 Happy Sunday everybody and welcome to another view cue where I answer all my favorite viewer questions from the last two weeks and you guys really brought it last time. You have given me some great questions and so today I'm going to answer my favorites. Hey everybody it's Robin with creativity RV. It's late at night I'm in a new spot it's really beautiful and I'm just trying to chill out so I'm back here in the nest which is what I call my bedroom and if you guys are wondering what this is I got this great maternity pillow now listen I haven't put it in a video before because I knew somebody would go why do you have a maternity pillow but it's super comfy and it's like a big inner tube and actually this is what the boy was curled up in when I had that blizzard so today I'm going to answer all my favorite questions which do not include questions about the bomb cyclone that I just rode through but really quick I do want to touch on a couple of things because you guys have asked me some really fair legitimate questions and I want to answer them so as you know on March 13th I was in basically a hurricane snowstorm that I rode out in my RV with my cat now some people were distressed that they didn't know what happened to the cat and actually I take full responsibility for that because as the producer of the video I was taking 24 hours of footage and trying to just squish it in you know to a 15 minute video where you guys could find it palatable and I cut out a ton of great stuff and inadvertently cut out some information that of course you wanted to know about the cat and also about the storm so really quickly I'm just going to answer some of the most common questions and then I'm going to move on I could have stayed at my mom's house but I couldn't have brought my RV there because I couldn't park it in the driveway I chose to go to Cheyenne Mountain State Park because you guys I have a brand new RV and heated holding tanks and I knew that there might be power outages and I wanted to be with it in case I needed to turn on the generator so that here comes the boy he's doing great you guys I'm in his pillow so he's probably going to crawl up on my head because that's what he does I wanted to be able to protect the pipes and that's why I went there I had a day's notice so no I could not have outrun the storm a lot of people said why didn't you just um yeah he's super unhappy you guys he always has to sit on my left shoulder so the storm was eight states and there was no way to outrun that it's not like I could just you know drive all night and be in a cracker barrel it would have run me over so I chose a camping spot that was low on the mountain between two banks of trees to give me the best protection possible I pointed in the direction of the wind but the wind changed and you know I did the best I could in the circumstances that I had a lot of people were taken um off guard by that storm I thought I was pretty well prepared and we got through it just fine as you can see but of course I neglected to tell you at the end of the video that the cat was just fine and I wanted to answer some quick questions about that no I could not have put the cat in a carrier and taken him with me you guys there was an inch of solid ice outside I went out and helped some neighbors earlier I was being blown all around falling down and remember I wasn't evacuating of course I would have taken him with me if I was evacuating I was just going to a visitor center and he was curled up in the middle of this pillow and he was sleeping and he was happy and he was warm and I did not want to put him in a mesh carrier and try and carry him on the ice outside he could have blown out of my hands and he would have and maybe I would have fallen and crushed him and then if he even went with me he wouldn't have any food or water and he would have been terrified there was a very very slim chance that anything was going to happen to the RV and if it did he's a cat he would do okay if the RV was jostled I probably would have broken a hip and then who would have taken care of him so look I thought it through and I made the best call that I could at the time and if you guys are in a storm like that I defer to your judgment because you're on the ground again I didn't leave him you guys I chose to let him sleep I went a hundred yards away I was in a bathroom up the street and when the wind changed I could see the RV it was fine I had to cut a bunch of stuff out including the fact that there were a couple of tent campers there if you can believe that who were from Texas and they had never seen snow so they decided to come up and see the blizzard and they rode out part of the storm in the bathroom with me well they were going in and out trying to get some gear so they checked and they said the door was closed and it was closed like I said there was a little click some snow got in because a piece broke off and so you know there was a little bit of a gap and snow got in but you guys when I came back he was still warm and sleeping and happy in the pillow and everything was fine I was just a bonehead for going out at all myself he was in no danger and with that I'm gonna let it go and move on to happier things so let me get some of your viewer questions because they were really good oh but before I move on I do want to tell you that I want to thank complete no madness I think is her name who left me a comment reminding me that you can't win and you know people are gonna have a problem no matter what I say or no matter what I do and that was a good reminder I also want to tell you guys to check out Kelly Doyle's channel I'm gonna put a link for the video she did last week below she reminded me that it's spring and you get to choose and I choose renewal and to be happy and so I'm moving on and I am going to put that link below for you guys my mom's doing great the cat's great I'm great I'm in a beautiful spot so first of all a lot of you asked about the tour of my new rig and I did do a very quick tour and I know you guys it was me talking with overlays of photos but I did that during the hurricane and I tried to do it on a tripod and actually do a walkthrough and show you guys and everything was shaking so I just wanted to tell you there is another tour coming where I'm gonna open up all the cabinets and show you everything I promise that you will see that soon so Lisa Paul says what are some of your go-to on the road meals I asked specifically because you're a boondocker and you must have worked out a way to cook while using minimal power out and then she said what uses the most power of all your small appliances so yeah you guys this is a problem I'm sure if you're on the road you already know this you know a lot of nomads I know feel like they have to eat crap because they have to have processed shelf stable food and I tell you when you have to go to a gas station to fill up your water or get propane or whatever it's really easy to go inside and grab crap and I was guilty of that for my first year right now I am obsessed with figuring out how to eat healthy in an RV it's my project for this year so more will be coming on that but I will tell you this um I have a solar oven which I did a video on and unfortunately the company who made the solar oven I think went out of business but a solar oven is a great way to cook without using any power at all you just put your meal outside and let it cook you know while the sun is up and a few hours later you have a hot meal another thing that I find works really well is quesadillas I have a cast iron pan and um you know tortillas last a while I mostly plant based so I don't use a lot of cheese I actually use some kind of a hummus but you can use whatever you like and when I go shopping I actually think about how long I'm going to be in my spot the fresh fruits and vegetables go first then the frozen stuff and then the canned stuff and I try and eat it in that order so that I have healthy food to last me the whole time and I'll tell you I can't live without my instant pot mini I do need to run my generator to run the instant pot otherwise it completely drains my batteries I got a small one but you know I run my generator I try and cook some stuff in advance like potatoes or rice or whatever and um it's worth it I love my instant pot I actually got rid of all my big sauce pans because I do everything in the instant pot even if I like boil pasta I do it in there I'll put a link for that below if you guys are looking for the mini because I know a lot of people love their instant pots and I loved mine but it was too big to bring in the RV and the mini is great Chris DeFira I'm probably mangling that so I apologize asked me about laundry how do you take care of laundry so you know what someday I'll do a video on this and I would actually get up and grab the thing I'm going to tell you about if this guy wasn't on my lap uh but you know as you know he's been through enough and I'm going to let him stay there so you know I've tried the gadgets I tried that you know wand that's supposed to oscillate the water I'm sorry baby and uh it was just too much of a pain you guys so really I just go to laundromats most campgrounds have laundromats and in most towns I go to have laundromats I do read the reviews because they can be kind of shady sometimes and they can be great sometimes but I'll tell you the one trick that I have learned that is a go-to for me is that I use dryer balls now I thought that was such a gimmick when I was in a house but I got six like natural wool dryer balls and I'll put a link for them below and you put them in the dryer and they knock your clothes around so they dry faster because laundromat dryers suck and if you don't want to leave with half your clothes being wet I really recommend the dryer balls otherwise you know just have a lot of quarters and uh I have to say like most nomads I do wear things more than once and um you know I take things off with a little spot treatment and that's that's about it and then every couple weeks or every three weeks I go into a laundromat and do a big load forgive me for not giving a shout out to the next two people but they asked really good questions and now I can't find their comments so one lady asked me about these little solar lights that I have which it's so late tonight that they're actually off now but she wanted to know if it was a hassle to carry the solar lights outside and inside I used to do that but these are actually put up on here with command hooks which I do for everything and I'll show you a shot right now the actual solar receptor is command stripped up into a window now it doesn't give me as good of a charge as if I took it outside because there's like a tent on the windows but when the sun goes down the lights come on and they last for about two hours which is perfect for me and then I don't even have to mess with it it's completely automatic and um that was in the tour video but I'll put a link for those below also and then another lady asked me how I got the magnets to stay on my refrigerator so RV fridges are not metal so they don't hold magnets like house refrigerators do that so that they're lighter and um so what I do you guys and I'll show you right here is that I just have command strips I buy them in bulk and I put one on the back of the magnet and put it up on the refrigerator I also use command strips like the big velcro ones to put up heavy artwork like the cow picture that everybody loves and look this is a question I get all the time too so I'll tell you I didn't paint that cow picture I know a lot of you think that I do I got it at Walmart I think it was $15 and it's still there if anybody likes it you can go get your own yeah he's just a happy little dude and I liked him and I brought him with me so Christine Canavan says question how long is the average learning curve for a new RVer oh I'm sorry and she asked me which of my small appliances drives the most power sorry instant pot but got the learning curve girl um you know I did a video a while back about will I be happy in an RV that talks about the emotional curve you know based on studies you know when you first go out on the road everything seems great and then everything seems to get hard and you actually end up being a little sadder than you were when you first went on the road and then you even out that's true because you know you really do struggle trying to learn some stuff you get through that period it takes about six months and then you know you're cooking with gas you know how everything works you maybe know where you want to go but I am constantly learning every day I look something up or I research something and there's something new that I learn all the time and I think that's true for most RVers and I think most of us learn from each other so you know just know that you're going to have to figure some stuff out for the first few months and then after that you're still going to have to figure some stuff out but it does get easier oh Kendrick129 says I've always wondered how you got your Amazon packages so listen I am doing a blog post and a whole other video on five ways to get packages and four of them are free it should be out in about a week so look out for that because I'm actually going to walk you through how I get my Amazon packages I'm going to take you with me while I do it and then show you a few other ways to get that done as well and you guys I'll end with this one this is a good one Monica Morgan said love your channel here's a question for you what did you do right and what did you do wrong when you started your YouTube channel whoo that's a toughie if anybody wants to start a YouTube channel you know I was lucky because of course I interviewed Bob Wells from cheap RV living for my blog and he suggested that I do YouTube I really didn't want to do YouTube you guys I'm an introvert I don't even like to have my picture taken so this was a huge leap for me but I think what I did right was I didn't look at it as a day in the life vlog for me I looked at it like what content would I have wanted to see as a person about to hit the road that I didn't see and that has kind of guided me so I think that's what I did right and I did also study a lot about you know the metadata and how to make the videos stand out more and things like that there's tutorials everywhere that you can take about that what did I do wrong you know honestly I just I work too hard at it I have had two people come to my RV and do a wellness check on me in my first year because they didn't see me come outside so there was a big learning curve for me I didn't know how to edit videos I didn't have the right equipment I was trying to edit my videos on a tablet and I didn't even understand that I needed a more high-powered computer to do that and you know I just beat my head against a wall and it took me so long to figure that stuff out but you know I was just really tenacious about it and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing now it's gotten a little bit smoother and honestly I feel so lucky to have you guys I mean especially recently you know with my little gap I didn't make videos for a couple weeks because I was en route to see my mom who had a problem and you know the blizzard and everything and I have to tell you guys when I was writing out that blizzard and filming I felt like you guys were there with me and I wasn't by myself writing out that blizzard so YouTube has really been great for me I find it to be a creative outlet that I really like there are some troubling parts about it you know like how mean people can be and sometimes I wonder you know is that what they teach their kids to do and this is why kids are bullied and you know sometimes I want to get on people about that but I don't I try not to but overall it's really been great um I do spend too much time on YouTube instead of working on my books and I am trying to kind of balance that out so I hope that answers your question um if you want to do a YouTube channel think about what content you have to offer that nobody else is doing learn how YouTube works and get the right equipment that's what I would say oh and one more thing before I sign off on Wednesday I'm going to put out a video that's a little bit out of order I actually went to Mexico in my RV about a month and a half ago and then when everything crazy happened and I had to run to Colorado to be with my mom I didn't get that video out so no I'm not in Mexico right now or next week I just didn't want to confuse you guys by putting the dates out of order without telling you so come back Wednesday and check that one out so you guys thanks for hanging out with me and the boy in the back of the RV late at night while I answer your viewer questions of course if you guys have a question please do put it down below and I'll look at it two weeks from now when I do the next view queue if any of this information has been helpful please share it with your friends give it a thumbs up subscribe if you haven't already I wish you all happy safe travels out there and be free