Despite our chilly arrival to Austin, we have been surrounded by warmth of family this past week.
Our reason for being in Austin is because my brother still lives in this awesome city we grew up in. He and his new gal wanted to host their first Thanksgiving feast in their home- and my mother flew in from Florida. It was a no-brainer decision to time our repositioning so that we could have a family reunion for the start of this first holiday season since my dad’s passing.
Much of our time has been hanging out, running errands, enjoying the fabulous Austin dining options and putting our time where our hearts are.
This year we have much to be thankful for, and there have been understandably bittersweet moments.
So, not much exciting travel stuff to share from the past week, other than accomplishing making some fabulous feast yummies in our toaster oven (we took out our larger propane oven). I’m always amazed with how little space and resources it takes to make some healthy tasty bites.
We would however like to reflect our gratitude to those of you who have chosen to spend your time virtually following along with our adventures. Every time we get an e-mail, a comment or a chat request with appreciation, we glow. So thank you so much for that – it really does warm our hearts and makes the efforts worthwhile to know you’re out there.
What’s Next?
My mother flies back to Florida tomorrow, where we’ll meet up with her in a few weeks ourselves. Meanwhile, we’ll stay put here in Austin through the end of the week and catch up on some work related stuff and put some attention to our social ties.
Two special events of note that we wanted to invite you to are:
Live Video Chat – Tuesday, Dec 3 at 7pm CST
We’re hosting our next live video chat on Tuesday evening (tomorrow!) at 7pm CST, the topic will be Routing & Picking Campgrounds. We’ll talk about how we pace ourselves on a long repositioning, how we choose our routes and how we seek out and score some amazing scenic campsites. As always, a Q&A will follow – so bring your questions.
To join in, just direct your browser to our UStream Channel at the appointed time. You can also RSVP on our event’s page to get any last minute communications and reminders. Can’t make it? No worries, it’ll be added to our Chat Archives shortly after we’re done.
Austin Meet-Up – Wednesday, Dec 4 at 5:30pm
With thanks to our hosts from Roadmap to Nomad, we’ll be having an in person meet up for those also in the Austin area. At 5:3op will be a Q&A session for anyone with questions for us to address, and then we’ll morph into a casual meet-n-greet mingle potluck thing. If you’re in the area and would like to join us, details are on our Facebook Event’s page. (Out of respect for our host’s privacy, you must RVSP or write us directly to get the event location details.)
Come this Sunday, we’ll continue our journey to Cedar Key, Florida with an arrival of December 20th – giving us just shy of 2 weeks to traverse about 1000 miles. The route & stops along the way are not yet locked in, so if you’d like to meet up or have bus parking, let us know!
Recent Media Stories
We don’t like to toot our own horn too often, but we’ve somehow managed to be featured in quite a number of awesome places recently. So here’s a compilation of some fun and informative interviews we’ve done, and hopefully you’ll also be introduced to some great RVing resources in the process:
- Living the RV Life Podcast – Interview with Technomadia (Bobby & Sue Brown are in the prep stages of hitting the road, and are documenting the process in a podcast. They recently asked to interview us about our life on the road, and some of the technology we use. It was a very fun interview, thanks guys!)
- RVT – RV Nomads Share Technology Resources (Levonne Gaddy asked to interview us about our mobile apps and eBook – thank you!)
- Passport America Blog – Member Spotlight – Technomads Chris & Cherie search for Internet (I sent a support request because our renewal membership card hadn’t arrived yet, and was completely surprised to not only get friendly assistance – but an out-of-the-blue offer to feature our app, Coverage?, on their blog! Thank you Tiffany!)
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Wow! We were spotted in Dayton, OH in a newspaper! Nomadic Jester Blog Love – Day 12 of 43 of Nomadic Blog Love (Thank you Carolyn for including us in your Blog Love series, and thank you so much for all the nomadic Facebook communities you host – including NomadicMama and NomadicGigs.)
- Interview with Myscha Theriault – Controlling Communication Costs on the Road – (A friend pointed Myscha our way for an article on mobile communication she was working on. It was fun to chat with her, and we were completely surprised when a reader spotted us in a Dayton, OH newspaper a couple weeks later!)
- RV Wheels Life Interview – RVing is for Geeks series (Thanks to the Geeks on Tour, we were put in touch with Julianne Crane who was working on an article series about high tech RVing. Apparently, the story was picked up by 20+ newspapers across the country.)
- Gone with the Wynns – Make Money and Travel Series (Nikki & Jason Wynn – a fun loving adorable nomadic couple you just HAVE to follow – asked to include us in their Making Money and Travel series. This interview shares some of the ways we’ve made our mobile income sources work.)
- Love your RV Review – Review of The Mobile Internet Handbook (We were completely surprised when Ray, who runs Love Your RV and the RV Happy Hour forum, published this glowing review of our book. Thank you!)
- Moving on with Margo – Tech Talk with Technomadia (Thanks a bunch Margo, for sharing our story with your readers!)
Whew, we’re feeling a bit visible after all these features… but happy that our story can hopefully help inspire others to live life on their terms. A warm welcome to new readers who found us via these sources.
Hi Chris and Cherie,
Another stealth reader wanting to wish you both happy holidays and to let you know how much I appreciate your writings and videos about life on the road in your RV- something I aspire to someday soon. Also really enjoyed your tales rebuilding your engine as well as your time working at the lighthouse on the Oregon coast. Its all fascinating stuff I really enjoy reading about. Thanks again!
Thanks Richard, we always love hearing that others are enjoying being part of the journey with us. Thanks for being here.
Chris,
I love your rig…. But what is your daily routine for keeping your rig running. what Do you check every day ?, like oil, belts, hoses, Tires ect. Do you have a check list?
like once a day, once a week, once a month ?
I’m going to get a diesel rig, but don’t know that much about diesel engines. I have worked with gas all my life, rebuilds, tune ups but not diesel, I know a little and I guess I will learn as I go. So any Imfo will help. Scott
There are lots of PM check lists out there, and highly advise learning more about diesel engines before hitting the road in one. Lots of stuff you should learn. We went to a class held at a bus rally, have hung out a lot on the various forums & asked questions, and talked with our mechanics to establish our routines that feel right to us and for our specific set-up. What is right for yours will vary, and you should follow all the recommended procedures set forth by your engine & chassis builders.
Hi Cherie and Chris,
I’m a stealth reader and don’t usually send comments but I wanted you to know how much I enjoy your blog. I check it every day to see if there’s anything new. I’m in my 60’s and preparing to full-time on a fixed budget. I retired from an IT career but have trouble keeping up with the speed of changes happening. You are a wonderful source of resources. My biggest challenge is staying connected while on the road but I know I can always find the quality information I need from you. You are so generous with your time and information I felt it’s important you be reminded of how valuable and appreciated you are.
Thanks,
Barrie
Awww… thank you so much Barrie. It truly warms our hearts to hear that, and it definitely helps keep us inspired to continue sharing knowing that there are folks out there who appreciate it.
I don’t know if you have ever stayed here before but Sunset Isle RV Park at Carrabelle Fl. is a pretty nice place……and they really, really, like our bus! :>) It might make a good last stop for you as it is only 177 miles to Cedar Key. If you do stop in tell them you know us!
There’s another Sunset Isle RV Park? That would be too funny to stop at before arriving at our Cedar Key Sunset Isle. We’ll keep that in mind. Thanks!
Last time we stayed there (the one in Carrabelle) it was a Passport America park. So you get to save a few bucks too!
If you guys are passing through the Lafayette, LA area, we would love to meet up with you. Sorry I don’t have room for the bus, but I can check with my wife and she maybe able to feed you guys if she’s not too tired. Would love to pick your brains and meet in person.
Hey.. we will be passing through Lafayette… but don’t know yet if it’ll be an ideal overnight stop over point for us. If it turns out that way, it’ll be a last minute decision. Is e-mail the best way to get in touch?
Email or twitter will work! I’m @LaneVids
say hi to Austin for me and all the great Mexican food there… remember, keep Austin weird…
We do love the dining here, for sure!
I’m looking forward to watching your next live event, but the commercials on Ustream are a PITA. Have you considered using your Youtube channel or Google Hangouts for a future live event?
I believe that Youtube channels with more than 100 subscribers ( pretty sure you’ve got that ) are eligible to host live events that are automatically archived. I’m sure you can find a separate chat channel to monitor during the event. Perhaps facebook messages?
If you used Hangouts, you could even have a panel discussion with other nomads if that was appropriate, and I think a chat channel is built in.
Safe travels!
Eric
We do our video chats from our only source of unlimited data – our iPad. When we have time, we’ll investigate if there are the other options for doing the streams for iPad available now. In the meantime, we’ll stick with what we know works and we have set up. :). It’s a struggle to fit in doing the chats as is, and our time for that is our gift, not a business.
We also have terrible problems getting Google+ to approve us since we’re not a person, so Hangout is not even available to us. We had to turn off YouTube comments recently because they switched to using G+, and we can’t get on. Hate hate Google.
If you don’t like Ustream, just catch it as an archive on YouTube.
Your live events are worth it, I’ll watch on Ustream.
I started a google+ page for our website which isn’t a person, it assigned me as the manager and I can assign control to others. Perhaps you can do one for yours?
After I did that, I noticed that my youtube page ( under a different name than my G+ account, I refused to merge them ) appeared as a “managed” site just like the page for my website. Perhaps there is some way to link yours in a similar manner.
As someone who loves his Google, I’m just trying to help. ( Just got my Nexus 5 delivered today!!!! )
Ours is all messed up, and can’t get anywhere with it. Oh well. No biggie. Don’t need that headache.
Thanks Eric… I personally have a love-hate relationship with Google, and the way they have botched account management is definitely on the hate side lately. A lot of other sites have been caught by the Google+ / YouTube account mess, and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an easy fix until Google gets around to manually untangling things.
I spent some time recently looking for other live broadcasting tools, and UStream still seems to be the best way to go when broadcasting from an iPad to a large audience. If you ever run across any info, tutorials, or apps that make it easy to set up a YouTube or Hangouts broadcast in a way that is comparable to UStream, let us know and we might give it a try.
– Chris
So glad you’ve had time to relax with family. I trust the rest of your repositioning doesn’t include the chill feature of your west Texas drive.
Brrr… we had hoped we were ahead of the chill, but brrrr.