Bare Naked Brain Fodder

I’ve got a Foreigner song stuck in my head. Okay, I really don’t. I just needed a smooth intro for the title of this blog post.

So I picked up the RV from storage at Campland By The Bay. It’s been sitting still for almost 6 months now. The house batteries have been drained. She’s severely in need of a good wash, and requires a few repairs. The Norcold fridge has another recall, and I did a bit of damage to the side mirror when visiting Mike Morgan in

broken-rv-mirror

Coeur De’Alene last 4th of July. I don’t recommend 4×4-ing and navigating through narrow trees on a dirt road in a 38 foot diesel rig. Learn from my mistakes.

Since I hadn’t driven the RV in many months it was a bit nerve racking to jump back in the drivers seat and crank over the engine. At first, it appeared if it wasn’t going to start. Oh no! Dead battery? Thankfully after a couple of chugs if fired over like a champ. I adjusted the mirrors and hit the gas. Off we go!

It only took a couple seconds and it felt like old times. I was back in the saddle. The nerves went away quickly, but they do serve as a great reminder that I’m driving a really big vehicle and with that comes a lot of responsibility. I don’t take that lightly, especially when I share the road with other people.

I drove the RV to my place atop of Mt. Soledad and parked it out front. It feels nice to have my baby at home with me. I’ve missed her.

Once I had her parked I dialed in an extension cord from the garage and plugged in the shore power. Time to recharge. I also had to fill the batteries with some distilled water as they were pretty dry. Thanks to the help of a turkey baster it makes the process a bit easier. I kind of have a feeling these batteries may be towards the end of their life, but I’m unsure. I’ll have the mechanic check it out when I get the fridge recall fixed next week. The part is ordered and on the way.

While I had the rig charging, I couldn’t figure out how to turn the lights and a few of the other electronics on. It was weird. The fridge, television and microwave worked, but not the radio and any of the lights. I was puzzled. I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t working.

Then I remembered the master power switch. Duh! Yeah, it really did feel like the first time again. After a while I familiarized myself with everything and I felt like an experienced RV’er again.

I’ll be moving the rig up to Santa Clarita area north of Los Angeles. It’ll be stored in a safe lot and it only costs $95 a month. Hard to beat that. I’m thinking of doing some northern Cali trips this summer. That’ll be fun. Lana has never seen the Redwoods and I’m sure she’d love to see their beauty.

The thought of selling the RV has occurred to me and I did place a Craigslist ad offering to trade it in exchange for a down payment on property in Hawaii. I got a couple of leads, and a really good offer on a cute house in Chehalis Washington, but I really didn’t follow up that well with them. If I really wanted to sell it I guess I’d put it on eBay as that seems to make the most sense.

However, I think I’m gonna keep the baby. No, that was not a Madonna lyric. The RV is here to stay.

Anyhow, I just wanted to give a brief RV update because I know a lot of you enjoy following my travels and reading the stories I share. I’m pretty sure I’ll have some more stories and travels before the end of the year. I still need to see a bunch of the states in the northeast part of the country. And I’d like to do the entire Florida coast as well.

Cheers,

Jason

PS: My buddy and former RV traveling companion Randy Primm AKA The Road Bandit has just set up a new campaign to try and raise some money to get back on the road. He’s using a cool service called IndieGogo that uses a thing called Crowd Funding to support each persons personal mission.

Randy’s mission is to get back out on the road and to film the next season of Road Bandit. If you have a business or person that needs exposure, wants a commercial made, or just wants to watch a kid on some crazy travels check out his IndieGogo campaign and flip him a couple of bucks!

You can check out Randy’s campaign for the next season of Road Bandit at http://www.indiegogo.com/roadbandit/

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I was just fumbling around in my iPhoto and found this clip of Randy and I riding the New York New York roller coaster in Las Vegas Nevada.

So, I figured I’d slap the thing up on YouTube and publish away. Get this… similar videos like this on You Tube have over a million views and they are not much different than this simple video. I wonder what makes them get so many views?

Crazy!

Well, enjoy riding the coaster vicariously through my Kodak zI8 cam

Peace

J-Mo

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Vegas. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That pretty much sums up most of my trips to sin city.

On new years eve, my buddy Randy Primm was having the best of times, then quickly the worst of times.

Check out this video of his new years eve debauchery…

I’ll be meeting up with Randy in about a week to start our trip. Can’t wait. To read the rest of the story (hey that sounded like Paul Harvey) head on over to the Road Bandit Blog by clicking here.

Go leave Randy a comment on the Road Bandit blog and commend him for pulling off such epic trip to the ER.

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The adventure is getting closer and closer. In one day, I’ll be on the road like Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Willie Nelson and Randy Primm!

Who’s Randy you might ask? I’ll tell you more about him in a moment.

Anyhow, I finished up my second day of RV Orientation at Camping World. The folks at the San Marcos branch were just phenomenal. All of them. They couldn’t of been more helpful and patient with me.

We fixed the leaks in the plumbing system, got a new water filter and repaired the blown out hoses in the propane lines. I’m afraid of propane myself. I learned how to turn on my heat (yea) and how to get hot water into the shower (double yea). I’m pretty confident I can make it out on my own, but I may book another Camping World RV orientation in Oregon just for the hell of it. It’s only $49 and there is a branch about 10 blocks from my parents house.

So, the rig is pretty much ready to roll. The only major thing missing is a bad ass GPS system and satellite tv. I ended up getting one of those Mifi cards from Verizon for internet connections. Verizon by far has the best coverage across the country. Sadly, their internet plan blows like vampire toothed hooker.

For $59.99 you get 5G’s of transferable bandwidth. Being a video guy and all, I could suck that up in a day. If you go over the 5 G’s, you pay $50 per gigabyte of transfer. Talk about a rip off. Apparently the days of unlimited Verizon connections are gone. I’d pay good money to have one of those grandfathered accounts. So, it appears I’ll be stealing Wifi where I can along the way.

Everyone keeps asking… “Jason, where are you headed first”?

Here’s the sort of plan… Tuesday evening I’ll begin the trek north on Interstate 5 to Oregon. I figured I ought to spend some time with my folks for the holidays since I only see them about once a year. Then, I’ll head to Bothell Washington (just outside of Seattle) to see my biological father whom I’ve spent minimal time with in my life. From there, it’s open road.

I will be in Vegas around January 15th or so. And while there I’m really excited to meet up with a particular guy. His name is Randy Primm, aka “The Road Bandit“.

I somehow came across Randy’s site while perusing the net for crazy RV’ers. The moment I saw Randy’s videos I instantly dug the guy. “What a great idea” I thought to myself. I got hooked on his videos and proceeded to pretty much watch them all.

But then I got kind of bummed. Randy hadn’t been traveling much lately. Mostly due to financial woes. After seeing the enjoyment he had on the road, I imagined he was pretty bummed being holed up in his class C RV in Vegas parking lots.

So I had an idea…

We need to get this guy back on the road.

I noticed he had great video shooting and editing skills. Surely he could parlay that into some money on the road. Maybe I could help him out in some way? Maybe I could use a video guy like Randy on the road? I have been hinting at the idea of a RV gang. Or, maybe I could become a Road Bandit with Randy?

I’m not sure what is going to happen, but I’m very open to letting the universe provide me what is necessary on this adventure. Regardless of what happens, I know Randy and I can be an asset to each other. He has road experience, and I have hustling experience that can keep the gas tanks filled and the fridge stocked with grub and cold squeezers. It will be interesting to see what pans out. Either way, both of us are going to have some exciting times ahead.

So, instead of talking about this dude, why don’t I just share a video of his with you. It kind of breaks down the Road Bandit story. It’s entertaining, fun and inspiring. Inspiring enough for me to contact him and be willing to help him accomplish his goals. He seems like a great guy.

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