Re-Release: Don’t Wait: Full-Time RVing, Breast Cancer on the Road & Living Life Now with Jennifer Skinnell | Community Spotlight

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi, you're at the Learn to RV podcast, and I am really excited about today's interview. Um, I actually found Jennifer Skinel online on Facebook as she was traveling this year, and she became one of our Learn to RV writers. The chance to do community spotlight series is just something that's been so special for us. Jennifer and her husband Mike have been full-time RVers since what, 2019? Yep. And so you're a creative storyteller, and you know, you're living proof that it's never too late to chase your dreams. And so, you know, we're crazy. We went on the road in 2013 with six out of seven of our kids. But I want to talk just kind of about why you hit the road to start with. I mean, what was your pivot point, so to speak?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

In 2018, we we had been RBing with our kids for years. Two 2008, they were too old to RB anymore. We sold everything. And so in 2018, we were doing bicycling events and things like that. And we would be in these little motels spending $165 a night and saying we could be in an RV. So we got a small one at 25 foot, and then that lasted about maybe three trips. And then I said, this Murphy bed thing is going out the window. And we had, you know, my husband, we were in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania one time, and we stayed there for a week and he worked from the RV because he worked from home anyway. Well, the biggest room in the place was the bathroom. So his office was in the bathroom. And we said, we really need something bigger. So we started looking and we found a 30-foot travel trailer. We decided we could do two months in Florida, and then we heard about this whole full-time RV thing, which we didn't know anything about, started watching things like KYD and all the YouTube videos. And in 2019, when we were down in Florida for two months, and we said, you know, we really like this, and uh we think we can do this full-time. So we went back to Northern Virginia, right near Washington, D.C., where our house was, started downsizing, and bought a bigger RV in 2019 because the whole thing about us is don't wait. Don't wait to enhance, change, or save your life is our motto. And we knew people who were waiting to do whatever it was, buy a house, whatever, retire. And it was too late by the time they got around to it. So we said, we're not gonna wait. But my husband did say we should probably wait until 2020 to get the new RV in a bigger truck. And I said, you know, I have this feeling, and he, whenever I would say that, he knew to listen to me. So we shouldn't wait. And we were glad we didn't because we got a 41-foot fifth wheel of solitude um and a F 350 dually in 2019, which we would not have been able to find in 2020. True. Yeah. And so then we were off, and the only time we came back to the house was to get it ready to sell in 2020, and we sold it then.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Well, and as somebody that works in the industry, I mean you yours was manufactured better back then because they weren't putting them together so fast either. So that was a big deal. And so those 2019 models were some of them were built in 2018 when they were actually still taking the time, and the solitude is was a solid choice, you know, it's it's just a good unit overall.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Uh, yeah, we love ours. They don't make ours anymore, but I'm not gonna get another one until they make this floor plan. We have a we have a 385 GK and we just love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Well, and you know, it's funny about that, and and this is just totally off the cuff, but you know, not waiting is something that my dad died really young. He was only 61 when he died, and he died of lung cancer, and he never retired. Frank wanted to go on the road full time for like seven years prior to us hitting the road, and I was like, no, never, no, like over my dead body, no. And so I'm still here breathing and telling you 13 years later that this is the lifestyle we chose, but it was totally a God thing for us. It was a moment where I just came home and said, Okay, we're supposed to do this. And he said, I've been waiting seven years for you to say that. And we did it long before everybody else thought it was cool. But you know, it's one of those things that, you know, once you know, I feel like you kind of know, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. So I mean, I had a quilting business. I had a lot I had a studio in my house, a long arm quilting machine, and everything. I sold it all to do this.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Now, do you still quilt in your RV?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

I do I have a sewing machine that I take with us, and I do a little bit of that. I do a little bit of a cross stitch, you know, but I'm also a writer, so that takes a lot of my time as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah. Well, and and I followed your whole travels this summer to Alaska. To Alaska. So that was that was fun to watch. We've never in 13 years, we've never done Alaska. We've always said that'll be the Twilight Tour for whatever rig we take because we've heard the roads are terrible. Tell us a little bit about your experiences up there.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Oh, well, our little RV survived it. And um, you know, it was fabulous. We we had actually booked this tour with Fantasy RV two weeks before I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So that was in 2023, was when we booked it to go in 25 because that was gonna be our 40th wedding anniversary. And we had it during the trip, it was our 40th wedding anniversary. And um, so this was, you know, the big thing we were gonna do. And then when I was diagnosed, we're like, okay, now it's even more important to do it, right? And so it that was just a fabulous trip. To go with fantasy was a great way to go because they planned everything. We also had fabulous tail gunners and wagon masters that did everything for us. Um, now we can say we've been to Alaska and we've been to Western Canada. As far as the RV goes, take your time, just go slow. And, you know, we didn't have anything that fell off the walls or anything. We had dust, more than anything. Dust, lots of dust. We do have our bikes on a Hollywood bike rack on the back of the RV, and they were wrapped up with the Formosa cover, and it completely covers the bikes. That thing was completely covered in dust on the outside. We took the cover off and the bikes were fine. So I highly recommend both of those if you're looking to do something like that. But it was just a fabulous trip. No, we got to see the whales, we did everything.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So that's awesome. Okay, so you know, like me, there's probably lots of places you love. Can you pick out a handful of those places that are the most memorable for you?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

So Banff loved Banff when we went up into Canada. Um, URA, Colorado. We spent a month there and we had all four seasons in the month of May. It's just a beautiful, you know, beautiful place. You wake up with snow in Colorado in May. You just never know. But Uray is like the little Switzerland of America, and it was just a beautiful place with the campground we stayed in. We could walk into town. We love Uray. Zion, because we got to experience that with our kids and our grandkids. They had never been out there. Um, so there's just so many that we've done that, you know, we've done 20,000 almost 20,000 miles this year alone.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So, you know, because we've been we also went to Baja, California, Mexico on a fantasy tour in February, the end of February.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

So have you earned your little pin from fantasy yet then?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

No, we've only done two. And I don't think we'll do any more because all of the places that the that we looked at the other tours, but they're like, okay, these are things we could do on our own. Yeah. Like we're gonna do Newfoundland next year, but we're doing it on our own.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Well, and we have friends that did Africa with fantasy and and absolutely love the experience, but they only do that like once every other year, I think. And so you have to catch them before it fills up, too. Can you tell people a little bit what fantasy tours is? I you don't work for them.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

And so you know So Fantasy Tours, they book everything for you. They book your RV parks if they're gonna do a dinner out or whatever. They make those reservations if it's a group dinner. They give you a book that has step-by-step driving directions and oh, stop and see this on your way, you know, and the wagon master will leave at this time, the tailgunner's gonna leave two hours later. You can leave any time in between. Now, Mexico was different. We had to stay together in a line because it's Mexico, but we never felt unsafe in Mexico. We did the Baja Whale Watching Tour. So the thing about fantasy was what we noticed with the Alaska Canada tour was we did things with them that we would not have done on our own. You know, we wouldn't have done a riverboat cruise, we wouldn't have done these plays that we went to and things like that. So that's what's great about fantasy is it gives you such an awesome experience that you probably wouldn't do on your own because you don't know it's there.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Right. And well, I tell people it's like a rolling rally. And so that's the best way to explain what you know they offer as far as that goes. And there's other companies that tour those places, but fantasy is one of the oldest in the industry. So it's just interesting. Right. Let's slip into kind of your writing life. You know, you have a very busy writing life out there. Obviously, you're writing for uh learn to R V, and we so appreciate that. But you also have a travel blog and you have some book series. How do you carve time out for the creativity side of that?

SPEAKER_01 8:39

It gets a little tricky as we're moving around, but uh I try to do at least a little bit every day of something, whether it's writing a blog or at least mapping out a blog, or like this morning I was sitting and trying to map out my next cozy mystery because it's um death by bear spray, but it's in Florida, so you have to kind of that came out of Alaska. Friends of ours on the Alaska trip with us were like, you need to do something with bear spray. Because I've done death by golf cart and death on the pickleball court, now it's gonna be death by bear spray. But they're all set in a 55 and over RV resort in Florida because you write what you know. Yeah, it's fun. Um, yeah. So, and there's a little dog that is psychic that helps because I love those kind of things too. She helps to tell the story and solve the mystery. I also have a five-book contemporary romance series that was the first one I did, and it was about a group of women in a small town in Virginia who quilt and the older ones give advice to the younger ones about love and life and everything. So that is out there as well. And then I'm gonna hold it up. This is our book, Don't Wait, our full-time RV Journey through breast cancer, which is my story about how we dealt with breast cancer while living on the road full time. And they're all on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, and that would be helpful to so many people. You know, my mom is a breast cancer survivor, she has lived 26 years past her diagnosis, and she's still around to tell the tale. Um, breast cancer, it's life-changing, obviously, but it doesn't have to be the end of it for sure. And you're living proof of that. Uh we'll drop your um link on this episode so people can get that book too. You know, how did your mindset change with the breast cancer diagnosis going into 2023 and 2024?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So that was more of, I mean, I told my breast surgeon when I was diagnosed, I said, I'm going to the Terminal Roses parade at the end of the year. We did the escapees hop. I told him, I said, it's not I want to go, I'm going. And I said, whatever we got to do to get me there, you know. And I'm I was almost 60 at that point. And I said, I don't I I don't want to have to deal with it anymore. I'd had one abnormal on the road, had to find a place on the road. Um, because the September before in 22, I had my mammogram and we left. Because every year, the way we do our life is we come back to Ohio twice a year in the spring and in the fall. This is our medical home base. This is where our grandkids are. So this is our medical home base. And we get our all of our medical stuff done and then we leave. Well, in 22, I did that, and then on the road, they called me and said, You need a follow-up. And I said, I've already left. So I had to find a place on the road to do a follow-up mammogram and ultrasound.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

I finally did, and it actually was the place that I used to go to when I lived in northern Virginia. They did the mammogram, but they didn't do the ultrasound because they said there's nothing there. So all winter I'm like, they didn't do the ultrasound. And the next year we were supposed to be in Glacier. Mike had planned this great trip for us, and we were supposed to be in Glacier when I would get my my regular. So I called my insurance and they're like, you can get it whenever you want. So I got it in May of 23 here in Ohio. And that's when I found out I had breast cancer. So Dublin, Ohio is where my breast surgeon is. And he actually wrote the foreword for my book. Oh neat. Which was wonderful. Yeah. But uh, you know, I it's what it's done is it's Mike and I now live that life of don't wait to enhance change or save your life. Just get out there and do what you can while you can, because you just never know, you know, what's gonna happen. And I decided just to go and say, just do a double mastectomy. I don't want reconstruction. I'm fine with I have a scar from one armpit to the other and I'm okay with that because I'm out and I'm going and doing, you know, I ended up not needing chemo, not needing radiation.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

You know, I'm on medication that sucks because it gives me joint pain and stuff, but I'm still moving, you know. And that's that's how we look at things now. We don't wait to do it, you know, we're just gonna continue to keep going and doing what we can until God forbid it comes back, which hopefully it won't because I'm taking the medicine for that.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

What do you hope that readers would gain from your story? Because obviously that's that's a journey in itself. I know don't wait, but what does that mean for real life? You know, I mean, like take the trip. I get that. Because you know, we hit the road right after Frank retired from the Marine Corps. So we were young, like we were like not even 40 yet. But it was crazy because everybody was like, Oh, you're nuts. You know, do do you hear that kind of you know, sentiment even for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

People are shocked when they hear how we uh you live in 400 square feet. And in fact, my doctor, he's from Elkhart. So our the RV industry and he knew R Ving. He didn't have an RV growing up, but he knew people who did. And so when he told me that the medicine I was gonna be taking would be putting me basically in menopause for five years, he looked up Mike and he said, 400 square feet, good luck. And I just I said, Come on, I'm not that bad. But you know, you do, you live in 400 square feet. People are they're like, where do you put all your clothes? You know, where do you put all your extra stuff? And I'm like, we don't have the spout, this is my closet space, you know. Right. And just basically, I think the don't wait thing for me is just to tell people if you have something, whether it's your medical stuff, you need to make sure you get all your keep up with all that, keep up with your colonoscopy that nobody wants to get the mammograms, you know, all the testing that you need to get normally. We make sure that we do that every year. We I line up all the appointments and drag my husband to all the appointments, but we get them done, you know. We've had problems where we were at the dentist, we flew back here in April because we were on the West Coast and we were going to be going to Alaska. So we were in Salt Lake City. We left our rig for two weeks at this great place, flew back here, was in an extended stay for two weeks to make sure we got all those medical appointments done and the dentist and everything. And my husband ended up having a tooth that had to be taken care of. Well, the dentist was sick the day before we were flying out. So I found a place in Salt Lake City. I had to do that. Turned out he needed an implant, not just a filling. It got way more extensive. But we were able to readjust things, you know, and so that he could get to all of those different implant appointments with Salt Lake City, and now we're going to finish it actually in Tucson. I mean, you find, you figure out ways to to handle all of these different things that that pop up, but you still keep going.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah, because life still happens while you're traveling for sure. Right. Right. You know, you've shared your story at other, you know, r RV rallies and podcasts. What is it meant to connect to others like going through experiences similar to yours?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

So I always say if I can touch one person, even if there's only that one person in the room listening to me and I touch them, then it was worth it. It was worth going to that rally and doing that rally, right? I've had more people come up to me and say, Thank you. I'm getting the book, I'm giving it to this person. Or or you've really helped me. In the book, the first half of the book is about our RV journey. And the second half is picks it up where I was diagnosed. And then what do you do? We had to find a place to stay long term. We didn't know how long. We didn't know if I was going to need chemo or not. We had to leave the place where we are right now because he didn't have room for us. And we found another small family campground in the area that she said you can stay for as long as you need to.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Well, and that would have been a totally different situation if you'd found out in the fall with how many campgrounds closed down in the wintertime. People don't realize those navigational challenges would have added to that equation. You know, you waited, and you know, who knows what that looks like. But, you know, I mean, there are other challenges out there that people just don't ever consider.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Right, right. You know, and if if we'd been in the house, I probably would have done a totally different plan. But I was like, I'm getting I need to get to that rose parade. So I'll do whatever is the quickest. But in the book, I do go through what I went through. I I tell about the emotional, the physical, you know, all of that, the mental. I don't sugarcoat anything. So that, you know, how do you recover in an RV? How do you take a shower in such a small space? So I do go through all of that. And people have read the book and said, thank you for doing that, because it shows me what my person is going through. Yeah, you know, and it helps them to know I like like I said, I didn't need chemo, I didn't need radiation, but I also went through basically my own brand of hell to get where I am. I had a couple that on the RV tour, on the fantasy tour, they bought three books because he said, I want one for me, I want one for this person who's just diagnosed, and I want an extra one because you know somebody else is going to be diagnosed down the road. I'm like, this is like a really sad Hallmark card. So, but you know, and that's what I hope people get out of my book is learning that this is what they go through, what a breast cancer patient goes through, but also what how you can help yourself to to do what it is you want to do. It doesn't even have to be going R Ving, it can be anything.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Absolutely. You know, and it's it's it's not even necessarily, you know, about RVing. It's taking the trip. It's, you know, going on the cruise of a lifetime that you've always dreamed of going on. And so, you know, I think that your motto of don't wait to enhance or change or save your life is is super important, especially to the audience and learn to RV, because I think so many of us do wait till we're retired. And I mean, Frank and I are an exception to that rule. You know, families out there would tell you today, oh, we're doing it younger, and a lot do, but they only stay about two years on the road. And so they do this bucket list trip that's absolutely insane. And like, I don't even have a list. I mean, I I have things I still want to see, but I don't have like this roaming list that I have to tick off. That's why we're still doing this 13 years later. Right. What's the biggest lesson or surprise that full-time life has given you and Mike as a couple?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

That we can live in 400 square feet and still talk to each other.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

That's fair. And and then what's next for you? What do you have coming up? Travel? Do you have another book coming up? A project you're excited about? We'd love to know all about that.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Okay. So I'm working on death by bear spray. Um, that's a slow.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

So just so you know, when I was in Yellowstone, there was actually people that would come up and think bear spray was something you could spray on like Sentan lotion. So just to keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Oh my gosh. Yeah, no, that's not what that's for.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Disclaimer, it is not for that.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

It is not for that. No, no. So I'm working on that. I'm working, we're trying to work on, and this is where you and I kind of communicated a book where for beginning RVers that Mike and I are trying to put together, if I can get his get him in gear. I've got my part, some of my parts done, but I need him to do some of his. So we're slowly working on that book that will be coming out probably next year sometime.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

And I have a great project that I'm hoping to bring you in on regarding that too. So that's coming real soon. So yeah. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Awesome. Yeah, we're gonna be actually in Mesa, Arizona for three and a half months. Nice at an RV resort. It's beautiful. We've been there before, Balmista. And so half of December and all of January, February, and March, we're gonna be stationary and I'm gonna be like writing, writing, writing, writing, and doing some sewing um, because they have a quilt studio, so I'm excited about that too. That's always like now.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Do you teach classes or anything when you go to a a resort like that?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

No. Well, I've never done that at that resort, but no, I've not taught classes there. I used to teach classes a long time ago, but uh, I've done many, many things.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Well, that sounds like an exciting winter for you guys or a slowdown season, but slowdown seasons sometimes are great times to like regroup, refresh, revive. And so those are important too. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today to share your honesty and your heart for this journey. Life on the road isn't something that we promised, and it's certainly not just about where we're going. A lot of times it's the people we meet along the way. And so community is the heart of this. Where can you find your blog and all of that stuff? If you don't mind dropping those links, we'll put them in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Okay. Yeah. So I have two two uh websites jenniferscanal.com is my author site where you can find all the books, and the ramblingquilter.com is our travel blog.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Well, until next time, like, subscribe. Don't forget to go follow Jennifer stuff and order her books because they're fantastic. So thank you. Keep rolling forward. Just don't wing. Thanks, Jennifer.