Podcast Ep 249: Chasing the Stars in an RV

This week on episode 249 the RV Podcast, we meet a couple who quit their nine to five jobs for a life on the road…chasing the stars in their RV WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK MIKE Happy Fourth of July to all our U.S. listeners. This is a huge camping weekend – the biggest of the year – and we know many of you will be on the roads filling up campsites and boondocking way off the beaten path. Have a great time, drive carefully and be safe. JENNIFER And a belated Canada Day to our friends north of the border, who just celebrated their long weekend last weekend. MIKE We’re staying home this weekend. Since we travel up to ¾ of the year, we’ll stay off the roads and free up some camping space for those who can’t get away so much. JENNIFER Besides, we’re gone so often that being at our sticks and bricks Michigan home is like a vacation for us, so we don’t mind at all. We’re expecting to be back in our RV on the road again next week making our way down to Nashville, Tennessee and the area for a week of activities. MIKE Jennifer is spending a lot of time working outdoor on the landscaping and garden. I’m holed up in the studio furiously editing as much video as I can so when we’re on the road… I have time to shoot more! JENNIFER Our next video will be released Thursday July 4 on the RV Lifestyle Channel on YouTube. It’s Part 2 of our trip to the Adirondack mountains and it also takes us to the Finger Lakes Region of New York and the beautiful Letchworth State Park south of Buffalo. MIKE Hey everyone, I want to point out that we're having an awesome sale on our ebook RV guides. If you buy either our Beginners Guide to Boondocking or our RV Buyer's Guide, we'll throw in whichever one of our various Seven Day Adventure guides you'd like.... plus a fun pack of our RV LifestyleRule 330 stickers. Head over to https://rvlifestyle.com/books and check them out and please share the link on social media with your friends. The special offer is only good through the 4th. We also want to give a shoutout to our reviewer of the week…Downriver Brian who left us this wonderful five-star review on iTunes: “This is the only travel related show I listen to regularly. I have never gone RVing...but would like to one day. Regardless of that fact, this show has all kinds of general camping-type of information that really gets you ready for spring during the winter months. Tip on campgrounds, and all the other stuff is great. Just love it.” Thank you, Brian. We sp appreciated those kind words and your review. And we invite you dear listener, to do the same. Please leave us a review and a rating on iTunes or Sticker or whatever app you listen to us on. We so appreciate the feedback and we read every one! RV LIFESTYLE NEWS OF THE WEEK JENNIFER Newspaper report shows number of national park rangers down 20 percent since 2005 as visitors set records We all know national parks are busier than ever, but an interesting story out last weekend also tracked how funding shortages have caused the number of park rangers to decline at the same time visitor numbers are setting records. Park superintendents are having to choose between hiring maintenance workers or park rangers often. The report in USA Today showed a 20 percent decline in rangers since 2005 as Congress cut funding while visitor numbers rose. MIKE About $10 million in goods up for auction this month at former Erwin Hymer North America Group site About $10 million worth of goods once belonging to the Erwin Hymer Norlth America Group (the maker of Roadtrek) will be sold to the highest bidders at a massive auction July 16-19. Everything from office furnishings and equipment to tools to new Hymer tow behind trailers will be sold in what liquidation firm Infinity Asset Solutions Inc. says is a rare sale because of its massive size. The maker of Roadtrek went into receivership in February owing more than 900 creditors nearly $275 million. About 850 people lost their jobs. French company Rapido bought the Roadtrek brand, vehicles in various stage of production, and other items. The auction is selling assets Rapido did not buy. JENNIFER Beautiful South Dakota's Custer State Park celebrating its 100 year anniversary South Dakota's Custer State Park is celebrating its centennial this year and I found a delightful story detailing how the park came to be. The park is holding a photo, coloring and even a selfie contest to celebrate, along with opening a time capsule and putting a new time capsule in the ground. Jennifer and I camped there several years ago and and found the park delightful with large, private campsites, along with bison, bighorn sheep, antelope and more. To see our report, click here. MIKE Glacier National Park is overcrowded and plagued by gridlock It's quite the congested mess at Glacier National Park this year. Gridlock and 40-minute traffic jams have been frustrating tens of thousands so far this season, and the peak tourist time has just begun. Yet Going to the Sun Road at the foot of Lake McDonald has been closed several times since Father’s Day because of excessive traffic and the parking lot at Logan’s Pass is so filled that the park employees traffic monitors to shoo away those who want to stop there to take photos or do some hiking. JENNIFER Group calls for greater RV safety after tragic death of Canadian man when his RV had mechanical failure and smashed into ferry The need for greater RV safety checks was an issue in the news last week after a Canadian man died, and his passenger critically injured, following a mechanical error in their RV. The driver of the RV was described by witnesses as a hero for trying to avoid hitting others as he lost control of his vehicle. The RV ended up jumping off a dock, landing on a ferry that had just taken off, and smashing into tiny bits. This part of the podcast is brought to you by RadPower Bikes, an electric bike manufacturer offering direct to consumer pricing on powerful premium electric bikes. Now with free shipping LISTENER QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK From Tena, via our RV Lifestyle Facebook Page: I've been following you two for awhile. My husband and I, and out two dogs, will be traveling from Washington State down to the Grand Canyon. Then, we will be driving to Chattanooga, Tn. We are estimating that we will drive about 600 miles a day. Do you have any tips for us? We will be pulling our camping trailer. From John, via our RV Lifestyle Facebook Group : Planning our 7+ day Michigan UP adventure for late summer and have a question. Does the dreaded UP black fly have a season or are they thick until they freeze? Will going in late September or October avoid the bulk of them? Besides Facebook and YouTube, we are also on Instagram. Follow us at #rvlifestylemike. Or go to https://instagram.com/rvlifestylemike Do you have a question you’d like us to answer, or a comment on the things we’re discussing. If so, we invite you to leave us that question or comment on the special voicemail number we have for the podcast – it’s 586-372-6990. If you are driving and can’t write it down right now, just go to the RV Lifestyle travel blog at rvlifestyle.com and scroll down the page. You’ll see that number prominently posted on the blog. This part of the RV Podcast is brought to you by Battle Born Batteries, maker of quality, safe and reliable lithium batteries that can be installed in just about every RV. Get in touch with Battle Born to find out what lithium batteries and an upgraded energy management system can add to your RV Lifestyle. Check them out at https://rvlifestyle.com/lithium RV INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK Brenda and John Nejedlo of geoastrorv.com Ever dreamed quitting your job, selling your sticks and bricks home and heading for the wide open spaces? That’s what our guests today did. They are John and Brenda Nejedlo and John quit his job as a police officer in Wisconsin, Brenda left her job with the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra and today, you’ll find them touring America in a Class A motorhome and towing the largest solar panel array I have ever heard of. They did so because they wanted to literally chase the stars. Astronomy is a passion for this couple and so, you’ll find them most every night camped out in a national park and putting on free night skies seminars. When we heard about this couple, we just knew we had to invite them on the podcast. Stay tuned because you’ll also want to learn about the massive soar panel trailer John tows. Meet John and Brenda Nejedlo, known on the Internet as geoastrorv.com Here's a transcript of the interview: Mike Wendland: Well, joining us right now from Montana is John and Brenda. And welcome, you guys, to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you on. Brenda Nejedlo: Thank you very much. Mike Wendland: Now we need to talk a little bit about you guys. I did a little bit in the intro to you, but tell everybody how long you've been full-timing, what your background was before, and what you're pursuing as you do your full-timing. We talked about the dark sky adventures, but you guys are doing a lot more than that too. Okay. John Nejedlo: Well sure. We've been full-time now for two years, and we've really enjoyed those two years, a lot of learning. Before that we were from northeast Wisconsin. I had been a police officer, and then a middle school and a high school science teacher. Brenda had worked at the Green Bay Symphony, and then a place called Club Scrap Incorporated before we took off. And we basically were in a position where we could go full-time. The Nejedlo's solar trailer, pulled by an F250, with the 34-foot Thor Aria they live in fulltime set up behind in a field with a clear view to the sky John Nejedlo: We had seen someone else in our close circle doing that, working from the road, going full-time. And we realized, "Let's go do this. Let's go see the national parks.