Curious about RV life, jaw-dropping destinations, and why coffee and bourbon are central to camping? This week’s Exploring Washington State podcast delivers an unscripted chat between host Scott Cowan and RV enthusiast Brooks Smothers.

From navigating the Pacific Northwest’s unparalleled natural beauty to tackling the quirks of rolling earthquakes (a.k.a. RVs), Brooks shares why RVing is the ultimate ticket to adventure.

Dive into hilarious tales of RV maintenance (why do screws randomly appear?) and the life-changing discovery of a $17 bottle of bourbon. Get insider tips on hidden state park gems, the epic road trip that dethroned Highway 395, and a deep dive into the pros and cons of RV living—complete with musings about fifth wheels, cozy bunk beds, and the all-important travel ice machine.

But wait—there’s more! Brooks reveals how Banff left Glacier National Park feeling like second place, why Seattle’s RV show is a must-attend, and how RVing isn’t just about camping; it’s your passport to city escapes, snowboarding weekends, and even competitive cheerleading events. And for the coffee lovers? Tailgate brews with an AeroPress are just the beginning.

Plus, the episode explores Washington State’s unparalleled diversity—from the jagged peaks of Mount Rainier to the rolling hills of the Palouse. Whether you’re a seasoned camper or a first-timer dreaming of life on the road, this conversation is packed with relatable stories, practical advice, and endless inspiration.

And the ultimate cliffhanger? Brooks’ answer to Washington’s most underrated state park will leave you itching to pack your bags. Tune in for laughs, lessons, and a new perspective on the great outdoors. Don’t miss this one!

After you listen to this episode make sure you take a listen to another great conversation with Brooks on our previous episode.

Find Brooks on his top rated podcast RV Outwest here!

Brooks Smothers RV Outwest Episode Transcript

Scott Cowan [00:00:05]:

Hello, friends, and welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. My name is Scott Cowan, and I’m the host of the show. Each episode, I have a conversation with an interesting guest who is living in or from Washington State. These are casual conversations with real and interesting people. I think you’re gonna like the show. So let’s jump right in with today’s guest. Okay. So you’re gonna be listening to a unscripted rambling phone call between Brooks Smothers and myself today.

Scott Cowan [00:00:32]:

I wanted Brooks to come back on. And and, really, what I want you to do, Brooks, is update us on what’s happening with RVs, what’s going on in Washington state that my listeners should know as we hit the prime camping season called winter in Washington?

Brooks Smothers [00:00:50]:

You know what, Scott? First off and foremost, hold on. Oh, you I can’t talk to you without you know, I mean, it’s just appropriate. It’s either a coffee or at this hour. It’s one

Scott Cowan [00:01:00]:

of these.

Brooks Smothers [00:01:00]:

So You know,

Scott Cowan [00:01:01]:

you’re being that that particular brand, which

Brooks Smothers [00:01:05]:

This particular brand? See, to refresh my You know what? Your listeners aren’t they can’t see us, so I’ll just let them know. I’m not even embarrassed to admit it. It’s a vitamin r, and it’s fantastic with a little casa dorsi.

Scott Cowan [00:01:18]:

Okay. So you’re So

Brooks Smothers [00:01:18]:

it’s good.

Scott Cowan [00:01:19]:

So you didn’t grow up in Washington State.

Brooks Smothers [00:01:21]:

So Yes. I did. Born and raised.

Scott Cowan [00:01:22]:

Well, I thought you grew up. Why did I think you grew up in Philly? Why does okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:01:26]:

No. No. So I’ll do it. Let me Let’s do it. Let’s do it. So just as a recap, I’m born and raised in Washington Washington State. I have moved 37 times in my 5 decades of life now. I can’t believe

Scott Cowan [00:01:40]:

interrupt you. Have have you moved since the last time we talked? No. My god.

Brooks Smothers [00:01:44]:

Because I now have bought a house. So honest to god, I’ve been in this house since 2014, and this is the longest I have ever stayed at one address. And when we bought this house, I told friends and family, you can finally put me in ink in your address book. Except by then, nobody had a permanent you know, an old school address book. Everything’s in their phone anymore. But still, the they got the gist of, you know, after years of keeping me in pencil because the address a nomad. Was always changing.

Scott Cowan [00:02:14]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:02:15]:

I was born in Pullman, actually, while my dad was going to Ventnor School at Wazoo. Yeah. I spent a decade away from the northwest. I left at 25 after having probably my first existential crisis on the 5 20 bridge commuting. I lived in EastLake in Seattle, and I was commuting over to Redmond Overlake area. And I was on the 5 20 bridge at 5 o’clock going, is this really what the hell I’m supposed to do until I’m 65? Because this is not okay. Right. And that was the 520 bridge 30 years ago.

Brooks Smothers [00:02:50]:

I can’t even imagine what the 520 bridge is like now.

Scott Cowan [00:02:52]:

Right. So so here’s here’s why I’m giving you the stink eye about the vitamin r. So remember when we were underage and we would get whatever we could get? I hope my mom

Brooks Smothers [00:03:04]:

shit. Animal beer.

Scott Cowan [00:03:05]:

I hope my mom doesn’t listen to this.

Brooks Smothers [00:03:07]:

She yeah. That’s it.

Scott Cowan [00:03:08]:

I I wouldn’t drink Rainier then.

Brooks Smothers [00:03:11]:

I do missing out.

Scott Cowan [00:03:13]:

I just don’t it’s the weirdest thing. Do you know which one I like? I like Olympia.

Brooks Smothers [00:03:19]:

Oh, Olympia’s good too. I like Olympia. The Water. It’s the Water.

Scott Cowan [00:03:22]:

It’s not I don’t even know where it’s being brewed now. It’s not No.

Brooks Smothers [00:03:26]:

It was the Water. It was the Water.

Scott Cowan [00:03:27]:

Anyway, so but it’s so funny because Rainier is so iconic to this region, and their ads were amazing. Did you see the Rainier beer movie that came out?

Brooks Smothers [00:03:37]:

Not yet.

Scott Cowan [00:03:38]:

Oh, man. You got

Brooks Smothers [00:03:40]:

It is on my Yeah. Yeah. No. I it’s on my radar.

Scott Cowan [00:03:43]:

Those guys did an amazing, amazing job. So anybody that hasn’t seen that needs to go watch the Rainier beer movie because

Brooks Smothers [00:03:50]:

one of my old college roommates, her grandparents were I can’t remember if they were the exact filming location or if the road was in front of their house. But when the hours were doing the old motor cycle, Rainier and Mount Rainier was in the background,

Scott Cowan [00:04:07]:

that was that was

Brooks Smothers [00:04:09]:

either in front of her grandparents’ house or along they were along the filming route or something like that.

Scott Cowan [00:04:14]:

So Very cool. Alright. So I was joking about winter being prime camping season. I know people camp year round. But do you put your trailer away at wintertime? Or do you I do. Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:04:25]:

So, I’m a big avid snowboarder.

Scott Cowan [00:04:27]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:04:28]:

So I’m up, seasons pass holders. So I’m with the kids going up to the mountain just about every weekend or as often as I can. Right. And so I do winterize. So we don’t RV for about 3 months out of the year. Okay. This year, it’s gonna be a little bit longer only because we are going to be doing a holiday European tour. And so we’re going to England and Paris and doing all of the holidays over there.

Brooks Smothers [00:04:55]:

So I’m winterizing a little earlier than I normally do. Our last trip in 2024 will be Veterans Day weekend.

Scott Cowan [00:05:01]:

Oh.

Brooks Smothers [00:05:02]:

And then I’m winterizing and putting it in storage. Okay. And I’ll pull it back out mid March.

Scott Cowan [00:05:07]:

Even though I’m all about Washington state, one of the things you kept talking about on social, and I’m gonna can just throw it over to you, you went up to a Banff, and I think you’ve expressed you were unimpressed and it wasn’t a fun time. I’m kidding.

Brooks Smothers [00:05:21]:

Oh, Scott, you are such a liar. You are a dirty, dirty liar.

Scott Cowan [00:05:24]:

How was it?

Brooks Smothers [00:05:25]:

No, man. Vant blew my mind. It is just stunning. And my wife and I were talking about we we’ve towed the RV out to Glacier National Park out in Montana. We’ve done Glacier, and it’s Glacier National Park is beautiful. Mhmm. I’m by no means discounting what that park is. That park is spectacular.

Brooks Smothers [00:05:52]:

But after going to Banff, Glacier is a bit of a letdown. Wow. And it’s kinda weird, and I don’t whatever. But, part of it too is, like, we go out to Glacier and it’s I look around and it looks a lot like Washington state. I mean, it’s still equally beautiful and with mountains and these, it’s just beautiful, but it’s you know, if I’d come from Kansas to Glacier Right. My mind would be blown. Right. But I I think we’re just we live in this pocket of the United States, and we are very lucky to live in this pocket.

Scott Cowan [00:06:29]:

It is beautiful up here. Yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:06:32]:

But Banff blew my mind.

Scott Cowan [00:06:34]:

Why? What was so what was so awesome about it?

Brooks Smothers [00:06:39]:

Just, you know, I think, 1, the road to drive from Banff up to Jasper is amazing. It now has replaced my favorite stretch of road, which for the last 30 years has been Highway 395, which goes from Death Valley up to Tahoe along kind of the eastern spine of the Sierras. That has been my favorite stretch of road since my twenties, and it’s now been replaced by the Icefield Parkway Wow. Which is the stretch of road going from Banff to Jasper. But just seeing the jagged peaks and those Northern Canadian Rockies are not even like the Rockies in Colorado. It’s just and, again, it is a 9 hour drive from, say, Seattle. Mhmm. It is I’m gonna go with it’s pretty stupid close.

Brooks Smothers [00:07:32]:

Yeah. The 9 hour drive is not that far.

Scott Cowan [00:07:34]:

Well, considering, you know, that’s Everett to Tacoma some days for commute.

Brooks Smothers [00:07:40]:

Right. Right. Right. So, you know, go north and get get get more beauty.

Scott Cowan [00:07:45]:

Yeah. So you guys had a good time with it. Where else have you gone this year? What what around Washington? Where where’d you guys end up?

Brooks Smothers [00:07:51]:

Around Washington this year, we did where did we go? We stayed a lot of local. Mhmm. We stayed pretty local and did a lot of camping trips just kinda they were mostly weekends Mhmm. And things of that nature just because, I don’t have a lot of time currently at work, and I was trying to save everything for this upcoming European tour where I’m taking, like, two and a half weeks. So we stayed close. We kinda we went out to, Lake Kai. We stayed where else did we go? Man, I don’t remember. We went a lot of places, but it was all just local.

Scott Cowan [00:08:30]:

Do you have any any any plans for 25? You guys mapping anything out?

Brooks Smothers [00:08:34]:

Not yet. We’re so focused on Europe that, and just booking things and just kind of the travel logistics of getting

Scott Cowan [00:08:42]:

Have your kids been to Europe before? No. Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:08:45]:

And here’s the thing. I just crested 5 decades. Mhmm. So this is a belated kind of birthday trip for us to go on. We’re gonna meet my mom and stepdad over there. They’re old high school sweethearts. They lived in London in the sixties. Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:09:01]:

And then they broke up at, you know, 18 years old. And then fast forward life 30 years, and they reconnected, and they’ve been happily married now for, whatever, since 1992. Wow.

Scott Cowan [00:09:12]:

It’s a

Brooks Smothers [00:09:12]:

long time. So we’re gonna go and meet up with them. They’re already gonna be over there. They’re gonna take the sailing out of, New York City to Southampton, England, and they’re gonna do a 7 day transatlantic cruise. Oh, wow. And then we fly over and meet them. But the kids have never been, and since it is a major milestone birthday, we put down the extra money and the wife and I are flying business class, and we put the kids on the back, which is gonna be awesome. So she and I are sitting up front with bubbles, and we’re gonna have the whole whatever.

Brooks Smothers [00:09:48]:

Yeah. And the kids are gonna be in the back. And my 13 year older, he’s almost 13, his birthday is Thanksgiving this year, and he is asking for an upgrade on his ticket for his birthday present. And I’m like, you should be lucky. Your bottom is just on the airplane. Yeah. You can so Oh, that’s cool. That’s where we’re at.

Scott Cowan [00:10:06]:

So yeah. Kenzie, my daughter, you know, she’s still in Austria. And, you know, I I don’t know. She gets airfare so cheap between probably Munich is where she typically flies out of Frankfurt or Munich to Seattle. I mean, she’s flying round trips sometimes for $300. And I think she How’s

Brooks Smothers [00:10:25]:

she finding those deals? Know.

Scott Cowan [00:10:27]:

But I I swear she must be in the, you know, in the overhead compartment bin or something. You know? And but she flies coach. She flies the, you know, the economy seat. And

Brooks Smothers [00:10:35]:

I normally do. For the record, I am a coach flyer. This is just the one time where It’s We were doing the splurge. I was like, I want my chair to fold onto the 6 foot bed so I can actually sleep on the plane. So There’s

Scott Cowan [00:10:46]:

that. And for that length of a flight, I that I I would I I have this rule in in in not because I’m pretentious, but if I’m gonna be in an airplane more than 4 hours, I fly 1st class because I’m miserable if I don’t. I just want the big chair. They don’t have to they don’t you don’t have to bring me anything. I’m happy if they do, but it’s not why I’m doing it. I just want the big chair and the leg room. Yeah. So that’s my role, 4 hours.

Scott Cowan [00:11:16]:

And, we flew

Brooks Smothers [00:11:17]:

Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:11:18]:

Our our big trip this year was, and this is nothing but Washington State. This is great. Our big trip this year is we went and saw the Rolling Stones in Cleveland. And

Brooks Smothers [00:11:27]:

Have you been to Cleveland before?

Scott Cowan [00:11:29]:

I had been to Cleveland one time before, but for kind of a crisis, so not as a tourist.

Brooks Smothers [00:11:35]:

Did you make it to Rock Hall on this trip too? Amazing. Right?

Scott Cowan [00:11:40]:

You know what? I was so now now welcome to exploring Cleveland with Brooks and Scott. Yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:11:47]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:11:47]:

I I was so enamored with the experience that we had in Cleveland. The the city is peaceful. We we walked around a lot. We stayed, at the place called the Drury, which was the old, education building in downtown, this old K. Really cool old building, and it was a great place to stay. Great great base camp. The stones were amazing. We had night for our seats.

Scott Cowan [00:12:18]:

You know, I’m Awesome. I can I hardly miss the kidney that it costs to to pay for those?

Brooks Smothers [00:12:22]:

But that’s okay. And you know what? You’re not gonna worry about that. Come the time on desk phone, there will be money well spent. So And the

Scott Cowan [00:12:28]:

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was, I didn’t go in with a lot of expectations, and it absolutely I would I would fly to Cleveland tomorrow to go there again. It was it was so much fun.

Brooks Smothers [00:12:40]:

Yeah. And Cleveland is one of those when I call a sleeper city. It really I I again, to your point, we were on our way out. We were driving out to Philadelphia. We were taking the trailer. We were actually RV camping outside of Cleveland. And I bought the tickets. We went in, and Cleveland knocked my socks off.

Brooks Smothers [00:13:00]:

I had no idea that it was just kind of such a cool little town, and it has a very large Polish population. Yes. And I’m a big fan of, like, pierogis and pierogis. So and I’m not Polish. I just like eating that food. And so to be able to go find places to go get pierogis and pierogis was amazing. And, yeah, Cleveland was cool.

Scott Cowan [00:13:21]:

So then the, the other couple of interesting quirks about it, I’d literally Thai France literally walked into me coming out of the bathroom in the airport, literally ran into me and, you know, kinda bumped into me. And he looks, oh, I’m sorry. I’m like, hey. Like, I go, you’re Thai France. And he goes, yeah. And all I could think about is, like, how tiny that guy was compared to me. He was not he he’s not a very you know? I mean, I’m 64. He might be 510.

Scott Cowan [00:13:52]:

You know? He anyway, ran into but the other thing is this is the the the nature of, you know, my day gig is, you know, I saw real estate. So I was looking at house prices in Cleveland. We should just sell our homes and move there because you could conservatively double the square footage you have in Cleveland for less money than what your house would sell for here.

Brooks Smothers [00:14:18]:

The only thing to that, Scott, is the doubling the square footage.

Scott Cowan [00:14:22]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:14:23]:

I the older I get, I actually think the idea of going into a tiny home and downsizing and whatever is more I don’t wanna be I don’t want I’m not a weekend guy who enjoys working on my home. I don’t I don’t wanna tackle projects or deal. I don’t Yeah. Get juiced about things like that. That’s not I don’t Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:14:41]:

Well, sell sell your home and and buy a tiny home and and retire on the on the proceeds because housing prices were stupid. The average price

Brooks Smothers [00:14:50]:

Yep.

Scott Cowan [00:14:50]:

In Cleveland was 209.

Brooks Smothers [00:14:54]:

Yeah. That’s awesome.

Scott Cowan [00:14:55]:

I was like That’s great. And, you know, but, you know, what’s what’s the I saw it the other day. Boy, this is gonna be a fun episode. So the other day in the average price in King County now is $1,000,000.

Brooks Smothers [00:15:09]:

Well, so currently, Washington state, there was just yesterday in the news about that family in Falls City tragically

Scott Cowan [00:15:17]:

I didn’t

Brooks Smothers [00:15:18]:

shot by their 15 year old son, family of, I think, 6 or 7, mom and dad and 3 of his siblings, the kid murdered. And I was reading news not from our today, but not from any sort of Washington state news story. So I’m reading on the AP Wire and some of the other places, and they’re like, it was a 2 and a half $1,000,000 home. And it was a nice home on kind of a lake waterfront, whatever. They’re calling it a mansion and making a big deal about it being this 2 point and I’m like, I I don’t know. Maybe I’m jaded, but 2.5 I mean, it was a nice house. It was a big out. I wouldn’t call it a mansion.

Brooks Smothers [00:15:56]:

Like, you know, I think Medina for the mansion.

Scott Cowan [00:15:59]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:16:00]:

You know, I don’t Yeah. You know? Like

Scott Cowan [00:16:02]:

Yeah. And with the

Brooks Smothers [00:16:03]:

A 3 bedroom house, if you can find 1 in Seattle, is 1.5. So, you know, like, whatever.

Scott Cowan [00:16:08]:

It’s just it’s it’s absolutely crazy. But then kinda tying this in RV ing is my wife and I have started very, very early on in the, in the concept of, do we want 1? Oh. And my wife I

Brooks Smothers [00:16:25]:

have a lot to say now.

Scott Cowan [00:16:25]:

My wife is far more yes than I am because I have I I have a couple of,

Brooks Smothers [00:16:30]:

I have a couple trepidations?

Scott Cowan [00:16:32]:

Well, one, I I wanna be able to stand up in it.

Brooks Smothers [00:16:35]:

Okay. How tall are

Scott Cowan [00:16:36]:

you? 64. Okay. So a friend of mine has a a 5th wheel, and they were over and and they stayed here, and I could stand up in that. But I the idea of pulling a trailer, I want I want an all in one unit. I want it I want an RV in the sense that, you know, I wanna drive my living room around everywhere, not pull it behind the truck. That’s just the way I am. So I wanna be able to stand up.

Brooks Smothers [00:16:56]:

I’m gonna challenge that in a minute now. That’s fine. Gonna challenge. We can.

Scott Cowan [00:16:58]:

64. And then the other thing is we have a 120 pound dog. And so I want to take him with us.

Brooks Smothers [00:17:08]:

Yeah. Of course. But

Scott Cowan [00:17:10]:

but anything I look at becomes 30 30 plus feet long, 6 figures that don’t they start with digits higher than 1. And I’m just like,

Brooks Smothers [00:17:23]:

I don’t

Scott Cowan [00:17:24]:

know that we would use it.

Brooks Smothers [00:17:25]:

Okay. So So so here are some things I’m gonna I wanna suggest you. So this past year, I actually was a seminar speaker at the Seattle RV Show. I gave a couple of seminar talks. I gave one called so you wanna RV

Scott Cowan [00:17:37]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:17:38]:

Which is essentially exactly this. Mhmm. Kinda some of the questions and the conversations that you’re now having with your wife. And the big thing is it boils down to a couple of things. Being the fact that you’re 64 does, make things a little bit more challenging. So a traditional travel trailer is not probably going to work for you. I’m 61a half. I can comfortably stand inside my trailer.

Brooks Smothers [00:18:03]:

I don’t feel the need to have to duck. Mhmm. I do sometimes duck initially getting into it, but once I’m into it, it’s not a big deal.

Scott Cowan [00:18:09]:

That would be fine for me. Okay?

Brooks Smothers [00:18:12]:

Right. But inside, you’re right. You’re gonna have to look at a 5th wheel. So you get that higher that higher clearance. But, yes, you’re gonna be then in that 30 to 34 feet on a smaller side of a of a 5th wheel. But, you know, you’ll get then more than likely You’ll definitely get a queen. You might very well get a king-size bed, you know, and an RV king or, I mean, excuse me, an RV queen mattress. They make an RV queen, which is the same width as a standard queen bed, but it’s shorter, which is what I have.

Brooks Smothers [00:18:46]:

I have an RV queen. And so I need to basically put my head all the way up against the front of the trailer, and then my feet are pressing against the wall.

Scott Cowan [00:18:56]:

Right.

Brooks Smothers [00:18:56]:

And so at 61, I am, luckily, I’m a side sleeper and kinda sleep in the fetal position, so it’s not that big of a deal for me. Right. But at 64, you couldn’t sleep in my bed. Yeah. I would You would be too big

Scott Cowan [00:19:08]:

for that bed. Yeah. That’s that’s gonna be a challenge. The the couple units that we’ve looked at, the Kings, the problem with the King is getting out of it in the middle of the night because they take up the Yep. You know? And it’s just Yep.

Brooks Smothers [00:19:21]:

And so that’s why if you go to a 5th wheel, you’ll probably get the height you need. Mhmm. You’ll get a king-size bed. And then a lot of times those 5th wheels will have 2 bathrooms. So you’ll have kind of an en suite bathroom, and then you’ll have more of like a powder room without a shower kinda down in your main living room. So if you are having friends come over and you guys are doing dinner or you’re making a a smorgasbord of food and somebody’s like, I need to use the restroom. You can. Or you’re outside hanging out and you’re like, oh, I’d seem to run into the bathroom.

Brooks Smothers [00:19:51]:

You can go in real easily. So a 5th wheel might be a better option for you.

Scott Cowan [00:19:57]:

Alright.

Brooks Smothers [00:19:58]:

That said, one of the big considerations if you’re looking at a class a motor home is you really are jumping into high dollar. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, you’re you’re really into RV show price. You’re probably in the 175 to 225. And to get even bells and whistles and other things you might want, you could be pushing 3, 4, $500,000. Easy.

Scott Cowan [00:20:23]:

Easy. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Brooks Smothers [00:20:24]:

Yep. And if you wanna get, like, super fancy and go all out, you’re in the million. Yeah. But the other thing, good, bad, indifferent, I’m not I’m saying this just as a a passage of information. But that with the motor home, you have that whole other motor to maintain. Yes. Oil changes, diesel fuel, gas filters, or fuel filters. I mean, all of those other things that one needs to do anyway.

Brooks Smothers [00:20:55]:

But with the 5th wheel, you’re really gonna need to tow that here because we live in the Pacific Northwest and we’re in mountainous terrains, you’re gonna want a 1 ton diesel. You’re gonna want a f 350 or a Ram 35100 or a Chevy Duramax with the Allison transmission. You know, you’re gonna need one of the so now you’re already looking at a, you know, on the used market, you’re looking at a 60 or $70,000 truck Mhmm. On top of a $75,000 Yeah. 5th wheel. So, I mean, you’re at a 150. A couple of things too to know. Financing in our RV is interesting.

Brooks Smothers [00:21:38]:

I’m don’t take this as anybody me offering any sort of financial advice. I’m not a financial planner. I am not offering financial advice. I am just merely sharing information. But you can get 15 or 18 year loans on an RV.

Scott Cowan [00:21:55]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:21:56]:

Because it has a bathroom and a kitchen, the banks kinda look at it as a second home kind of, thing. So if you’re like, hey. This is either something we maybe want to do for a handful of few years or, hey, we’re getting ready to retire. We wanna go drive around the United States for 3, 4, 5 years and then go, we’re done. That was fun and get back to our house. Then doing something like that, knowing that you’re just gonna make a monthly payment and then be done, it does mean you’re taking, if you buy new, you’re taking the initial depreciation hit, but that is an option. So kind the other thing about towing a motor home then is you still need to tow a daily driver behind it. Right.

Brooks Smothers [00:22:42]:

So that way when you get to your park, your RV resort, wherever you’re going, you’re like, okay, let’s go explore Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We wanna drive into Cleveland and go see it, or, hey, we need to go get groceries. You have your grocery getter to get you around. So you’re still having to tow. Right. Right. Yeah. Because you’re not gonna pack up your class a and go try and find a parking spot with a class a in downtown Cleveland so you can go to Rock Hall or Right.

Brooks Smothers [00:23:08]:

Hey. Let’s go to, you know, we got Zootunes tickets, and I wanna go, you know, let’s go find a place to camp near Seattle and go to Zootunes. Right. You’re not gonna take your class a into downtown Seattle.

Scott Cowan [00:23:18]:

No. So so you you put so I was thinking I could pull my 5th wheel with my Honda Pilot. You’re you’re you’re I you’re bursting my butt. I’m kidding. I mean, no.

Brooks Smothers [00:23:28]:

No. Can’t pull a 5th wheel.

Scott Cowan [00:23:31]:

But

Brooks Smothers [00:23:33]:

your Honda Pilot can pull some smaller travel trailers.

Scott Cowan [00:23:35]:

Not it doesn’t have that it’s got 5,000 pound capacity, I think.

Brooks Smothers [00:23:39]:

And Yeah. Like I said, a small travel trailer that you probably won’t be able to stand up in. But, you know, but these are things to think about when you’re looking at kind of doing that. So I do think you might want to put a 5th wheel. Don’t just completely rule out a 5th wheel yet.

Scott Cowan [00:23:53]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:23:54]:

Being a homeowner, you need a truck anyway. So you can kinda double dip on Yeah. You know, saying we need the truck anyway for

Scott Cowan [00:24:01]:

Well, let me ask

Brooks Smothers [00:24:02]:

run stuff.

Scott Cowan [00:24:03]:

Let me ask you this question. This once again, you’re not a financial adviser. This is not considered a financial advice. What Yep. In your

Brooks Smothers [00:24:09]:

And I’m terrible with money, so don’t ask me anything.

Scott Cowan [00:24:12]:

What is, in your experience, how bad are new units depreciating?

Brooks Smothers [00:24:21]:

Just like a vehicle. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:24:22]:

So about about the same rate. Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:24:24]:

The minute you drive it off the lot, you’re taking a hit, unfortunately. Okay. The other thing that is really interesting that I had no idea about until I became a RV owner, RV dealerships work differently than an automotive dealership. So, you know, we bought a Jayco travel trailer and here in kind of Western Washington, there’s really only 2 dealers who deal in Jayco’s. You have one up near in Mount Vernon in Skagit, and then you have one down in Kent. We bought ours from the place down in Kent, and we needed to get some warranty work done on it. So I was like, oh, I’m just gonna take it to the Mount Vernon one because they’re closer to my house than driving right down to Kent again. And they gave me a lot of slack for trying to do warranty work on my rig because we didn’t buy it from them.

Brooks Smothers [00:25:18]:

So I don’t know if it’s because, you know, there’s a prenegotiated price of labor that, you know, the the manufacturer will pay the dealer, so it may be less than if I were just to come in and say, hey. I need to get this done. They’re gonna charge me Right. Differently versus playing a I don’t know. But it is it is treated differently than, like, oh, I have a Ford. I need to get work done on my Ford. I can just go to any Ford dealership and get it done.

Scott Cowan [00:25:46]:

So what you’re saying is if I went over to, you know and, like, let’s say, Paulsboro RV, and they’ve got multiple locations on the west side.

Brooks Smothers [00:25:53]:

You’d be fine because you could probably go to any Paulsboro

Scott Cowan [00:25:55]:

RV. But if I and let’s just say I bought bought brand x from them. I don’t know what brand I would buy. Let’s just call it brand x. And I bought it from Paulsboro RV in Auburn, but I wanted to get it serviced over here in Central Washington. I’m not gonna be welcomed by the Central Washington folks though in theory.

Brooks Smothers [00:26:14]:

Unless it’s a Paulsboro RV dealership specifically. No. Okay. And that’s why I saw a lot of people who might like, oh, I can get this unit in Salt Lake City for a lot less than what I can get it from Washington state. You know what? It might make sense for me to make that drive by myself or with my family, whatever, to go out and pick up the unit and bring it back. Right. And a lot of people do that. And it’s it doesn’t mean that they don’t do it.

Brooks Smothers [00:26:42]:

It’s just more. It can potentially have more headaches

Scott Cowan [00:26:46]:

It does. Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:26:46]:

Is all I’m saying.

Scott Cowan [00:26:48]:

Well, let’s as what what we’re talking about, the RVs in particular, your let’s talk about your unit specifically. This this year, this season, 2024, what sort of maintenance did you have to pull on it? Do you think anything break this year? What any surprises?

Brooks Smothers [00:27:04]:

It’s an RV. The best thing they call them, I’ve heard, and I love this. They are rolling earthquakes.

Scott Cowan [00:27:11]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:27:12]:

So when you’re driving down the freeway, I have a towable. I have a 26 foot bunkhouse. I have a family of 4. So it was important for me to have a queen bed that my wife and I could get in on our own side of the bed. I didn’t wanna have to crawl over her. I didn’t want her to have to crawl over me. I’m at that point in my life where I do have to get up in the middle of the night. So not having to crawl over and disrupt anybody’s sleep is appreciated, and then the kids needed bunk beds.

Brooks Smothers [00:27:39]:

That was, like, my immediate must haves. Everything else was kinda whatever. And we found that with our unit that we have. When I first got it and was towing down the freeway, we would set up camp. And quick side note is really I find amusing in the RV world. At home, my wife and I do not have clear defined gender roles. I help with the dishes. I scrub toilets.

Brooks Smothers [00:28:05]:

We share the workload of house chores and inside and outside and whatever. We share all of that. In the RV world, we have a clear line of who does what. She takes care of everything inside the trailer, and I take care of everything outside of the trailer. So I dump the poo tank. I dump the tanks. I set up the trailer, level it, do all that. She goes inside and she’s putting the groceries away, and she’s vacuuming and making our beds and getting kids squared away

Scott Cowan [00:28:36]:

Mhmm.

Brooks Smothers [00:28:36]:

Doing kind of the so it’s funny. We don’t have it at home, but in the RV space, we have clear defined gender roles. It’s kinda just

Scott Cowan [00:28:44]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:28:44]:

Silly, but whatever. But where was I going?

Scott Cowan [00:28:49]:

Well, I was asking about you said rolling earthquake, and I was asking about what sort of

Brooks Smothers [00:28:53]:

So we would we would be setting up camp and she’d be like and we were new. We had had a tent trailer, but now getting to a traveler trailer where we had a bathroom and we had a kitchen and things were different. And it was brand new, so we had all these expectations of what new was like, and we would set up camp and we were finding random screws. And I spend a weekend going, well, where did this screw come from? And instead of camping and spending time with my kids and tossing a Frisbee and having fun, I’m driving myself crazy going, where did this screw come from? And I couldn’t find where it was coming from or rattling, and it was frustrating. And I had to finally just let it go and be like, okay. I’m just gonna go to Ace, buy a bunch of boxes of random screws and nuts and bolts so I have them. So when I finally, you know, 6 months later, figure out where it’s from, I have a spare.

Scott Cowan [00:29:46]:

Right.

Brooks Smothers [00:29:48]:

And so these are rolling earthquakes, and so things are moving and bouncing. So there is maintenance that has to be done. Mhmm. And a lot of that maintenance, I do. So annually, I winterize, like I said, and so that’s I drain the water heater and get all of the water out of the water heater. I use an air compressor and kinda blow my water lines free of water, and I add dehumidifiers, unplug the battery, and kinda put it away and it’s done. In the spring, I reverse that. But in the spring, I’ll service my air conditioning unit, go up on the roof, do an inspection, and look along the edges to make sure there’s no possible areas where water might leak or do whatever.

Brooks Smothers [00:30:32]:

I’m lubing, greasing, wd14, oiling, silicone dry rub on the slide seals. And so I’m doing all of those kind of annual maintenance things. But it’s not a lot of work and, you know, I do when I do the 1st trip every year, I stay close. I make sure that I’m close to kind of a Walmart, Lowe’s, Home Depot. Mhmm. So if there is a run and I need to go get something, I’m close enough that I can. And so I kinda tinker around the campsite over coffee in the morning, and then I’ll pause and, you know, whatever. I’ll go play a game with the kids or we’ll go do whatever.

Brooks Smothers [00:31:13]:

And then kinda at night, I’ll maybe do a little bit more and just kind of a thing.

Scott Cowan [00:31:17]:

Okay. So yeah. Because that’s see, I’ve made the the the thought of pulling a trailer into backing a trailer is what intimidates me.

Brooks Smothers [00:31:28]:

Nah. It’s fine. You got it. You got it. And here’s the thing. I started towing with a little pop up tent trailer, and those things are way more difficult to back up than a long trailer because they articulate fast.

Scott Cowan [00:31:44]:

Everybody tells me.

Brooks Smothers [00:31:45]:

So if you’ve able to have you ever towed with, like, a just a utility trailer or a U Haul I or a

Scott Cowan [00:31:51]:

tow little whatever? 20 years ago or so was helping, somebody no. No. Hear hear me out. Was helping somebody, remodel a house and, had a he had a suburban and a double axle dump trailer. And I had to take it to the dump, and it took me 22 minutes to back it in. And they wouldn’t help me because they weren’t busy. And I I was the most entertainment they probably have ever had. I I got so annoyed with myself, and that’s that has just really stuck with me.

Brooks Smothers [00:32:28]:

The and

Scott Cowan [00:32:28]:

and I and I am acknowledging here that, you know, I’m I’m my own worst enemy, and I need to I need to address this. I’m hesitant to go out and say, you know, just because we’re spending make believe money and go spend $200,000 on a 5th wheel on a truck, and then find out that I am no one wants to be around me if I have to back it up.

Brooks Smothers [00:32:54]:

Well, I do. I wanna be the guy in the campsite next to you who’s got my reindeer going, dude, look at this guy.

Scott Cowan [00:33:00]:

See. Yeah. See. Yeah. Don’t be yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:33:02]:

That’s entertainment for us in the campsite. You know? Right? Alright. Look at that guy. Well, hi. No. I’m just kidding. We’ve all been there. It’s a learning curve.

Brooks Smothers [00:33:10]:

But I will say the longer the trailer, they actually even a double axle, they are easier to back up because you start to make, you know, your correction in the steering wheel, and you can see the trailer doing it. So it’s really and a lot of campsites these days are pull throughs, so you don’t even need to really back up.

Scott Cowan [00:33:34]:

So what’s going on with camping? Are are we still for those of you that are out there that are outdoor enthusiasts that are getting out camping, you know, whether you see people in tents or in in RVs, are are the state parks still really heavily booked?

Brooks Smothers [00:33:51]:

Yes. Okay. Yep. The state parks are, pretty heavily booked, you know, especially in the summer. And they’re on a rolling 9 month calendar. Right? So I haven’t even fully decided where I wanna go for Memorial weekend. Mhmm. And I might already be too late to the game to potentially find I mean, I’ll find a spot and we’ll go somewhere.

Brooks Smothers [00:34:16]:

But I’m saying as far as, like, trying to find the state park to go to, I might already be a little late in the game. K.

Scott Cowan [00:34:25]:

Share with me what you think is an underrated state park. I mean, that’s like asking a guy to tell you where his secret fishing hole is, but what’s the state park that you think is underrated?

Brooks Smothers [00:34:37]:

Well, the biggest state park that is most underrated is

Scott Cowan [00:34:42]:

Stay tuned. There you go. Did you get it?

Brooks Smothers [00:34:44]:

I did.

Scott Cowan [00:34:44]:

That’s excellent.

Brooks Smothers [00:34:45]:

I’m just kidding. I you know, I don’t know. I’m I am a big state park camper. I think that Washington State Parks are absolute jewels for us here in as Washingtonians. Bridgeport State Park out kinda near Pateros, Petros?

Scott Cowan [00:35:09]:

Pateros.

Brooks Smothers [00:35:10]:

Pateros out there is a great state park. Easy access right there to be above the dam. Yep. What is that dam? What dam is that?

Scott Cowan [00:35:21]:

It’s either Wells or Chief Joseph. It’s one of the 2.

Brooks Smothers [00:35:24]:

It’s chief chief chief Joseph. It’s chief Joseph’s dam. So it’s above chief Joseph’s chief Joseph dam, and it’s a great state park. So if you’re a boater too, you know, and if you have a motor home and are towing your boat out, you can go out and do Right. Go walleye fishing or do some other, you know, salmon fishing, depending on the time of year you’re up there to

Scott Cowan [00:35:44]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:35:45]:

Get fish that have gone up that far. So it’s a great little state park, and it’s fantastic. Have you

Scott Cowan [00:35:51]:

ever been up to Curlew? Up to Lake Curlew?

Brooks Smothers [00:35:53]:

Yes. I have. Here’s a really cool story about Curlew. My great grandmother, Mimi, God rest her soul, she was an amazing woman. She married a guy named E. T. Okay. And E.

Brooks Smothers [00:36:07]:

T. And Mimi had an Airstream, and they lived in Oxnard, California, which is south of Santa Barbara down by Ventura, kinda down there in that area. And every summer, they would tow their Airstream up to Curlew Really? And spend at least a month at Curlew State Park because ET was a big fisherman, and Lake Curlew had some great bass, and he would go in there to go chase bass and chase the trout and whatever species of fish were in there. And they would just hang out and fish and spend the summer at Curlew and driving from Oxnard. See, that just tells you what kind of gems of the state park we’re here.

Scott Cowan [00:36:49]:

Is, it’s beautiful up there. I was up there.

Brooks Smothers [00:36:52]:

It is.

Scott Cowan [00:36:53]:

Yeah. It was I was up there quite a bit this late late winter through summer a lot for business. I was up in that area. So I’d always pull I’d always go in there and, you know, stretch my legs and, you know, walk around for a half hour at a time. It’s beautiful, beautiful park.

Brooks Smothers [00:37:10]:

And if you’re a great camper or when if you don’t not a remote worker, Curlew has no connectivity.

Scott Cowan [00:37:16]:

Yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:37:17]:

So it is a forced unplugging. So you can bring your kids there. Absolutely bring your cell phone. Sure. No problem. You guys can be on your cell phones all you want when we’re at the state park, and you don’t even need to tell them. Yeah. Bring them out there, and they’ll be like, wait a minute.

Brooks Smothers [00:37:31]:

And you’re like, oh, man. That’s a bummer. I’m sorry. Sorry. Bummer. Weird. But we were there, When was that? 2021 when it hit a 115. Like, we were Yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:37:46]:

It was hot. And I had the AC cranking in the trailer, and the trailer cooled off to, like, a cool 90.

Scott Cowan [00:37:53]:

Yeah. Yeah. A a brisk 90 degrees.

Brooks Smothers [00:37:56]:

I will champion for you and, hopefully, if your wife is listening, one of the greatest things about RV camping is I don’t go camping now unless I bring my ice machine.

Scott Cowan [00:38:07]:

Your ice machine?

Brooks Smothers [00:38:08]:

Ice machine. I have a countertop ice machine. Is it even camping unless I have an ice machine? I mean, I need to I take my cocktails seriously. And if I can’t have rocks, like, is it even worth camping? I don’t even know.

Scott Cowan [00:38:20]:

It’s my buddy’s 5th wheel. I go in it. They’ve got a fireplace, granite countertops, wine rack, you know, wine just like, are are you kidding me? Why do you need a fireplace? And they go, this is what we use to keep warm when it’s just slightly chill. We just fire it up. It’s electric fireplace.

Brooks Smothers [00:38:41]:

And you know what? If you wanna go camping in November December, you will appreciate

Scott Cowan [00:38:45]:

I know. It just it was

Brooks Smothers [00:38:46]:

the whole place.

Scott Cowan [00:38:47]:

After I got over my amazement that I could stand up and dare dare I say, this is very roomy feeling.

Brooks Smothers [00:38:54]:

Yep.

Scott Cowan [00:38:54]:

You know, it was, yeah. And granted countertops cracked me up, though. I was, like, just adding weight to it.

Brooks Smothers [00:39:00]:

Yeah. It’s just adding, yeah, unnecessary weight. But you have you and your wife here’s the thing too. The other thing, do anybody who is interested in RVing and maybe hasn’t done it and or do not have friends who RV. So they don’t have that kind of experience. There’s places like outdoorsy.com where you can rent somebody else’s RV. K. And so and a lot of times, they you’ll say, hey.

Brooks Smothers [00:39:31]:

Look. We wanna go to Curlew. And so you can go on outdoorsy and be like, hey. We wanna camp at Curlew. And somebody who lives kind of close ish Yeah. To Curlew will be like, hey. No problem. You rent the site.

Brooks Smothers [00:39:45]:

Let me know what site number you’re in. And on Friday, I will drive over and drop my trailer off. And so you can rent the trailer, have the 5th wheel experience or Yeah. Travel trailer and see, hey. Is this RV ing thing something I even remotely wanted you?

Scott Cowan [00:40:03]:

That’s a great idea.

Brooks Smothers [00:40:03]:

And you can stay in somebody else’s and just, you know, you’re in it for $600 for a weekend or Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:40:10]:

But still

Brooks Smothers [00:40:11]:

You know?

Scott Cowan [00:40:11]:

Whole lot better than spending $60,000 and going, oh, I wish I wouldn’t have done this.

Brooks Smothers [00:40:14]:

And then they go, I wish

Scott Cowan [00:40:16]:

I hadn’t done that.

Brooks Smothers [00:40:17]:

That’s a great idea. Right? And here’s and here’s the thing about RVing. Right? I I didn’t I’ve done a podcast episode on is it even camping? And we can joke about bringing an ice machine, and I don’t go camping unless I can bring my ice machine. I’ve tent camped. I’ve backpacked. I’ve car camped. You know, 80% of people who camp, car camp. So they’re still having they’re bringing some sort of luxury to their camping experience.

Brooks Smothers [00:40:43]:

You know, it’s not like you’re cutting your toothbrush in half to save ounces on your back and schlep that and carry that in. But, you know, I look at RVing as a way you know, again, we went to Cleveland and we went out, and so I’m able to drag my home out. And my wife doesn’t like to stay in hotels. And no matter how nice and how much we spend on a hotel room, she doesn’t sleep in the bed. Okay. She it just skeeves her out and she doesn’t do that. So she’ll sit in the chair and she’ll sit upright in a chair in a very nice hotel and whatever because just that’s an ism and

Scott Cowan [00:41:22]:

Yeah. But but the thing is is that why subject why you know that’s what she’s gonna do, so why subject her to it? Like, you know?

Brooks Smothers [00:41:30]:

Right. And so we we don’t. And so we bring our trailer as often as we can. It’s our bed. We’ve replaced the mattress because mattresses that come in RVs, you get exciting like, oh, they included a Serta, thinking it’s brand and what and it is a thin it’s not a mattress. The first thing you’re gonna wanna upgrade in any RV, whatever you buy, is you’re gonna put a new mattress in it because everybody has a different preference. I like mine hard. I like a memory foam.

Brooks Smothers [00:41:57]:

My parents don’t like memory foam. They they sleep too hot, so they wanna you know? So everybody has their own preferences on what mattress they find comfortable. And so RVs are not trying to satisfy you with that knowing that giving

Scott Cowan [00:42:10]:

you the bare bones.

Brooks Smothers [00:42:11]:

You’re gonna they’re giving you one so you have one knowing then then that’s gonna be one of your first upgrades you’re gonna make. But my point is is then my wife feels comfortable sleeping in our bed. You know, our kids are comfortable sleeping in our bed. We have our own toilet. We it’s not like we need, you know, whatever. So anybody’s ever gone to the bathroom in our toilet is our family or whatever. So we will take that and go. My daughter is on a competitive cheerleading team.

Brooks Smothers [00:42:36]:

I didn’t know I was gonna be a cheer dad ever, and elite cheer is a whole separate thing. And so we are going to competitions. I mean, cheer comp season is basically December through April, and we’re going to cheer comps all the time. And so if there is 1, you know, we have one in Portland, and so we’ve dragged the trailer down and camped. There’s a couple dragged the trailer down and camped. There’s a couple of great campsites in the city limits of Portland, and so we can go and have that and and go. We went to she had a cheer comp in Vegas. My dad and stepmom lived down in Phoenix, and it was over spring break.

Brooks Smothers [00:43:12]:

So we went down and did there’s some great RV resorts in Vegas city limits. We went in. We had our thing. We did the cheer thing. We did Vegas, and then we went down to the RV or down to Phoenix. And I found an RV resort 20 minutes, half hour from my parents, which is great. We still had at night, we would hang out, do dinner, whatever. They’re elderly people in their seventies now.

Brooks Smothers [00:43:36]:

They’re like, hey, it’s 9 o’clock. We need to go to bed. We’re like, see you. We went to the RV. Mhmm. My wife and I sat up and had a cocktail and hung out and kinda had our own space. So it’s not just going to the woods to sit around a campfire or to use as a base camp to go hiking. It’s a base camp, you know, no matter what kind of adventure you wanna go on, whether if you’re a foodie and you wanna go into the city and go do a thing, you can still find a campground that’s 20 minutes, half hour out that you can use and have.

Brooks Smothers [00:44:08]:

There’s a lot of reasons that one should RV. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:44:11]:

So you’ve said a couple things that intrigued me that make me ask questions that I don’t think we talked about last time. So you mentioned this tabletop ice maker, and you said you Yeah. Cocktails. So what’s a good camping cocktail?

Brooks Smothers [00:44:24]:

Oh, old fashioned go to.

Scott Cowan [00:44:27]:

You answered that. I’ll let

Brooks Smothers [00:44:28]:

go to. An old fashioned.

Scott Cowan [00:44:29]:

That was a very quick response.

Brooks Smothers [00:44:30]:

And or this last year, my wife, so any my wife and I have both worked at Trader Joe’s. Back in the day when she started grad school, like one of her grad school jobs was Trader Joe’s. I worked at Trader Joe’s while I was trying to find a job in my field when we moved and relocated out east. Trader Joe’s is awesome. And so we’ve always had a, I don’t know what to call it. Like, like, we’ll go and she’ll come home or I’ll go to the store and I’ll come home with something that we’ve never bought before. And it’s just kind of a random, like, oh, what’s something new you brought home from Trader Joe’s tonight? And this summer, she brought home these candied oranges Mhmm. That were, like, if you take an orange and you slice it, so it’s a wheel.

Brooks Smothers [00:45:16]:

It’s a, like, 8 inch thick wheel of orange. It’s candy. Man, the campfire, bourbon, and that orange wedge. And I just sat, did a bourbon meat, and had the orange wedge. And the end of the night, I’m eating my orange. The next day, I was like, these are good. I did a vodka club soda, put the orange wedge in it. I was like, this is great.

Brooks Smothers [00:45:39]:

It’s hot. Like, man.

Scott Cowan [00:45:41]:

So what’s the go to bourbon?

Brooks Smothers [00:45:43]:

Oh, for me, it is, my go to bourbon right now is, Bulleit. I’ll either do the orange label or the rye and the green. I I like Maker’s Mark Okay. As well. Old Forester, surprisingly, for even a less expensive brand. Back to Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s sells a $17 bottle of bourbon pretax, $17 bottle of bourbon.

Scott Cowan [00:46:12]:

About 75. Just kidding.

Brooks Smothers [00:46:14]:

Yeah. It’s a Trader Joe’s branded label. You know? Right? So it’s, what I don’t know where they get it. $17.

Scott Cowan [00:46:21]:

You’re kidding me.

Brooks Smothers [00:46:21]:

With tax, let’s call it 25, 26.

Scott Cowan [00:46:23]:

And it’s drinkable?

Brooks Smothers [00:46:25]:

Amazing. Really? I mean, it’s not one you’re gonna for going camping, making old fashions, doing whatever, it is a great, great bourbon. K.

Scott Cowan [00:46:37]:

So as you know, I’m a I’m a coffee nut. So let’s Yep. Talk to me about RV coffee. What’s what’s your what’s your what’s your walk me through a morning. It it Well, so I have a coffee pot in the RV.

Brooks Smothers [00:46:54]:

So, I mean, I will I will during the pandemic, I subscribed to Camano Island Coffee Roasters and was getting shipments of, whatever, £2 of coffee, I think, every 6 weeks. And their coffee is fantastic, and it’s shipped drop shipped to your front door. They just ding my card and, hey, coffee comes. I also have always enjoyed Trader Joe’s had one called Cafe Parajo that was an organic something, and now they don’t sell it anymore. It was sad. But so I’ll get, you know, good beans, and I’ll make a pot of coffee. When I go snowboarding, I take my Jetboil, and then I have an AeroPress. And so I’ll use the Jetboil to warm the water, and I’ll use my AeroPress for tailgate coffee, which is great.

Brooks Smothers [00:47:49]:

After a day of snowboarding, I fire up the Jetboil. Everybody gets a cup of noodles. I throw the kids in the back seat of the truck. They’re nursing a cup of noodles just to kinda get some warm something in them after day being on the mountain. And then that gives me time to kinda get out of my snowboarding boots and get out of my snowboarding gear to get ready for the drive home. And then I’m making hot cocoa and a cup of coffee for myself for the drive home. So then in the truck,

Scott Cowan [00:48:15]:

I’m having a fresh cup of yummy AeroPress coffee. Aeropress multiple times every day, and, I have found in fact, they are the I gotta I’ll give him a pitch because he’s the official coffee of Explore Washington State, Island Time Coffee on Whidbey Island.

Brooks Smothers [00:48:33]:

Where where on Whidbey?

Scott Cowan [00:48:35]:

It’s just it’s he doesn’t have a retail storefront. He well, he sells he’s in 40 grocery stores in the Snohomish, Guachem area, but he has a, island sunset French roast that is just like

Brooks Smothers [00:48:49]:

it Today. Yeah?

Scott Cowan [00:48:50]:

It’s it is Okay. It is delicious.

Brooks Smothers [00:48:52]:

I’ll look for it at my co op next time I go in there. I bet

Scott Cowan [00:48:55]:

they might They might have it.

Brooks Smothers [00:48:56]:

The Sno Isle co op?

Scott Cowan [00:48:57]:

Maybe. I know that he’s in, all the Hagans up in that area. So if you have a Hagans in the area. But Island Time Coffee is, and I like dark roast, so I you know, and it just it works really, really well in my AeroPress. That is my go to thing. AeroPress is simple. I could take that in a in a in a RV. I was just as I was halfway expecting you to say, well, I have an espresso machine along next door to the ice ice maker.

Scott Cowan [00:49:20]:

You know? No. I don’t. I should, but I don’t.

Brooks Smothers [00:49:22]:

But you know what’s funny? So just recently, I got tested for the 3rd time in my life. I just got tested for ADHD. Okay. This was the 3rd time.

Scott Cowan [00:49:33]:

Forget the other 2?

Brooks Smothers [00:49:33]:

And the first two times they told me I was borderline. I got tested in high school, tested again in college. Nope. Nope. You’re borderline nothing. And I’m like, come on. My son’s been tested. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Brooks Smothers [00:49:45]:

Like, what the hell is going on? And so I just had a new appointment and and recently diagnosed. No shocker, but I have it. And she the person that was doing the evaluation, she’s asking me. She goes, so kinda what kind of coping skills and mechanisms have you been using your whole life? And I go, oh, I self medicate with coffee. And she goes, well, how much coffee do you drink? And I go 40 ounces before noon and another 20 ounces at 3 o’clock. And she goes, you’re drinking 60 ounces of coffee a day. And I go, at least. I mean, that’s just my that’s my normal.

Brooks Smothers [00:50:25]:

Yeah. That’s just my normal. Like, if I’m feeling a little extra thirsty or a little whatever, you know, hey. I’m picking the kids up. It’s 4 o’clock. Let’s run through, you know, and go pick up a coffee to go. I mean, that doesn’t include lattes or other things throughout the day. Mhmm.

Brooks Smothers [00:50:40]:

This is just my staple. She was like, we need you to cut back a little bit. We need to figure out how you didn’t dial that back.

Scott Cowan [00:50:47]:

See, that’s quackery. You need a new doctor. You just Well yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:50:51]:

But now I’m medicated, and so there’s a little bit of whatever. But, yeah, I was like she was jaw dropped. She was like, wait a minute. You’re like, yeah. I have a 20 ounce cup. I have 2 of those before noon, and I have another 20 ounce.

Scott Cowan [00:51:03]:

How long have you drank coffee?

Brooks Smothers [00:51:06]:

I’ve been drinking coffee since probably 8th grade. Definitely in high school. Because in high school, me and my buddy, I mean, I used to smoke cigarettes. I don’t anymore. I haven’t smoked cigarettes, whatever. But so back in the day in high school, like, we’d go to Denny’s and just drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. And if if anybody had extra money, maybe we’d get a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s good.

Brooks Smothers [00:51:28]:

Poor Denny’s. We’d tip them, like, $3 after hanging out of the table for 4 hours, you know, and just being high schoolers.

Scott Cowan [00:51:36]:

Yeah. I realized the, I was I was talking to my mom about this and the first agreed upon recorded instance of Scott drinking coffee was the summer before 4th grade.

Brooks Smothers [00:51:51]:

Scott Cowan [00:51:51]:

was back east and and I I I actually I’m starting to feel sorry for my mother and my father. They let me have iced coffee, and it was in a crab restaurant in Baltimore. And Nice. I can only imagine how many of those I swilled down and how much how obnoxious I must have been for hours after that. But yeah.

Brooks Smothers [00:52:12]:

Or you or the complete opposite. You totally mellowed out and even keeled them, like Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:52:18]:

But iced coffee’s got so much sugar in it that that’s just

Brooks Smothers [00:52:23]:

anyway When my daughter was 3 years old, she was in a high chair. I was feeding her a meal. I don’t know what meal. It doesn’t matter. Probably breakfast. And I was having coffee, and my coffee was I drink my coffee black. I don’t put anything in my coffee unless I’m having a latte, and then it’s just milk. But, I was having a cup of coffee, a mug of coffee, and it was tepid.

Brooks Smothers [00:52:44]:

It wasn’t hot. It was tepid. And, we’re you know, she’s at the point where she’s kinda talking. She’s doing the hand signals, you know, like, I’m all done. More, please. She’s got the basic, you know, hand signals. And, I was like, would you like coffee? And she nodded. She didn’t know what she was nodding to, and I was like, okay.

Brooks Smothers [00:53:04]:

Here you go. And so I hand her a mug of coffee expecting full on, like, bitter coffee face and spitting it out and making a mess. I was gonna laugh. No. She took a sip and she was like, more, please. And I was like, oh, I’m in trouble. So she she has she doesn’t really drink coffee now, and she’s now 10. But it was really funny, like, when she was, like, 2a half, 3 sitting in a highchair, and that whole joke completely backfired on me as a dad.

Brooks Smothers [00:53:30]:

And I was

Scott Cowan [00:53:31]:

like, okay. What did the wife say?

Brooks Smothers [00:53:35]:

She just knew I was being foolish and didn’t I mean, she had a sip. It’s not like I know.

Scott Cowan [00:53:39]:

I’m just kidding. She

Brooks Smothers [00:53:40]:

was chugging it back it up for hours or whatever. No. She had a sip. And then she was like, more, please. And I was like, okay. This girl is totally in Pacific Northwest. Oh my gosh. Born and raised Washington.

Brooks Smothers [00:53:49]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:53:49]:

That’s awesome. It’s in

Brooks Smothers [00:53:50]:

her bloodline. Right.

Scott Cowan [00:53:52]:

Well, as we’re gonna wrap this up, I gotta ask you. What’s new on your podcast? What have you been doing?

Brooks Smothers [00:53:57]:

You know, Scott, I’ve been doing a lot of fun stuff. I’ve just you know, I’m always talking to other RVers in the Pacific Northwest who are doing other adventures and finding out where they’re adventuring, what they’re doing. Mhmm. I’m offering tips and suggestions on things that I’ve done and mistakes I’ve made and how to correct them. So I’m just kinda plugging along talking about why I love to RV in the Pacific Northwest. We are really, really lucky to live in such a beautiful place. And I’ve said all along, regardless of whether anybody RVs, if you were to, for the sake of redrawing a map in Washington state, make Seattle the epicenter, within a 4 hour driving distance, you have the mighty Pacific Ocean. You have the rainforests.

Brooks Smothers [00:54:50]:

You have a national park. You’ve got Canada. You have the Cascade Mountains and Alpine regions. You have the arid, dry desert of Northeast Washington State. You have the rolling wheat fields of the Palouse. You’ve got wine country out in Walla Walla. You got the mouth of the Columbia River at the south. You have all you have mountains and you have this huge ecodiversity that is really amazing and is what makes this state so cool.

Scott Cowan [00:55:20]:

I would offer you the 3 national parks within 4 hours of Seattle. We do. Alright.

Brooks Smothers [00:55:24]:

I didn’t even talk about the North Cascades or Mount Rainier.

Scott Cowan [00:55:27]:

That’s the Olympics? You’re right.

Brooks Smothers [00:55:28]:

I mean, you have we have 3 national parks within a short drive of Seattle, and we it’s just it is a great place to just go and RV. And I think some people see it on their bucket list as places to go. And when they come, they’re here for our national parks. And they don’t think to go check out Leavenworth or to go to Lake Chelan or to go up to Winthrop and Twist and and check those areas out. They don’t you know, we’re out Walla Walla or whatever. You know? There’s an observatory in Yakima? To the Golden Dale.

Scott Cowan [00:56:01]:

The one in Golden Dale?

Brooks Smothers [00:56:02]:

Yeah. I wanna go to the Golden Dale. Yeah. It’s amazing. I’ve never been. I wanna go to the South.

Scott Cowan [00:56:06]:

Yeah. You need to go.

Brooks Smothers [00:56:07]:

No. We That’s on my list.

Scott Cowan [00:56:08]:

We went there. And because have you been have you been to Goldendale, to Mary Hill or anything there? That area?

Brooks Smothers [00:56:16]:

I’ve been to the wineries, but I’ve not been to the observatory.

Scott Cowan [00:56:19]:

Observatory, but then down the hill is, overlooking the Columbia is the Stonehenge replica. Have you been

Brooks Smothers [00:56:26]:

there? No.

Scott Cowan [00:56:27]:

There’s a Stonehenge

Brooks Smothers [00:56:28]:

And I’m going to Stonehenge this year for real.

Scott Cowan [00:56:30]:

So are you gonna be there when they set the clocks back by moving the rocks? Just kidding. No. There’s a Stonehenge replica just out of Goldendale that was built, to commemorate the soldiers that lost their lives in World War 1 from that county. And you go there, and it’s it’s overlooking the Columbia. It’s beautiful.

Brooks Smothers [00:56:52]:

It sounds amazing.

Scott Cowan [00:56:53]:

There, and then we drove into town, and we went up to the observatory not really knowing what it was. And we get there, and we’re we’re walking around. It’s it’s really cool building. Architecturally, it’s this cool space. And and, and they go, oh, we’re opening up for a, a lecture. Do you wanna come in for the lecture? And we’re like, yeah. It was, like, 3 hours long. We had to look through the telescope and look at things, and we’re all standing there.

Scott Cowan [00:57:18]:

You know, it’s it’s well worth it.

Brooks Smothers [00:57:21]:

That no. That’s on my list. That sounds so cool. Again, those are just the cool things of our state. And I gotta say, Scott, what you’re doing at Explore Washington State podcast is amazing. This summer, for my wife’s birthday, when my mother-in-law was visiting from Philly, we went out and went on pterodactyl and did the whole Olympia sailing coast thing. And after after listening to your podcast, we went out and did a a sunset sail And you guys had

Scott Cowan [00:57:46]:

a good time?

Brooks Smothers [00:57:47]:

And did that. We had a fantastic time, and that’s a great episode. And what a cool story. I’m taking up curling. Well, I don’t know.

Scott Cowan [00:57:57]:

I’m taking

Brooks Smothers [00:57:58]:

up curling, but we’re gonna go, some friends and I are going to do an open curl night and learn to curl here next month in November because of your episode on the whole Yeah. Interviewing the gentleman from the

Scott Cowan [00:58:11]:

The sale curling club.

Brooks Smothers [00:58:12]:

Curling club in Seattle. It’s

Scott Cowan [00:58:13]:

been around since the fifties. I mean, it’s like crazy.

Brooks Smothers [00:58:15]:

Yeah. So I wanna go curling. And now that I’m in my fifties, I think curling might be a sport that’s more of my jam right now. And I don’t know if I can throw a stone and have a beer in one hand, but that’s my goal. I don’t know if that’s frowned upon, but I’m gonna

Scott Cowan [00:58:29]:

Somehow, I think you’re gonna encourage it. I I I’m with you. I that’s that’s something I wanna try. Like, open curling at night, I would be Yeah. I I was thinking about that. I was like, that’s that’s really that would be a really I will fun thing to check out.

Brooks Smothers [00:58:47]:

Yep. And I will say that, when we were on a road trip up in Banff, I found a podcast in curling called Broomsgate. Broomsgate. We listened to it. Uh-huh. I don’t recommend it. But it was 6 episodes that dove deep into this whole scandal about the brooms and how somebody or this company or companies had designed a broom that basically took the element of the actual stone thrower and the skill and the art of the crew out, and you only needed one sweeper to sweep and they could, like, back the stone up, move it forward. Like, the amount of technology that was in this room, it was they had to, like, meet as a governing body, need the term.

Brooks Smothers [00:59:28]:

It was a really interesting, but I think it could have been an episode or 2, not 6. But So

Scott Cowan [00:59:34]:

I’ve got I’ve got 2 shows. I got 2 shows I I think you might get a kick out of. Have you heard of Ghostheard?

Brooks Smothers [00:59:44]:

No. Ghost Heard.

Scott Cowan [00:59:45]:

Ghost

Brooks Smothers [00:59:45]:

Heard. See, podcasting is awesome.

Scott Cowan [00:59:47]:

It was, it was, I think, I can’t remember how many episodes. She did 6 or 9 episodes. It’s she’s a n an NPR reporter out of the Tri Cities area, and she did in Done. It is, about there was a guy who owned thousands of acres of of of ranches, and he falsified the he he with 250 head of cattle that didn’t exist. It’s a cool story. It’s a really No.

Brooks Smothers [01:00:16]:

This looks awesome. I’ve pulled up the website right now, and I’m I’m on board. And the other

Scott Cowan [01:00:20]:

one and that’s Washington state related. The other one that’s Washington state related is a is a is a fiction podcast called Dirt.

Brooks Smothers [01:00:28]:

Yep.

Scott Cowan [01:00:29]:

He just released his Dirt

Brooks Smothers [01:00:30]:

is good.

Scott Cowan [01:00:31]:

His the this is his final season. The first episode just came out. He he’s been on the show. That is such a cool show. That is he’s done a brilliant job with that. And it’s kind of fun to listen to him as he as his character goes around the state to these various little, like, PL. Whoever goes to PL. Come on.

Scott Cowan [01:00:52]:

If you’re listening in PL, and no offense, gotta be careful what

Brooks Smothers [01:00:56]:

I said.

Scott Cowan [01:00:56]:

But, but no. But nobody talks about PL. Right? Nobody talks about things like that. And it’s just it’s a very well done show too. But Ghost Herd was yeah. I was really, when that came out

Brooks Smothers [01:01:10]:

I have it right here. I’ve pulled it up. I can’t wait. It’s ghost herd.org. I’ve already pulled it up on my website. I got a bookmark. I’m gonna definitely start listening to it. I will say this too, which is really cool.

Brooks Smothers [01:01:19]:

My son is a 7th grader right now. And so next semester, whenever, you know, in January when when the semester changes is when he takes Washington State history. Yeah. I, as a Washingtonian born and raised kid, I didn’t take until 8th grade. So somewhere in me aging out, they’ve changed it to 7th grade curriculum. But I am really excited for him to I hope he enjoys it, but I Washington state history is one of my favorite

Scott Cowan [01:01:47]:

classes just because

Brooks Smothers [01:01:49]:

it’s such a cool we live in just with we just live in such a cool state with the coolies and the dams and the rivers and the I mean, not even just the Lewis and Clark coming out. I mean, there’s just so much other stuff that just it’s such a cool thing.

Scott Cowan [01:02:09]:

I’ll share this with you. It’s a way of, you know, if you if you proclaim something, you gotta make it come true. Right? So I’ve been saying this for at the time of recording this almost 11 months now. K? So I said that I was gonna launch this come January of 24. It is now it when this comes out, it’ll be November of 24. So it’s might be out by then, folks, but probably won’t be. I I’m I’m starting a second show, and I’m gonna call it 42.

Brooks Smothers [01:02:39]:

Okay.

Scott Cowan [01:02:40]:

You wanna make a a guess why I’m calling it 42?

Brooks Smothers [01:02:43]:

Oh, we were the 42. There you go.

Scott Cowan [01:02:45]:

But some people go it’s Jackie Robinson or it’s the the the it’s the it was the the universe thing. It’s the anyway, 42. And it’s just gonna be, less than 15 minutes long. The goal is for it to become a daily show. And I’m just going to talk about interesting trivia facts about Washington state things.

Brooks Smothers [01:03:08]:

I think that’s so cool.

Scott Cowan [01:03:09]:

So for example, the the the what I’ve been sharing go ahead. Go ahead, Nava.

Brooks Smothers [01:03:12]:

I was just gonna get excited. I’ve talked to you about this offline, but I’m gonna say it publicly now. I really want you to interview the artist who did the Soundgarden Yes. Yes. In Washington. That needs to come on explore Washington. I want the backstory. So

Scott Cowan [01:03:30]:

So here’s the thing. Let me let me give you this. Just give me an example of an episode. What do you know about baby cages?

Brooks Smothers [01:03:39]:

I don’t know anything about them.

Scott Cowan [01:03:40]:

Okay. So

Brooks Smothers [01:03:41]:

I mean Have you ever heard of them before? No. But as a parent, it sounds kinda cool. It’s like

Scott Cowan [01:03:46]:

So they were

Brooks Smothers [01:03:47]:

Can I crate chain my babies?

Scott Cowan [01:03:49]:

They were very popular in New York and in London in the twenties thirties, and they would hang them out of windows of their walk up apartments so that the infants could have fresh air.

Brooks Smothers [01:04:03]:

Love it. What’s wrong with that? Can we not bring these back, or is this where where did they get frowned upon? Did CPS get involved?

Scott Cowan [01:04:10]:

Go for it. I think it might have been EPA because London’s air probably wasn’t clean in the twenties with 3.

Brooks Smothers [01:04:15]:

Their air quality. That was terrible.

Scott Cowan [01:04:16]:

So there was, like, literally having their infant smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. But so why are we talking about that on the show about Washington state? The woman who had the patent for baby cages was from Spokane.

Brooks Smothers [01:04:28]:

Okay. So I had no idea. Those are cool little trivia nuggets.

Scott Cowan [01:04:32]:

I appreciate it. Are you know, there’s so many quirky, interesting like, for example, one episode’s gonna be, you know, who scored the first points for the sale of Supersonics?

Brooks Smothers [01:04:45]:

Ken. I don’t know. Bob Rolle. Okay. Yeah. Can you do one on the white elephant? I loved the white elephant, and I was so sad to see that they didn’t, survive COVID.

Scott Cowan [01:04:56]:

The white elephant?

Brooks Smothers [01:04:58]:

The white elephant on Division Street in Spokane. I used to drive up from Pullman. It was a sporting goods store slash a toy store, but they had a big white elephant out in front of the store. And, they an institution in Spokane. They’d been there, I mean, 65 years or something. Family owned, operated, like, hunting and fishing and go buy guns and tackle and whatever. And then that’s where I buy my GI Joes and my Legos, and my sister bought her Barbies, and it was

Scott Cowan [01:05:27]:

So were they like we got

Brooks Smothers [01:05:28]:

her to spend our lives.

Scott Cowan [01:05:29]:

Like Chubby and Tubby in Seattle in a way?

Brooks Smothers [01:05:32]:

Chubby and Tubby was more of a shoe store if I recall. What I remember This was a true, like, like, sporting goods

Scott Cowan [01:05:41]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [01:05:42]:

And toy store.

Scott Cowan [01:05:43]:

Okay. I’ll check it out. I I know nothing about that. So that’s

Brooks Smothers [01:05:46]:

Yeah. There was a really cool if you just go and they they closed COVID.

Scott Cowan [01:05:52]:

Okay.

Brooks Smothers [01:05:52]:

COVID after whatever, the reign of whatever, I think.

Scott Cowan [01:05:55]:

That’s that’s

Brooks Smothers [01:05:56]:

the final.

Scott Cowan [01:05:57]:

COVID a lot of things. Alright. So I gotta ask you a couple more less. Once again,

Brooks Smothers [01:06:00]:

you know,

Scott Cowan [01:06:00]:

I always ask everybody, I’m gonna ask you this question. You’re gonna answer it again. But coffee, where’s a great place for coffee these days in your neck of the woods?

Brooks Smothers [01:06:08]:

Great place for me to get coffee in my neck of the woods. I’m still gonna go with narrative. I’m a big fan of narrative coffee. They got a great coffee shop vibe and they’re a great place to go. I also like going to Loft Coffee. I live in Everett. Where’s Loft? Loft is on Hewitt between Rucker and Colton. Okay.

Scott Cowan [01:06:30]:

What do you like about Loft?

Brooks Smothers [01:06:33]:

Again, they’re a little bit larger. I mean, they they kinda have that traditional coffee shop, you know, place where I can go and I can either do a meeting in the mines and have, you know, whatever with people and have community with people. Or if I wanna go and just plug my AirPods in and fire up my laptop and Work. Just kinda work, I can do stuff there. They make a great great cup of coffee. They got, you know, kind of your your typical coffee shop food fair, you know, bagels and cream cheese and paninis and those kind of things. They also have coffee on nitro. So they have a nitro tap, and we’ll do coffee on nitro, which I can appreciate for, like, an afternoon cup of thing.

Brooks Smothers [01:07:13]:

I’m not a nitro in the morning kind of thing.

Scott Cowan [01:07:14]:

Afternoon is it’s awesome.

Brooks Smothers [01:07:16]:

Yeah. Nitro for afternoon.

Scott Cowan [01:07:19]:

Does narrative still have the rotating, brands coming through like they they did? I can’t remember the the you know, you knew or you know the guy who was the owner of narrative. I can’t remember.

Brooks Smothers [01:07:30]:

Maxwell. Yep.

Scott Cowan [01:07:30]:

And one of the things I liked about when I was going in there was that he would have, you know, different brands of coffee kind of rotating through kinda like like you do it at a pub where you got rotating handles going through.

Brooks Smothers [01:07:43]:

I think they do especially for their pour overs where they’ll have, like, roaster Yeah. You know, roasters of the week or different kind of roasting notes and things like that.

Scott Cowan [01:07:52]:

I always like that.

Brooks Smothers [01:07:52]:

So for the pour overs, yes. I believe that’s still a a very much a part of that.

Scott Cowan [01:07:56]:

And then the follow-up to that is where’s a great place for lunch these days in the Everett area?

Brooks Smothers [01:08:02]:

Oh, I don’t know about lunch, but my new favorite spot is called Tacos and Beer. And it just opened. It used to be Sol, and then Sol closed. Somebody bought it and made it another Mexican restaurant right as COVID hit, which was a really bad time to kinda be opening a restaurant. I feel terrible for them. And now it’s called Tacos and Beer, and the food there is incredible. Beer. Like, the beer is good.

Brooks Smothers [01:08:32]:

The margaritas are usually what I’m there for. Their margaritas are pretty good. They’re not the best margaritas in Snohomish County. There’s I think the best margarita in Snohomish County is at the New Mexicans, which is coincidentally right across the street. Okay. But the New Mexicans is focused on, like, New Mexico. So it’s a lot of hatch chilies and rich mole and that kind of traditional kind of New Mexican Albuquerque type of food. This place is more, I think, Mexican food, but it’s not the, like, Azteca greasy, you know, kind of that, like, they really are doing their food legit.

Scott Cowan [01:09:14]:

So Alright. I can’t remember. And I did listen to our previous episode. So, once again, last question for you.

Brooks Smothers [01:09:21]:

Yeah. No. No. You’re fine.

Scott Cowan [01:09:22]:

Cake or pie and why? Oh,

Brooks Smothers [01:09:26]:

I’m a pie guy. I don’t know why. I just I enjoy a good apple pie, good cherry pie, raspberry. And, plus, we just had this place open up down the road right after COVID called Pisces Pie, and they make some incredible pie.

Scott Cowan [01:09:42]:

Cool. What didn’t we talk about we should have talked about today?

Brooks Smothers [01:09:49]:

I think the only thing I can say is by the time this comes out, you said it’s I’m coming out in November sometime. Assuming I’m coming out of

Scott Cowan [01:09:59]:

the podcast to, like, actually let people listen to it, but we’ll

Brooks Smothers [01:10:02]:

Publish. But I’m so we’re gonna be coming out after Tuesday, November 5th. I don’t know what the outcome is gonna be Tuesday, November 5th. And all I could hope for is regardless of the outcome, that I hope that we as Washingtonians can stay together as a community. And even though, you know, what I miss is about a campfire, and I will sit around a campfire with friends and we don’t see things necessarily eye to eye. And that’s okay. And we will talk about it over our bourbon. We will have a conversation about, I think this, and this is the way I think, and you think that.

Brooks Smothers [01:10:43]:

Well, why do you think that? And let’s those conversations don’t happen anymore. And now it’s like, oh, you’re this, you’re that, and it’s name calling and and fueling division. And I that is missed. And I think in order for us collectively as a society and as Washingtonians to move forward, we need to find I don’t wanna say common ground. I have strong opinions. I think everybody who listens is gonna have their own set of strong opinions regardless of what my opinions are. I just I’m worried about the future across the board, and I think it’s because we don’t talk.

Scott Cowan [01:11:28]:

Yeah. I well, and we’re yeah, we’re not we’re not currently, we’re not doing a very good job of talking. We we do a good job of arguing and and not

Brooks Smothers [01:11:37]:

And nobody’s listening, and I’m scared to talk about where I feel or stand on a particular issue because somebody’s gonna lambast me on social media, left, right, center. It doesn’t like, we need to be able to have these conversations.

Scott Cowan [01:11:50]:

Absolutely. Where can people find more out more more out? Boy, More about you in the podcast.

Brooks Smothers [01:12:01]:

You can find RV Out West, wherever you get your podcasts. I’m in all the directories, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, you know, any of the smaller ones, whatever. I’m in all of them. You can visit RV out west.com. You can follow along, join in the conversation at RV Out West on Instagram and Facebook. If you ever have any questions about what RVing is like, feel free to shoot me a DM or pop me an email. I’m happy to answer any questions and help. Like I said, last year, I was a speaker at the Seattle RV Show.

Brooks Smothers [01:12:33]:

I’m hoping to return this year. And if so, one of my topics will be Banff. Okay. And to tell people and spread the joy about going armying in Banff because to be this close, it’s just crazy. I didn’t no idea.

Scott Cowan [01:12:47]:

Okay. Well, thank you for sitting down with me tonight.

Brooks Smothers [01:12:50]:

Scott, thank you so much for having me on the show. Again, it’s an absolute

Scott Cowan [01:12:54]:

pleasure to be here. More frequently than I think it was, like, 2 years ago that you were on. So it’s, like, maybe we should, you know Yeah. Do this. Well, I mean, I Do this a little more often. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

Brooks Smothers [01:13:05]:

Sounds good.

Scott Cowan [01:13:06]:

Hope you enjoyed the show. You can reach me on Twitter at explore law state. I’d love to hear your comments. You can also visit our website at explore washingtonstate.com. If you know anyone who’d like the show, it’d be amazing if you’d share the show with them. This is the biggest way that we grow this show. Good old word-of-mouth. Glad you were here with me today, and I hope to have you listening to the next episode.

Scott Cowan [01:13:31]:

See you then.

Exploring Washington State Podcast( Podcaster )

The Exploring Washington State Podcast is your go-to source for discovering the diverse wonders of the Evergreen State. Whether you’re seeking inspiration for your next adventure, looking to savor local cuisine, or eager to learn about the businesses and artists that call Washington home, this podcast has something for everyone. Join us as we showcase the splendor of Washington State, reminding you that “there is always more to explore!”

explorewashingtonstate.com