This is our third night utilizing Boondockers Welcome, and our second at the same host. We hadn’t really planned ahead far, but as of now, its working ughwell.
Boondockers Welcome basically works as a connection website. You sign up, pay $25 a year, and you get access to contact the hosts. The hosts are usually people who also RV and open up their property to other RVers. When they get good reviews, they get more free time on the website, so it can pay for itself.
We paid in August when we first set out and were looking for places to stay in the Wisconsin area. We didn’t find any that were close enough to be worthwhile, but kept the option open and on the back burner to use later. When we left Wisconsin, we found an RV campground that was part of Thousand Trails, and stayed there for two weeks. Since we have to take seven nights off after we spend more than four nights at a campground, we needed to find somewhere else to stay. We contacted half a dozen different hosts on Boondockers Welcome, and found our first one right away.
The first host we stayed was the owners of a roller rink. We got there early in the afternoon and stayed one night. They didn’t have hookups though, so we had to use the generator for a little bit. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. It was a nice place to spend the night, traffic on the nearby road was light, and the parking lot was well lit. For just one night when we needed somewhere to crash, it was fine.
Another host we had contacted got back to us later that first night though. They had electric we could use and they usually spend their winters in the southwest, so they were accustomed to the RV lifestyle. We jumped at the chance to meet some new people and got directions, a power adapter, and headed out.
They have been great hosts. We are newbies at the RV lifestyle and they have been able to help us figure out how to get our awning out, tried helping us with our water situation, and gave us some fresh vegetables from their garden. We are typically antisocial and isolate, but having a couple around who can teach us and have great conversation has been good. They had an open ended timeline for how long we could stay, and so far haven’t asked us to leave so I assume that means they are fine with us here for a few days. We have a reservation at a campground in Indiana next Monday, so obviously we won’t be staying for weeks on end. I also learned that they know some information about solar setups on RVs, so I’ve been picking their brains about that and learning what I can.
With that said though, the water issue is not fixed yet. I thought maybe there was a valve I needed to switch from City water to Tank, but I didn’t find anything when I tore the bed apart to look underneath at the hoses and pipes. Tomorrow I’m going to take a lot of photos and post them online to see if we can get some help from the internet groups we belong to. I assume its something simple, I just don’t know what it is. If we could get that working, things we be almost perfect.
Also, we had to deal with a stink bug invasion. They are everywhere in Michigan. One day we woke up and they were crawling around the walls. We had no idea where they came from, but they were all over the place. We vacuumed them up and dumped them outside. We’ve gotten very good at catching them without squishing them since they give off a weird almost gasoline smell. Tiffany is vacuuming the entire RV at the moment to make sure we don’t catch any more. I think we almost have it cleaned out.
Beyond that, things are going well. We’ll head to Indiana next Sunday or Monday, visit some of Tiffany’s family in the town she grew up in, and then head to our campground. We’ll be there for two weeks, then likely do the same thing and boondock until our reservation is available in Alabama. After that we head to Florida.
Bubba outs.
