An Intermission

I know, I know. Last week we promised you part 3 of our EPIC roof leak drama. Instead, you got this. What gives? Well…

Pull up a chair

A couple years ago when we transitioned from “we might buy an RV” to “we’re definitely buying an RV”, I realized I had a lot to learn as fast as possible. I hadn’t spent any significant amount of time inside an RV since camping as a kid in my grandparent’s tiny motorhome some 35 years earlier. I had never towed anything larger than a 26 foot boat nor ever dealt with any of the basic operational aspects of owning an RV like backing, leveling, or dumping. And Jill had no RV experience at all. None, zip, zilch! Unless, that is, you count that weekend we spent in our friends’ Grand Design Reflection back in the summer of 2021. Though brief, I think that weekend did a good job accelerating the gravitational forces that were already drawing us closer and closer to RV ownership. (Thanks Nel and Ken!)

Anyway, bottom line, we knew just barely more than nothing and I wanted to know everything, like, yesterday. So I immediately turned to the single most concentrated fountain of unlimited knowledge and wisdom currently known to humankind.

That’s right. YouTube.

When we finally put a deposit down on our Airstream Flying Cloud Office in August of 2021, I responded like a starter pistol had been fired, gobbling up hours and hours and hours of YouTube videos on every conceivable RV topic. I watched so many videos that I succumbed to temptation and upgraded to YouTube Premium just to avoid all the ads that were impeding my rate of consumption. I didn’t have time for commercials, I was on a mission! We had at least a six month wait in front of us and I wanted to be an RV EXPERT, thoroughly versed in all the most important respects, by the time it arrived.

Of course, I knew I wouldn’t really be an RV expert just by watching YouTube videos. (Duh.) But there is soooo much to learn when you’re just starting out. It’s really quite intimidating. Looking back, I’m actually thankful we were forced to wait a total of seven months for our Airstream because it gave us lots of time to learn and prepare. Even after getting the Airstream, my YouTube RV video consumption never really declined. That was partly because there was still soooo much to learn but it was also because somewhere along the way Jill and I both got pretty attached to some of those YouTubers. We realized we were getting more than just a functional education through their videos—we were also getting healthy doses inspiration.

This blog, for example, would probably not exist without the influence of YouTubers we’ve now followed for years. You might then ask, why a blog? Why not a YouTube channel? Well, technically we do have a YouTube channel, but, you’re right, our main outlet is currently this blog. The reasons for this are pretty simple. I like to write. I know a lot about web design and blogging platforms. And right now I know a lot less about video editing. Although I’m pretty eager to learn, at the moment I have other goals on the front burner.

Last year, our first year for both the blog and the Airstream, we published ten articles. Not too shabby for a couple that’s still saddled with full-time jobs and packed travel schedules. Yet I have a long list of articles I’d like to write and it’s constantly getting longer. And some subjects, inherently ephemeral, demand immediate documentation at the risk of losing important detail and context. It eats at me that we haven’t been able publish more. So earlier this year I decided to commit to writing every single day and publishing every single week. No. Matter. What.

However! All software requires constant maintenance. Blogs are no different. Last week I broke my writing streak so I could give this site some much needed TLC. It felt good to get that done, even though it meant sacrificing all my writing time for the week. That left me with a conundrum. Do I skip publishing this week? Or do I stick with the commitment? And if the latter, what should I talk about?

And that’s how we ended up here, with this post instead of the final chapter of the roof leak story. I do hope to wrap that one up for next Sunday, but the odds are long. We’ve been exceptionally busy recently—even by our standards—so there’s a decent chance I’ll end up publishing another “intermission” post and buy myself another week of writing time.

Stay tuned!