An Unexpected Start to Our Travel Day | Van Life

We have a 760 mile trip ahead of us but the road has some other plans. This is definitely not the travel day we were expecting. Thank you to Storyteller Overland for sponsoring this video. We spent a very good night at Cracker Barrel. We drove from Birmingham last night to Jackson Mississippi which is where we currently are and today our goal is to get at least to Odessa Texas. We have 1,400 miles to go until Phoenix where we drop the trailer off and then we continue on to Los Angeles. Along the way we're going to share some tips and tricks about how we drive cross country because we've done it a number of times. Some of the places we like to stop and some other things so let's do this. Cracker Barrel is one of our and if you haven't seen our video about spending the night at Cracker Barrel we actually made one about what would you say six years ago? Yeah. We'll link to that in this video and you can go check out our start of RV life in the giant rig we were in. So something just blew. I'm gonna have to go out and investigate. Let's just get off the next exit pull over in a parking lot and I can get under there and see what's going on. Okay it's not the tires but something heard a big I'm wondering if it's one of the boost pipes for the turbo so I'm going to head up pull over at one of the the next stops and see if we can get under there and take a look. We have no power right now and I think it is a boost pipe. I'm gonna look up and see if I can find a Ford dealer nearby. With an open service center it is Saturday. So I got under there and the boost pipe blew off. Everything looks good it just came off of the fitting. It might have been because it was so cold and the fitting just got loose so I'm gonna go under there put it all back together and get us back on the road. I didn't bring any tools with me but I did bring one and somehow it turns out to be just the tool I need in the size I need. I got my mighty pig quick. I need a flathead screwdriver this has a bunch of different options so and I need a stubby because that's going to be a little tight area to get in there. Well I did find a Ford dealer 15 minutes away. Okay I think I should be able to get it. What I think I'm going to do is in the parking lot we're in there is a curb. I'm going to drive the driver's side wheel up on the curb so I have more room to get under there and work. This is definitely not the travel day we were expecting but things come up you just gotta roll with it. That you do. I gotta take my sweatshirt off it's freezing out there but it's really oily because in the turbo oil tends to be in your up pipes and all that so it's a bit of a mess. There are many reasons why I absolutely love Joe and this is one of them. I'm so grateful that he is mechanically inclined and can get under the van and do some troubleshooting and hopefully get us back on the road. What's the news? I got it we're all set let me just check some of the other ones. Have I told you lately how much I love you? I love you so much words can't even describe it. Good I cut my hand up a little bit but outside of that. Well I have our first aid kit I can bandage you up. I'm good I just need to wash my hands. Well as luck would have it the fix was relatively simple it was just the rubber hose had popped off one of the fittings and again I think it was either it was cold and it shrunk or it was never tightened properly in the first place but that said it should be fingers crossed it was just in a very difficult spot to get to. Somehow some way the only tool I brought was exactly what I needed down there. I needed a stubby flathead just needed to tighten a hose clamp and get back on the road. I am just really cold right now because I think it's in the low 40s and that concrete was freezing. Well I'm gonna put your heated seat on. Okay I will say this is one of my all-time favorite tools and I will leave a link to in the description below for it. These things are fantastic and they have all different sizes I might have to get a few more. And Joe also wrote an article about his favorite tools though. Yeah and this is I think number one in the list. Ortherussos.com. All right well let's get back on the road. I didn't even get to finish my coffee. I haven't put your seat on yet. Got it. Now the thing with a issue like that is you don't know if you've actually fixed it until you put the vehicle under boost. So I have a long empty road here. I'm gonna see what happens. I would say that's working. It's working. It's working. It's working. Thank you so much. You're welcome. My pleasure. We have 750 miles to go. Let's see how far did we make it? I think about eight nine miles. If that. Well if it's any concession at least I have some lukewarm coffee left. This is not the first boost link we've had. It was actually why I when I heard the noise I pretty much knew what it was. We had Leo our truck camper. We blew a boost hose pipe. When you're on the road as many miles as we do things are going to happen. One of the reasons we chose the Fortran that just means if and when something. Given the delay this morning I'm not sure we'll make it to Odessa today but we'll certainly try our best. When we do plan a long driving day like today we know it's roughly going to take us x number of hours to get somewhere but we always plan to add a few hours back to things and also construction. We always recommend keeping a mark driving day. We're at a rest area so I am going to pop under the van and double check that boost boot to make sure it hasn't slipped at all and it's staying so it is just after 1 p.m. I think today we've only done about two. Yep. Cracker barrel. Always. Those are easy for us because they're most places usually we can look one up. Today Kate started looking things up on her gps to see how far away things were and what we did was we found a couple restaurants cracker this morning and then Kate's going to take over and do some driving. After Did you happen to notice that the jimmy john's and the chipotle are right next door? I think I'm going to get jimmy john's. I have a free sandwich on my app right now so I'm going to do that you can get chipotle and we can meet in the middle. I always bring my own spoon to chipotle. That's my wife saving the world one spoon at a time. How was your lunch? Lunch was amazing. It was. And now I'm having a post-lunch snack. A little candy. It's matcha white rabbit candy from a new year celebration. Okay. Keys. I haven't been behind the wheels since we uh got on the road. We're gonna need to find fuel. Yes. Okay that's gonna be your job. Okay. I'll just keep on driving on the 20 until we can't go anymore. This way? Follow the gps. The gps isn't plugged in. No. Most of the time I'm driving and Kate is my co-pilot. She's the one that manages the gas stops, getting gps going and everything else. I've failed in my duties as co-pilot. You haven't failed. You're just not used to it. Yeah. Kate and I are kind of a house divided when it comes to gps. I like to use google. Kate likes to use the native apple app because the native apple app gives her much better turn by turn directions or I like to kind of figure it out as I go along. Which navigation app do you prefer? Yeah. Are you on team Kate or team Go? Or do you use something like Waze or something else out there? Let us know. I'm good. It's filled up. One of our favorite money saving apps is gas buddy. You can use it to find the least expensive fuel in an area or look at fuel prices somewhere down the road. And there's another reason why I absolutely love Batman. He's always making me laugh. All set. Ready to calculate our uh towing fuel economy? I am ready. 11.95. Really? Uh-huh. Wow. That's better than I expected. Yeah. This thing has been a beast towing this trailer. I don't even notice it back there. I'll take it. Yep. Does this mean you're making coffee or are we getting back on the road? I'm gonna it's still a little it's almost three. It is time for coffee. Okay. Um yeah if you want to pull over park I'll get a cup of coffee made and we can get back. Joe and I have a kind of loose agreement with driving. He usually takes over if we're going through a big city or if we're driving towards the sun. Those are two things I don't enjoy when we're on the road. So I rely on this guy. I've got my coffee made. Kate's in the driver's seat. Thank you again for driving. You're welcome and thank you for my tea. And we have what did it say? 500 some miles left to go? Uh more than that to get to Odessa. I don't know if we're gonna make it today but okay we'll try our best. Joe. Well we made it to Texas but considering the size of the state that's not really saying much. We still have a long way to go. It's saying 520 miles to Odessa. So are you getting off? Sure. We can take a little break. Switch time. I'm always the pinch hitter whenever it comes to bad weather conditions. This rain is not an accurate uh indication of the weather I was driving through. Hey I got they will have seen video of what the rain was like. It was bad. I grant you that. But you made it a whole uh almost 49 miles. Congratulations. Do I look like I'm having a good time over here? I gotta dance to no music because we can't put we can't play the radio while we're filming because then that would be copyright violation. So I just have to pretend that there's music in the background and I'm rocking out and having a good time. My guess is you're humming or you're rocking out to Tears for Fears. My favorite band ever. Dallas is coming up. I'm gonna let Joe drive us through there and then I can hop back in the driver's seat. Good plan. Good plan. Oh belly's sticking out again. Gotta suck it in. I look over and I just see this. Trash panda. I'm working on it okay. I even got the trash panda and the like sneakers and everything. He's working out. Motivational spirit animal. Well we are at a dead stop so must be a pretty bad accident. I hope everyone is all right. One nice thing about being in the camper in traffic like this is we have our own toilet. We can make food. So we have all the comforts necessary to endure a long traffic delay. So long days like these in the saddle used to kill me and I just and I'm feeling really good and one of the reasons for that is because we got world of difference once you get them set up for you. One thing you'll see a lot of when you're coming through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona are what we call the car trains which is people who come up from Mexico. They buy a bunch of old cars. They basically stick them all together and you'll usually see at least three hooked up heading down across the border to be sold on that side. It is going on 7 30 and we have four hours to Odessa. I don't think we're going to make it tonight but another kind of tip for us in terms of places to stay is know the rules of the state you're going through in terms of whether or not you can overnight at a rest area. We have a whole article on our website wheretherussos.com about which states you can overnight at, what the rules are, etc. Some states you can only stay a few hours. Some are eight hours. It all depends so make sure you know the rules before you plan on spending the night in one. When we filled up earlier today and I told you we were averaging about 12 mpg, well that was with me doing all the driving. Kate's been behind the wheels since our last fill up and she's a speed racer. It is now almost 9 30 and I'm going on our all stays app looking for places to spend the night. Options are truck stops. We've got a lot of TNAs, pilots and loves travel centers. There's a couple cracker barrels but the closest one is about 93 miles away. There are some rest stops and again the closest one there is 60 miles away. Also Walmart. I've called a couple. No one's picking up right now but according to all stays they're all friendly and allow RVers to spend the night. I think at this point it's just a matter of how far do we feel like driving. I think we can definitely make the one in 60 miles and the rest area in 60 miles. It'll really just depend on how how we're feeling once we're getting close to that. Well you got us all the way to Odessa. Good job. I haven't left this seat. Did you do... yeah you did the whole what 270 miles without stopping. A whole tank of fuel. You're a champ. And there is the loves travel station that we're going to. It's been a day. It has. Man oh man. It's 10 past midnight. We made it to Odessa. Yay. Can I get a high five? I can't believe we made it and it was all because of this one. She pulled she pulled the all-nighter. I went to the bathroom back there while she was driving. We didn't have to stop and then when I start giving her good options to pull over and camp for the night she's like yeah let's just keep going. I've got this. Yeah and we made it. We did. It was fantastic. And for the record my fuel economy for my drive was 10.44 not the nine that was previously mentioned. Yeah we initially went to the truck stop. That didn't work because the only space is available right next to the pump and I just figured all night long all we would hear are those like car doors closing you know pumps going and all that sort of thing. So we called an audible and found a Walmart in the kind of vicinity. Came over here. There's another RV parked. So we're gonna call it a night here. It seems like it's gonna be much more quiet. So if you ever have thoughts about spending the night at a Walmart, a rest area, a truck stop, a cracker barrel, and you want more information guess where you should go. Our website wheretherussos.com. We've written about all of them. But that is it for this video. Thank you all so much for watching. If you enjoyed this please give it a thumbs up. Subscribe if you haven't already and a big thank you to all of our subscribers. We will see you next time. Bye. My new book Tales from the Open Road The Adventures and Misadventures of RV Living is now available for sale on Amazon. Read all about the ups and downs of our first year and a half living on the road full-time.