The End of an Era

It's with the heaviest, most grateful heart that I (we) write this post. The Smile Wagon has officially been sold to this lil weenie (and her parents).

In addition to our previous post talking about how we didn't think we would make it this far, I also didn't think the time would ever really come for us to sell the Wagon. It feels like a huge part of our personality is off to its new home, but we are so excited for the adventures that this rig will have with its new owners.

Before we're done with this blog though, it's probably important to tell you that we somehow ended up in New Zealand. Much like everything else in our lives, I approached Chad with a wild idea ("hey, how about an international rotation?") and Chad, ever the realist, gently responded with, "Probably not. It'll be a lot of difficult logistics." And yet, here we are, Chad with a job at a local practice nd me riding the bus to the hospital every day as a student doctor.

We were prepping to leave for New Zealand while we were still in Phoenix. One of our potential plans was selling the Smile Wagon before we left to avoid having it sit in storage the whole time, and because we were nearing the end of this year-long adventure anyway. We posted the rig on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and RV Trader to see what would happen, but didn't get much attention for the first few weeks. As such, we had planned on just putting the rig in storage for the 6ish weeks we'd be gone, then we would come back and haul to Albuquerque for my next rotation.

Just as we were packing and tidying to put the rig into storage, we got a message from a couple who was willing to drive up from Tucson to take a took at the Smile Wagon that same day. What timing! They drove to us, weenie dog in tow, and decided to buy the Smile Wagon on the spot for their next adventures. The logistics, while a bit rushed, could not have been more seamless.

Buying this thing was a trip, but selling was even crazier. We basically had 3 days to move everything out, load up the truck, and prepare the rig for the new owners, all while packing for New Zealand. We have learned so much over this year, and explaining the quirks of the Smile Wagon to people who have been RVing for years was wild. The whole process was such a whirlwind that I have to keep reminding myself that we aren't going back to the rig when we return to America.

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Alrighty, well now that we've sold the RV and we're basically experts, let's answer your questions!

Where do you put your clothes?

The mirrored doors by our bed are closets with hanging rods in them, then we each had 2 drawers below. Plus, we had a ton of storage under the bed. For things we only occasionally use/wear, we'd put them in vacuum bags under the bed to save some more space.

Amy, do you drive that thing?!

Yes, why wouldn't I? Girls can also drive large trucks and trailers. Check your bias, thank u, next.

What are your favorite things you've learned?

I think my favorite thing has been Chad and I will always find something to argue about (just kidding). I have really loved seeing so much of the country and being able to actually live there. We have eaten so much delicious food and taken so many cool local adventures. Chad's favorite thing has been crawling into bed under the electric blanket on a chilly night and playing lots of cool golf courses.

How does pulling it down the highway work?

There are 3 slides that expand when we're parked, so we bring those in before hitching to the truck. Once they're in, you can no longer walk freely through the main part of the rig, but the bedroom and bathroom are still easily accessible. Obviously we'd usually forget to do something on the far side of the kitchen island after bringing the slides in, which made for some fun climbing and acrobatics. After hitching, we pulled the jacks and hoses in and we were good to go.

It drives surprisingly well--we thought it would be more difficult to haul if it was windy, etc., but actually we found that the trailer hauled beautifully because our truck Marge is such a monster. Plus, we opted for a fifth wheel trailer, which hauls better than a tow-behind because the weight distribution is different.

How does cooking work?

As usual, Chad does all the kitchen things. It was a tricky adjustment because of the layout of the kitchen and how small things were, but we managed well! The fridge was nearly the same size as we were used to in Portland. We did have to get used to having a gas stovetop instead of an electric one.

There were a couple of tricks with cooking that we slowly learned. For example, electricity is usually included in a campground fee, but we have to pay to refill the propane tanks. Whenever we could use electricity instead of propane, we would, especially when we were using propane to heat the rig. For example, we had a microwave in the rig (new for us!!! We didn't use a microwave in Maine) that was also a convection oven. This used electricity, and was a great option for most of the cooking that we did, along with an air fryer.

How about showering?

When you picture an RV shower in your head, it's probably one of those super small ones that you can barely turn around in. This is one of the main reasons we purchased the one we did--the shower was full size and amazing! The main consideration is that any water you use is going into the grey holding tank. So, if you want to dump the tanks less often, you need to use less water. We became very used to taking "camp showers," where we turned the water off to soap up. This also helped conserve the hot water.

Where does all the water go?

In our rig, there were 3 tanks that sat under the living space. Two of the tanks were "gray," which is water from the shower or the sinks. There was 1 "black" tank, which is water and waste from the toilet. We had a control panel inside the rig that told us when the tanks were getting full, then we would dump them. That process took about 30 minutes, where we would open the valve to a tank and it would empty into the sewage system ("dump site") at whatever campground we were at. On our best days, we had a sewage hookup at our campsite. On the days where we grew as people, the dump site was at the entrance or exit of the campground, and we would haul the rig there to dump, then haul it back to park again.

How do you go to the bathroom?

Pretty much like everyone else does. We did have to use septic-safe toilet paper, most of which was thrown in the trash can instead of being flushed to avoid the dreaded "poop pyramid." Then we would dump the black tank about every 3 days to keep the smell down and make sure the tank was cleaned out.

Does it get cold inside on chilly nights?

It did! But because we are planners, we tried to run away from the cold as best as we could. Chad and I were balling on a budget, so much like a lot of things in our lives, we did our best to plan around the weather then crossed our fingers and toes that our hard work paid off. The coldest it got was in Milwaukee, where it dropped into the 30s some nights. The problem with the cold is freezing pipes. To mitigate this, people usually put a skirt around the base of the RV, or there are new cooler options like air-up skirts. We found that keeping the electric fire place and space heater on actually kept the rig at a toasty 58 with no frozen pipes, plus we had an electric blanket to sleep under.

How do you do laundry?

You should not be surprised to know that we got a tiny portable washing machine off of Facebook Marketplace (thanks, Mom!). This thing could really rip. It had a washing bin and a spin bin, where we would fill the washing bin to clean the clothes, then the spin bin would wring them out, then we'd use a drying rack. It was a bit of a bummer when we were both wearing scrubs, because the wash bin could really only handle 2 pairs of scrubs at a time. Luckily, Chad and I love to hang out with each other, so it didn't matter if laundry day lasted for 10 hours.

If we weren't using our little portable cutie, we were utilizing local resources to wash our clothes: sometimes it was a campground laundry room (great place to meet new pals!), sometimes it was a local laundromat, and sometimes it was actually local pals/family that would offer their washing machine.

How do you level the rig?

The leveling system was both the bane of our existence and such a treasure. Our rig was run from a control panel computer, which was just smart enough to run everything (slides, lights, leveling), but not smart enough to let us know what was wrong if something happened.

The Smile Wagon had 4 jacks: 2 in the back and 2 in the front. The front jacks are the meat of the leveling system. The back jacks were more for stability and keeping things from falling off the shelves when I was riding my spin bike (lol).

We would pull in or back in to our campground parking spot, then lower the front jacks just enough to take the weight off the hitch of the truck. After unhitching, we would press "Auto Level," which levels the entire rig with the 4 jacks. Pretty sweet, right? It works so well, until it doesn't. We only had a couple of big mishaps, one of which resulted in us resetting the entire leveling system and praying to whichever RV deity watched over us that we didn't break something.

Are there lots of bugs?

There are so many bugs. Bugs everywhere. Bugs in the toilet. Bugs in the cabinets. Typically they were fine (we would try to relocate them but sometimes they were resistant), but we freaked out any time we saw an ant. You never want ants anywhere, but you especially don't want ants in your 300 sq ft home. The ladybugs were more tolerable, but still quite annoying.

How much do you spend on gas?

Chad is a genius and also does a concerning amount of research on literally anything we do, so he found a diesel discount fuel card, which allowed us to save anywhere from 20-80 cents/gallon on fuel at truck stops that accepted it. This year turned us into a single-car family, except it was more like a single-monster truck family, but I digress. Chad would take me to work (or vice versa) or we would rent/borrow a car.

Diesel isn't cheap, especially when we were getting 5-10 miles to the gallon when we were hauling. RIP. BUT, Marge did get better highway mileage than Chad's old 4Runner. Also annoying was filling up on diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), which was needed about once a month. After our first run-in with the semis at the Love's in Baltimore, nothing made us feel cooler than pulling into the diesel bays with Marge and the Smile Wagon in tow, then the two of us dingbats get out of the truck to fuel up.

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If you've made it this far, you are rewarded with these photos of Jojo the weenie settling into her new home :)

If you've been following along with the blog only for RV-specific content, that is coming to an end. For those of you along for the ride no matter where/what our home is, we have a few more crazy adventures (and likely misadventures) on the horizon. Either way, thanks for hanging out with us. We love hearing that you read the blog or you got a giggle (or learned something) from one of our stories.

In summary, we are grateful to be here and grateful to be able to type up these ridiculous stories. Go on more adventures and keep things weird, people!