December 31, 2019 - Where have We been?!
Good Question.
Welp, last you saw, we were stucky in Kentucky. We ended up spending all our trip money on repairs, but the good news is we made it back to Rochester safely. Then we made a brash decision. To give up our lives in LA to relocate back home to Rochester NY. It was not an easy decision, but at the same time it kinda was. There's a million reasons we'll get into during season 2 of Gypsy & We.
Currently, Gypsy's hangin out in my dad's driveway while Telly, Pizza, Footy, Ami, and I crash at Telly's parents' place. Ideal? No. Ballsy? Maybe. Ridiculous? Yes. Ridiculous cause we left our "careers" and amazing apartment in Santa Monica California? Yeah. A little. But like we said, stay tuned and we'll figure it out together.
I'm working part time for Instacart and Telly is bartending at Rochester's comedy club while we both await news on possible film work in CNY. She wins. We're saving money to fix gypsy and for upcoming trips. We're also trying to get out of lots of credit card debt. Well I am anyway. LA ain't cheap.
When we made it back to Rochester in late-September, we made the decision. So we flew back to LA and spent October selling all the stuff that wouldn't fit in Gypsy. We sold a lot of stuff. Everything from the beds to the barstools to the Foreman Grills (you know you have one).
While selling our stuff, we got a good reminder of why we're leaving LA (reminder of one reason anyway). October is peak fire season in California and one night we made the mistake of leaving our apartment windows open. In the middle of the night, an alarm went off. Not the smoke alarm, the carbon monoxide detector. That means the air outside was so bad, it could kill you. Or at least that's what the fire department warns.
Then we flew back to Rochester in November, got jobs, and spent the holidays with our families without doing the whole holiday airport thing. And now, here we are, planning our 2020. Or as I like to call it, two-thousand money.
We have lots of already filmed videos to share and lots of new adventures coming up. Thank you for staying tuned!
September 7, 2019 - progress
New Floor
My dad used to install carpet and flooring so this was his gig. We took out the old partially destroyed tiles but the subfloor needed replacing too. So we did that. I was hoping we'd get to continue the road trip after the new floor went in, but we had a few more items that needed attention.
Bedroom
Telly made 2 brand new dressers and a bed frame. And we put a new ceiling in. I painted. This took most of August.
Ceiling
We had to get through the old ceiling so we could get to the electrical chaos in the RV. So we tore the whole ceiling out. Probably a mistake. But we're putting in a new one and so far our method seems to be working.
The Slide
We painted and redid the ceiling and got a new table for her. We also found a leak somewhere in the slide. We're still trying to figure out where it's coming from. We still need chairs...
Engine Problems
We start Gypsy every other day to keep her fresh. But one day she didn't start. Nobody could figure out why. I cleaned the terminals and reconnected them and she magically started again. No Idea.
Others
93 - number of times I've swept Gypsy at this point. 47 - number of trips to the hardware store.
6 - number of times our electrician friend came over to try to figure out where all the freaking wires go.
F*&$#% this. - Footy
I'm going nowhere without my cats. This means training them to live on a leash. Not going great.
The Route
So far: Los Angeles -> Long Beach -> Vegas -> Arizona -> Utah -> Colorado (Grand Junction)
Ami loves it.
Ami had no problem making herself at home. She wanted to drive but she settled for the dashboard.
Battery? Alternator? Nope.
Still have no idea why our battery runs this low. This is why we broke down on the 405.
For every breakdown...
We broke down on the side of the road 20 miles from Grand Junction, at least we had this.
THE MYSTERY FUSE!
We have no idea why it keeps blowing. Thoughts?
June 9, 2019
Oh man.
So of course we knew we'd have to put some extra money into Gypsy, seeing as she's a 23-year old RV and we're the 4th owners.
What we didn't know was "how, where and why" we'd put the money.
Well, we've sort of started our journey, and we're discovering those answers, and even more questions as we go. We made it to Long Beach to stay with a friend for a few nights before the real journey begins on June 10th, when we leave Los Angeles and head east, in search of Not Los Angeles.
Quick list of stuff we need to fix before we can even start on the cosmetic overhaul:
- LP gas not working.
- Possible alternator issue - still running diagnostics, hopefully it's "fine."
- Refrigerator not working when hooked up to shore power.
- 20 amp fuse blows when hooked up to shore power.
- Outside refrigerator cover panel blew off while driving.
- Electricity not working yet - we overhauled the system to add new lights, but the parts haven't come in yet. We probably could have waited for the parts to come in before taking it all apart. Lesson learned.
I'm sure we'll add much more to this section, but it's also time to consider the next section:
WTF are we Doing?:
- Which route are we gonna take?
- What will the weather be like?
- Where will we stay?
- Where will we stop?
- Where are we gonna get money?
- Holy crap gas is expensive.
- Are there any gas stations big enough for this 36 foot monster to get in and out of easily without making a 23-point turn and smashing the rear end against a concrete pole? (more on this later)
As much as I love the fantasy of just packing into a motorhome and going, things have started to get real.
I've been Googling all of these for the last several days, and a lot of really helpful stuff online. Like, A REAL LOT. Like a million possible answers to every issue. It's tough to sort through, but I like to think I'm narrowing it down maybe, I hope.
We anticipated growing pains and minor fixes along the way, but we didn't anticipate any major obstacles, like:
"What if the alternator doesn't work and our truck dies on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere?"
or
"How come the LP doesn't work? We need that to run the fridge and the stove. All our food is gonna go bad."
and
"Why does this fuse keep blowing and how come none of the lights work?"
I know the more interesting story comes from unexpected challenges rather than if everything smoothly went according to plan, but you can stop now, we have plenty on our plate to keep this thing interesting. It's borderline scary at this point. These are some serious considerations.
Good luck.
May 13 2019
Launch Day - By Ryan
We went live today - we put up our first video. You can watch it on our gallery page.
If you're into this kind of stuff, please subscribe to our Youtube Channel, our Twitter, IG, FB, Pinterest... Linkedin?
I don't know, I feel like trying to keep up with all the social media detracts from what we're actually trying to do here: Simplify.
In a perfect world, we could just live the experience and not worry about posting all the stuff on all the things in all the formats. Obvs we have to post everywhere to make this work, but hopefully you'll pay attention to the content over the inundation of pleas to like and subscribe and watch and share and post and repost and comment. We don't want our social media footprint to define us.
For a long time, I let my career define me. Upon realizing that, I decided I should let me define me. To do that, I had to focus on what I want. And to do THAT, I had to figure out what I don't want. So here we are.
It's a big life. We'd love to spend it doing the things we want to.
May 1, 2019
You ever see that movie, "The Money Pit?"
We picked up two major pieces of advice from numerous RV blogs, posts, social media advisors, etc.
#1 - Don't go to Camping World.
#2 - Don't buy the first RV you look at.
Welp. We did one of those things.
A 1996 Fleetwood Bounder named 'Gypsy' with 29,000 miles on her. It runs great, 1 slide, we think just about everything works...
The genny doesn't work. The washer/dryer doesn't really dry anything. Fridge works, she drives great, new brakes, new tires-- She's 36 feet of rollin' home.
One area needs a lot of work: The interior. Previous owner smoked cigarettes - by the smell and yellow coat of nicotine on everything, probably a couple packs a day. Menthols I'm guessing. So we have to replace everything fibrous. Couch, chairs, ceiling carpet, etc. Not too bad right?
Also it needs a new floor and subfloor due to water damage. This issue probably kept other potential buyers away - fixing/ replacing subfloor is a major project and could cost a ton.
However, Ryan's old man installed carpet for a living, which means I spent most summers and holidays installing carpet. He knew it would pay off some day...
So that's where we're starting. Stay tuned, wish us luck, send us tools and helpers - jk we got this probably.
