How to camp at a WINERY (RV Boondocking Challenge pt.1)

We spent the last week here at Snowflower Thousand Trails. It's really beautiful. It's our first time here. It's been nice to be up in the mountains. Who else saw a bear? I did. It blocked eyes with me and I didn't end up throwing away the trash and just boogied all the way home. Which is what you should do. This all leads us into what is going to be our biggest adventure yet in our new to us Class A motorhome. We are attempting to work our way down south to Southern California completely boondocking. So we're basically harvest host hopping all the way down the coast to get there. We're gonna be staying at a bunch of wineries. We're really trying to be boondockers this time and we're gonna see if it's even possible. Let's see how it goes. This is gonna be our last time plugging into power for two weeks. I'm still not 100% confident on our solar system. The generator works fine, we know that, but I want to use that as sparingly as possible. But we can do it. You gotta try, right? All right, so we made it. Getting all set up and definitely really ready to go check out this winery. Chris and I really don't drink like ever and don't keep alcohol in our home. It's not something we purchase. So this is definitely out of the ordinary and a little treat. So we're excited. Uh-oh. What? Giant Jenga? Yeah, this place is closed but mom said they would allow us to play big Jenga when it's closed. We just I think it's really cool, really quaint. I feel like there's no other place that we've ever parked, camped, stayed that has felt more like my own home. Like I just feel like I moved into my own home. Like this is my property. Like this is my yard. Make yourself welcome. Grab a chair. Grab a drink. Walk around barefoot. You know, like we're just at home here. We basically moved in. Ripped it right out of a library book. If I was there it would have splashed all over my feet. It's like a great sunset every night. No, no, no, no. Welcome to boondocking. Sand tropical. This kiss, this kiss. Oh, I need to sing that underneath the kiss sign. I don't even know what's going on at this point, but we're feeling good. We can have fun anywhere apparently. Good morning. So I just woke up and I want to see what our batteries are at as early as possible. Right now they're at 71 and 80 percent, so that's really good. That means they're not dropping down too much. As soon as the sun comes up, they're basically going back up, which is what it's supposed to do. So, boondocking. Thank you so much. At the winery? Can we go inside? Okay. Good. I'm the last to get your wine, darling. You did? We're gonna be outside. Do you have enough hands? Oh, can you carry your water? You want to go sit outside, bud? Day two of living off-grid. Last night went really well. We did not go without. Casey took a shower this morning even with hot water, and now we're just sitting here with this gorgeous view enjoying some wine, waiting for a charcuterie board. Everyone we have met here has been so nice, so welcoming. It's super kid-friendly. It's super pet-friendly. I think I said it yesterday, but I'm gonna say it again today. This is like the most at-home I've ever felt staying anywhere, and I feel like that says a lot. So, Chateau de Val, cheers to you. I mean, to be fair, we're really not wine people either. I mean, I could get used to it. We can do better. We could be chasing dreams. We know what's right. Oh, wow. We should do the thing from Ratatouille. It's actually really good. Yeah, we can do better. We can make a change for real. Yeah, we can do a lot of better. We can be facing fears. We know what's up, and we know how to get there. Yeah, we can be stars. Just put us to the test and we'll show the world there's another way. If we just try a little every day, we can make it. Well, ironically, we don't have wine glasses with us right now, but I would say, cheers to day number two. It did get a little warm today, so we've been running the generator for like the last couple hours. But actually, we've been hanging out outside here. We've been really enjoying this outdoor area. It's Monday, so I don't think they're quite as busy on Mondays. So, it really felt like we were just hanging out here by ourselves all day. So, now we're just enjoying the cooler part of the day. The sun's going down. We're the only ones here, but we had a good day today. You okay? Yeah, never been better, actually. Watch me do it, Martina. Okay. That's pretty good. You want me to show you a real one? Yes, show me. Wow. So, it is now day three of boondocking. So, I'm just riding into town today. I'm stopping at Walmart, trying to make this boondocking experience a little bit more efficient and easy. As much as we don't like to use paper plates and disposable utensils, I think I'm going to pick up pretty much all those things. Right now, the biggest issue is trying to conserve water and not filling up our tanks so fast. We're shooting for five full days right now without needing to dump our tanks. So, I think disposable dishes, so we don't have to do the dishes so much, is going to make that much of a difference. Yeah, and if we haven't introduced you to this old girl yet, this is my lady. She is our 2003 Chrysler Town & Country. We bought her for $2,000. We secretly always wanted a minivan. The previous owner actually hit a deer. So, there was this black fender. Noelle really wanted to paint a mural. So, I painted this weird mountain mural on the side. She'll get you there safe. These. Everyday assorted cutlery. Deal. Noelle also told me to get some, like, dude wipes, which I think is just her way of saying that, like, if all of us boys can't shower every day, then something needs to be done. So, I'm also getting paper towels. Six doubles or six triples or 12 doubles. Or six equals 18 triple. Oh, it's too early for this. I was looking it up because this issue with our leveling jack is really bothering me. One of the causes of the jack not going all the way back up could just be, like, a low fluid level. The whole leveling system runs off of basic automatic transmission fluid. I think I'm gonna buy this gallon of it because if it's gonna be leaking, I'm probably gonna have to use this a lot. And here's hoping to fixing that problem. If I can fix a major problem with the RV with just some liquid, I could do that. Just let me add liquid to something and have it work because that's so much to ask. Sliding doors is nice. You know, one thing we haven't officially done either now that we can boondock, we've yet to stay overnight in a Walmart parking lot. We've stayed at a truck stop before in our fifth wheel. That was interesting. I feel like we're not really full-time travelers until we've done a Walmart or two. So, might have to cross that off the list soon. But first, let's nail this winery, you know? We've got Harvest to Host. Are we the Host? They're the Host. They're the Harvest. We are just the Harvest-y. The Host-y. We're the Harvest-y Host-y. Here we have a very fine aged white that was specifically blended for this 2025 summer season. How's that? How's my sommelier impersonation? Excellent choice. It's got a cool tree on it. This is a Frujuliano. Oh, that was a big glass. I'm trying to be all fancy with the wrist, you know? Excellent choice. Excellent choice. I mean, we are learning a lot about wine while we're here. For instance, this is a white. Excellent choice. And yours is also a white. Wow. When it comes from the same bottle, it's usually the same type. And when you swirl it around like this, it means that it is a liquid wine. Yes, very liquid-y. Very liquid-y, very white. Yes. Excellent choice. Notes of oblivion and an oaky afterbirth. I might be so bold as to say this is made from grapes. Really old grapes. Excellent choice. I'm getting hints of alcohol. I don't know what I'm saying. Give it a try. You want me to try? So we just got told by our Harvest Host, Eric, that there's actually like a semi-close brush fire happening not too far away. And we can actually see it from here. 60 acres in an hour. Yeah, it burned like 60 acres in an hour. So it's like an aggressive fire. So he told us just to let us know, like, hey, if we have to evacuate, I'll let you know. We're a bottle of wine in right now. Give me 20 minutes and we can be out of here. It's the beauty, one of the biggest beauties of RV life. Being mobile has a lot more perks than you take credit for when it comes to even just natural disasters, political climate. Hurricanes in Florida, fires out here in California. It's like you could just get out of a place like that if it starts to feel unsafe. We'll be halfway to Mexico by tonight. I want to go to Canada. Hopefully we don't get evacuated and hopefully none of this area is threatened because these people have to go through this often enough. Eric is awesome, super friendly guy. Shout out to Casey. Casey was our very first bartender. She was awesome. She makes all the weird, she's like the scientist. She like mixes and makes their like wine slushies. Good morning. It is now day five of living completely off grid, which means day five of no showering. So come groom with me while I get ready for the day without a shower. Just going to do some dude wipes, a little French bath. Now for the real mess. Wow, it's actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Okay, let's pick our outfit. You want to see my makeup haul? All right, five days, no shower. I think we're doing okay. I think we're going to live to see another day. Well, we've made it five full days in this boondocking journey so far, and I think we're all pretty excited about that. Now it's time to get everything cleaned up and start packing everything away. Luckily, our awesome host Eric was nice enough to let me borrow his water hose to fill up our water tank before we left. And before we head to our next harvest host spot, we desperately need to go find the nearest dump station so we can start this new week with fresh empty tanks. I couldn't film before on the way down here, but one great thing did happen. I put some ATF fluid in the reservoir of the leveling system. It took a lot. It took like more than half of that gallon that I bought, so it definitely was low. I noticed that one jack that I thought was the problem, it's still in that like sort of down position, so I thought, oh maybe it's something else, whatever, whatever. When we started it up and started driving, no alarm. The quietest it's ever been in the like over two months that we've owned this thing. It almost felt weird. I felt like something was wrong, but watch. I'm gonna put it in drive. That's a game changer. Oh boy.