Diesel Fuel Savings and The Toll Pass That Covers 48 States

Saving Money on Diesel Fuel  and a Toll Pass that covers all 48 states make navigating the RV LIFE easier and more affordable.

We are live at the Freightliner Booth at the Florida RV SuperShow, there is a lot of action and excitement here and you can hear it today.

We're thrilled to have Gina Leeper and Clayton Pykiet from Open Roads join us, spotlighting the advantages of their game-changing Open Roads fuel card that saves us money on fuel every time.  As we navigate the tumultuous seas of fuel pricing, diving into a discussion about market fluctuations and the art of customer loyalty. Their insights are a testament to the genuine value that Open Roads provides, ensuring that our listeners are well-equipped for cost-effective travels.

When traveling, toll roads can be a challenge  but no worries Open Roads has a solution with Open Roads Innovative Tolling a toll transponder that covers all 48 states and if you should ever have an issue no worries, they have concierge service that  help you through it.

Click the link to save on diesel fuel  Open Roads
Click the link to get the Toll Pass that covers all 48 states Innovative Toll

And that's not all...Open Roads has an amazing give back program called Charity: Water 

Special Discounts Codes: Click Link & Use Code

• Motorhome Tires: $50 discount FIND MY INSTALLER
•Thousand Trail Membership Call/Text Membership Specialist Warren & Sharon Lewis 804-366-0798
•CLEAR2O
• Open Road Fuel Card save on Diesel Fuel
•Open Roads Innovative Tolling Solutions
Toll pass, all 48 state & customer support
• Open Road Resorts Mention RV LIFE Podcast
• Harvest Hosts • Boondockers Welcome
Code: HUNT20 for 20% off
• AirSkirts
Receive $100 off any kit purchase. Use Discount Code: RVPOD
Sponsors
• National Indoor RV Centers

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

If we could show you a way to save on diesel fuel, would you want to know how?

Speaker 2: 0:13

This is the RV live broadcast. I'm Dan Hunt, with my incredible wife, patty Hunt, and we are here at the Tampa.

Speaker 1: 0:21

No, not the Tampa Zoo show, it's the Florida Super Show in Tampa Florida. We are having a great time here. We are in the Freaklander booth, and it is just incredible. Now, today, we have guests that have done just that when I talked about before. They have found a way to make diesel fuel less expensive for all of us RVers everywhere, and today we will show you how you can save money on your diesel cost as well.

Speaker 4: 1:01

We have been on the road for just short of three years actually, and saving money on diesel fuel has been incredibly important, because we've crossed over the country more than three times. We are looking at about a hundred thousand miles, so every penny we could save on diesel fuel is certainly important.

Speaker 1: 1:26

It really is, and you know, you talked about traveling across the country from coast to coast three times in the last three years. Right, in those three times we traveled across the country, we drank a lot of water, we used a lot of water, we took a lot of showers and we went into a lot of campgrounds where the water let's just be honest and say, well, it didn't smell so good and it wasn't so good. So you can elevate your water quality with clear to o their universal RV Advanced Solid Carbon Water Filter System. This innovative design uses solid carbon block made from natural, renewable coconut carbon, ensuring your water is not only clean but it's eco-friendly.

Speaker 1: 2:22

This powerful filter I can talk. This powerful filter reduces iron, magnesium, chlorine and other chemicals that make your water smell and taste bad. We also talk about the settlement, the sand, the silk and the rust that gets into the water and all these parts that we have been in. It's perfect for our beers and it improves taste, reduces fog and protects your appliances. Plus, it's cost-effective, with replacement filters providing hot-knock water purification for just pennies a day. It's time for me to say don't settle for less. Visit clear2ocom and experience the difference of clear to o's advanced filtration.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Patty and I use these every single day. They are incredible and, by the way, keith is going to keep the inventor and owner of that company. It's going to be on the RV Life app later this week.

Speaker 4: 3:24

Yes, so they should look forward to that high-caste episode. Now let's talk a little bit about the cross-sector country. I think it's been like three and a half times across this country, back and forth traveling. It's been a pretty incredible almost just short of three years. We're going on our three-year anniversary.

Speaker 1: 3:45

We are, and three years is a long time. We are on the road full-time. We're living in a 500 square foot RV, but we've managed it and we really enjoyed it. I can't imagine living a different life than what I'm living right now.

Speaker 4: 4:05

Absolutely. I don't see us slowing down any time soon. There's just so much still to see and do. But let's just keep getting bigger each time we check something.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Now that sound means it's time for today's fun fact. We're out here by open road resorts with four found four great locations. They have two in Montana, one in Idaho and just last month we stayed in the one in Texas and it was beautiful.

Speaker 4: 4:39

It was. And this year, talking about our travel plans, we're planning on going to Yellowstone National Park. This will be the first national park for us. Three years thought we'd visit some national parks, but this will be our first. And it's great because it is fun fact it is the first and largest national park. It hosted in 2023. I wish we could put this out and see if people could guess it, but it hosted 1.5 million visitors in 2023. That's just incredible. And it's up 20% from 2022. Up 20%.

Speaker 1: 5:19

That is incredible. That's an incredible number. When you're talking about millions, 20% is a lot. Yes, and I just got to say good job, america, for getting back out there and getting on the horse and going out and doing stuff like going to Yosemite.

Speaker 4: 5:35

Yes, now Red Rock RV Park, which is part of the open road resorts, one of their parks right outside Yellowstone. It's outside the Western gate, the Western entrance, and what's nice is they offer monthly sites. So if you want to go see Yellowstone and Big Sky, t-tons, grand T-Tons you could do it for a lower price the longer you stay, and that is the only park in the area that you can do that Music.

Speaker 1: 6:12

You're listening to the RV Life Podcast on Daylight with my incredible wife Paddy.

Speaker 1: 6:19

We're here at the Tampa Super I'm sorry the Florida Super Show. I got in trouble for that yesterday and it's just been an incredible show. Now I met one of our guests last year at the Hershey RV Show. How did I meet this woman? She was standing in the RV Life booth. That's my booth. She's standing in the RV Life booth on Day 1 and I walked into the booth and she asked me if she could help me with anything. I knew right then that we were going to be great friends forever and ever. I didn't know what company she was with, I didn't know who she was with, I didn't know why she was in my booth, but she was there and we met and we have now become great friends and I know that she has a great partnership with RV Life as well.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Now our next guest. So we have two guests today. We have Gina and we have Clayton. Well, that was Gina I was talking about. I met at the Hershey RV Show and Clayton I met last night because he is the stand-in for Ryan Berry, the CEO of the company. Because of the wild weather in the United States this week, had to leave the show to get back and take care of some business. But talking to him last night I realized that he is the wizard behind the curtain of this company and I will tell you that MGM should have cast him in the role of the wizard in the 1939 film the Wizard of Oz. They missed their calling because this guy knows his stuff. Um, our guests today? Well, guess what? They are the meat and potatoes behind open roads.

Speaker 4: 8:13

So we want to welcome Gina Leigh Bird and Clayton Piquett to the RV Life Podcast. Welcome.

Speaker 5: 8:22

Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 4: 8:24

Thank you, you are welcome to kick in the time to be here, so we are going to jump right in. Gina, we're talking about open roads fuel card. As we said in the beginning of the show, dan and I have been using this card before we actually went RV. So when Dan was convincing me to sell everything going in RV, he had me watch tons of YouTube channels. I mean, I have to give a shout out to today is someday, because that's where we learned about the card and we signed up for it and we are so grateful we did.

Speaker 1: 9:00

I got to tell you when I was trying to talk her in going full time RV. I think the best way that I can possibly talk a woman into doing something is to get her. So I signed up for the open road fuel card, probably six months before we started.

Speaker 4: 9:22

Okay, so we're fixing a little bit of technical and while we're doing that, gina, you can still hear me right, yeah, okay, so you have a new title. Let's talk a little bit. What is your new title and what does that entail?

Speaker 5: 9:39

So I was the one company that actually started with open roads and I'm an accounting backer. I was just sending that to the director of open roads and it kind of covers HR and customer service accounting. I worked really closely with the director of business and just understand a little bit of everything to open roads. I'm extremely excited about that opportunity.

Speaker 4: 10:07

It sounds like people wear a lot of different hats of the company.

Speaker 5: 10:12

Absolutely. We're a very small group and there's really about five of us total in our group. They work really really close together.

Speaker 4: 10:22

And I've met everyone at this point. Last night we were all together. I've met everyone. These are amazing people. We'll talk a little bit about customer service, but let's talk to people who may have already gotten. They have their old cards, like Dan and I do. Now we have a new right green card right. The new cards are out. Can you talk about that?

Speaker 5: 10:44

Absolutely, we've been looking for a branded card that was free to open rounds. We knew what card we had. You guys are the first card that we're giving out today, so now you have your hand the first open roads branded card. It's not. The people in our community have talked about these cards the last actually two years, so we're super excited about that. If you want that one card, please call customer service.

Speaker 4: 11:13

So make this new card ship out. So let me clarify that big TSD card we have. People will automatically get the green card, but if they want the green one, they can contact customer service.

Speaker 5: 11:22

Absolutely. Their card works perfectly. The card truly makes no difference in what you said, Janet. It's only the look of the new branded card.

Speaker 4: 11:34

That's great, okay, but I do love our right green card and I have to say the right green on that card is the same as the Clear 2 O Water Filter system. So now, clayton, talk about the open roads field card and the magic behind what the card does. Talk to our listeners.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Sure, so the genius behind the open roads program, which should just be clear. I was actually a customer before I came to work with the company. I signed up in November of 2019. And the thing that drew me to it was the uniqueness of the program and the transparency that TSD at the time, open roads offered with the program, and so what I'm so impressed with is the fact that we offer some of the best discounts in the industry, whether that's RVing or trucking, quite frankly and the beauty of the card is is that it doesn't cost anything to sign up. The only time you spend any money with open roads is if we help you save money. So that's at 10% that we talk about. So if we help you save money, we'll take 10% of the savings and pass the 90% on to customer. We have some great partnerships with the merchants. We have almost 3,000 locations across the country. Anyone can save anywhere between 10 cents. We've seen some customers this year. I don't know how much you guys have saved, but probably the neighborhood of 85, 90 cents is okay.

Speaker 1: 13:10

So yeah, I think we even had one At one time. We were at an agave and boy was I impressed with that. Yeah, those are nice when we get to see those. Now, clayton, I'm going to embarrass you a little bit here, but you're the guy. You're the guy that negotiates all these deals with the vendors, so it's your responsibility to save me money. That's great. So I work with all the merchant partners out there. Great relationships with their merchants. Obviously, we're bringing them from a segment of the industry that they weren't currently getting gallons from. So they love to partner with open roads because we can bring value to them as well. So it's a win-win relationship with that perspective. But, yeah, so we're negotiating all those deals that you see out there on the cards savings, anything like I said. That can range from 10 cents to probably our average. Our average last year was about 47 cents a gallon across the entire network, 47 cents across the entire network all over the country. Right, and that's everything. Again, you see those swings from 10 to, some cases, 90 cents a gallon, so the average is 47. So for the average listener, the guy that has an RV, they go out and we get it. They drive on our trailer for three or five miles away from our home.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Can you talk a little bit about the mechanics of how open roads is negotiating these prices on our back? Sure, so the way we do that we don't have any requirements with any, not only with our customers or with the merchants. So we go out and negotiate the deal based on whatever they feel the value is for that area, and you'll find that with some merchants you may see different savings at different stations. Right, so the amount of floods might be TA, like in Florida, it could be a racetrack or speedway. But those discounts that we negotiate are going to be based on all kinds of different variables.

Speaker 1: 15:11

There's the cost of oil, the transportation costs, it's you know what's the global politics going on that may be driving that price. So there's a lot that goes into that number. So that's why you may see five cents, maybe 10 cents at one location and you may see 20 or 30 cents or 40 cents at another location, inside the same frame, the same chain. So that's why you can see that that's probably one of the I would say it's the biggest question. One of the leading questions we get is why did I get this deal over here and I will save a bunch of money, but I didn't save as much over here and it could have been. Maybe there's a refinery in there shut down for that week and there's all kinds of variations.

Speaker 4: 15:46

Okay so, and I'm not necessarily, as you know, burst in this stuff as you are, but sometimes when we're in the car, like on the East Coast, you could go through three states in a couple of hours and if I'm going to save an extra three to five cents, I'll have him push it to that state, to sometimes states up that price of the gas right, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 16:10

And it comes down to the taxes you know those states charge individually through those states. We were told by a trucker one day that if you've got to get gas, get it in Oklahoma. That's the cheapest state in the country. It is they have. Oklahoma, texas and Louisiana usually have some of the cheapest fuel that we've seen in our program. Okay, so let's talk about your program a little bit, and maybe even not your program. I might be like tapping into your knowledge of the industry a little bit. I think you know I've been. As a matter of fact, the RV destination magazine just stopped by right before we started recording this podcast. We were talking about that and I were talking yesterday.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Why does the price of fuel the gas pumps, the diesel pumps everywhere, why does it, the minute there's a disaster somewhere in the world but it doesn't come back down the next day, it takes months for it to come back down, right? And do those political factors affect what you've already negotiated, Right? So the way we negotiate our prices, it's a great question. We see that one a lot. You probably, if you guys were on the road, if you've been out there three years, you were there during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yeah, you see, we saw spikes that were 20 cents a day in a lot of cases. And what the heck does that have to do with powerful end? Yeah, are they it really? What's the short version of that, without going into the weeks, is that the market's anticipating an increase in costs across the board. Ok, and so when you look at, say, like a breakthrough price that's a terminology for oil in the user groups in Texas when you look at those numbers, they're anticipating that that's going to go up across the world With the prices, and so they're trying to get ahead of it, because they've already sought that fuel at a different price. So the next fuel that they're going to have to bring in, the next load it's going to come in. It's going to be a lot more expensive, so they're trying to anticipate that.

Speaker 1: 18:15

The question is that you asked is why does it take so long to go down? You know there's a lot of theories on that. I think that some people feel like the merchants are squeezing all the profit they possibly can out of those. I would necessarily say that I think what they're looking at is you're looking at global markets, you're looking at pricing across maybe the country, maybe across the state, and they're looking to see what is the next load of fuel they can cost them, and that's what they're hedging and this is what that price is going to be. So I know a lot of people think that the challenge is is they don't know the reasons why it's so fast. They just don't know what they're going to be paying, what they're going to be paying next day or next week, right? So the bottom line is we're going to blame it on Wall Street. There you go. That sounds good. Thanks for let's get Wendy here. We are live at the Tampa RV. No, florida, florida, where am I? We're in Tampa. The Florida RV Super Show in Tampa.

Speaker 4: 19:15

In Tampa.

Speaker 1: 19:16

It's getting a little bit windy here and we do have a little bit of background noise and you can hear that squealing every once in a while. That's because we don't have the perfect setup, like we normally would record a podcast in the perfect setup. So we're having a lot of cell phone interference and there's a there's a one man band that just went by you might have heard it earlier so but the bottom line for us this is lights. We have Gina and Clayton lights here with us.

Speaker 4: 19:49

And you know, when we go to a show we have a lot of conversation.

Speaker 1: 19:56

I know you didn't want to talk about a lot of this stuff today, but I'm going to try to keep it very general for our audience today. But we, we talked about loyalty, brand loyalty, and I have very little brand loyalty. Uber, what's your name? List, uber List I don't know, I don't care which ever one's cheaper. That's where I'm going. You know, I have both on my phone and I beep up between the two of them.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Now, sometimes gas stations, I'm not that way. I will drive 15 miles out of my way and pay a nickel more a gallon to go to a TA or something like TA, because the experience is so much better for me. You're getting in, getting out, you go to some of these local ones and it's. We had one the other day where they had trucks going into fuel both ways. They could come, you could enter from both ways. So that wasn't really really an equity.

Speaker 1: 21:04

But you said last night and this intrigued me, I almost couldn't sleep last night because you said that you're loyal to the deal. You're loyal to the deal that you negotiate for my listeners and your customers, and they're all the same people, because after today, every single one of my listeners is going to be calling customer service to get a GSD fuel card. So tell me about that philosophy for a second. Sure. So when we say loyal to deal, we're loyal to the deal because we're loyal to the customer. Our customer is what's important to us, and so you know we're big believers of freedom, prize and let the best price win.

Speaker 1: 21:46

So when we negotiate, I think the question you asked me actually last night was do we have favorites and we don't. We have great relationships with all of our merchants and we're very thankful to have those, very fortunate to have those, but we know that we have to work to get the best deal for our customers, no matter what, and by doing that we say loyal to the customer and to the deal. And that's what's important to us because and I'll give you a little bit of insight if you want some we have seen price swings in our network that have been we've moved gallons, probably 60% of our gallons in under two months when a really aggressive price comes in, and so what that tells us is our customers are loyal to the deal. I know you mentioned you love TAs. Tas are great partner bars. We've seen our customers gravitate towards the better pricing when that happens, and so you know they pay very close attention to that, so we pay close attention to it as well.

Speaker 4: 22:48

And I'm going to say so, let's talk. Go back a little bit to the OpenRoads Pule program and I really love this bright green card. We just got it and sitting on the desk. You know, when Dan says he's loyal to the brand, I'm looking at the dollars and cents. So I will go to another gas station, like he's the one that does all the driving. I'm sitting there with the app saying, oh, if we could push a little further. Or we're going to this gas station because you know we have 125 gallon tank and in pieces we're. Usually we don't go below a half a tank, but like last time we were down three quarters. Any penny I can see adds up when you're talking about how much gas did we get last time? 87 gallons, yes. So, john, going for the price. You might be going loyalty, but I'm the one to act because I'm going for the price. I appreciate, clayton, you going after the price for us.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Let's talk a little bit. There were two funny stories. Last night I was sitting in there with the CEO of the president CEO and we were talking about different things and people were coming up and talking about the complaints and I was teasing some people in the room about their program Bill Barley from Today is Something. I was teasing him quite a bit about the program and then you and I sat in the corner and talked for a few minutes and Ryan had told me a story about your app and he said you know? He said when we first started there was a guy that called me up and said your app sucks. So what did I do? I hired him. So tell me, tell me about the app and the evolution of the app, and how much business did open roads get because they made a better app? Because, let's be honest, the app was a little average a year ago and today I'm going to say it's above the average. Sure. So just to be clear, the open TSD at the time was only was using what they didn't have their app. They were using a third party that was great which is the give us cards provider. So they were doing what they could best. That they could. Part of the reason why they needed to build an app was because the program exploded. It took off, the industry embraced it and obviously people love it, and so when I first signed up as a customer in 2019, I loved the program. I thought it was great.

Speaker 1: 25:29

But the challenge was is that, like you said, the app was struggling? So I called them and said, hey, I think you get a great program, but you really ought to consider building your own app. And of course they were. They were growing so fast. They were just trying to manage the chaos, if you will. And so they were like yeah, absolutely, can you help us with that? So that was the first thing we did with them. About a year later, they asked me to help them deal with this as well. Okay, so you were a customer. That's correct. We full-time our beat for three years. Okay, I just I think that's great. That's like like the American story. Here's a guy that was a customer called the company to complain. They said come down here and complain in person.

Speaker 2: 26:14

You came down there and complained in person and guess what? They hired you and now what?

Speaker 1: 26:18

How many years later?

Speaker 1: 26:21

Three years later, Three years later you're like the wizard behind the garden. Yeah, so when I signed up for the program on November 2019, I had actually watched Chad and Teres video on YouTube and they just popped up on my feed. I didn't follow them or anything. When I signed up for the program, I didn't think it would work. I thought it was too good to be true and I signed up and came to Florida for the winter and used it and it worked exactly as advertised and I was like, well, this is pretty interesting.

Speaker 4: 26:49

And you're talking about Chad and Tara. I could talk too, from changing lanes and we watched a lot of their videos as well. But you signed up and to say you know, you signed up, you didn't think it was going to work and I'll tell you. For us, we just had a thing in the mail from Tara and who's customer support right, and it said that we saved over $313 last year. Now I got to preface that with the fact that we were off the road for something like six months. So we've learned traveling and traveling in Virginia was very minimal because I was with my mom while she was ill. So now that we're going to travel all up the East coast and over, that's got to triple at least. So I'm excited about our savings for this coming year.

Speaker 1: 27:39

Now let's talk real quick about customer service, because a funny story you know, as we were setting up the podcast today there's a gentleman that was sitting in the tent out in front of us and I started talking to him about open roads and saw my shirt that has open roads on it and he said where's Tara?

Speaker 5: 28:00

Where's Tara? Tara is a nice, so Tara was part of our logistics side of our company when open roads started. So Tara and I have been together nine years with DSD and now with open roads, and she's over and beyond everything she does. It shows in her personal service and the people that she works with. Everyone loves her and we love her. It has been great.

Speaker 4: 28:24

And we loved her. We really is that good because and again, there's not a lot of issues that you have. But we are going to talk about something you know in a little bit because the customer gets asked all the time and try to get that answered. But she has been just amazing to work with.

Speaker 5: 28:44

I think one of the things that's relevant roads is our customer service truly loves their customer. Tara truly loves who she works with. She has her day one and we can see that different to our customer service when they work with us.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Absolutely Okay. So I want to be fully transparent here today. Gina and Clayton are the guests on the RV Live Podcast, and they are the guests on the RV Live Podcast because what they do and what their company does is so important to the industry, we thought it important that they come up. However, the open roads school card is also an advertiser, a new advertiser on the RV Live Podcast. So today we're going to do something just a little bit different, and that is I'm going to start the red commercial that we normally do, and I'm going to make you do the first paragraph and then, patty, follow along because you're going to do the third paragraph, and then I'll finish it off with the tagline Okay.

Speaker 2: 29:49

We got that. Does everybody know their part?

Speaker 1: 29:51

Okay, sure, we know that you and Clayton use the open road field card just like we do, and we know that all of our influencer friends because we were at dinner with them last night we know that all of them use the open road field card.

Speaker 5: 30:09

Open road field card is a free service and it's set at $100 a year. It allows us to buy and sell fuel, extract shop, extract gas and utilize the power of group purchase and save money.

Speaker 4: 30:23

As we are driving around in our great big class A with 125 gallon diesel tank, I get on that app for open roads and I find the fuel station that has the best price because I am shopping price. Open road field card is free to set up. You set it up with your bank account to pay for your fuel.

Speaker 1: 30:50

If you like saving money, I like saving money. If you like saving money, then you cannot afford to not have the open road field card and you have all the information you need in the show notes. Just click the link in the show notes and you can get signed up for the open road field card.

Speaker 4: 31:13

So, gina, I'm going to ask you OpenRoadscom correct that people could go to sign up for the card. Can you just tell them quickly what they need to do to get signed up?

Speaker 5: 31:24

Yes, when I get to the website we walk through the steps. There is a link there for the application. Just go to that application, fill it out and, with a debate for application where it processes. After the information is done, the first service will then contact you and know your partner.

Speaker 4: 31:44

It is that simple the way you explained it is not just because you work with the company. It is that simple to get it set up, to use it Now. As we said, it is in all 48 states, correct.

Speaker 5: 31:58

Correct, okay.

Speaker 4: 32:02

You could use this card in all 48 states. One of the things I want to point out before we move forward is when you go in to the gas station, you are pulling in with the truckers and the truck stops. Most of them are really nice. When you pull into the truck stop and you go in, they ask you either for a control number or a pin number. A lot of people ask about that correct.

Speaker 5: 32:29

That is correct. If you show a number, it is the last four and there is social.

Speaker 4: 32:34

The person who set it up, in this case Dan, and it is set up. It is the last four up to his social security. It is simple If you go in, you could a lot of times use the card at the pump, but if you have to go in, you go in and you give them that fuel card and you could go back in for a receipt. Or we get mail to receive in the mail. Let's talk again about it being across all 48 states.

Speaker 1: 32:59

That is just incredible that this gas prices and the late-in-fee negotiating discounts for me in all 48 states. But you just recently were just now introducing another program and this is a program that every R be your needs. I call it the R be industry's best secret and I have it in my hand for the studio audience here to see what it is. It's a toll transponder. It works in all 48 states, not like ours. It only works in like six or seven or ten or whatever. Right, our trip from Albuquerque down to Florida we went through Texas and we have over $60 in fines because our transponder didn't work. We didn't have this one. Yeah, can you talk to us a little bit about this new product?

Speaker 4: 33:56

So I'm going to jump in on that one, because we've used it and it is. Let's just talk about it. It's called Open Roads in a F8 of Towing and, as you said, all 48 states. You need the one transponder, plus $24 a year, which is the same as most transponders charge. It covers all 48 states. We have it in the R? Be window, except right now it's carrying it around. Make sure you get it back in the window.

Speaker 4: 34:28

Florida has a lot of toll roads. They really do. I try to avoid them but it's hard. So it does cover the 48 states. We have been using it for the last couple of months for Florida. It is working, simply, it just works. It just works, it just works. And so I have to deal with the fines in Texas. We'll do that.

Speaker 4: 34:54

But what's nice about the Open Roads in a F8 of Towing Towing House is, if you should have a problem, you go through. Maybe you forget to put the transponder in the window. Something happens to the transponder. They have a concierge service and when we spoke to the head of the company and he said you know it comes to your service, what's that mean? And he said well, you know when you get that, fine, or you have an issue, you have somebody that will help you get that settled. They will work through it for you and they know each state. They know what they need to do and how to do it. So we love this product. So, gina, thank you for adding some to the Open Roads suite of products. Now, how can people get to this troll pass?

Speaker 5: 35:44

So on our website we have an app on the top of the link that you go for innovating Towing and into that website there's a tab on the top of that page that says Open Roads. Always Click on that. Fill that application out. They'll contact you and mail you who are trying to do it.

Speaker 4: 36:05

Right, and so we will put a link to that in our show notes. We'll have a link for that. These are two just fantastic products together.

Speaker 1: 36:15

Not just fantastic products, product that every RVer, but diesel RVer, every RVer absolutely need and want. I mean, I can't tell you, as I'm sitting here listening. I hear the bagpipe band coming at it, so it's going to get a little loud, but this can be for anything. You just put it on there. It works for our car. It works for our car.

Speaker 4: 36:44

You're talking about the troll. Pass our listeners on the RV like Pikeski. See what you're holding up.

Speaker 1: 36:49

We'll see it's got to take a picture of me holding it up, okay, so now you're talking about the troll.

Speaker 4: 36:54

Pass that anybody and everybody can use Anybody, everybody can use it.

Speaker 1: 37:00

It's only $25 a year, that's less $24. Yes, right, it's only $24 a year. That's still less than what the one took Easy guess. Yeah, we had to have for both cars. We had to have one for the RV and we had to have one for the tow car, the RG, that we tow around behind our RV. Now I only need one. It's a little bit bigger, it's quite big. It's a little bigger than our old one, but it goes on the window and it works in all 48 states. It works for bridges, it works for highways. How about parking? You work, for parking like M Does not work for the parking.

Speaker 4: 37:45

I mean, if I hold it it's a troll pass it does have.

Speaker 1: 37:47

Yeah, a lot of airports these days are taking the full pass to make that work, so that is why we love this product right here. You're going to be hearing a lot about it in the months to come. That brings us up to one of our other sponsors, and I got to tell you. This sponsor that I'm talking about right now was the first sponsor of the RVLive podcast. The owner of this company was curious to be sitting in that chair right there. He is just a great supporter of the RVLive podcast and I'm talking about National Indoor RV Centers.

Speaker 2: 38:27

With over 1,000 motor homes available across multiple locations, national Indoor RV Centers continues to provide an outstanding, hassle-free motor home ownership experience. National Indoor is the number one New Mar dealer in the nation and also features brands like Integra, winnebago and much more. Visit NIRVCcom and become a part of the National Indoor RV Centers family.

Speaker 4: 38:58

National Indoor RV Centers truly is family, and we met for a day the owner as well as so many people from National Indoor, and they are truly amazing people. Dan and I only connect with people who are amazing. That's what we connected with you guys, jean and Clayton, and I mean that sincerely. We just love what National Indoor does. We love what you're doing with fuel cars to end the toll pass, because it is all about helping the RV community and that's what Dan and I are all about.

Speaker 1: 39:32

And if you're in the market for an RV and you want to see it before you go to the RV dealership and see what all the stuff inside is and how it works and everything like that. Angie Morrell that works for NIRV she's the national sales manager for NIRVC. She has done a video on almost every unit there is. You can go into her channel and you can see. And, patty, if we could put a link to Angie channel, that'd be great. But I gotta tell you if you can see and learn more, patty and I have watched a ton of these videos because we're looking for an RV right now and being able to see that this has this right in a video right next to each other, it's really, really great. Now that sound means it's time for today's question of the week, and question of the week is brought to you by Open Road to Innovative Totally imagine that, so I have in our studio audience here today a young lady.

Speaker 1: 40:40

She does not own an RV, but she travels in one from time to time.

Speaker 5: 40:45

Her name is Savannah. You go to school. Where do you go? I go to Ole Miss, Ole Miss.

Speaker 1: 40:50

She goes to Ole Miss. That's too bad. No, okay, I'm just kidding. I used to teach at Villanova, so it's a thing, okay. So, savannah, come on up here and you're going to ask our question of the week for us.

Speaker 5: 41:03

Hi, so I'm from Chelsea, Alabama, and I was traveling last week and couldn't find an open roads location on my app, so I was just wondering are y'all planning on adding any more locations and how's that process working for y'all?

Speaker 1: 41:18

That's a great question. Yes, we are. We are actively adding locations, filling in the map, as I like to call it, coloring in the spaces. At this point we have a lot of the major locations, truck stops, things of that nature. Now it's down to working with the smaller ones, maybe five to ten stores. So I spend a lot of time doing that. That's really part of my job. Yes, we are adding. Clayton, I gotta tell you.

Speaker 1: 41:47

What a great job. You just said that your job is to sit at your desk and color in the spaces.

Speaker 4: 41:56

It's like the maps on the side of the RV.

Speaker 1: 41:59

Yeah, I prefer Crayola.

Speaker 4: 42:02

Me too, me too. So now I want to talk because we're gonna wrap up soon, but this was something else we talked about yesterday at the event we were at, and that is well, dan and I are referring to your 4-1 program. I think you're calling us up now, so can you just tell our listeners about that program?

Speaker 1: 42:26

Absolutely so. One of the things that one of the charities we support is called Charity Water. You can look them up and they're an independent organization, separate from us. So we feel really passionate about what they're doing, and they build water wells around the country, around the world, I'm sorry, and one of the things that we do is we match giving based on how many gallons we pump on our network. So, basically, the easy way to remember it and you'll see it on our brochures and our website and if you come by our booth you'll see it there is. It says 4 equals 1. And so what you were referring to everybody was that for every 4 gallons of diesel fuel that's pumped in our network by any customer of ours, we donate the equivalency of 1 gallon of water and funds, and so they gave us a number. We calculated that out so we know what it is. So, basically, we wanted to attach the giving of our program so that it grew as the program grew, and so we've been doing that for well. It's brought in on board when I came on board, so almost 3 years ago, and so as the program grows, our giving grows, and we've currently built I believe it's 6 wells, gina. We're at 9. We're at 9. Okay, just turn that number. I'm dyslexic, so turn the number upside down. So we built 9 wells and we track all that.

Speaker 1: 43:43

We provide some information, some basic information, in the app under the impact tab and you can go in there and get more information on it. One of the things you're going to see is we release a new version of the app this year and it's probably the second quarter, to be safe, that we're going to be releasing that. You're going to have information when we build a well. If you bought fuel during the period that we built that well, it's going to show up in your app. Even if you bought fuel one time, you're going to see the well, you're going to get the GPS location, you're going to get the back story of the people that that well serves, how many people it serves and, obviously, what part of the world that it's in. So even if you buy fuel once a quarter and we're building a well once a quarter, we're going to show you not only did you participate, we're going to show you specifically on which one you participated in.

Speaker 1: 44:33

The more I learn about open roads and meet the executives and Ryan Berry, the CEO, President, ceo and Anthony Sattel. That's the last thing, just incredible. So what you're saying, clayton, is you're a customer, you're paying to the company because you thought they had a food program and then you had app and you now work for the company. And not only that, you negotiate the discounts that I receive at the pump and then, after you negotiate those discounts, you say that's not enough. We're going to give more back to society, to the world, we're going to change the world and we're going to help the world drink fresh and warm. Yeah, I can't say enough about TSD as a company, though. They really wholeheartedly supported the idea and they give in a lot of other ways with their company and the other charities as well, but without their willingness to support it, let's see. I guess it happened. So very grateful to have them on board. I am doing that.

Speaker 1: 45:41

But, as I hear these bank types approaching, I am going to teach this week's RV Life Trip, typically with Patrick Newtip.

Speaker 3: 45:51

By default. Rv Life Trip Wizard creates an RV safe route, keeping you clear of any low clearances. If you want to see all of those low clearances on your map, choose the research tab, then the hazards tab, and click the low clearance icon. If you see a low clearance on the map that you think is on your route, remember to zoom in all the way. You'll find that the low clearance warning is typically on a side road or underpass that is not on your direct route. If you've properly entered your RV information, you won't be routed somewhere you shouldn't be Seeing. The low clearance warnings might be handy for routes you are considering but haven't mapped yet, or help explain why you're being routed a certain way on the map With your RV Life Pro tip of the week. I'm Pat Buchanan.

Speaker 4: 46:36

Thank you, pat Buchanan. I have to announce that it's really super exciting because open roads is going to be, if it's not already, on the RV Life Trip Wizard app.

Speaker 5: 46:50

It was all at the first quarter of this year.

Speaker 4: 46:53

That is super exciting to be able to tell you this.

Speaker 1: 46:56

I was with the developer yesterday. They sent me they will roll it out as soon as Clayton gets through that data box.

Speaker 4: 47:04

Wow he just threw you out of the bus. He's on his way. They did, but some things are not meant to be shared. Sorry, clayton, sorry about that.

Speaker 1: 47:17

Let's talk a little bit more about our sponsor, and OpenRoad, as a company, has really really supporting the RV Life Podcast. They want to get the word out, which is what we're doing at the RV Life Podcast, about the OpenRoads Innovative Polling Transponder. I got to tell you this thing is incredible, absolutely incredible, as we make plans for this coming year. We have found this product for all travelers. If you have an RV, if you have a car, if you have a bicycle, you want the OpenRoads Innovative Polling Transponder. We've done this product right here that I have in my hands, the very best kept secret in the RV industry, because it will save you money, it will save you time, it will save you frustration, it will save you press.

Speaker 4: 48:16

It's the secret. We want to let you in on OpenRoads Innovative Polling. It's incredible. As we said, the toll transponder works in all 48 states. It costs $24 a year and the best part is the Conchi Air Service. If you should receive a violation, their customer support will help you through the process.

Speaker 5: 48:40

OpenRoads Innovative Polling RV Industries best kept secret.

Speaker 1: 48:45

Until now. Okay so it is very, very loud here. As you can tell and I have never seen such a thing this is an RV show and they had a I don't know what is that Irish the bagpipes coming through and they're playing the drums and doing all kinds of stuff here. That's what happens when we're blind. Patty, did you want to talk a little bit about that tip that Patrick came brought out?

Speaker 4: 49:17

How important is knowing the services we are getting. The time is up signal. We are in the RV in Freight Liners. Sorry, in Freight Liners I can't talk. We're done. Freight Liners booth at the RV show. They have been gracious enough to allow us to come in, but now we are getting the time because at two o'clock, just a few minutes from now, they are going to be doing a seminar. So, yes, patrick's tips every week really are helpful. The RV trip wizard has been another one of those services that, as an RVer, we can't be without.

Speaker 1: 49:59

We really, really can't be without. I'm Dan Hott with my incredible wife, patty Hott. This is the RV Life Podcast. I want to thank Tina and Clay for being with us today, and I even have a party gift for each of you.

Speaker 5: 50:19

Thank you so much. Have a great day. Have a great rest of today.

Speaker 4: 50:23

Thank you, you're welcome and an even better day tomorrow.