We Went Full-Time in Our RV… Then EVERYTHING Broke Down

Houston, we have a problem. RV is busted. Very difficult to get to. They're not hard to fix, if you can access them. No. We have to put our rig in, like, a shop? He recommends taking it to Freightliner. So, where do we go from here? I don't know. That is a storm coming. Houston, we have a problem. We do not have boost pressure building up. Stop engine light came on. It's always something. You'd be surprised how many people have fixed this as soon as their car comes out. All right, sounds good. Show me what's wrong. Um, we're holding the thing because our RV broke down. We need to break it out, necessarily. I mean, kind of. We can only go 12 miles an hour. Why? Down a highway. Let me go underneath, I guess. I'll look underneath. No, no, no, you're not leaving me here, are you? Sorry. This thing is heavy as hell. Yesterday, we broke down. Thought it was a turbo. Couldn't find any leaks. Had a mechanic come out, replace the actuator. It's all nice and shiny. We made it about two hours down the road, and we have coolant leaking like a sieve from underneath the rig. Oh, my gosh, it's like everywhere. It, like, exploded coolant. One should not crawl under an RV in a maxi dress. I've got sticker burns in my maxi. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. We need to take it out for you? No, I'm good, thanks. I mean, unless you think that might be fun. I mean. We cannot tell where the leak is coming from. So here we go again. Lift it up, and I'll hold it. Put your back into it, girl. There you go. I work out. Work out. It's so damn hot. I was going to say, that is a freaking heat coming off of that thing. The Texas motor. Wally, you're, like, covered in stickers. Ah, owie, that's a big one. Darn it, Angie. Oh, my god, you have one on your butt. Put your butt this way. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Chad's better able. Please don't squash me. A hole. A hole? Yeah, it's in the silver of your dog. Big ass hole. Here, I can control very good. Be a big girl, OK? Great. OK, right there. Like, look straight down. You see it? Yeah. And it looks like it's pouring coolant. Come help me hold this up, child. Not you, Sloanie. Now you can stop right there. Put your back on that side, yo. Give us a feed. There we go. I got my muscles over there. Thanks, baby. So we broke down a little bit up 183, and we drove a mile and happened to find this place called Burpete's Steak RV Park. And the property, I guess he's the property manager. I'm not sure what he is. He came by and talked to us on his golf cart. He was really sweet. He said, you can stay here as long as you need. Just leave a $20 bill if you decide to spend the night. I mean, it's the good old boy system, right? I love it. This is Texas. The kids thought it was really cool, because back here in the back is a really big oil derrick. I've never seen one that close. There she lies. I don't know. All signs point to time for a new rig. What do you think, Gray? Are you going to fix it for me? Um, I'm pretty sure I know what's broken. What's broken? Tell me. I don't know what it's called. There's a little pipe that's burnt, and it's got a huge dent in it. It's like... And it's leaking? Yeah. Why do you think it's broke? Because s*** breaks. Because s*** breaks? At least it's pretty, right? I mean, it could have been worse. We could have had no spot to park. So, you know. I'm not a country girl anymore. I did grow up in the country. That doesn't mean I'm still a country girl. The sticks are beautiful. I think you can find beauty in anything. Yes. Tell me you can't find beauty in this. Look over here. I want you to see over here. Look how cool that is. Do you see how the light is like coming out from the horizon? Day two of trying to figure out now what is the matter with the engine this time. My burly men are holding up the bed. With your big man muscles. That's the wrong back and feet line. Yeah. That freaking rig needs a doctor. It's falling apart around us. Our house is falling down around us. He just gets up in there. Why didn't it work out with the guy last night? He couldn't sit under the RV to see what was going on. He was so sweet though and apologetic. He was like, I'm so sorry, ma'am. I'm so sorry. I mean, I felt freaking terrible. I called the guy and he was like, make sure when you call somebody else, tell them they need to send a skinny mechanic. A skinny mechanic? My guy couldn't fit under the RV. He needed to send a skinny mechanic. It's not like we have it dropped on brims. I said, um, we don't need a skinny mechanic. We just need one that's not. I mean, he was a big dude too. Like his head was like hitting the- His head was big country. Was it really? Yeah, he has a tattooed across his arm. His head is big country. Where are you from? From Austin. Oh, okay. Wow, you didn't even get far. Yeah, no. And this is the second time we broke down since leaving Austin. No, it's not third time. We fixed it. We went, broke down again. Fixed it. Went, broke down again. Third time. We had a bit of **** news. Chad, do you want to explain? Yeah. You're like, no. RV is busted. What does that mean exactly? It's a freeze plug, which are very difficult to get to. They're not hard to fix if you can access them. In order to access it, we have to like take off the back of the bus. To put our rig in like a shop? He recommends putting it, taking it to Freightliner. Oh, God. He said it was going to cost seven to ten grand. So we're going to have to go put it in a shop and rip off the back of the bus and try to access the part and hope to God that's the thing. And I mean, so where do we go from here? I don't know. I'm talking to your dad right now to see if maybe he and I can tackle it. I have towing. We'll just drive it over. He'll fix it. He said we might get right down the road and it's going to blow off and blow up the engine. We'll be okay. We'll get there. Even if it does go back through. We drove 200 miles. It's not a big enough stream coming out. We saw coolant. You didn't see it coming out. I took a video of it flowing out like a river last night. I know. We can make it to your dad's at least. So now we can go from there. We're fine. We did have a speck of good news this morning. We have two full price offers on our house. We're going to need it. Pray that something goes through because apparently it's time to upgrade the rig sooner rather than later. Yeah. All right. Sounds good. I grew up wild and I grew up true. A town most folks just drive through. We sit out by the dam on a night when the air was warm. I was raised on a little patch of heaven. Wheat fields and old dirt roads. Where the tin roof sings the whole damn thing shakes when the cold wind blows. Well it ain't all sunshines and rainbows hard times we all know. But I go back in a minute to the land of the wicked wheat fields and old dirt roads. What is this mom? What's this? A pear tomato. Try it. I don't chew. Man that is good. Don't eat the green ones. Those are gross. Oh Nana is this one good? Nana is this one good? Well okay let me Nana can correct me if I'm wrong but I think I think perhaps that one got too much water and it split so it's still good. But we can get it and throw it over the throw it over for the cows. You won't eat it? Oh we've got so many inside. I see that. Are you about done? Yeah we're filling it up with uh oh overfilling it with coolant. We think we fixed it. We're gonna see. That was like a whole thing. I guess it's good news everything is back together. Just filled it up with some coolant to test it out make sure it's not still leaking. I guess if you get squirted in the eye with uh coolant then you'll know we still have a leak. That would be a telltale sign. Yep. We've been running it for about I don't know 15-20 minutes. Let's see if we have a leak. Sticky bears. I think we're good. No more leaking. Temperature's still showing cool. Might be good to go. Oh he uprooted your wind thing. Is the rain coming? The wind's coming and the rain's coming. See that? That's how you can tell it's getting ready. Probably by tomorrow or the next day. Then we take it off let it dry. It is spinning. Oh that is a storm coming. I want this one. Be nice to that one. That's my dinner. Oh mom I found a hidey. Oh I found him. What is that guy? It's you just found it. What is it? There's splits. They tell the leaf off. Wait. That's if you don't spray it's a disaster. So you just gotta push it out of the way. It's dying right now. What do you think? Pharaoh's pretty cool? Look. Look right here. Look. Grab him. Whoa. You wanna hold him in your shirt? Oh he's like in the wind. Good hunk in here. Not good. He's like good hunk. What? Don't squash him. Just grab him. He ain't gonna get you. He's got pokey legs but that's it. Oh that's so weird. That is so weird Gray. No don't put him on her Gray. No you never scare anybody with them. That's where I found you one. Nobody gets him but Ezra. Look right here buddy. He's like I have one. Look at mine. Oh do you want this one? You just ate the flower Sloan. Ezra come back. Taste it. Is this the one that you just had in your mouth? Oh okay. But you can have it. Oh thank you. I took off the flower. Yeah I saw you. Eat it. The whole thing. You got a friend in your booth. Yeah. I found one of your friends. It's a big old bee man. Don't get stung. What kind of bee is that? It's a five striped wasp. Oh. Those are some beautiful grapes. It's coming in. Oh really? Oh. Blah blah blah. Yeah it's gross. It's like eww. He's trying to lick my camera. Here you go little man. Puts the worm on the hook. Thank you little love. Is this sufficient? Good job. You were graded and Nana said good job. Sort of. You flung him at the dock. Tell me when it goes under. You having some grapes? No he's having cucumber. Oh cucumber. This is the one he picked in Nana's garden yesterday. Oh. It's a good one. I want a bite. This is like what cucumber should taste like. That is good. Oh it's on it's not even real. Fishing is just enjoying the feel the air. And you gotta have patience and just chill out. Wait you gotta look at the dragonflies. Here he comes. You got a fish or a worm? Which one? Wait. Good job Floney. It's a jumping fish. It's a jumping fish? Yeah. Hello. She's real sweet. Hello. She won't let you pet her but she comes right up to you. Give me a moo or something. Go. It's in your 15 minutes of fame. Might not get another shot at it. Give me your best one. Thank you. We've been at my parents house in South Texas. For a few days while we're waiting on the estate sale people to finish getting all the stuff out of our house. This is where I was raised and this is where I grew up but for some reason when you've been away this long it's always jarring to come back to this way of life. Believe it or not I really did grow up rodeoing. I grew up breaking horses and roping and barrel racing. It's kind of a far cry from the way that we live now but there you go. I'm going to find my husband. My dad has wrangled him into doing god knows what with cows. So I'm going to make sure that my city slicker is okay. I found them. I got ran over. You got run over. Let me see. No. Did you get a horn right there? Yeah maybe. Got a little scratch. Or did you run into the fence? I broke me. Oh. He ran into the other guy away from the one that was chasing him. Wait. So you ran into the cow? Cow came from behind me and I heard it but nobody told me anything so I was just standing there and then I ran and I ran to another cow. Like I was just in the middle of them. And then I jumped over a calf and did all that other stuff. Wowee. There's a rodeo out here. So what are we doing here boys? We are giving a shot to make them ovulate. Well it definitely made them poo. Jeez watch out. And then these cedars we got to pull out. This has medicine on there that makes them. Oh gross. Come and eat. Cedar. Shot. Okay. Cedar. Shot. Patch. So you know when they're ovulating exactly. Interesting. It's a bullseye patch. When that gets rubbed off like a like a lottery ticket then they're ready to AI. 12 hours after it's rubbed off. You know what rubs it off? Oh god. How do you feel about this? My cowboy in his movie shorts. That's okay we have on boots. It's hot. We're in Texas. You ran into a cactus yet? No. I'm gonna be talking about this for years. Because he got run over by a cow. You ain't a cowboy till you've been really run down. When just now? He didn't get too good. He didn't hit the dome. That horn's still pretty damn short. Oh yeah? Tell me. I heard you. Oh these young boys. He'll survive. I'm fine hearing him tell it. All right we're done for the day. Life is like baking a cake. Both involve choosing ingredients. Making choices. Following a process with a plan. And being flexible enough to adjust to unexpected challenges. And just as heat and pressure are necessary for the cake to rise, the pressure and challenges of life lead to personal growth. And the final outcome of the cake, like one's life, depends not only on the quality of the ingredients, but on the execution of the process.