Faith, Family & Full-Time Miles: Five Years On the Road With Travel With the Brams | Community Spotlight

0:04 Hey guys, welcome back to the Learn to RV the podcast. Tonight or today, or whenever you're listening, you're in the community spotlight series. I love that we get to highlight people's stories and how long they've been on the road, why they got on the road, and maybe a few of their favorite places and other things that they've done. And so I love the diversity that brings us. So tonight, you've got Joel and Christina Bram, and they are all the things, but they're really special to me personally because last fall, as we were navigating some stuff with RV Roofing Solutions, we ran into them at the Hershey Show, and they took on a key role of things behind the scenes that you don't realize has been happening all along.

0:45 They're just good people. Like, you know, you're gonna want to talk to them. So tonight we're gonna hop right in. Let's start with how you guys met because your story goes back way back, and it's a little bit more than just you know being on the road together. So how you met each other? Yeah. Well, actually, our anniversary is this weekend. Um, 18 years wedding anniversary is the 15th. So you you are not that old. You're right. We got married really. We got married young. I I grew up in Southern California and and then uh ended up interning at a church in their youth department in Surprise, Arizona. I had met Christina, she worked in the children's department.

1:26 We were friends for a while, just knew each other, both worked on staff, and then after I graduated high school, I started going to college group, and yeah, from there we just became inseparable, and that was twenty that'll be twenty years ago this July. That's very cool. So, how old were you guys when you got married then? I was 20. I just turned 20. And I was just before my 25th birthday. Yeah, so we're four and a half years apart. That's cool though. Yeah, so I'm older than Frank. Most people don't realize that, but I'm a year and a half older than Frank. And so he couldn't, you know, drink at our wedding or any of the crazy stuff. Um there was no alcohol at our wedding because I wasn't old enough to drink, and so it was like saved an expense.

2:10 Yeah, there wasn't supposed to be at ours, but um, you know, our families had different ideas. So yeah. All right, so getting on the road, whose idea was it? Um, we almost got on the road actually, way before we had kids. So what year was that? 20. Um that would have been 2010. Kind of a long so we have three kids right now. Right now they're 10, 11, and 12. Um, but before our quick three came along, we actually had infertility issues. I had been told that I would never hold a pregnancy. We lost a few, unfortunately. And so around that time we were like, this is 2010, and we were like, how about we just buy an RV and go travel and do ministry and do life and go help people, have a new experience.

2:53 We we actually had an opportunity to somebody was going to give us a bus, an old school bus, and we had considered converting that. And so that was the first like real push. Um, and then I looked at what it was gonna take to do that, and we said, well, maybe buying an RV is a better plan than converting a bus since that takes like years and more money than an RV. So especially at the time where it was not as common. So back in 2010, like I mean, you know, that you were you guys on the road yet in 2010? Yeah, yeah. Nope, we we hit the road in 2013, so we were a few years behind that. But like full-time families was formed in 2010, so there were a few families out there doing it. Right. There just wasn't as many resources, I feel like then.

3:35 Like we didn't see the information we saw by the time we came around and doing this for real this this this time. But we've always been uh we've always been road trippers. Whenever we've gone anywhere, we had family lived, uh we were in Arizona where we launched from, and we were uh we had family in Texas and New Mexico, Colorado. So we, you know, whenever somebody'd be like, hey, come by, we'd be like, done. Let's go. Hop in the car, let's go. And 18 hours later, we're there. The kids road trip from when they were little too. Like, we have pictures of them at one, two infants, and they'd all be in the car. We'd just like go on adventures. So I think it was always in our soul like to be this nomadic. We just honestly, I don't think we realized though, like after we didn't do it the first time, life happened.

4:20 We ended up getting pregnant in 2012. That was JoJo. We had her in 2013. We kind of had put it out because we were like, oh, you don't do that with kids, right? And so then it wasn't until COVID hit, which I think a lot of people experience, where we stopped long enough to look out our window, see that people were doing this, and went, oh, we could do that. That would be really fun. Why not? And so that started our adventure of the whole why not. So, although it was my idea the second time, it was both of us. He wasn't too hard to convince, I don't think. I was looking forward to the travel. One of the other things that we always say is we never owned a house, we always rented, and and it was always because we just the idea of settling down in a neighborhood felt foreign to us.

5:06 We we had we've been in a couple neighborhoods where we had amazing neighbors, but it just felt so foreign to just be like stuck in one place and make that your base. So I I think we really had it ingrained in us from the beginning. We just didn't realize you could with kids. Yeah, no, I mean, like when Frank retired from the Marine Corps, that was the second house we had bought. We had actually, so before he retired, we had bought a house in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree, thinking that he was never gonna leave that last unit. And when we got orders, we actually that was that was a nightmare because we had six horses and we gave up a whole ranch because we had to move. And then so we settled back down in that same desert.

5:48 But a year later, I was feeling like trapped. I don't I don't know how else to say it other than that. But I didn't want to do this like ever. I didn't want to go on the road full time. It was all Frank's idea. And you know, I came home from a ministry event and came home and said, We're supposed to go full time. And uh he looked at me and said, I've been waiting seven years for you to say that. And the next morning he sold our t television. Like he didn't wait. Like he's like, You mean it? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, like it was kind of like at that point, okay, we're doing this, we're gonna do this. So, you know, doing it with kids is different. So we hit the road with six out of seven of our kids. Our oldest was 18 at the time. She moved out, said, Love you, mean it. I don't want to do this. And so, but you know, you guys started.

6:28 How old were your kids when you started traveling? Four, six, and seven, right? Oh wow. No, five, five, seven, five, seven, and eight. Five, seven, and eight. Five, seven and eight. So And they're how old now? 10, 11, 12. So we're about to hit year five this May, the end of May. That's a big milestone in this community. You know, four years, you've seen a lot of people roll roll on and off the road by now. So I mean, like, what does that feel like? There's definitely like benchmarks. We kind of said, like, it feels like there's like the one-year people who like, okay, we did it, we tried it, we experienced it, cool, not for us. Um, and then you have other people who like three years felt like a lot of people that we knew got off the road.

7:08 Um, and now I feel like we found a community of people with kids about the same age that we love, and that a lot of them are in that same like five, six, seven-year mark, who a lot of us call ourselves lifers almost. Like, as long as our kids are thriving. And part of that thriving though is actually having them together. So traveling, meeting up often, making sure that they have those relationships is so vital in that tween teen for us. So, but it's changed a lot. Like, I think every time groups of people got off the road, we definitely reevaluated, like, okay, why is everyone else getting off the road? Are they seeing something we don't see? Um, there's always that like fear. You know what I mean? Do you did you guys ever feel like that, Jen? Oh, yeah, totally. Like our four-year point was when a lot of our friends rolled off the road.

7:49 And so then you, you know, you kind of regroup and you go to the friends that are still on the road that you've known before. One of our friends, The Simpsons, is a family that we traveled with extensively over the last 13 years, and all of our kids grew up together. And so, like, they've been to prom together now. And, you know, when they met, they were like six and seven. So now, you know, their son and my son are still best friends and they meet online and play games at night when even when they're not together, they make the time to be together. I think you have to learn to, you know, overcome and adapt it. I always caution people because I've been with families where we've made a decision to travel with other families and we don't know them well yet. It sounds like the group that you travel with, you know pretty well. Yeah, we've done a lot of like little meetups, and so it'll be like a few weeks, and then we tried like a month, and so like, and there's always just that really flexible, like, hey, this is for me, this isn't for me, you know, we're gonna go do this.

8:40 Um, a lot of boundaries are good. So it's one of my really are really good friends, she's like the boundary queen. I love her to pieces. She's so good at being like, no, I don't want to go. And like, she's like, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I just don't want to, and that's okay. And so I've actually learned a lot from she gives me books. She was like, here's this book you need to read, Christina, because you're terrible at boundaries. I'm like, love you too. But I mean, I think too. But I think knowing like what the strengths and weaknesses are of those relationships is a critical point for that. Do you think the kids catch on to some of that? Uh, do you have all extroverts, all introverts? How do your kids manage the road? So we do know that we've got a couple of extroverts and an introvert, and we just encourage them to you know explore, to be themselves around their friends so that when they're out, they're not feeling like they have to put on a mask.

9:32 They don't feel like they have to be normal. They can be a little weird and have fun. And the thing that I actually really love about like the group of friends they have right now is um there's a variety of boys-girls, ages like 14 all the way down to like eight, and they all intermingle and play with each other. So there's not this like, you know, in public school where the kids are all like all the fifth graders together, all this, and all your friends are like the same age. In this community, they don't have that. Like, not just like our friend group, but like the whole RB community. Like the kids get to interact with other children that aren't their exact same age, different genders, like they get to experience and try new things. Um, and we love we we we always joke that we're raising them like 90s kids, but it's so true.

10:16 Like it it allows us to give them a different experience. We always joke that Joel has two that are like him and I have one like me because I'm more introverted. Um I run out of people skills, like people ing. And Joel and two of our kids can just people all day long. And so me and our my one introvert will just come inside and be like, let's go watch a movie, let's sneak away and go like have some ice fun. And him and the other two are gone till like midnight. And I'm like, Who are you people? See, and I have a friend named Becky, and Becky actually taught me something a long time ago. She was like, We'd go to these moms' nights out with all the other moms, and she'd say, I always want to sit next to Jennifer, and I could never figure out why, because she was a super introvert. And she said, Because you carry the conversation.

10:57 When I start talking, though, you will step back and let me carry the conversation. I tell people all the time, that's a trained response. So my friends, Jason, he actually taught me how to be friends with his wife, Stephanie. And I actually had to be trained how to be friends with an introvert. So the first time I ever went over to their house, I went over and knocked on their door, and I'm like, and their little girl comes to the door. She's seven at the time and looks at me and she goes, You may not knock on my door. Oh, and I was like, Oh, okay. She's like, You must text my mother first. She needs to know that you're coming. So, but that was the birth of a really neat friendship. And that's the family we've traveled with over the years extensively from coast to coast. And so, like, our kids have a very different relationship with that family than a lot of other families.

11:39 It does help that they've been on the road a year longer than us. And so, you know, we've done a lot of projects together, we've run rallies together. So the kids have a lot of similar experiences, and that really builds the community a lot. Um, I'm gonna switch gears just a little bit because you mentioned being a youth pastor. Do you do church on the road? So we we have done it a little different. We have enjoyed it, occasionally gone to churches on uh, you know, out and about. We joined a group called Gathering of Nomads. While they aren't Shane on the podcast, actually, right? Yeah, Shane's been on the podcast. So you guys should know, yeah. You guys have you know Shane the boy. So we'll make sure to link back to that in the show notes too. So if anybody wants to catch that replay on Shane, they can catch that there on Gathering of Nomads.

12:24 Yeah, and it's it's you know, the thing is that that's not proper church per se, like as Americans would consider it, you know, building and worship and and you know, Bible time in the structured sense. But, you know, if you look through the Bible, the church was people getting together, breaking bread together, hanging out, discussing the word and outside of the confines of a head pastor watching over them and and uh you know a building and overhead and things like that. So for us, that's church, you know. When we first got on the road, we thought we would do more ministry stuff, but it just hasn't been the opportunity.

13:05 So we we've served in other ways, like we're big on community building. So we've tried to host rallies, we've done um, you know, craft days, get togethers, which I think is ministry in its own right because RV life can be kind of lonely if you're not intentional about trying to bring people together. Um, and we have always kind of considered ourselves gatherers. We're like, hey, if you don't have anywhere to go, like come sit with us. Like, let's let's all go, let's all be together. And I know, Jen, that's very similar to you. Like, I think we're very similar in that. Like, we just want to take everybody with us, and everyone should have a place at the table and let's just all be friends, you know. So that kind of we feel like that has become church in a lot of ways, but it just not the conventional sense. Well, and we didn't have a good experience when we first hit the road with churches because we were like, we're gonna go to church, every town.

13:50 The first time we would walk in, we would walk in with six kids plus Frank and I, and people were like, Oh my gosh, big family, big congregation, they're gonna step in and we'd be there two weeks and move on. And then they were like sending us an email, like, what did we do wrong? And I was like, No, no, no. Well, this is what we are, this is who we are. And so we actually had some very negative interactions at some churches where we had great interactions at others where people were very supportive, but it was new to them, the whole idea, you know, back in 2013, who was doing this handful of people. And so, you know, I think it's more common now. And I was actually talking to somebody today that said, they uh we're welcomed everywhere we go, and that's fantastic. I wish more churches were like that. So if that works for you and you can go to a church while you're traveling, that's great.

14:34 But you know, there are alternatives like gathering of nomads as a place to like find community, find people to pray with, just have that support system, you know. And I mean, like that's the whole thing is without a support system, it kind of fizzes. Did you ever travel without a support system? I guess that would be the next question. How long did it take you to find community? Yeah, about the first six six months. Winter at TTO, right? When we first hit the road, we both got COVID for we were both down for over a month from that. We had to call TTO or not TTO, Thousand Trails and be like, hey, we really need to stay an extra week, even though we're not supposed to, because we're both deathly sick.

15:14 The news was though, it was Texas in the summer, and if you know like Texas, it was gross, it was so humid. There was nobody there, so they didn't, they were actually really accommodating, which is super nice. But yeah, so we ended up being in Texas longer than we thought, and there wasn't families. Like, we actually we joke that every time our our kids saw another kid that first six months, they would like be like, Oh, you're my friend, oh, I never want to lose you again. Like they were almost like starving for community right away, which was we honestly thought probably that first like four or five months that it wasn't gonna work for us. That we were like, Okay, we maybe made a bad choice, and then we got to Florida in the winter, and that was really the the turning point for us. We found a lot of really wonderful people, people we're still friends with now that we've known all this time.

15:57 People we see all the time, and it's it was that you know, finding places, we we joined a community, we were able to keep in communication, find out where people were. The big turning point for us was we well, not we, Christina was dry out driving the truck. It was our only vehicle at the time. And you're not blaming me, are you? I just she I blame I blame Florida because it was a Florida drivers are the worst. Sorry, tell the story completely oblivious uh older lady um that I'm pretty sure probably wouldn't have stopped, didn't even realize she hit you. Uh she sideswiped Christina in the truck and uh did did enough damage, pretty much almost the entire side of the truck, that the truck had to go into the shop.

16:44 And so this is our only vehicle and it moves our house. And we were doing what everyone calls the Florida shuffle, which is two weeks in each thousand trails all winter long. And so that happened literally the first week we were in Florida. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. The first uh our first thousand trails stop in Florida. Trucks out of commission now. This is November of 2021. And at the time, there just wasn't anybody that you could, there wasn't like rental trucks you could get a hold of. So we were stranded and we very much had to just like put out this plea and was like, hey, can anybody help us? Can anybody move us? And ended up having to we had to be moved seven or eight times. Yeah, they had our they had our truck for three months, over three months.

17:27 Wow. We were stranded, and I kid you not, the full-time traveling people, it was a lot of full-time families because that was the chat group we had access to at the time. We put out that we needed moved. We had people literally just pull up, stick our house on the back, move us, give us a high five, and be like, see you down the road. Um, we had another guy hand us his truck keys to his like really nice truck and was like, here, just gas it up when you're done uh and let us take it again, seven or eight times. And we had never experienced community like that. Even coming from like the ministry and the church world, we had never felt the kind of community and outpouring. And so from there on, we became the people who were like, if you need us, we're there. Like, not that we're like trying to repay a debt, but it was this like people gave up and helped us and they didn't have to.

18:14 They just showed up, they didn't know us, and it was such a foreign, amazing feeling. And so, yeah, so we always said from that point on, like that was what, six months in, that we would invest back in the RB community. We would help host rallies, we would get people together for potlucks, we would do whatever we could, pick up people, we've moved people a bunch of times now as just like uh, you know, hey, you need us, we're here, let's do it. I say I have, he has. Yeah, we've I mean at one point we literally just gave somebody the keys to our truck because we were like we were sitting still, we had somebody else who could move us through the shuffle, and so we said, Hey, you need a truck, you need to get down, you have a you know, you they had a a need, and we handed them the keys and they they were able to take part in something that was important for their life.

18:54 This community that I mean that's that's a huge reason why why we you know really enjoyed getting to know you, Jennifer and Frank, and and joined in and partnered with you guys because we just we want to build this community beyond what is what people see on Instagram and what what is seen, what you think the the independent go off to the keys and go stick your toes in the water lifestyle. It's like no, the day-to-day lifestyle of this is community. It's it's community when you need it and distance when you don't. Yeah, no, for sure. And I think that, you know, that that was what drew me to you guys too.

19:36 You know, it's it's one of those things that I always say the magic's in the meetups. And so, you know, sometimes it's shorter time frames, but sometimes it's just, you know, doing life with people. And so, you know, I think that RV life lends itself to that in different ways than any other lifestyle does, you know, and I'm excited to see where that's going with Learn to RV. So let's let's dive in just a snitch to that, because you guys are at this point fully invested in learn to RV. And so that's kind of a thing. Um, people, Jennifer, we just level your ideas. Is that it? So um, you know, learn to RV is kind of the heartbeat of what I am doing, but the reality is it can't be done alone.

20:17 As far as that goes, you know, you bring a skill set. So you have to be able to make money on the road. So let's talk about how you did that. Because the reality is very simple. You have a special set of skills between the two of you that so I'm I'm guessing we need to talk about how you like fund your travels. You know, you're not, you know, some trust fund kid, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I would happily be a trust fund kid. Just saying. If anybody wants to give us enough money to support us, yeah, if anybody has just traveled fun, they just want to like we'll take it. But we have skills to pay the bills. So I've I've worked in technology for for many years. I don't know off the top of my head how many. Um I was fortunate to be able to find a couple of remote jobs, and that that took us over that edge of the first couple of years on the road, just trying to um you know, just trying to make sure that we could travel and we got to see the east coast.

21:12 But what's really neat is Christina in pre-COVID had started a business doing marketing and digital digital marketing and ads management. And we she took a pause when the kids came home in 2020 and she really enjoyed working with small businesses and um building businesses. So it yeah, it started as just like ads management because that at the time was very trendy. Um because it was a segue into what I really enjoyed, which was creating content. Um, and it's so interesting how much it's changed over the years of marketing as a whole. And so we do um social media management, marketing, full service marketing, content creation.

21:57 And so I started a business and it was like one client. Clients. Um, it kind of grew, and then we just um Joel had a lot to offer in that, so we actually joined forces, and so now we do everything from SEO, website building, social media management, email marketing, kind of your full service marketing company. Um, it's really cool. We love working together. We actually have worked together multiple times since we were dating. We worked together and then always so it's fun. He's he has a very complimentary skill set. Um, and so yeah, so it's a lot of fun. And back at Hershey, I know we had gotten connected, and that has been a fun adventure ever since working with you guys. I mean, you're gonna be the people that help take learned RV to the next level.

22:37 And so, you know, that's kind of the exciting part of this is behind the scenes, you guys are a huge aspect. So you don't just work on the road, you actually have a travel channel, you're actually, dare I say, influencers. And dude, we've always like had a love-hate relationship with the influencer thing. But it's funny because someone will say, like, we had something, a product in a reel recently, and a friend of ours walked up and they're like, Oh my gosh, you totally influenced my husband to buy that thing. Tell your husband thank you. And like shooting sarcastic because he spent money, but he bought it and they were actually really happy with it. And it was a product that you know, we had promoted on our channel. So yeah, we are travel with the brands um on social media. It's fun. We enjoy it. We do it for work, so it's like, why wouldn't we build something of our own too?

23:18 Yeah. No, and and you don't do nearly as much as you should on it. But you know, now that you're coming over to Learn to RV to help with a lot of the things, I'm sure that we're gonna see lots more of Christina and Joel as we move forward with all of that. It is hard to create your own brand and not want to be on camera. Like, I think that's my struggle. Yeah. I don't love being on camera. And he's always like, Well, you have to be. And I was like, Well, then I won't make content. That's there to go. I don't mind, but nobody wants to see my face all the time. Well, see, but that's that's the thing, is like that's why I was like, I don't need to start a podcast. Because, you know, I had spent, you know, 12 years avoiding a brand because narrow road schoolers never really blew up because we decided our first year in that we weren't gonna do that, and so we didn't try.

23:59 And so I've seen all the creators come and go. And so, you know, when people say, Oh, you know, so yeah, I do. I mean, like, I have dinner with them. It doesn't mean that I was one of them. And so now that I'm, you know, stepped into this role with Learn to RV, it's a whole new world. And so, like, I got my first media kit where you guys have been doing media kits forever, and so like, you know, it's old hat to you, where I was like, This is crazy. I loved it. It was the good news was it was very easy to impress you with the media kit because you were like, oh, and I was like, Oh, it's just a media kit. You're like, but it's so cool. And I was like, You're right, it is cool. That's true. I loved it. Yeah, but it's funny, I don't think people realize what a small community this is. Like, not that we all know everybody, but like it's very likely that you've met when you live full-time on the road that you've met a lot of the other full-time creators as you just it's we people wouldn't think that because the country is so large.

24:48 So, how do you run into people? But the circles are small and there's only so many places to go and congregate and have communities, so it's fun. Knowing so many people over the years, just haven't gotten to meet people along the way is fun. And you get to see their genuine side, I guess, as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that, you know, they're real people too. Like ultimately at the end of the day, I think we're all just real people. I mean, so that was actually why I didn't create a brand, is our first year on the road, my friend Margie said to me, You'll do it until somebody walks up and knows all your kids' names. And that was exactly what happened a year later. And I was like, and there was only like a thousand followers at that point, it wasn't like a ton, and they knew all my kids' names. And I was like, the kids looked at me and went, Okay, that was weird, I'm done.

25:30 And so that was where it stopped for us at the time. And so, you know, learn to RV, they don't have to be on camera. So I think that that gives them that autonomy that they still want, but we still only have three kids traveling with us now, years later, because you know, some of mine have actually turned into like grown adults and moved out, so so it's a weird stage. Yeah, you're at an interesting new stage where yeah, you have adult kids who are having kids and you know, moving on with life. And so but yet I still have a 14 and a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old still on board. So, yeah, it's a little bit of both. Yeah, that's cool. All right. So, are you taking on new clients with your digital marketing company? That's really the big question that all small businesses are gonna be asking next.

26:13 We're always open to having discussions and seeing, you know, if if our talents can help businesses grow. Because at the end of the day, that's our heart. Like the reason that we do what we do is we want to help them. We want to help them grow and share their story um in an authentic way and use our talents to do that. But our big focus is building learn to RV. We're really excited about that brand. Just with our passions and your passions, like I think there's so many exciting things to come. So that's gonna be a huge passion of ours over the next season. Yeah, I'll never forget the day we met in Hershey and like a week later, you said to me, I need you to shut off all your ads and just trust us so we can see what's gonna happen next. And I was like, you know, it's every business owner's worst nightmare.

26:53 And so, you know, shutting off your Google Ads and we did it for 30 days, and organically, Joel and you turned around kind of what those numbers look like. So if any business owners are out there listing, you know, this is the team. Now I still want them for Learn to RV and RV Riffing Solutions. Oh, and these two promo. Yeah, so but the reality is is where can they find you if they wanted to reach out to you? Yeah, they want to look where uh refocus digital marketing is our uh business name. Um and you can reach out to us at Joel at Refocus Digital Marketing or Christina at refocusdm.com. Um that's with a K. Yes, Christina with RefM. Make sure you spell her name right to do that.

27:33 You know, it's funny. I'll tell you a funny story because um I have a nickname, Gangster Christina, a friend of ours. So my name is Christina with a K. When I was a little kid, I have a cousin who's deaf. And so I my name was Christina over my heart with a K. And so every once in a while, when I t when I spell out my name, Christina with a K, I will do this just subconsciously from when I so the first time I introduced myself to my friend Jessie, she was like, Oh, gangster Christina. And so now she'll run across a like a k like a campground and be like, Gangster K. And I'm like the least gangster person anyone has ever met, possibly. And so it cracks me up because I'm like, oh my gosh.

28:16 What are you possibly thinking she's calling me a gangster for? All right, so rapid fire quick, ready? So your favorite place you've ever wintered. Wintered. Washington, Utah, which is where we are now. This is now our favorite winter spot. Interesting. Is it the people or the place? It's a little bit of both. We we came here with five other families or four other families, so that helped. There were people that we've traveled with, but um we haven't moved either. So we also haven't had to move for the whole time we've been here, which is wonderful. Uh there's no Disney. There is no Disney, but every evening, um you look out, you have beautiful sunset, which you can get most places, but I think desert places have better sunsets where we are the there's some mountains surrounding us and they glow red.

29:05 And every night when we go out and we're out there with our dogs and we're just kind of going for a nice walk, we just go, you know, as much as Florida is nice, this is beautiful. Yep. I I couldn't agree more. Okay, so favorite place to have dinner. Well, Tony's in uh Disney, Disney. Actually, they close the the place I like in Disney. But yeah, anywhere in Disney World, like just pretty much, yeah. Yeah, and and what people don't know about you, we probably should have a whole episode on Disney with you, Christina, just on all your tips and tricks at some point on Learn to RV. Like that would be a fun one. I love Disney. I have been a travel agent for a long time just because I love Disney and I like to book it.

29:46 Just a big Disney fan. So when we're in Florida, we like to get season passes. We're not there, so we don't have we actually haven't been in like two years to Disney. I know it's crazy. So last one, what's the weirdest place you've ever been? Weirdest. You know, we have well, there's a couple places that we've stayed recently on our trip uh this last year, 2025, we did 25 states to finish off our lower 48. Oh, whoop, whoop. So we have been to all states in the lower 48 now, camped, parked the trailer, driven it. Well, one is RV Overnight spot in uh grants in New Mexico. It's a it's a junkyard. Uh weird.

30:27 My cool weird. It's a cool weird. It's actually it's a converted junkyard. It's now a brewery and barbecue joint. The food is really good. It's on Route 66, so it's got lots of memorabilia and stuff. So it's super cool, but it genuinely is. You look on the ground, wear shoes, don't go out barefoot. There is glass. You know, they did really good cleaning up. So that's that was one. That was a fun, fun weird. Trying to think of weird weird or bad weird. Bad weird would be the Ohio Valley. Oh, yeah. Our RV like fell apart. We'll have to share more stories, but if you go look on our social media page, you can like scroll back and see it. The whole front end of our RV fell off. And this was after we met you and Hershey, between Hershey and coming here this winter, a whole front of our RV fell off.

31:09 So we had to rebuild it in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. Um, and the only parking spot was this little campground that I was out of a movie, not a good one. It was fine. They let us park there. It was blessing. We paid with cash in an envelope. It wasn't weird, but it was weird. But they let us weld our RV back together in this parking lot, RV park. Yeah, it was it ended up being great. It's it's not on it's not on my list of places I would suggest visiting. I unstunted on Google Meet. But they had power, water, and sewer and a place, and they didn't care that we were taking our RV apart at our spot, and that's better than you can get in a lot of RV parks, even around there. So literally a mobile welder like almost lit our house on fire in this parking lot from the sparks flying from him having to weld the front end back together.

31:56 I I had to leave. Like I packed the kids up and I was like, and the dogs was like, we're gonna go. Handed him the fire extinguisher and was like, he the guy welded and I stood there. I stood there with a fire extinguisher the entire time he was welding our just spraying the sparks as it lit the insulation. If better at social media, I would have like left a camera there pointed the whole time, but I didn't because I I don't I'm not good at that. I don't think about it. But that would have been some good stuff. So after. I know, I feel that. Well, awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the community spotlight series. If you want to connect with Joel and Christina, all their links will be in the show notes. But traveling with the Brams, right? Travel with the Brams. Travel travel with the Brams on social media and then refocus uh digital marketing for their marketing stuff.

32:42 And you can always connect with Christina at uh connect at learn to rv.com if you have questions about learn to rv. She is the backbone, the person behind the scenes that you often don't see unless I talk her into coming on a podcast. If you're watching this, keep keep an ear out because it's coming, but not yet. We can't tell you. Well, we can't tell you yet, but I think there's big things that are gonna happen with the team that we're pulling together. And so, like this is the core time to get involved with Learn to RV. So Joel and Christina have some, you know, things that are in the pipeline that are gonna make this the brand to watch in 2026. Would you agree with that statement? I do.

33:22 Not to like, I feel like that's tooting my own horn, but we're pretty excited. You should toot your own horn. But I mean, other brands should want to partner with us because of what's coming in 2026. There are so many cool things coming up. Brands are gonna want to watch and also just people who are interested in this life, whether it's full-time or if they're just going on a big road trip this summer. There are so many cool things that we're gonna be bringing out that'll support everybody on every level in the industry and in the community. Love it. So awesome. Well, thanks guys for coming on tonight. I so appreciate you. I can't wait to see what these partnerships look like in real time. But for now, we're just gonna say, we'll see you later. Have fun. Thanks for joining in. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe.

34:02 I always forget that line.