Bonus Episode! Boondocking with Brad: Back to Basics

sell it. We had to talk with friends. We threw yard sales, groad sales, We went to the um Goodwill and gave well donations. Uh, we had to do a lot of different things in order to do this. There's a lot of mental minimalization and physical mentaliza minimalization. Yeah, for sure, it was emotional and stressful and in addition

to just being a lot of work and preparation. And it's different, much different than like moving because I've moved several times, especially in and around Chicago, and this was really different because now I'm having to go through pretty much each and every material possession in way, whether I need it or not, which we could put it in storage, or if we put it in storage, yeah, which there's

a whole another thing. Yeah, And then like there's this this mental minimalization that you have to go through because you're realizing that you're giving up this city. There's so much to do there, there's so many things to to remember and to people to talk to and say goodbye, and and what you're doing is you're trying to like get ready to go on the road for a long

period of time. And what I don't think a lot of people realize is that there's this mental piece where you have to like restructure how you think, how you feel, how you act um to be able to focus on RV living because it is such an undertaking in the beginning. So when I talk about like mental minimalization, it's really just trying to refocus that into what we need for

the RV. And so when you start thinking about, Okay, I have a ten ft by twenty six ft space to put all of my belongings in, how do I do that? Yeah, it's definitely not easy. We couldn't take your childhood desk, but we did put that in storage. Yeah, I know, but it's still it's one of those sentimental things. So you know, we had to find out what it was. And so I had to take a couple of trips to the storage in Indiana, to the farm, and it

was a it was a journey for sure. Yeah, I know, like for me too, I needed to specifically find items or keep items that made me feel at home, because that was really hard. Leaving Chicago was really hard, especially for me because I was there for so long and was so rooted there and leaving was just a real emotional struggle. So I knew I needed to get items that would make me feel mentally comfortable, and that means like movies and games and books and stuff like that.

But I was used to having in using and a regular basists. I remember that, uh, Luise, you and her went to a little store and bought a mini cactus cacti, and uh, you know you wanted to bring that because you know that's something that would make you think of her. Um. I told you, Louise that Matt would even be able to kill a cactus. And we're sorry to say that about eight months in, I don't even know lasted that long,

I like killed it in record. I was trying to give you some I was really trying to give you some extralyway here. I don't know, I don't know it has it has since passed. Um. And then like Maggie gave you the neon cactus sign that's like still next to our bed. That's like we had like uh, double sided sticky taped it right to the sides. That's a little nightlight, uh for when we wanted to glow. And

so it's just really you know, there's those things. You see them and they remind you of the people around you, and that's great. I can handle like inanimate objects, but living things, Yeah, Finn, it's great, but exactly yeah, Finn is like yeah, then Finn is very well take care of and spoiled, so we don't have to worry about

that at least um. But yeah, So you know there's those like things you're like, Okay, it's not necessary to have it, but it's something that you want and it helps you with that memory or that feeling of that friend. And and so there's things like that you bring. That's why we have photos up in our r V and all these different little aspects to to make it really more homie. Well, that's a question Uh, we get asked a lot, or like I get people ask me a

lot like how do you make it feel? Or like what do you recommend you know, really basic questions like for people moving into an RV for the first time and how to feel comfortable with it. And my one of my number one recommendations is doing stuff like hanging photos, not framed or anything that's you don't really have the space for that and it's not necessary. But like what we do is just having photos that we printed out and we literally just kind of tape them up essentially,

so they don't clothes line pit. Yeah, so they don't take a physical room. They're just adhered right to the cabinets and stuff. And it goes a long way because it's not only does it live en up the space, but you're surrounded by these positive memories and friendly faces and it's really uplifting, it really is, and uh, you know getting actually, God, we had a lot. We have a lot of collections. Um, we have a tiki mug collection.

I had a liquor collection. I did have a record collection, but I ended up selling that before going on the road because I don't know why. I probably shouldn't have but that's okay. They're in a good home and everything is good there and people are using them, so that's what matters. Records are meant to be played, that stored, and I just didn't want them to go bad because they were in a storage area and not like temperature controlled. So yeah, but I sold. I mean I was at

least four or five records in there. UM and our tiki mugs. We had to wrap them all up, box them all up, label them. We took down our National Parks wall which has to travel on one side and traveled to on the other. Um, and then it has all well had nine national parks at the time, so um, all their postcards in these beautiful frames and basically as we traveled to them, we would move the frame from one side to the other and then we collect knickknacks to fill gaps and a beautiful wall. Um. But we

had to pack all that away. We can't bring that all into our v but we did bring one sign and that's the Jack carrollac quote. Their suitcases are piled on the sidewalk again, yet there's longer ways to go because the road is life. Um, and that's hanging on our fridge now and so we kept that one part of the wall because it's a beautiful quote and it's on this beautiful piece of wood um that our friends at Tiftwood in New Mexico UM made for us UM

when we were getting that National Parks wall together. And so there's just so many beautiful aspects that we wanted to bring with us that we couldn't. And then close Matt had he actually had our closet space you did, and actually I remember one Christmas he surprised me by reducing it to half of it and he actually allowed me to have half the space after three years of being married. So that was like a Christmas gift to me one year because I was like, I don't have

any room and he did that for me. So that was really nice. Yeah, because in addition to having this whole closet, I also had a big armor and I'm like, Merry Christmas, here's half a closet that you are entitled too, but I have refused to give me. But then we had to reduce even more and so now I mean it's gross, like we're talking about. That was a four ft deep by fifteen ft wide um with two like

racks high where you can hang clothes. Um. And then Matt finally reduced his to half of that and then from there, now we have a two ft by three ft by five ft tall box for mats hanguble clothes, and three drawers too small or too shallow, you know, four or five inches tall drawers, and then one that's like a foot deep. And that's all he gets, basically nothing. Um. So what we had to do is we had to

find like, okay, these are the good clothes. We don't want to bring these on the road because they will get ruined. And there's some clothes that we did and you know what, they're used so much that you know, um, we never had to really deal with this in Chicago because we didn't like do that. But like we have hats that are literally were this beautiful black color and now they like have brown spots because they've been out in the sun so much and we wear them consistently

and constantly. Um. And so there's just different things that you have to like make sure that you don't bring your nice, nice clothes, but bring a nice set of clothes so that way you can go out on a date together and things like that. So these are things that we had to think about. It's just all this minimalizing and and just trying to figure out what are necessities to be able to live this lifestyle. Yeah. Um, like you were saying board games, that was another collection.

We probably had over eight board games because you probably like FT to sixty. Yeah, I mean that's still on the high end. But we had a good amount of board games. Probably, No, we had more than that, definitely more than that. So we'll agree to disagree. But we ended up bringing five with us, and now we have like acquired five more somehow. Yeah, they fell up action of the aret, like very different cupboards. Right above our bed, we have all of our little uh board games and

you know there's ones like Trekking the National Parks essential. Um, then there's that train game and I might Ticket to Rub such a fun game. Those are two very similar, different but similar. We need to play that game. We do. I really misplaying problem. It's like a lot of the board games we have are meant for a minimum of three people. Well, we can play Ticket to Ride just the two of us, but you would always get mad

at me. Be it's the more people you play it with the better, because it's just more fun that way, but also like kind of softens the blow and I feel less betrayed by people. You said it, you said by you go ahead and keep it, So that's the ideal, And like Ticket to Ride, I would just get too annoyed with Yeah, no, and you know what I'm When you have other people, you can actually like turn them

against me, and that's what you do. And if they want to do that and they're on their welcome to That's why you'll never play Monopoly with me because I'm too good at it and I just hate that game terrible. It tears apart families. Yes, but yeah, so we had to decide do we bring Monopoly, and somehow we had four different types of Monopoly people the National Parks regular

Mario Mario, Oh my gosh. Now we just have the National Parks version, which is that definitely makes it like better, but we still don't play it because, yeah, I won't play it like with you. I played it with like my siblings one and that is true. Yeah, he won't. And I love that game like I love playing Monopoly, and you're too devious. Yeah, I even tell you my strategy and you still don't like, Well, I don't know

get it. I can't do that game, which is the worst strategy now that I think about it, because I realized it's gentrification. Um, exactly what you're doing now. Yeah, I just realized I'm a horrible human being when I play Monopoly. Yeah, you're just realizing. Uh, you are listening to park Landia from my heart radio. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia. So there's just a lot of different things that you have to like

really condense. I mean even your potting pans. Like who would think that you couldn't bring all your pottent pans. We only have like seven eight of them, but like literally now we're allowed to have like two. We have our like frying pan and are pot um and it's

a small pot not a big one. Um. But basically we had to just find these things, and you know, there's some things we had to get rid of or we put them in storage for a kitchen stuff because we had to get like foldable or stackable or different things like I can't bring all of my cocktail glasses, like I have my coupes, my highballs, my rocks classes, you know, all these different kinds of cocktail glasses, beautiful vintage ones. I mean, I love I love making cocktails. Um,

that's something you might not know about me. But I make my own bidders when I have space. And there's a lot of like creative outlets that I have around cocktails and making making them. And that's because I got sick on Cosmos when we were first dating, because we're watching Real Housewives and drinking Cosmos, and um, I said, I'll never do that to you again. So I had to learn how to makes for real. Yeah, Cossa poltins, No,

I can't do those. I like martinis, but Cosa polsans are too sweet and I had like two of them and you probably made them doubles now they're probably triples like that. It was bad, Like I shouldn't have making cocktails at that point. Ever since then, when I seen Matt crawled up on the floor and then after something went very wrong, I was like, okay, that's right. I remember like waking I don't remember much. I remember like waking up. Probably crawled up in the people position, like

on the bathroom floor. Yeah, I throw him as a pillow and I'm I'm just gonna leave him there. Because I don't want him to I just don't want to move him better. But I made sure he was okay. So don't think I'm just I Matri had water and I gave him telling all and I you know, I sat there with him for hours. I even fell asleep on the floor, just making sure he was good. And then um, then I just I went finally, like went onto the couch because he was okay. But and it

wasn't as dramatic as this sounds. So anyway, we don't make hotsmos in the r V. UM. Yeah, so there's just so much like you know, you have all this space. The other day, we went into a friend's house, um, and we I was like, Matt, when is the last time we've been in a home? And he was like, oh, that's probably like two months ago, um, at my dad's house. And I said, what, like, just think of this concept of not being in a home, any home, your own home,

any home for two months. You're living in ten by space and so when you go into this home, you're like it's so gigantic, Like their bathroom was bigger than our r V. Legit like no joke, And so you just have to remember, like when you're minimalizing, minimalized to your bathroom, that's about the size that you get, um in most cases. But uh, it takes a lot. It's a mental it's a physical thing, it's an emotional thing

because you have to part ways. Like you know, I have a lot of like marine corps like memorabilia and things, and I had to pack all that away and my dress blues um from the Marines and you know, so I had to pack all that stuff away. Um, I have a lot of memories notes um, like about my martial arts days and all these things that I can't just go to and get inspiration from or like remember where I came from, And so a lot of that

just goes away. So you just kind of have to focus on what is absolutely a necessity versus anything else. So you have all these memories and you put them all away. But what did we gain from that? Well, we've gained a lot. We've made a lot of memories together because it kind of refocuses everything and we spend more time together doing stuff, more time talking because there's

less distractions for sure, and less space. Like we're not not that are loft is huge or anything, but like you know back then, like I could be in one room doing something, you could be in the other room doing something. And it's nice that things have gotten cozier with less distractions, and we do more stuff together, whether it's watching and with other people. We meet new people,

We talked to new people. Because we don't have much within our v we we definitely push ourselves out to just talk to more people and visit and explore more.

That's good too. Yeah, I feel like we've made a really broad network of acquaintances and even friends across the country, which is really nice and comforting, because that was a big struggle, was just like leaving that social safety neut of Chicago in a sense, and then in the in the subsequent like year and a half, like making connections with people all over the country and being like now I don't feel so tied to one place. I feel

much more comfortable. There's freedom where I feel like Albuquerque is my backyard. I feel like um Portland's Maine is my backyard, or Land at Atlanta. These are all places that are just amazing. And I remember when we were in Nashville, we met a couple Cameron and Jeremy from

Atlanta and they became great friends. Uh. This past Thanksgiving, we actually spent things like friends Giving with them in Atlanta because we were in Atlanta and we were you know, we were working and making sure to try to connect with people, and so we've made these great friendships at travel. We did not meet him in Atlanta, so it's weird that we would just be in Atlanta and now we're friends and we went out multiple times, we met their friends. Um,

and it's just it's really inspiring. The things that you gain aren't exactly physical items. They are relationships, they're people. There are relationship with earth, with national parks, with wildlife and ecology and all these beautiful aspects of what it really means, what life means. Yeah, and with Finn too, Like that's a big thing because like in Chicago, Yeah, we didn't ever take him downtown or anything. We didn't

go sight seeing with Finn. He was all he really got to do and see was explore the neighborhood and wander around. There's a park at the end of the block, which is lovely, but like not much like change. He would just do the same thing. And when we were in Portland, Maine, watching him, he was there was just it was full of wonderment. And yeah, he's seen so much and we've done so much with him, and his enthusiasm is very clear. He has a very emotive face.

And you can see how we went on a couple of hikes with him in a Katie And National Park in Maine, and not only did he pulled his own he you know, his tiny little dog with little legs, was able to walk for miles, but he was scrambling in like, in and out of little rocks and along the shore, and I was blown away and it really inspired me. I'm like, wow, your enthusiasm, it's beautiful. Like I feel like I'm closer to the meaning of life

than I've ever been. And that's just like seeing people seeing it through Finn, meeting people, talking with people, doing something for somebody else. And that's what I fin Field. Finn has done for us for so long, and now it's nice to see that for him. But that makes me me happier than any monetary value out there. Is just seeing something done for somebody else, or seeing somebody's

energy spike because they're in love with the world in nature. Yes, it's a wonderful thing and that's been a really rewarding aspect. For sure, you've been listening to park Landia, a show about national parks. Parkland is a production of My Heart Radio, created by Matt Carouac, Brad Carouac and Christopher has theotis producer and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer is

Christopher has the Otis. Our researcher, It's Jefflyn shield. A special things goes out to Gabrielle Collins, Chris to Waters and the rest of the Parklandia crew and Hey listeners, If you're enjoying the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like you find our show. You can keep up with us on social media as well. Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at Parklandia pod and join in on the conversation and our

Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you for listening.