Wow! First of all, just wow! My wife and I have been planning to live minimalistic for a little more than a year now. We knew if we could learn to minimize our physical footprint, we could live life to the maxx! thus the #iamminimaxx was born...
My buddy #MarkEmrick has been telling me all about his minimalistic life for the past few years as he has traveled all over the US living out of his Arctic Fox Travel Trailer. He has told me about all the fun he was having out in "the wild" aka boondocking, and meeting new people with similar interest. When the timing was right for us, we pulled the trigger and bought our first trailer.
After a month of intense preparations, we were ready to hit the road and our first stop was meeting up with my friend Mark in California, Joshua Tree South. This is where we can honestly say, "we had no idea what to expect." but what we learned there will have a lasting impact on how we RV in the future..
picture this...
When I called Mark to get the final directions to meet up with him, he tells me, "I'm not there right now, but all my friends will help you get a good spot." 😳
I just thought it would be him and I camping somewhere in "the wild" but instead there were at least 12-15 other rigs there with people all doing the exact same thing... It was a community of people all helping one another, it was so cool! 😎 For example, there was a group of guys there all helping a fellow camper install a solar package on her rig and she was so grateful. This community became the norm for what we experienced over the next several days.
That night, there was a community dinner planned, it was street taco night thanks to Schyler Wadolny. Everyone made us feel welcomed around the "camp fire" (propane fire rings lol) After the #streettacos we watched a movie outdoors on the big screen 🎬 like we were at the drive in... This was such an awesome experience. This incredible community of people are all part of the rv club called #xscapers and we have joined the club... aka, we drank the Kool-aid! 😂
Over the next few days we got to hang out with my buddy, and got to know many others in this group as some new people would show up everyday, and others would be heading out... When it was time to leave, we were sad to be leaving our new group of friends, and learned all about #FOMO.
On this first trip we learned about solar systems that would allow you to live #offgrid and not rely on the grid for electricity. We were on a generator for this trip and quickly realized that this was not only a noisy option, but it was something you had to stay on top of so your batteries didn't die leaving you without power. Most of the people in this group either had a solar setup or were in the process of getting setup. As I type this post, we now are harvesting the power of the sun ☀️ and enjoying the freedom that solar provides.
The other thing we learned about on this trip was the value of H2O. 💧 Water is so important when you are boondocking, and we are limited by our tanks that are installed on the Nest. We are in the process of working out the details on a recycled grey water system to give us an unlimited amounts of water. This will be a game changer for us and look forward to getting this system installed.
In a future post I will be diagraming the electrical system that we have installed in the Nest including the solar package. Mark Emrick (#markemrick) and Daniel Heming (#twowheelramblin) are the ones responsible for getting us hooked up with the equipment that we needed, and we can't thank them enough for getting us squared away.
With just a few weeks into this adventure I can say with confidence that our decision to change how we live and experience life from a different perspective has been the right choice for us. #iamminimaxx
Here are some photos from:
Adventure #1 - Boondocking Joshua Tree South Entrance & Meeting "The Xscapers"
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