CRAZY VAN LIFE TRAVEL DAY (Missouri to Nebraska) #rvtravel

It's a wonderful day to wander and we are officially back on the road and headed towards the Airstream Rally today. So today we are starting from the state of, oh gosh, that's a good trick question because I don't pay attention. We're starting from the state of Missouri and we are going to be traversing a majority of the state of Nebraska if all things go well. The goal is to get as far through Nebraska as possible. So total we have approximately 835 miles left on this trip before we get to our destination in Rock Springs, Wyoming. So the goal is to knock out as much of that 835 miles today as we can while also getting good gas mileage because that's always a good goal. One of the cool things about the Mercedes is that it tells you from your starting point how many bonus miles you get because of your good driving behavior. So right now it says 0.0 miles from start but as I go throughout the day it will say like plus 5 bonus miles and plus 7 bonus miles. So that's me sort of keeping it in an optimal range getting more miles per gallon which is, you know, cuts down on cost. I thought it was a win. Gamifying gas mileage. In the past hour I've seen literally one gas station and it's this one and they made a big deal about it with some signage so I'm going to stop and top off the gas tank just in case. And also Dash seems like a... It needs to break. Is that better Dash? Say happiness is the driver's seat and food. Since we stayed at a campground last night we showered there and as you can see the towels are currently in random spots because I haven't put hooks up for those yet. So I'm not sure where I'm going to hang those but I'll figure that out in a couple days. For now I'm just hoping that they dry and there are weird positions that I've found them for. Or that I've found for them. Is that silly Dash? Yeah. Oh, you see a truck. Just now we got sort of a crosswind coming across the highway here and it gave us a little jolt. Now, one of the things that I have noticed in driving the van over pulling the air-drip plastic with a F-250 is that F-250 and the towable, super aerodynamic, always go through the wind, trucks pass you, never really affected you whatsoever. But with this particular chassis, it's thin, it's narrow, and tall. So some of those crosswinds can kind of rock you a little bit, especially when you're out in these wide open plains like we are right now. Fortunately we have the air suspension here, which helps to keep it stabilized. So that's helped out a lot, I can't imagine not having that suspension upgrade with this particular chassis. I know not all Mercedes Sprinter chassis have that, so really fortunate to have that. But yeah, just something to be cognizant of that I didn't have to be cognizant of when we were towing the F-250. Now we have different things to worry about when you're towing the F-250, of course. It is wider, almost a foot wider than the Classic, because it's considered a wide body. So the things I would have to consider there with towing the Classic is keeping it in the lane, because if you drift off a little bit, your booty swings wide. So that I don't have to worry about in the van, which is really cool. So that's a one for the pro category. In case you're wondering what I'm doing while Daniel is doing such a superb job of driving us, and while baby Dash is asleep, I'm working. Most of the time that means I'm working on our company stuff, but also there are some fun things that I get to do for y'all. One of those things today being that we just recently announced that we are hosting our very first inaugural rally. We're calling it the Camp Local Rally, and it's going to be in Georgia in November. So we are super ridiculously excited about this, and so I shared a couple of videos and some fun stuff on social media about that, but in case you're interested, because we would absolutely love to meet you, we'll leave a link in the description on this video below to the information about the rally and tickets, and obviously you want to go check that out. Side note, they are selling out pretty quickly, so don't wait. Check it out today. At this point, we've been RVing for, gosh, how long has it been? Two, two and a half, three years? I don't even know, but it's been a while. It's been a while, and we have traversed most of the U.S. at this point, and we have seen a lot of things on the road. Up to this point, the absolute craziest thing I've ever seen when I looked over in the other lane was a guy in a motorcycle who was using both hands to text while he was on his motorcycle. That was the craziest thing up until this moment that I have ever seen. I just looked over a moment ago, and I had to ask myself, am I really seeing this, right? So it was a guy in a motorcycle, it's one of those BMW motorcycles with the compartments in the back that they'll use for car rallies and things like that. I look over, and this dude on a motorcycle is eating chicken wings. Literally, he's got his left hand holding a chicken wing. He's gnawed down on it, and here's the kicker. Here's the kicker. I have so many questions. Below it, he's got a plate of wings beneath it. So many questions. First off, why are you eating chicken wings while you're driving your motorcycle? Secondly, how is that plate of wings staying put and not flying away? I have no idea. I don't own a motorcycle. I don't know how that's possible, but literally, a dude eating chicken wings on a motorcycle. That is the craziest thing I've seen in three and a half years of RVing. It's so crazy. Okay, so I feel like I failed you a little bit not getting video of this, but Daniel was freaking out after they passed, and I couldn't see it from here, so I'm sorry. But second, I can't decide if Daniel is in awe or jealous because, true story, before we went vegetarian, chicken wings were his favorite food on the entire planet. You're right. I'm always amazed at how humans can achieve certain things. That is definitely one of them. That is so stupid and dangerous, but still. That's also crazy impressive too. Don't recommend it ever, but still crazy impressive. Okay, so I'm not a chicken wings person, but yeah, I think he's a little jealous. So we stopped at a rest stop because someone is pretty sick of driving at this point. Nebraska. It's like nothing but corn. I mean, literally been staring at corn all day. Because Daniel's so bored, about 30 minutes ago, I started looking for a harvest host solution for the night, but there isn't a whole lot out here, to be fair, and everywhere that is either doesn't take last minute reservations or isn't available. So then I looked at campgrounds. There's some stuff, but that's kind of supposed to be last resort. So then I looked at Cracker Barrel. There's basically one on like the east end of the state and the west end of the state if we're like smack dab in the middle. So pulled up Campendium and it looks like there's a state recreational area 15 minutes from here. We're going to go see if we can grab a last minute spot. The baby is still asleep. This is what we're going to give a try. The pictures look super legit, but it does say a lot of locals tend to come and like to fish in the evening, so you kind of got to get there early afternoon. It's 4.15, so we better hurry. This is it. So Daniel asked me a few minutes ago if I knew where our national park pass is, but this isn't actually a national park, although I do know where our pass is. It's a state park, so there is like a daily registration fee for vehicles that are not licensed in Nebraska, and it's 12 bucks. So it's probably one of the things that's going to be on the honor system because I see one of those little weird boxes. All right, here's the sign and here is the envelope that you fill out when you get here. You drop some moolah in there and your daily pass is attached. And there is the pricing. There we go, some of the park regulations. You've got a 14-day limit, similar to a lot of the state national parks around the country. All right, buddy, you ready to go look for a spot? There's supposed to be spots on the water here. We'll find out. We'll try to find a good one, okay? Let's do it. Are you going to pick it out, Dash? Yeah. He's just having fun running with mommy up front. Rabbits! There's bunnies in that spot. Rabbit. Oh, water. Okay, Dash has found us the most amazing spot here at the park. We just got situated. We already hit the auto leveling jack, so everything is already level. And I went ahead and paid my deposit. And what you do is you take the receipt from the envelope, and you put it on this pole right here, along with your site number. So for instance, in our case, we are site number 19 here. And it is $15 per night here. Great deal. Granted, it's dry camping. No hookups or anything, but I mean, $15. And we're on a table over there. As you can see, waterfront view. I mean, in terms of like finding spontaneous places, pretty much hit pay dirt with this. But this is the perfect location for tonight. What do you think, baby? Dash, what do you think? Isn't this your most adorable thing ever? Dash, you like your chair? Yeah? It's your gift from the Airstream of Tampa team. Aren't they amazing? There are definitely worse ways to unwind at the end of a long day. It's hard to put it into perspective how relaxing this place is. I mean, this is basically why we opted for van life. Quaint little park. Beautiful views. It's $15. So we splurged today. We didn't stay at a Cracker Barrel or anything like that. We went all out. $15 to stay at this recreation area. Right, Dash? You've got birds and... Water. And I mean... It's a good thing. It is. Dinner of champions. Cheese plate with pecans. Pecans. No. Pecans. And dried mangoes. And a baby who's constantly on the mission to get out of here. Baby, what are you doing, dude? Dash, can you say, I love buttons yet? I love... I shouldn't speak louder than words anyway. All right, Quint. Hi, baby. Did we get to wander local today? We did. Where did we wander local? The local state park. Oh, okay. In all honesty, we're kind of light on the wandering local today. But we made good progress on our way to Wyoming. So because of that, if you haven't wandered local today, make it a priority. You can do it for you and for us. Because as you know, it's good for the soul. We'll see you soon, friend.