our most embarrassing rv story

Our Most Embarrassing RV Story: That One Time We Flashed Our Neighbors

This post may contain affiliate links. See our affiliate disclaimer here.

I’ve hesitated for months on whether or not to share this story. I mean, it’s not that bad, but it’s truly the most embarrassing moment we’ve had in the RV. It’s one of those stories that’s easier to tell in person, because I feel awkward typing the words “completely naked” so many times.

Eesh.

Let’s just start from the beginning.


This story is from my latest book, RVing Across America.

In our latest book, we share what it’s like RVing across America—breakdowns, bear encounters, stunning hikes, beachfront camping and even that one time I stood completely naked in front of someone’s campfire. It was an accident, I sw


On June 2nd, 2014 Heath worked his first job for Hourly America. It was an exhausting, stressful, and rewarding first day of filming. I wasn’t used to being on my feet all day and Heath wasn’t used to getting kicked all day.

So when we drove the RV back to the RV park after the long day of work, all we wanted to do was shower and go to sleep.

If you recall from way back when, this is the first and only night that I would shower in Franklin. I wrote about this experience before, which you can read about here, but this is the gist: it was literally the worst. The tiny shower felt like being stuffed in a tic tac carton with shampoo in your eyes.

Update: We got a new RV and I actually use our shower. It’s great! Except for Heath accidentally locked me inside it for 30 minutes last week.

So when I got out of shower and wrapped myself in a hot pink towel, I didn’t have that refreshed and relaxed after a long day of work feeling I was going for.

It didn’t help that in order to get out of the shower, I had to climb over our laundry basket, which could only fit right outside the shower door, and then had to squeeze past Heath in the tiny “walkway” around our bed.

We scooted past each other so Heath could hop in the shower. I dried off my skin while Heath undressed and turned on the showerhead to see if I left him any warm water (hint: I didn’t).

That’s when it happened.

The biggest, most terrifying spider of all time stood directly in between me and my clothes.

Okay, in reality, the spider was maybe the size of a nickel and it was on the window shade next to my underwear drawer, but by the way I screamed and pointed, I’m sure Heath thought I spotted a tarantula in our bed.

In case you’re wondering, we were at a quaint RV park on the outskirts of Albuquerque (see innocent selfie above for reference) and we almost didn’t get a site, because the park was so full. The sun had just set and it was beautiful night. People were outside laughing and roasting s’mores over campfires and enjoying summer camping trips with their families.

All the while, I’m shrieking, “Kill it! Kill it!” Heath has a panic-stricken look on his face as he looks around for something to annihilate the spider with, but he’s halfway in the shower and a towel or his dirty t-shirt wouldn’t do the trick on this beast.

“Get me a shoe!”

I open the closet door next to me, pick up a flip-flop with two fingers, as if it were somehow contaminated by the spider, and toss it to Heath.

Heath, with all those years of baseball under his belt, swings that flip flop with all his might, presumably killing the spider instantly. But in that moment, the spider was the least of our worries.

He hit the window shade where the spider was hanging out with so much force that it immediately retracted. It just rolled right on up to the top of the window.

Now, most RVs don’t have a lot of windows in the bedrooms. And nowadays all of the windows are tinted. Probably for good reason. But our 1994 model had spacious windows that started at knee height and went to the ceiling, and trust me when I say they were not tinted. They were not tinted AT ALL.

So when the shade rolled up, there we were.

Completely naked.

For all our neighbors to see.

Standing in shock in front of a very open window.That one time that we flashed our neighbors. NBD.

It’s dark outside. We have every light in the bedroom on. It’s not like a normal house where there’s furniture to hide behind in this sort of situation. There’s no way people can’t see us and there is no conceivable way of reaching over to close the window without giving everyone a really good show.

It was like an uncensored episode of Naked and Afraid. Except our fear wasn’t dying in the wilderness, just dying of embarrassment.

So it’s safe to say that I never showered in the RV again. Too much drama.

Oh, and we used a bunch of packing tape to make sure that window shade NEVER rolled up again. Ever. 

14 Responses

  • Mortifying. I would be scarred for life if I were you! And probably a few of your neighbors were too. ha. Luckily you’re both attractive people… they should’ve paid for that sight! 😉

    • Ha! My first thought was just like “oh my gosh, we are totally those honeymooners naked in front of a window right now. I don’t even want to know what they are thinking!” Definitely scarred for life.

  • Oh, I can sooo see myself doing the same thing. I hate spiders!!! Loved the story and so glad you didn’t keep it to yourself!

    • Thanks Nikki! Sometimes you have to suffer emotional scarring so you can live without worrying about the chance of a spider touching you.

  • […] This unknown commenter hit on my biggest fear for Hourly America: that it will totally, completely, mind-numbingly boring. Because much to this commenters chagrin, there will be no explicit bedroom scenes in our documentary (but for our most rated-R story that was definitely NOT captured on camera, check out last week’s blog). […]

  • […] 6. Living in a small space during our first year of marriage forces us to resolve conflicts. Like the time we accidently flashed our RV neighbors when trying to kill a spider with a flip flop (read the story here). […]

  • […] a horrifying story about how we accidentally flashed our neighbors, or here’s one from when Heath locked me in the RV shower and then […]

  • “PRESUMABLY KILLED THE SPIDER”. Did yall ever find out? Ha, & yes that is a funny/great story! Yall shoulda just waved to everyone & said “drinks on us”!! LOL. I have a similar story when we had a pop-up camper once, I thought I would use a “tree” in the middle of the night to go pee & thought we were in a secluded area of the park(we had been earlier). So I ran out quickly(it was a very chilly night) butt necked & when i got to my tree about 20 yards away I realized that a group of 10 or so had set up camp right next to us & were all sitting around a campfire!! Yep, that was a Oh %&$# moment & it didn’t help that it was very chillie!! LOL. Have a great day!

  • OMG, you poor thing! That is both hilarious and so embarrassing! Thanks for sharing the laugh! 🙂

Comments are closed.