A two-day run from South Carolina to Louisville with no reservation, a 10-foot bridge with smashed RVs on its Google Maps photos, and the tightest campground we've ever squeezed our Brinkley into.
After a year and a half of full-timing with no real water filtration (and one campground with a lead warning taped to our door), we finally installed the Blu Tech AR3 three-stage filter on our Brinkley. Plus a midnight toilet flood we didn't plan on.
A "chill" two-hour hop from Tampa to Orlando turned into bent banana trees, a flying chair, a wind-speed research session, and the same embarrassing mistake we swore we'd never repeat. At least dinner was good.
A week of boondocking at our first Hipcamp farm, and the water bladder we'd hauled around unopened for over a year finally earns its keep: 24 gallons siphoned into the fresh tank. The full 7 days off-grid? That part didn't survive contact with reality.
We spent a day in the Brinkley section of the Tampa RV Super Show touring the new GX 3500, the Model Z Air 297, and the I 265, comparing each one to our own Model Z 3515 and coming away a little jealous.
320 miles from the Smoky Mountains to South Carolina, hitch-up to after-dark arrival, with every stop in between. This is the travel day nobody puts in the highlight reel.
Our second national park ever started with our most stressful travel day yet: mountain turns, a first tunnel with the RV, rain, and a last-minute campground switch. Then the Smokies gave us waterfalls, a snake on the trail, and the climb to Arch Rock.
Our first national park ever, and we brought 40 feet of fifth wheel up steep mountain roads and a gravel campground drive to get there. Overlooks, the Endless Wall Trail, and tacos and tequila to close it out.
We boondocked in Brinkley's lot the night before a big service appointment, broke something new while parking, and picked up a rig with fresh wall panels and a brand-new fridge. Mostly a win.
Our first travel day after months parked: a to-do list that kept growing, a crossing of the Mackinac Bridge, and a Walmart parking job that turned into a marriage exercise.
Tire pressure, wet bolts, propane, and the maintenance jobs under the rig that are easy to skip until something expensive reminds you. We work through our list and show what we got wrong first.
We came back from six weeks in Brazil to droppings, chewed mats, and at least one uninvited tenant. Four days of traps, baits, ultrasonic repellers, and sealing later, here's what actually worked.
One more Ouro Preto day before we fly back to the rig: hauling suitcases up wet cobblestones, touring a palace with its own gold mine, and learning how colonial Brazil washed, pressed, and policed its gold.
A foggy day in Ouro Preto, the UNESCO hill town in Minas Gerais: feijão tropeiro for lunch, a soapstone market, a guided gold mine tour, and a climb to an overlook that was entirely inside a cloud.
We put the Brinkley into storage mode, flew out of Chicago to Brazil for Fabiola's graduation, and gave you the full tour of our other home, electric shower and all.
A slow day in Marquette: chicken on the Blackstone, a hike at Presque Isle Park that turned into a cliff-jumping show, another round of trailer light detective work, and finally scratching our first states off the travel map.
