The Soto Family on RV Life, Travel and Finding Freedom
Edwin, Jeesely and EJ Soto (left to right)
In this special 200th episode of RV Out West, we sit down with Edwin and Jessely Soto, the couple behind From the Hatch, for a raw and honest conversation about full time RV living, family travel, and building a nomadic lifestyle from the ground up. What makes their story so different is that when they first started RV life, they had absolutely zero experience. In fact, I first met the Sotos over five years ago in a campground in Pennsylvania on their very first night living full time in an RV.
Since then, Edwin and Jessely have traveled across the country, navigated major RV breakdowns, worked through health challenges, and learned how to adapt to the ups and downs that come with life on the road. In this episode, they share why they chose the full time RV lifestyle, how their family and friends eventually came to understand their decision, and the ways travel has shaped them not just as individuals, but as a couple and as a family.
This episode is filled with heartfelt stories, honest reflections, and practical insight for anyone curious about RV living, van life, family travel, digital nomad life, or long term travel in an RV. If you are already living on the road or still dreaming about taking the leap into full time travel, Edwin and Jessely bring a relatable and inspiring perspective to the conversation.
Be sure to follow From the Hatch on Instagram and join us next week for part two, where we talk about their travels throughout the Pacific Northwest, creating music while living on the road, and how they make this lifestyle work for their family.
SHOW NOTES
Description:
In this milestone 200th episode of RV Out West, Brooks sits down with Edwin and Jessely Soto of From The Hatch for a heartfelt conversation about leaving behind traditional suburban life and stepping into full time RV living with zero RV experience.
Five years ago, Brooks met the Soto family during their very first night as full time RVers at a campground in Pennsylvania. Since then, their story has inspired thousands of travelers who dream about simplifying life, traveling across the country, and building stronger family connections through adventure.
Edwin and Jessely share what led them to sell their home, downsize their belongings, and move into an Airstream travel trailer full time during the pandemic. They discuss navigating uncertainty, learning how to tow an RV, traveling as a family, and the emotional shifts that came with leaving behind the life they had worked so hard to build.
This episode also explores:
What it was like growing up in New York City before moving to Pennsylvania
How the pandemic changed their perspective on life and travel
Their first major road trip from Pennsylvania to Texas
Why they chose an Airstream Flying Cloud for full time RV living
Lessons learned from boondocking, campground life, and cross country travel
RV maintenance stories, tire scares, and campground mishaps
How therapy strengthened their marriage before life on the road
Visiting destinations like Joshua Tree National Park and Capitol Reef National Park
Why slowing down has changed the way they travel
Brooks also celebrates reaching 200 episodes of RV Out West and reflects on launching the podcast during the COVID pandemic to spotlight RV travel across the Pacific Northwest from a local perspective.
Featured Links
Learn more about Edwin and Jessely Soto and follow their travels:https://www.instagram.com/fromthehatch/
Learn more about Joshua Tree National Park:https://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm
Learn more about Capitol Reef National Park:https://www.nps.gov/care/index.htm
Learn more about Airstream travel trailers:https://www.airstream.com/
Visit the Airstream factory in Jackson Center, Ohio:https://www.airstream.com/visit/
Check out From The Hatch:
VISIT OUR SPONSOR OF THIS EPISODE: Scenic Washington
Order your FREE Scenic Washington road map and guidebook.
Listen to Episode 92: Discover the Beauty of Washington State’s Scenic Byways featuring Scenic Washington.
Listen & Subscribe to RV Out West
Don’t forget to subscribe to RV Out West for more episodes about RV travel, hiking destinations, and outdoor adventure across the western United States.
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Podcast Episode Transcript:
The Soto Family on RV Life, Travel and Finding Freedom
00:00:00 Brooks, Host: What happens when a family with zero RV experience decides to leave it all behind and build a life on the road together? Stay tuned to hear their story. Welcome to RV Out West. I'm your host, Brooks. My family of four is. Base camp is located in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and our RV adventures radiate out from there. Please grab a mug of coffee and join us as we discuss our RVing around the American West from sweet camping spots. Gear and equipment to tips and tricks, we've got you covered. We are RV out west. Hello friends. This is episode two hundred and we made it! I'm so excited to share this episode with all of you. When I started this show, back in the heart of the Covid pandemic lockdown, I was looking for a podcast to listen to myself that was all about RV travel right here in the Pacific Northwest. Sure, I could find episodes from other podcasters who had been to the upper left corner here in the United States, but they also mostly talked about the same stuff Olympic National Park, Rainier, North Cascades, Crater Lake, and the Oregon coast, and not from the lens of someone from this area. That gap is what inspired me to start my own show. I wasn't sure if people would tune in and listen, but I just turned on the mic and went for it. I've since learned that most podcasts suffer from a thing called Pod Fade, and only three point four percent of podcasts ever make it to the two hundred episode mark. Yet here we are. If this happens to be your first RV Out West episode, welcome. I'm so happy you are here. If you've been a longtime listener from the beginning, thank you for being on this journey with me over the last five years. And if you have only recently started tuning in every Monday. Thank you. I am so glad you tune in and listen as well. Each of you inspire me to continue to give up hours of my week to research episode idea guests who will bring you value for your RV travels, and of course, all the scripting, editing, post-production, recording, and social media it takes to keep this show moving down the road. I am beyond honored that you tune in and listen every week, and for that, I thank you. I want you to know that I deeply appreciate you very much. Let's talk about this tattoo. We hit the mark of two hundred episodes, and I'm a man of my word. This Thursday, I'm going in to get this monumental occasion permanently marked in ink on my body. A while back, I asked you all to chime in on social media with ideas for what you think. I should get to signify this huge milestone, and you shared some pretty epic ideas, but now it's happening. I will be doing a reveal of the art this coming Thursday night around seven p m Pacific Standard Time or so, depending on how long this appointment takes. So if you're not yet following the show on social media, you're going to want to. You can find the links right there in the podcast episode description and go ahead, click on them and give us a follow. And one more thing I'm excited to share before we jump into this amazing conversation with the Sotos, I'd like to take a moment to introduce one of our newest sponsors of the show, Scenic Washington. They have a fantastic website that highlights all the scenic highways and byways that are available to all of us right here in Washington State. They produce a map and guidebook that you can easily keep in your RV or tow vehicle to help you find those more off the interstate type of destinations. The best part is their map and guidebook is absolutely free. I'll have a link in the show notes as well as in the podcast description. So if you'd like to get their free guidebook and map, you can easily do that. They will ship it right to you. We've had them on the show before, so if you're curious as to who they are and would like to learn more about them, please go back into the episode archives and listen to episode number ninety two. Discover the beauty of Washington State's scenic byways. I will also have a link in the show notes. Five years ago, in a campground in Pennsylvania, I met a couple on what was literally their very first night of full time RV living. No experience. No long history of camping. No real idea of what they were getting themselves into. They had simply decided to take a leap and jump in with both feet. That couple was Edwin and Jeesely Soto, better known on social media as From The Hatch. From the moment you meet them, there's something magnetic about them. They're warm, genuine, easy to talk to, and the kind of people who somehow feel like close friends almost instantly. What's funny is that over the years, I've probably only spent a total of two days with them in person. But that friendship never faded through phone calls, texts, and staying connected across miles and time zones. We've continued to follow each other's journeys through life and on the road. I am so excited to finally have them join us here on RV out West for a very honest, raw and heartfelt conversation about why they chose this lifestyle, what they've learned along the way, and some incredible stories from their years of full time travel. In fact, there was so much to talk about. This became a two part conversation. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome Edwin and Jeesely to RV out West. Thank you both so much for joining us here for this very special two hundredth episode.
00:06:05 Speaker 2: Thanks for having us.
00:06:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys, thanks so much. And I'm really excited to have you guys on, especially for episode two hundred. It's such a special episode for me. I can't believe I've been doing this for five years. I can't believe that I've known you guys now since twenty twenty two, I think was the first time when we met in that campground.
00:06:24 Speaker 2: That's right, that's correct.
00:06:25 Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's jump right into it. When I first met you guys on that very first night, as you being first time full timers. Mhm. There was this sense of stepping into the unknown. What was happening in your life right before that moment?
00:06:43 Speaker 2: Oh. Do you want to take this one? No. Go ahead. You go ahead. Well, I mean, for us, we were empty nesters, which was huge. Our son was going off to college. We were ready for a drastic life change. We had a tough time during the pandemic, and we lost our living grandparents that we had at the time. So that was really difficult. So we had, you know, all our grandparents passed away and it made us kind of reflect on things. I recall when the last time that my grandma came to visit me, when we were in Pennsylvania, we had a conversation. She always talked about wanting to go on a cross country trip. So that kind of stood in the back of my head. During that time, we took a car trip down to Texas. We took a road trip to Texas, and we survived. I think that's the the important part. Um, and we met another couple that.
00:07:32 Speaker 3: Was the longest, like road trip we had ever taken as a family. That was only the second time we'd ever crossed the Mississippi from the East Coast. Yep. You know, this was this was for sure. Like this road trip was not meant to be defining, but it accidentally became defining. Correct for sure.
00:07:52 Speaker 1: Well, in real quick time frame wise, when was this road trip like? Was this in the heart of the pandemic or was this before? Or was this.
00:07:58 Speaker 3: Just in the heart or. Yeah, I should say like the reason we, we decided to take the road trip was because it was not safe to fly at the time. Instead of taking that risk, we decided to drive to go see family.
00:08:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. And that was just the safest way to keep everyone safe at the time. So we took three weeks and we went through Nashville all the way down to Texas, to Austin, uh, Dallas area and back. We met another family. One of our son met one of his online gaming friends and they owned an RV, and they told us all about their RV adventures. And it kind of got our wheels turning like, wow, that's really cool. Like, you know, we always talked about getting RV when we retired.
00:08:38 Speaker 3: And our knowledge at this point was like movies, like we've seen RVs in movies. Yeah, we had and we've done camping. And sometimes we walk by RVs while we're camping and that's about it. That was our knowledge.
00:08:51 Speaker 2: Yeah. So we were not knowledgeable, but when we came back, we started looking into RVs and we started to realize that maybe this is something we can do sooner than later. We were at that crossroads in our life where, you know, like I said, our son was going off to college and we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do next in our life. We were both working remotely at the time, so we thought, you know what? Maybe we sell the house and buy an RV and travel for a while. We did took a year of planning, but that's exactly what we did.
00:09:19 Speaker 1: But if we were to rewind even further, kind of describe to us who you guys were before you jumped into the RV life and kind of what defined normal then?
00:09:31 Speaker 3: Oh, for sure. I mean, we, we grew up in New York City, so we're two New York City kids for a long time. We, we kind of lived the mantra that everything that we needed and we ever could, ever want was available to us in New York City. And that's somewhat true. So we've met. We met at the gap. We were folding clothes at the gap. And for eighteen and nineteen year olds living a living, that life is a very different life from the life that I live now. So when, you know, I think it took like our son being born, moving to southern southeast Pennsylvania and.
00:10:11 Speaker 2: Starting a better life.
00:10:13 Speaker 3: Starting to see a little bit of the countryside. Ironically, even though there is a lot of people wouldn't consider necessarily the Philadelphia suburbs, countryside. But to two people in New York City, it absolutely looks like countryside, right?
00:10:26 Speaker 1: And unlike the northwest here in Seattle, you know, if you go thirty minutes outside of Seattle, you're still very much in an urban sprawl. There's just more trees. But thirty minutes outside of Philadelphia, you are in the country. It's a very different kind of environment out there for just people listening who may not be familiar with what that looks like, but thirty minutes outside of Philadelphia and you're in the country.
00:10:51 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It was a culture shock for us at first, honestly. And, you know, I remember one incident where I went to the supermarket and I had hair curlers in my hair, and I bumped into five different people in my town that I knew. And I remember thinking like, well, I guess I can't do that here because in New York City you go out in curlers, nobody cares. But when you bump into someone in the supermarket, a small town, people are looking like, uh, hi. It was very weird.
00:11:17 Speaker 1: That.
00:11:17 Speaker 3: So small town suburban life. We, you know, I call it, you know, the leave it to Beaver life. In a sense. We were right before we got into the RV, we we jokingly say we had the white picket fence.
00:11:28 Speaker 1: You had the American dream, by definition.
00:11:30 Speaker 2: We bought our dream house.
00:11:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, we absolutely did.
00:11:32 Speaker 2: Yeah. Which we loved. And it was a huge step for us, especially coming from two kids who grew up in poverty and bought this beautiful home in the suburbs. We were living the American dream.
00:11:43 Speaker 3: Yeah. So separating from the house to was probably the initial thing to get over. Then thinking about life in a completely different mindset from into full time RVing.
00:11:57 Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:11:58 Speaker 1: So let me ask you then, what were kind of those quiet whispers that made you start questioning that traditional path of the white picket fence and having that part of the American dream that you had worked so hard to accomplish and to, to make a life for yourself? What were those whispers saying to you.
00:12:17 Speaker 2: In buying this beautiful home? I was excited, you know, we were like, okay, we're going to have family over. We're going to have parties. This is the home that everyone can stay over and we can have a good time. And it really was, you know, for a while, like we became the home where everybody went to the Soho House for a party or whatever. We, you know, we'd have karaoke nights and, and it was great. And then when the pandemic happened, it got very quiet and all of a sudden it was just the three of us in this big house. And it was at the point where Edwin was on the top floor. I was on the main floor and EJ was on the bottom floor, and that's where we spent our time, you know, doing our own things. It kind of got a little depressing, honestly. And I started to question a lot of things about my life and started to wonder, like, is this really what I wanted? It's what I thought I always wanted. It's what my, you know, I'm a, I'm a kid who came from immigrants. So it was like my, the white picket fence and owning a home and having great jobs was drilled into me from a very young age. So I had all that. But I was sad and I didn't know why. I was very close to my grandma. And when she passed away, I remember thinking like, in a way, I feel like she set me free because I was always feeling like I couldn't leave this bubble because it had to be near my family all the time. I had to be near my grandma. I had to be near my, you know, my mom, when she passed away, I realized like, what am I doing with my life? Like I feel like I need something different. So, you know, we had that conversation where like, are we really gonna sell it all and, and just take this risk? And it was difficult. A lot of tears were shed, honestly, because, you know, you got to get rid of all your belongings, which was really hard and to sit there and get rid of everything we worked so hard for and just try to fit everything into this little two hundred square feet RV, you know, and Edwin was very adamant that we're not going to get a large storage. So we literally packed our entire lives into four bins. And that was it. And, um, we took that risk. We were very nervous. We, you know, we never RV before at all. We had camped, you know, in a tent, um, a good half a dozen times, I want to say, but we had never stayed in RV. Our very first RV experience was when we pulled out that driveway on Settlement Day.
00:14:34 Speaker 1: Mhm. So let me ask you this, then. What kind of scared you the most about becoming full time nomads?
00:14:40 Speaker 3: I think the biggest hurdle was inexperience. Like, I tow our trailer with a three quarter ton pickup, and my previous vehicle was a Mini Cooper. And what essentially some people called a Vespa, but it's a small scooter. And I really enjoyed getting around town in tiny vehicles and being able to fit into places. I consider myself a pretty good driver. But the learning curve, obviously going from a Mini Cooper to something that has an extended cab and it's just a bigger vehicle, let alone hitching it up to and becoming fifty feet long is, uh, something that I had never experienced before. We had never driven anything like that before, so much so we ended up taking RV driving classes before we went. Before we hit the road.
00:15:33 Speaker 1: Oh.
00:15:33 Speaker 3: That's smart. We, uh, we said maybe we should do this. And so it was a former trucker shout out to Alan who guidance is still with us today. And in fact, the campsite we're at, where we're at today, we don't have any cell service. And it had been a long time since we had not had cell service when we arrive at a campground. So Jeesely and I defaulted back to our hand signals. And we and, and I was, I was I shouldn't be surprised, but like, we're just such a great team. Just jelly backs the, the, the RV in and I'm outside, uh, which is unusual for me.
00:16:07 Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:16:07 Speaker 3: Unusual, uh, for, for, uh.
00:16:10 Speaker 2: Couples.
00:16:10 Speaker 3: Most couples is the other way around. Uh, and, uh, yeah. And we hardly.
00:16:15 Speaker 2: Ever driving school. I'm really great at taking directions. I'm really terrible at giving directions.
00:16:20 Speaker 1: So do you drive the RV to, like, on travel days? Are you totally comfortable, you know, pounding out the miles on the interstate and towing and.
00:16:28 Speaker 2: I can yeah, I can. We, I do when we do long treks, like if we're going somewhere and it's going to be like, you know, six, seven hours of driving, then I will usually take a chunk of that. Like I'll take about two hours of it. Edwin does most of the driving. I actually prefer when we drive. I prefer the boring driving, like when you're on a highway for one hundred and fifty two hundred miles. Yeah, that's what I prefer when there's a lot of interchanges and a lot of uncertainty with the roads. Then. Then Edwin will drive.
00:16:57 Speaker 1: Right? But if you're just hammering down the miles on Interstate forty, going east or west or I-90 or whatever. Yeah. Okay, cool.
00:17:03 Speaker 2: I can do that. So I just pick up the slack when we have to drive. So I'm not afraid to drive the RV at all.
00:17:08 Speaker 1: Now I'm really curious, what did those friends and family members around you say when you told them, hey, you know what, we're selling the white picket fence, we're buying a trailer and we're going to go full time. What was their initial reactions years ago when you told them this was your plan.
00:17:27 Speaker 3: I mean, I have to say that not just family, friends, coworkers. I mean, every everybody in our lives. I would say that a good majority still don't understand why we've chose to do this. Yeah. Until we start sending them photos of where we are.
00:17:49 Speaker 2: Or invite.
00:17:49 Speaker 3: Them or invite them, and they experience it for themselves. A lot of people find themselves resetting their themselves. They kind of come to see us. And even if it's for a few hours, they're like, you know, just kind of hanging out here in this campground or has just like, you know, relaxed me and said, yeah, well, I think that's kind of why we keep trying to figure out ways to stay doing this is because it really brings us this type of peace or joy to discover new places and to meet new people.
00:18:20 Speaker 2: And the quiet, the quiet is great. Like at one point, I picked up my mom from the airport when she was coming to travel, we were going to Palm Springs. I told her when I picked her up, I said, well, I have a confession. We're not going straight to Palm Springs. She's like, what do you mean? I'm like, we're going to go camping at Joshua Tree. Surprise, surprise. And we literally drove her to boondocking spot outside of Joshua Tree. She thought we were nuts. And she was like, I don't care, I don't hike, I don't do I don't know what, you guys are nuts. And we took her and I will tell you that she still talks about how that was one of the best trips she ever took. Like it forced her to unplug. She absolutely loved it. And she was taking selfies on rocks like she was the ultimate tourist. But she absolutely loved it. And she said, okay, I get it.
00:19:11 Speaker 1: And you know what's interesting? Joshua Tree is like Earth's natural jungle gym.
00:19:16 Speaker 3: Mhm.
00:19:17 Speaker 1: And I don't have any rock climbing experience, but you go there and I just want to scramble on the rocks and go see what I can do. Like, it's just it's magical.
00:19:28 Speaker 3: I don't like rock climbing. And the next thing you know, I find myself doing exactly that when like, I'm not, I'm not, I don't like heights generally, but like, next thing you know, I'm looking around and, and it just invites you to, uh.
00:19:40 Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:19:41 Speaker 3: To go explore.
00:19:42 Speaker 1: Edwin and Jeesely have shared their why and how their family and friends have eventually come to understand and even appreciate their decision to live a nomadic life on the road. So let's take a brief pause and hear a word from our newest sponsor, Scenic Washington. Discover all twenty nine of Washington State's scenic byways, with Scenic Washington's twenty twenty six guidebook and map packed with route details and must see stops. Best of all, it's free. Pick up one at visitor centers all across the state or at scenic wa dot com. You can also click the link right there in this episode's podcast description, so order yours today. What are you waiting for? Start planning your next adventure coming up now. Edwin and Jeesely share how years of adventure have shaped them not just as a couple, but as a family. So let's pick right up where we left off. So transitioning after that first night that I met you guys in the campground to you taking off on your own adventures after you guys kind of got situated and settled and, and figuring out the systems for your trailer, did it immediately feel like freedom or did it take time to settle into that identity of being on the road?
00:21:00 Speaker 3: I don't know. It's I think I think we feel differently about this. Maybe. I think I felt initially, uh, freedom of, you know, being able to see things and do things that I had never done before. I could be wrong, but I think it took you a little longer to kind of settle in into no man's life.
00:21:21 Speaker 2: It did. It did. I think when we first started traveling, I was so like, we need to go here. We need to go here, we need to go here. We need to go here. Like, I was so set on that schedule and I didn't really take enough time to enjoy the places we were at. And that has changed over time now. I think I was just so determined to hit as many places as I wanted to hit that I had never gone to before. So I had this like wish list. I want to go here, I want to go here and now. I definitely embrace the slower pace. And it's been I think it's been so much better and a lot less stressful that we now decide to travel at a slower pace.
00:22:02 Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah, we kind of end up, I feel like we take it all in. And we do realize that like visiting a place a second time or a different time of year does change your perspective on what that place is like. And I think the most common question we get is, where do you think you'll settle down? And I find that to be one of the most interesting questions, because every time I'm somewhere, I find myself itching to see what else is out there as well. And so I think I've, I think I've really, truly have or have that nomadic spirit to, to, uh, I don't really feel like settling down. I feel like my place is finding the places I like and enjoy and either visiting them again or finding new places.
00:22:47 Speaker 2: Mhm.
00:22:48 Speaker 1: Right, exactly. Have there been breakdowns, mechanical, emotional or relational that's tested you guys the most since you've done this lifestyle?
00:23:00 Speaker 2: All of the above.
00:23:01 Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:23:03 Speaker 2: I mean, one of the first things we did, I'll be honest, when we decided to go to decide to get to live, move into an RV, we went to therapy. You know, we actually went to couples counseling to start because when we tell people that when I tell people I travel with my husband in two hundred square feet, a lot of times I'll get the reaction, oh, I could never do that, you know? And, um, and we, so we went to therapy to kind of like make sure that we can communicate really well because I think at times we struggle to communicate. And that really helped us. And honestly, this life has brought us so much closer than I ever imagined. It has strengthened our marriage. So much. So from that perspective, I think from it's it's been really good from the emotional perspective.
00:23:50 Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, to add to the relationship side with the, with our son, like our son ended up having to leave school due to medical reasons. And he had to be with us in the RV for over a year. So I think, I think our relationship strengthened with him as well in a different way. We also got to show him parts of the country that neither of us have ever seen before. And yeah, heck, one of my favorite memories is in Joshua Tree with with EJ doing the mastodon hike. The Mastodon peak hike. Uh, I think I've got a photo of him standing triumphantly looking over, you know, the peak with his walking stick held high and all that, you know, and that was a, you know, that was not something that that was not a memory that I think that we would have had back east.
00:24:39 Speaker 2: And there was an incident when we were in Capitol Reef where we went from Memorial Day. This was at the beginning when he first joined us, where we were just fighting all weekend, and we were just at each other's throats. There was no cell service. The Starlink wasn't working, you know, everybody was miserable. It was hot. We were boondocking. And Edwin went for a walk and disappeared for like a few hours because he wanted to go on a hike. But then he realized there was no cell service. And if something happened, no one would find him. So he came back and then he, you know, I think I don't know if it was your idea, but we were like, we're all going on a family hike tomorrow, and that is it.
00:25:15 Speaker 3: That was your idea.
00:25:16 Speaker 2: Was it my. Yeah, it was my idea. I was like, we.
00:25:18 Speaker 3: You're like, we're already.
00:25:19 Speaker 2: Here. We're here. Let's make the best of it. We're going on this hike.
00:25:22 Speaker 3: And we all grumpily went.
00:25:23 Speaker 2: We all grumpily went. We each filled up a water bottle and we went on this hike and we underestimated this hike.
00:25:30 Speaker 3: A very short hike.
00:25:31 Speaker 2: It was a two mile round trip hike. It should have been easy, but it was in a canyon and it got very hot inside the canyon. And at some point, you know, we ran out of water and everyone was feeling dehydrated. So EJ said, you know, mom, dad, you stay here. I'm gonna go ahead and go get some water because we had water in the car. So he went to go get water. You know, we started slowly walking back, but when he came back, at some point we missed each other.
00:25:58 Speaker 3: So because we arrived back at the trailhead and he wasn't there.
00:26:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, we never saw him. So we started to panic. Like, well, I started to panic and, you know, so I'm walking. I'm, I'm, you know, I got Edwin water and then I, I'm walking back down the canyon yelling his name, and it echoes through the entire canyon. And people are looking at me and they're like, you know, you know, are you okay? And I'm like, my son, my son, you know? And they were like, okay, you know, they so one group of hikers said, we're going to send this person ahead. He knows this trail very well. Luckily, it was an in and out trail. So there was like, there was eventually a dead end. So he would, he was going to have to turn around. And, you know, our son, you know, at the time had a really big afro. So it was kind of easy to identify him, right? I was like, you know, if you see a, you know, a kid with a big afro, they're like, oh yeah, I did see a kid with an afro. I'm like, you know, that's our kid. And they went and they found him and got him back and all was well. And I was crying. And it was all emotional. And I think after that, we all hugged and we got over it, and then we didn't fight again. That's wonderful. Like we we got along and I think it was like what we needed to get out of our system, that little scare. But, you know, I learned very quickly that a bottle of water is not enough for a tumor hike. You need more than that.
00:27:12 Speaker 3: I left enough water behind just so we could have this moment. I set this all up.
00:27:17 Speaker 2: You set it all up, right? So that was hard. And then as for breakdowns, you know, we have been pretty fortunate. Knock on wood to not break down on the road. But we definitely have had some incidents at campgrounds.
00:27:32 Speaker 3: Okay. We see we've had unfortunately we had a scooter stolen from us at one campground.
00:27:37 Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:27:38 Speaker 3: We were at a Cracker Barrel once and we got sideswiped overnight. And our entire trailer had a giant, uh.
00:27:47 Speaker 2: Damaged our water.
00:27:47 Speaker 3: Heater. Yeah, damaged.
00:27:49 Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars worth of damage.
00:27:51 Speaker 3: That was quite the insurance claim. The thing that I know, one thing that I definitely feared, like, uh, when we got on the road, one big fear that I have still have is getting a flat. As silly as that sounds, because I've got eight tires now And so flats are gonna. Flats are like a part of life. If. You're if you're.
00:28:11 Speaker 1: A.
00:28:11 Speaker 3: Full time rver. We had not had one yet in four years somehow. I've narrowly escaped some of this and we've driven some sixty, sixty, zero zero zero plus miles likely. Now, to be fair, I'm pretty meticulous.
00:28:27 Speaker 2: With with things to checks.
00:28:28 Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:28:29 Speaker 1: So as well as you should be, especially with your tires. Absolutely.
00:28:32 Speaker 3: Yeah. So we just, uh, two weeks ago, we arrived at a campground and I had checked our tires before we left the. That, that, uh, that, uh, for that trip. And when we arrived, I noticed that one of the outer walls had like a gash on it. And I went, whoa. I was like, I think we've like, narrowly escaped like a tire blowout. Like if we drove for like a hundred more miles or something, we might be without a tire here. So for the first time ever, I had to get triple A to come loosen it out of there. But we changed the tire to the spare. And then we got it when we were already at the campground. And then we got it. You know, we got it replaced, and then I, I had to jack up the trailer and put the spare on. That was the first time I ever had to do anything like that on the trailer, which was really cool.
00:29:22 Speaker 2: We were really proud of.
00:29:23 Speaker 3: Ourselves and it still has four tires and we did drive some a few hundred miles on it. So yeah, it's still there.
00:29:30 Speaker 1: I will say the best twenty dollars purchase I ever did was I was getting ready to go on our trip out to Pennsylvania, and I was at a harbor freight, like literally two days before we were set to shove off. And I bought a half inch air ratchet for twenty four dollars. And I was like, oh, you know what? Let me just throw this on the truck. If I gotta change a tire, whatever, it'll be handy. And I had to change it. Trailer tire. And that thing came in handy. I, my slide broke and I had to bring the slide in. I know you guys don't have one, But that ratchet? Twenty bucks. Best purchase I ever bought.
00:30:06 Speaker 3: I know that is one of the best purchases you ever bought, because I immediately bought a ratchet after you told me when we first met four and a half years ago. In fact, I have a list of of tools that I have. I said this is like the this is like the Brooks collection. Okay. Like my ex chucks. I didn't know what an ex shock was until you said, hey, take a look at this. And I went, whoa. Look at that now. I couldn't live without it.
00:30:34 Speaker 2: I know our very first friend. I realized our very first campground.
00:30:38 Speaker 3: First campground friend.
00:30:39 Speaker 2: Hey.
00:30:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. That's right. And then when I saw you lifting up your, uh, stabilizers with your drill, I went, wait, you could do that? And, and.
00:30:48 Speaker 2: And that.
00:30:49 Speaker 3: Blew my mind.
00:30:50 Speaker 1: Like a four dollar part.
00:30:51 Speaker 3: Like, I know, I was like, I couldn't believe it. You told me, you said, hey, yeah, you just need one of these.
00:30:56 Speaker 2: You were our very first mentor, I realize.
00:30:58 Speaker 3: Absolutely. Shucks. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you made it. Yeah. I think meeting you was one of what was interesting to me because you were from the Pacific Northwest or. Ah, my brain had to, like, fathom you taking your RV across the country.
00:31:17 Speaker 2: And I know we were impressed.
00:31:20 Speaker 3: That impressed me. I mean, now I've done the cycle myself like four times, but like, but the but at the time it gave, I felt like it gave me the, the, the, uh, the motivation or.
00:31:32 Speaker 2: The inspired us.
00:31:33 Speaker 3: Yeah. Certainly inspiration. Yeah.
00:31:36 Speaker 1: Okay, so I want to talk to you guys about your RV because we have not yet talked about your RV. Everybody who knows me knows that your RV is where I want to get to, and it's going to probably be my empty nest RV because right now, right, I still have kids in school and need the bunk house. And the slide has that extra space, but I don't I don't really like slides. Sure, I enjoy the interior space that it provides, but every time I push that button, I'm like, is this thing going to break? So first off, tell us what you live in. And then why was your decision about choosing that particular brand and what it is about that model?
00:32:19 Speaker 2: Okay.
00:32:20 Speaker 3: We have an Airstream flying cloud. It's a twenty eight foot, uh.
00:32:25 Speaker 2: twenty seven foot.
00:32:26 Speaker 3: It's a twenty eight foot from ball to bumper RV and the twenty seventh. Yeah, the twenty seven foot comes from the, uh, the, the extra little bumper side here. But we also have one of the cool things that not all airstreams have. We also have a hatch in the back that opens up. We decided to get an Airstream reluctantly. I it wasn't something that I wanted to invest in there. A little bit pricier than other RV models. When Jeesely was introducing me to, uh, to Airstreams. I certainly was not.
00:32:59 Speaker 2: Oh, no, we're not.
00:33:00 Speaker 3: That price.
00:33:01 Speaker 2: Tag. Nope.
00:33:02 Speaker 3: Um, not for me. You know, she she put a couple videos on and did a little bit more digging. And I think the one thing that like, drove me personally over the edge was hearing that Airstream had been around for ninety years at the time, and three quarters of their RVs are still running. And that, that that impressed me because I had heard so much about RVs only lasting, you know, five years depending on the, you know, ten years, depending on how much where you put on it. And I'm planning on living in this. So I think the, the decision was really about along the longevity of it. We didn't know if we were going to be in it for six months or ten years. But either way, we wanted to make sure that at the end of our journey that, you know, we still had an RV that still held value, that still held its, uh, you know, um, it still held its own.
00:33:59 Speaker 2: Yeah. And one thing for sure with, with us, I won't say that our RV is perfect because we've had some issues here and there, but we have not had the issues that we hear from other people, you know, that they've had with their rigs. You know, not having slides is huge for us because that's one less thing to worry about with the mechanism of the slides going in and out. Considering how often we move. So I will say that I feel that it was a wise investment for us in buying the Airstream. You know, I, I love it. It's, um, great community. The service centers have always been really great whenever things have happened and we needed things fixed.
00:34:34 Speaker 3: And their main I don't know about other RV companies, but their main headquarters in Jackson Center, Ohio is a journey is a really cool place to go. There's nothing in there in, in, in the area except for the Airstream dealer, not the dealership, but the manufacturing plant. And they have really cool tours. So we've seen them get built from the ground up. Yeah. And it's really, really neat. And they have on site like an on site campground for when you have repairs. So you can stay in your rig while you get your repairs done.
00:35:02 Speaker 2: Yeah. They haul it away during the day and bring it back when they're done and you can still sleep in it. So, um, that's been awesome. So we've done that twice where we've gone to the Airstream service centers for some like major repairs. And it's always been a great experience. So I highly recommend them. I love our rig.
00:35:18 Speaker 1: I think what stands out most about Edwin and Jeesely's story is that life on the road hasn't always been easy. But through every breakdown, health challenge, unexpected detour and moment of uncertainty, they've continued to move forward together. Today, we heard not only why they chose a nomadic life, but how those experiences have shaped them, strengthened them and deepen their connections as individuals, as a couple and as a family. Their story is a reminder that sometimes the road teaches us the most when things don't go according to plan. Thank you so much for listening to this special two hundredth episode of RV Out West. Be sure to join us next Monday for part two of our conversation with Edwin and Jeesely Soto. You can find them on Instagram from the hatch. All right, my friends. This conversation doesn't have to end here. If anything we talked about sparked your curiosity. Head over to RV Outwest dot com and take a moment to check out the show notes. We've got links to everything we mentioned so you can dive deeper and explore more. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member. If you haven't already signed up for our free monthly newsletter, please visit our website at rv outwest dot com and get some insider info that you don't normally hear about right here on the podcast. You can also click the link right there in your podcast description and sign up that way next week on RV out West, we're going to continue our conversation with Edwin and Jeesely Soto of From the Hatch as we hear about their travels through the Pacific Northwest, how Edwin balances creating music while living full time on the road, and how they connect all the moving pieces of this lifestyle into something that truly works for their family. Join us next Monday for part two. Thanks so much for listening to RV Out West. Join us again next week. Please like and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you choose to get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. I sure would appreciate it if you left a rating or a review of this show. Special thanks to Scott Holmes Music for providing us the intro song. We Are One RV Out West can be found on Instagram and Facebook, where you can interact with us and follow along on our RV adventures around the Pacific Northwest. So get out there, explore and go see what's beyond the horizon.
