 Happy Sunday birdwatchers! It's Robin with Creativity RV. If you're wondering why I'm cramped up in this corner over here shooting this, it's because like a lot of you, I am on my way to where I want to hunker down for a while, so I've actually stopped in a rest area where I have my slides in. There's a reason I have my slides in and I'm not putting them out, but more on that soon. It's another Sunday morning VUQ and I'm going to go ahead and answer some of the questions I got on the last VUQ before some of this stuff went down, but I'm also going to answer some of your questions about what's going on with me and also about how you guys can navigate through what's happening now if you want to be a nomad or you're nomad or you're just at home. A lot of you guys have asked me what this rig is like with the slides in. One of the reasons I chose my Grand Design Solitude is because I can get to the refrigerator or the right side of the refrigerator. The whole bathroom and the whole bed while the slides are in, but I am going to be at this rest area for the rest of the night and so I only have a little tiny bit of one slide open over there so I can do some cooking later. I have nothing else out. A lot has happened to me you guys in the last few weeks. I have a ton of footage to share with you. Like a lot of you, my life got a little bit derailed and let me tell you guys this. You see these big sheets that I always have all over the room that look like to-do lists. I had about 250 videos planned for you guys. I mean I just have had so many ideas and when this started to go down I thought well god it just seems wrong now like a video on three places to put the cat litter box seems like not on topic right now but then I realized like I said I planned for a long time and I was stuck in my house at night watching other nomads and planning and I know a lot of you guys are still in that phase so I am still going to do the videos that I have footage of from the last couple of months like the driving and the hitching up and the solar install and the reason that my slides are in. I'm still going to do that stuff but I'm also going to be putting in content that I think no matter not people can use now and I'm just going to try and keep it positive for you guys. So if you have something you want me to talk about put it in the question below and sometimes you guys ask me questions and it doesn't seem like I've given you an answer but it's because it's such a great question that I end up doing a whole video on it so just hang tight I say even though I'm not wired to hang tight myself. I want to answer a really common comment and question I've been getting on YouTube and also on Instagram and on Facebook. People are saying that maybe we should all run for the hills and people that weren't already on the road are thinking they should just speed up their timeline and get out of the cities and wouldn't that be a better thing to do. I'm going to go ahead and do my own creativity RV PSA right here and say everybody's going to be different. Personally I probably would not do that unless you have an exact plan of where you're going to go and what's going to be open. I'm hearing about things opening and closing constantly from you guys. I know people that are boondocking in the most beautiful places no problem with supplies. They can get propane, they can dump their tanks, they can get water, they can get some food. I do know other people who were planning to camp in a certain place and the propane place was closed or you know the place that they normally got their groceries which was a little place was closed. It's going to be all over the map for everybody. If it were me personally I would wait a couple of weeks and see how it shakes out. I think once things get a little bit more calm we're going to see what services are going to be open and what aren't and I think we can plan better. As you guys know I am headed for a friend's property who I love like a brother thank you. I plan to do it for two or three months but I'll tell you this nothing is going to derail my dream and nothing is going to derail the life that I have planned for myself. I plan to be a nomad for four years before I hit the road and there is a ton of stuff I still want to do. Yes this is going to be a little different than I expected but hey I am retooling and I'm adapting. If you want to be a nomad or you're already a nomad you have to be able to roll with the punches. You have to be really adaptable and so I think we're already good at that. It's sad to not be able to do the things I was going to do with my friends. You guys please put in the comments below what's going on with you. Are you guys out there camping? I know a lot of you are mooch docking like I'm going to do someplace where I know that I can stay in one place. It's hard to find services when you move every 14 days if they're shutting down. Oh and if you guys are wondering why I'm sitting by myself in a rest area with a big ass pompadour it's because I can and I was bored. So you know when you're stuck in a rest area for a long time or at home you know have an 80s party. That's what we should all be doing. Okay so I'm going to get to the questions and some guy as usual is looking at me out the window like what the heck is she doing in there. I'm talking to myself into a camera. Julie and Allison said can you recommend a weather app or device for severe weather warnings and what do you do if there's severe weather approaching. Now listen I don't know if you guys can hear outside but it sounds like there's a train coming because I'm in like 35 mile an hour winds. So if the camera goes like this a little bit once in a while that's why. I'm going to show you guys again the app that I use to plan my routes. This app is called Highway Weather. I did a whole video on it before. Now I'll tell you guys it has changed a little bit since I reviewed it the first time it got a little wonkier to use but I'm going to show you guys how to use it really quick right here. This is the Highway Weather app. I hope you guys can actually see it. It's a little bit tough to show it to you on my phone but you can see here you put in where you want to go from and to and then you hit this little search button over here. You can see it takes about 16 and a half hours. Normally it gives you different routes to take but again I'm slow here so I'm going to go ahead and say plan ahead and this is where this app is really cool. It tells you the best time to leave for weather 12 a.m. Monday but who's going to do that not me. So here it is. Here's the cool thing about this you can actually scroll down and it tells you what the weather is going to be like if you left right now every hour along your trip but then if you go down here to the bottom there's actually a scroller can you guys see that. So I'm leaving at different times here right. So look what happens to this app when I actually scroll I'm going to be scrolling side to side you can see things change right look up here wind speed which is huge if you go down you can also see that they give you any severe weather notices so there's a flood warning in this place they'll also give you high wind warnings winter weather warnings and you can see a look here there's going to be snow but if you left it at different time there wouldn't be snow to see what I'm saying so this is the app that I use that helps me plan my way around bad weather and wind when you live in an RV weather is everything I mean the elements are everything yes it's nice you can chase the 70 degrees but you have to kind of be on your game also I was just camping in Wickenburg Arizona with some friends and I looked at the upcoming weather there this is why I think it's important to have a cell signal if you can or a wi-fi signal because there were flash floods coming in that area but we found a good place to camp that was up like on a peninsula and sure enough the water just rushed all around us not right next to us you guys we weren't in a danger zone don't get on me there were other people though that were and they had to rush up to where we were so you got to know that stuff changes especially in mountain areas so check the local weather report and use highway weather I recommend it I haven't seen anything else like it if you guys know of another app that does the same thing great I know some of you use windy I've tried that it didn't help me plan my route so I use highway weather okay Terry said how did you find someone to install solar in your RV I've googled and googled and found nothing well look this is a problem you guys and I can't tell you how many people I've interviewed or I know that had some guy install their solar and then it was just a mess I have had my solar installed I love it I love it I love it I love it I'm going to show you that video coming up soon and I'll tell you guys that when I got here to this place today I had fine power but I went to put my jacks down because I wanted to take a shower and I wanted to be more level and put my slide out like a foot and everything was off everything was blown I checked my fuses I checked my breakers I checked everything could not figure it out I was able to text the guy that installed my solar on a Saturday so I'm going to share with you in the upcoming solar video who I got to do it but I want to just double check that they're still open and they're still taking new customers before I do which since it's Saturday I can't confirm but I will say this sometimes if you go to a reputable place you have to do it months in advance I also know other people that go to some dude in slab city which is going to be hellishly hot soon but the thing is you know if there's any kind of liability or there's a problem that dude you know whose last name nobody knows you know could be gone it's tough if you go to some of the solar companies like Arizona northern wind and sun they have reputable actual people that help you put together your system and install it so I'll tell you more about that coming up oh and as usual birdwatchers if you know somebody who's good at installing solar reputable put it down below please for everybody okay deborah star said two questions when you first started this journey you created a video on an outdoor cell booster has that changed and we've been excited to get out west in camp like you do because now we know that we could go places because you do in a bigger ring okay yes I did a video where I took a painter's pole that extends and I would pop it up on the outside of my RV in two command broom stick holders and zip tied onto that I had a cell phone booster that worked great for me for a long time I still have that and I actually made it a little bit better I'm going to show you guys that coming up in another video because I also met some people that had a router that gave them every carrier you guys may have seen that video I have had that put in I am testing it out right now and the place that I'm going to mooch doc doesn't have the best signal so I'm going to use that as an opportunity in the next probably three weeks to tell you guys about my wife I set up and how I get my cell phone to work better and I can get the other carriers and how I get unlimited service through one carrier for 40 bucks a month it's coming up Susan said how do you like your washer dryer in your new home by the way you guys I've got my questions on here some people have asked why I keep looking at my phone it's because I prepare for this of course I like the washer dryer it does not use a lot of water which I like but it does make the whole rig shake like crazy I cannot run that on my solar it's the one thing I can't run on my solar so I still need a hookup for that you know I got it thrown in with the price of my RV while I was negotiating so why not my plan was to get a hookup like once a month because a hookup for one day is about what I was spending on laundry so yeah I like it it's really nice not to have to go to a laundromat so we'll see what happens now but I recommend it if you've got a hookup okay this is a good one D Manning said hi Robin I'm glued to your channel thank you I've been waiting to see how the driving and maneuvering that fifth wheel is do you need a lot of strength for the hitching I want a fifth wheel but the hitching and backing is a huge worry well like I told you guys when I started out I never would have considered this and I tell you I get a lot of women just looking at me like especially older women I was in a gas station parking lot the other day and first of all when I got out this older lady looked at me like she couldn't believe I was driving it then I put in deaf literally her jaw came open I just don't know what the big deal is one person can do it another person can do it but then I really had to make some tricky maneuvers to get out of that gas station because it was pretty tight but if I can do it you can do it and it does not take any strength really I'll tell you this is one of the reasons I chose a fifth wheel and the one that I got because I saw somebody else do it and you know there's just buttons it has taken me some time and I'm by myself so there's not someone behind me going go to the left go to the right go up go down I'm having to learn it so sometimes it takes me three or four times to hitch up but you guys will see that all in the upcoming videos I do have to stand on a ladder to get over the side of my RV to you know secure the hitch and I have to use a pole to grab the wires that I need to plug in I could jump in the back but it's just easier to do it this way but that's about it there's really not much strength involved for the maneuvering boy I'm going to show you guys and the girl back that fang up video I practiced in the desert forever backing up and maneuvering and I thought I had the hang of it until I had to go to a trek stop and back that thing into a space needless to say I gave up and left found someplace else to park because I wasn't good at it then but I've been doing it now for I don't know you guys it just seems like years doesn't it I mean maybe six weeks or something and I've gotten pretty good at it um so it just comes with practice you can do it you can do it okay I get a lot of people that ask me what kind of a trek I have I got a Ford f350 duly and it's a big it's a big it's a beast and I know that it's expensive and I told myself it was an investment because I was going to be pulling this rig a lot which now it's like you know maybe in a few months but here's why I did it the weight of the fifth wheel you know goes into the back of the bed of the track basically and I wanted more wheels so if I blew a wheel I had five other wheels on the track and there's a lot of safety stuff in the forts that I wanted and I use on the road so I feel pretty safe in it but I'll tell you guys I was driving today and I saw semis all over the road because of this wind and which is why I pulled over but it does make a big difference to have this rig and so actually I'm going to go to the next question Tanya said I hope to get a class C in a few years and hit the road are all class C's that bad to drive are just the ones you've had okay look I had a 25 foot leisure travel van which was a B plus and I had a 25 and a half foot Tiffin Wayfair which is a class C the difference being the overhang and mine both sucked to drive I mean the Tiffin was way worse than the leisure travel van to be fair but they were both on a sprinter chassis so no they're not all that bad to drive I have friends that have class C's and class A's that drive just fine I think the thing to look for is how much weight they can carry because I've said to you guys before I have to wonder you know how many screws they left out in order to get that much of a rig on that little tiny chassis and with my Tiffin look you guys I've never said this before I'm going to go ahead and tell you just because I don't like to have a negative channel I like to give people solutions but one thing that did happen in my Tiffin is the wall separated I mean like straight up you could be in the bathroom and stick your hand through the wall into the bedroom and wave at somebody and that's why it went back to Alabama for them to fix that I also had a major structural issue in the slide which I think made me a little off-balance I don't know if you guys saw the video where my steering wheel was going like this it went to Mercedes first and then it went to Tiffin never found out from them what that major structural issue was with the slide so that's what they emailed me and I never got clarification on that so I gave it back to them to fix it they put a couple of screws in that one wall but it made everything else in the rig a skew or a skewah as my friend would say the shower came loose the cabinets in the back came loose it was like nothing was flush anymore and it all just started literally pulling apart so you guys understand why I felt like you know I sold that to a dealer so they could fix it I'm not a person but I wanted to sell it in the same model year so I didn't lose any more money and it ended up being just fine because this rig is so much better put together and in my experience this drives great I wouldn't drive those rigs over 12 13 14 miles an hour I mean it was like I felt like I was taking my life in my hands it felt like I was literally gonna fly off the face of the earth when he guys hit me this one I can drive up into the low 20s I could drive it higher than that I just don't want to it's just not as much fun but 13 14 15 mile an hour winds which I can tell from that app I don't even feel in the fifth wheel because it's heavier and um it's I'm in the truck instead of being high up in a class C so no I would get a class C if that's what you want just make sure you get one with a really nice hearty engine and a lot of them have that or a super C or something and really test drive it test drive it in the wind and test drive it going up in downhills and around curves that's what I say okay Pamela says hi Robin hi Pamela this is perhaps a bit off topic but I've been wondering if you've thought about getting slide toppers okay seriously my bad I did not even realize this rig did not have slide toppers my last two did that was a good thing about the last two rigs so if you guys don't know what a slide topper is when you have a slide in a rig and it goes out there's a thing that looks like an awning that comes out that just rolls out over the top of the slide and it stops like debris and leaves and stuff like that from coming in now you know when when badge and I left Colorado to head to Arizona for the very limited time I was there we had to get the ice off of the slides and we couldn't get the slides in because there was so much ice in there a slide topper would have helped that a little bit now I need to actually see if I can put slide toppers on this because I have two awnings and it kind of looks tight to put slide toppers on but I absolutely recommend them because otherwise you putting your slide in like leaves will come in dirt will come in you can get up on a ladder with like a blower or a broom or something but you know ain't nobody got time for that at least me it takes enough time to like load up and go so yeah um you know there I hear about $1500 to put on aftermarket so I just don't know if it's worth it even if I can do it but I wish it to come with it okay and I want to say Michelle Smith asked me what gadgets I've gotten for the road paraphrasing that didn't work and if I could dispel some myths about RV life and I just want to say Michelle this is one of those questions I'm going to do two videos on those topics because I have so much to say about it and finally this week instead of doing a comment of the week I'm going to give you guys a quote of the week some of you guys may have seen this already because I posted it on the YouTube community and on Instagram and Facebook because I thought it was so beautiful and full disclosure the one I have says the author is Kitty O'Mara and somebody texted that she was the translator so forgive me if this is the wrong poet but listen this is what I want you guys to hear right now before I go listen to this and the people stayed home and read books and listened and rested and exercised and made art and played games and learned new ways of being and were still and listened more deeply some meditated some prayed some danced some met their shadows and the people began to think differently and the people healed and in the absence of people living in ignorant dangerous mindless and heartless ways the earth began to heal and when the danger passed and the people joined together again they grieved their losses and made new choices and dreamed new images and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully as they have been healed so I hope you're all doing well out there how we spend this time is up to us maybe you could do something with some of your time that you've always wanted to do I know I'm going to including bringing you guys a bunch of content that I'm thinking you're really going to love and some of it is just to raise your spirits so let me know what you want to know out there and please everybody down in the comments let's let each other know how we're doing and what's working out there and what's not I'll see you guys back here again in two weeks for another view queue until then I'm going to be putting out probably two or three videos a week because I want to give you guys all that content that I had for before just so you don't miss and I know a lot of you have been waiting for that and then I'm going to catch up so I can tell you guys more live about what's happening with me and everybody else out there until then I hope everybody's having happy travels at least in their hearts and be free