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 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.
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.
Two weeks of full tanks, a 36-gallon tote, a macerator pump, one leaky starter hose, and a mess we now call the Poopsie. Here's the tote-and-macerator workflow that finally worked for us.
We unbox a Blackstone 17 inch griddle, discover our new camping table is comically short, season the cooktop three times, and cook our first outdoor meal: burgers, bacon, eggs, and solar-powered fries.
Too many uneasy nights hearing noises outside pushed us to install Blink cameras around the rig. Same week: furnace bug screens, X-Chocks, a new ladder, and a full-scale war on ants.
The full inside tour of our Brinkley Model Z 3515, room by room: what we love, what annoys us, and the upgrades we installed before Fabiola got stuck in a closet.
The final week of our 15-day boondocking challenge almost ended early: shaded solar panels, sinking batteries, a truck generator that wouldn't cooperate, and a rescue we didn't expect.
Day one of our 15-day boondocking challenge: we pick up the Brinkley with its brand-new solar and battery system, drive to Dupuis, and learn that setting up off-grid is nothing like parking at a campground.
The first time our F-350 and our 15,000-pound Brinkley met: a new Gen-Y gooseneck hitch, a parking attempt that humbled us, and a day of installs from backup camera to Starlink.
We needed a truck that could tow a 17,500-pound fifth wheel. After going back and forth between the Ford F350 and the RAM 3500, here's what we picked and why.
We went truck shopping with a Brinkley 3100 in mind and put a Ford F-350 and a RAM 3500 head to head: interiors, a test drive, and the honest math on why we needed a one-ton at all.
