Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Jesus
If you live the way I did for the last 6 years or so…the future is uncertain. Completely uncertain. What I remember feeling the most about the future on the road was how quickly it could change. If we had plans to be in Colorado, but something else presented itself, we might end up in California.
Moving thousands of miles is not a big deal when you’re a full-time RVer. Anything under 600 miles in a weekend was chump change. For us, that was true especially in the last few years.
Traveling in an RV isn’t like traveling by car. It’s more like traveling with your house constantly within reach—just pull over, and home is right there.
Full-time RVers don’t stress about where they’ll spend the night, because they know at any moment they can pull over in a parking lot, or find an RV park (almost everywhere has a place within 50 miles).
So breaking down is not really a fear either, because you can often limp to where you need to go for the night.
We broke down hard in Texas. Hard.
There is a part that breaks on F250s made between the years 2012 and 2016. It predictably breaks at around 140,000 miles (tk). I didn’t know this when I purchased the truck. I didn’t know this until it broke on me. We were doing a long-haul drive, and it was at night. It was going to be a 1200 mile weekend, and It quickly became a 750 mile weekend.
There was a bang. There’s always a bang when something breaks.
“Bang, a belt broke.”
“Bang, we hit something”
“Bang a tire blew!”.
This time, the bang came from the gasket housing. The gasket’s job? To hold suction so the turbo can spin. Without that seal: no suction, no compression. And if you don’t know how diesel engines work—no compression means no power.
The truck sounded awful. Like putting a car in neutral and flooring it.
We pulled off at a dusty gas station. I popped the hood, overwhelmed, already convinced it was hopeless.
“I don’t know how to fix this, Meagan. I can’t fix this. We’re screwed.”
I wasn’t even trying to troubleshoot. I was just scanning the engine for something obviously broken so I could justify giving up.
But Meagan was googling.
Honestly, it irritated me.
To me, trying to fix it was just… naive.
She read aloud, “If your engine’s revving like that, it could be a vacuum leak.”
So we searched: vacuum leak F-250.
Five minutes later, she found a forum post. A guy said there should be a plastic housing on the exhaust manifold.
“I don’t know what that is, I’m just reading what someone wrote.”
That was enough for me. I looked.
Sure enough—there it was. Cracked. Obvious.
I could fix this.
I had been ready to quit. But Meagan wasn’t. And suddenly things didn’t feel quite so impossible.
I found an RV park a mile and a half away. Could we make it?
Barely. But we did—15 miles an hour, crawling.
As we rolled in, a young guy in a pickup passed us:
“Well you’re lucky. I was just about to go home.”
“I need a spot for the night. I’ll take anything you’ve got.”
He hesitated. “I’ve got someone scheduled for one tonight. But there’s another open until Sunday. That work?”
“I just need one night. I’m hoping to fix it in the morning.”
He nodded and said, “Follow me.”
We paid $40 in cash, got a handwritten receipt, and parked.
At 10:30 p.m., the kids finally got in their beds and fell fast asleep.
Then at 11:00, there’s a knock on the door.
Sidebar: Usually the only real disruption in RV parks usually comes from weekenders partying too loud. People who live in RVs? They’re working. They’ve got lives to live.
I open the tiny RV door to 3 hispanic men aged roughly 25, 30 and 50. One of which (the youngest) speaks english.
“You’re in my site.”
“I’m sorry WHAT?”
“You’re in my site. I paid for the month already.”
I explained the situation. That I had also paid—just an hour earlier. That we’d had truck trouble. That our kids were asleep. I tell him I understand what he’s saying and I’ll be right back. I close the door.
Meagan was looking out the window.
There was another vehicle behind them, a suburban with the wife and kids…waiting to get settled and go to sleep after a long day of following their dad’s pick-up truck towing the rig.
I open the door and communicate that I’m going to move…but I need to call the owner to see where he wants me to go.
They nod, understanding, and head back to their vehicles.
After a few frantic texts and calls, I connect with the owner and get moved to the right site. We were already hitched and idling in the road, so the move was quick. The kids were still asleep in their beds. By 11:30, we were finally laying down too.
I think about that family a lot.
I see them more clearly now—just people trying to eke out a living. The men probably had to be up early for work. They’d come all this way for a job, towing their trailer across Texas, and after a long day on the road, they just wanted to park, sleep, and be ready for tomorrow.
A regular Goldilocks story: they show up, and I’m in their bed.
I think about how differently that could have gone—if I’d had a gun, if I’d felt threatened, if I’d dug in and insisted on my “right” to stay put. It could’ve gone sideways so fast. But it didn’t. It worked out.
Still, I wonder how it felt for them. To show up tired and hopeful, only to find a stranger in their space. In a country that doesn’t always make space for them.
I don’t know for sure if they were immigrants, but it seemed likely. We were deep in oilfield country, only one of them spoke English, and they were pulling a travel trailer toward what looked like work. Maybe they were from a tight-knit Spanish-speaking community in Texas. Either way, they were vulnerable. And gracious. And tired.
They just wanted to live their lives in peace, to pursue opportunity. And in that moment, so did I.
The next day I got up and called the local Ford dealership. The parts department had the gasket I needed, so I got an Uber (I’ve spent a lot of money on Ubers), spent $121 for an exhaust pipe, came home and fixed it.
It took less than 5 minutes. I filmed the entire process to show off my 360 cam for a friend. Watch it below if you want.
Fixing it was easy, and fairly cheap. $121 for a part, beats $200 for a hotel!
But the fear the night before was real.
What if this is expensive?
What if we’re stuck here forever?
What if these guys get aggressive?
What do I even do?
Isn’t that always how it is though? Isn’t there always something to be uncertain about?
But that’s not how most people live. We don’t feel like our lives are uncertain. We tell ourselves they’re stable, predictable, under control. Uncertainty gets banished out of mind where it belongs.
In the suburbs, things feel… settled. My neighbors seem to have their rhythms. Their weeks are mapped out. And when life feels certain, there’s less reason to act like time is limited. New relationships bring uncertainty—and commitments. Each new friend is someone to “work into” the schedule. So maybe it’s easier not to.
That’s one thing I think made us more open on the road. Daily uncertainty kept us loose. It made us say yes more often. That openness—that’s what made the RV community so great. And honestly, it’s what I miss most.
As we continue to transition into suburban life again, our comfort with uncertainty is something I hope I never lose.
The unknown is scary at times, but immediately beyond it is a new experience, sometimes a new adventure, and it is always an opportunity to learn about yourself.
Uncertainty is like a veil you can’t see through. You might have some idea what’s on the other side, but it’s only by moving through that you find out. And most of the time, the answer isn’t as bad as you had feared.