 1: so as you're traveling, you don't have a normal resource
Speaker 1: for water that like you know where it's from. So
Speaker 1: that's what we do to make sure that we filter
Speaker 1: that water. UM. Plug into your r V, turn on
Speaker 1: the spicket outside, and wallah, you got water inside of
Speaker 1: your RV. These are the easiest parts of hooking up.
Speaker 1: The next one is the dirty nasty dump pose my favorite.
Speaker 1: Absolutely you are listening to park Landia from my heart radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This park Landia. The next
Speaker 1: one is the dirty nasty dump pose. UM. So hooking
Speaker 1: it up is actually really easy. Um. You Basically what
Speaker 1: you're doing is you're taking that dump pose UM. It's
Speaker 1: normally in a fifteen ft accordion UM there I would
Speaker 1: say the circumference is like three inches or four inches around,
Speaker 1: So it's a big hose because that's what's gonna take
Speaker 1: your U wast from your r V or your dirty
Speaker 1: waters from your r V into the ground from the outside.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a panel that flips up. UM. So
Speaker 1: basically this is where you're going to take and put
Speaker 1: um your dumpos on the RVs waste fitting UM and
Speaker 1: that basically extends it to where you can then take
Speaker 1: it to the dump station's inlet. And that inlet is
Speaker 1: going to be normally in the ground, and that's where
Speaker 1: you hook up the other side of your dump pose
Speaker 1: and make sure that it's tightly secured because you don't
Speaker 1: want any of this stuff coming out. That's for sure.
Speaker 1: Where I made my biggest mistake in Santa Fe, New
Speaker 1: Mexico was before I put my dump pose on. I
Speaker 1: basically didn't check to see if my black tank um
Speaker 1: safety valve was closed, and so when I took off
Speaker 1: the cap to my r vs UM fitting, the waiste fitting,
Speaker 1: I took off that cap and all the black tank
Speaker 1: shot out at me everywhere. It was a disaster. It
Speaker 1: was the nastiest thing that happened in my life. And
Speaker 1: I was screaming, and you're fighting against all this poo
Speaker 1: filled water, yes, feces filled water, and it's spraying on
Speaker 1: you and you're trying to like freak out. You're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what did I do? What I do?
Speaker 1: And you're trying to put the cap back on, and
Speaker 1: then you don't realize that, like, it's not the cap
Speaker 1: you need to turn. You need to put that safety
Speaker 1: black tank safety lever back in so that way it
Speaker 1: just stops flowing for a second so you can breathe
Speaker 1: and vomit because it's so gross. It was like, it
Speaker 1: was a horrible experience. I'm still have PTSD over this,
Speaker 1: and I just remember stripping down I definitely threw up.
Speaker 1: I hope to make it that much worse. UM. And
Speaker 1: I remember going to Matt. I said, I need you
Speaker 1: to give me the shampoo, and he wasn't moving fast enough.
Speaker 1: I said, I need you to give me the shampoo.
Speaker 1: I said, if you don't give it to me now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to freak out. And he's like, now Matt's
Speaker 1: freaking out. He's like, what happened? I said, the dump
Speaker 1: tink went all over me, and like he just got
Speaker 1: real quiet, really nice, and he just smiled as he
Speaker 1: passed that over because he's just like this is this
Speaker 1: is it? Like I can't take this, Like that's why
Speaker 1: I don't do this case. Uh So, Nile's say, we're
Speaker 1: supposed to check out at ten, and I didn't check
Speaker 1: out to eleven because I was in that shower for
Speaker 1: an hour. UM. I went through about half of that
Speaker 1: bottle of shampoo because I just I wanted to have
Speaker 1: every gross feeling off of me. UM. I brushed my teeth,
Speaker 1: threw away my toothbrush afterwards. You know, anything I used
Speaker 1: I basically threw away, including the towel and the clothes
Speaker 1: I was wearing. Um, even though they were like my
Speaker 1: favorite pair of jeans. I didn't care. I'm not dealing
Speaker 1: with that. Um. But so I get back up and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I hook up the dump tank and get
Speaker 1: it all taken care of. And the problem is, I
Speaker 1: don't want you to ever have to go through what
Speaker 1: I went through. It was a traumatic experience, horrific experience.
Speaker 1: And you just you're gonna be a lot happier knowing
Speaker 1: that you don't have to go through that, like I didn't. UM.
Speaker 1: So that's all get dumped, the tanks, I disconnected the hose,
Speaker 1: I washed it out. But anyways, this is about hooking
Speaker 1: up that, not actually disconnecting it. So well look over
Speaker 1: that in a tiny bit longer, because there's a couple
Speaker 1: more things that you're definitely gonna want to do. UM.
Speaker 1: And this is also why you wear gloves when you're
Speaker 1: in this situation, when you're hooking up your dump tink um,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna want to always keep those closed
Speaker 1: even though you have the hose connected. UM, when you're
Speaker 1: dumping it, you want to open up those. You dump
Speaker 1: your waists, and then you close those emergency safety lovers again,
Speaker 1: even if you're there for a week, because you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to dump your tanks about like every couple of days,
Speaker 1: But you don't want to keep those traps open because
Speaker 1: you know then you'll have different like flies and possibility
Speaker 1: of animals or rodents getting into your r V. So
Speaker 1: you want to keep these things closed at all times.
Speaker 1: Even if you just like leave your dump posts hooked
Speaker 1: up like I do, you don't want to leave it open.
Speaker 1: So basically you will be collecting waste within your r
Speaker 1: V and then dumping it every couple of days. UM,
Speaker 1: and that's just to make sure you don't have rodents
Speaker 1: inside of your r V. UM. We never really had
Speaker 1: any issues with this, but I've been told about the
Speaker 1: different kinds of flies that can grow UM there spawn
Speaker 1: like satan and coming to you r V. So we
Speaker 1: just be safe and we learn from other people's mistakes
Speaker 1: in that aspect, because I've rather learned enough around the
Speaker 1: dump type that I don't need to learn anymore. Another
Speaker 1: thing you're gonna want to do is you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to just make sure that your pro paint tanks are
Speaker 1: on and that your supply is full when you're hooking up,
Speaker 1: just so that way you can cook. You know, you
Speaker 1: can UM you can bake in your oven, you can
Speaker 1: cook eggs on your stovetop, whatever you want. You just
Speaker 1: want to make sure that you have that. UM. But
Speaker 1: now once you've done that, you've learned your lessons and
Speaker 1: never mess with the dump tanks. You've hooked up your
Speaker 1: water and your electricity, you're ready to throw out that
Speaker 1: awning fire, up that barbecue, and put out that outdoor
Speaker 1: equipment because it's time to have a good time camping. UM.
Speaker 1: Really easy and a super super fun time. UM, as
Speaker 1: long as you don't make mistakes. So basically you're gonna
Speaker 1: reverse that now, UM. To get out of there, You're
Speaker 1: going to you know, I always leave the water electricity
Speaker 1: until the end because basically your MAT's always gonna be
Speaker 1: in there, maybe like making a cup of coffee in
Speaker 1: the morning or making his oatmeal or something like that,
Speaker 1: so I'll need some of those things. UM. And so
Speaker 1: basically the uh because we take off pretty early in
Speaker 1: the mornings, you know, we try to get out of
Speaker 1: places by eight or nine am, even though you have
Speaker 1: till eleven. UM. So when you go around the RV,
Speaker 1: you're gonna take away your dump pose first. So you're
Speaker 1: gonna dump your waists. You're gonna do your black tank first.
Speaker 1: You always do your black tink first because that's gonna
Speaker 1: be your feces and like bad bad stuff. Um. And
Speaker 1: then you do your gray tank second. And that's because
Speaker 1: that's just your like gray water. That's why it's called gray.
Speaker 1: And that's because it's just the water that was from
Speaker 1: your shower or from washing dishes, things that are not
Speaker 1: as you know, nasty. Um. But basically you're gonna dump
Speaker 1: those second. Once it's all done, you're gonna close your
Speaker 1: emergency valves, put your cap back over your r vs
Speaker 1: who are inlet, and you're gonna take your accordion uh
Speaker 1: dump hose and you're gonna wash it out. And this
Speaker 1: is where it requires a second hose. You don't want
Speaker 1: to use your normal water hose because you don't want
Speaker 1: that to actually touch and then all and you have
Speaker 1: like nasty water, So you use a special hose to
Speaker 1: clean that out, rinse that out, uh cord in it.
Speaker 1: You put your caps on, you make sure it's nice
Speaker 1: and dried out and like rinsed out, and then you
Speaker 1: put that away. Um, really easy. Next thing I do
Speaker 1: is I'll take the water. I'll check with Matt to
Speaker 1: make sure that he's all good, he got his water
Speaker 1: that he needs, and then UM, i will take that
Speaker 1: water hose assembly apart and just you know, round it
Speaker 1: up and I'll put it in my UH wet storage
Speaker 1: container on the outside of the r V, which is
Speaker 1: one of the storage units that like it's better for
Speaker 1: wet wet stuff. Then I'll take our electrical cord and
Speaker 1: I'll wind it back up into our r VS UM
Speaker 1: side UM organizer holder place and basically that will go away.
Speaker 1: I'll make sure that all of my awnings are in,
Speaker 1: that our slideouts are in. I'll do a three sixty
Speaker 1: surveillance of the area to make sure that there's nothing
Speaker 1: else hooked up or that our scooters UM still hooked
Speaker 1: up and not like UM laying on the side or
Speaker 1: anything like that, because we tow around our scooter UM
Speaker 1: to get around to different areas in different neighborhoods that
Speaker 1: we travel to. And so basically I'll do a three
Speaker 1: sixty check. I'll check my tires, UM, I will make
Speaker 1: sure that everything is working and we're ready to hit
Speaker 1: the road safely. UM. So once that's all done, I'll
Speaker 1: jump in, I'll pull forward a little bit and you
Speaker 1: know what you have to do again. After you pull
Speaker 1: forward about five to ten ft, you stop it and
Speaker 1: you go do another three sixty because a lot of
Speaker 1: times you'll have chalk blocks and you don't want to
Speaker 1: leave back your chalk box because those can range anywhere
Speaker 1: between forty dollars to like a hundred and eighty because
Speaker 1: some of these chalk blocks are like eighty bucks of
Speaker 1: chalk for like these specialized ones. Luckily we don't have those,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to leave anything behind. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then you basically get in your r V and go
Speaker 1: on your marry way until you have to do it
Speaker 1: again the next day if you're living on the road
Speaker 1: full time, or if you're going home, then to go
Speaker 1: home again. So there's a lot of fun things about
Speaker 1: r V living and hooking up your r V can
Speaker 1: be a fun thing and a bad thing. Most of
Speaker 1: the time, it's just a lot of work. It only
Speaker 1: takes fifteen to twenty minutes, and it's it's not really
Speaker 1: that difficult. But you'll find your system. You'll find two
Speaker 1: places where it's you store things, and you'll make it.
Speaker 1: You'll make it work for you. Um I make sure
Speaker 1: that Matt never has to deal with this, but this
Speaker 1: actually reminds me. Um, you have to remind me to
Speaker 1: pick up some more gloves because I just ran out
Speaker 1: when we hooked up this time. Okay, all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: well you you've been listening to park Landia, a show
Speaker 1: about National Park. Parklandia is the production of My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: created by Matt Carouac, Brad Carouac and Christopher has the
Speaker 1: otis producer and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Christopher Hasiotis our researcher, It's Jescelyn Shields. A special
Speaker 1: things goes out to Gabrielle Collin's Crystal Waters and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Parklandia crew and hey listeners, if you're
Speaker 1: enjoying the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It helps other people like you find our show. You
Speaker 1: can keep up with us on social media as well.
Speaker 1: Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Parklandia Pod and join in on the conversation and our
Speaker 1: Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcasts My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening,