How It Began

My father passed away in July of 2019. The following year, Paula and I were supposed to take a big anniversary trip to Italy.

Then COVID hit.

Italy wasn’t gonna happen.

We started kicking around the idea of some kind of road rig, although we didn’t really know where to begin. We decided to look for something our Jeep Grand Cherokee could tow and found a great deal on a used 19-foot R-Pod.

The idea was simple: travel to remote places and REALLY social distance.

We had been tent campers all our lives and, truth be told, had always turned our noses up a little at the whole RV thing. Then we took a test trip to Utah and immediately understood the appeal.

Mea culpa.

A second trip to Washington State was just as good. I worked remotely during both trips, and that seemed to work out just fine. A seed had been planted.

“Where ARE you?”

Meanwhile, my mom was trying to figure out what life looked like without Dad. They had a condo in Arizona that they loved, but Mom was physically frail and despaired that she would ever be able to return. My sister and I decided we were going to make it happen.

We got her back to Arizona and split the duties of caring for her. She was mentally sharp but needed help physically, and it was a pleasure to be able to care for her—with the admittedly not-terrible side benefit of spending the winter in Arizona while I worked remotely.

When it came time for me to return to my regular job—I’m a graphic designer, artist, and illustrator—I asked if I could continue working remotely.

They didn’t like that idea.

So I told them I would have to move on.

I began cultivating freelance work, and that went well. The next year we returned to Arizona to help care for both of our moms, work remotely, and wander around the Southwest whenever we could.

We would call my mom and, instead of saying hello, she would answer with:

“Where ARE you?”

Sometimes our answer confused her a little, but that was okay.

Mom had an iPad on which she did exactly three things: checked the weather, racked up absurd imaginary winnings on a video poker game, and—as she put it—“pushed the blue F” to open Facebook. She knew the family posted pictures there, and she loved seeing what everyone was doing.

So we started “blogging” about our travels on Facebook.

For Mom.

The Big Leap

Then came the big leap.

We found ourselves facing a couple of fairly important questions.

“Are you going to work remotely for the rest of your career?”

Probably. I wasn’t looking for another job. I had been my own boss and a business owner for most of my life, and this felt comfortable.

Then came the bigger one:

“Are you going to leave your house for six months every year?”

Well…yes.

I was sick of the ice and snow, and my friends and relatives were sick of hearing me be sick of the ice and snow.

And if I was going to work remotely, why not work REMOTELY?

In the desert. Up a mountain. On a beach. Anywhere the Wi-Fi gods smiled upon us.

So we decided to sell the house and hit the road.

Paula, being a Realtor, had to recalibrate too. Since we would be spending winters with Mom in Arizona, she got licensed there as well. But, as you may suspect, a lifestyle built around wandering off for weeks at a time doesn’t suit the real estate business particularly well.

So she became Chief Trip Planner—a position with lousy pay but considerable executive authority.

Selling the house and getting rid of nearly ALL our stuff was one of the hardest things we have ever done. Somehow, we managed it. We still have a small storage space in Minnesota holding the knickknacks and memories we may want when we eventually settle down somewhere.

But that’s it.

Beauty and the Beast

As it turned out, working and living in a 19-foot R-Pod was possible—but it required Paula and me to be very fond of one another at extremely close range.

We went shopping and found our current rig, which we call BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

The Beast is a 2019 Ram 2500 extended cab. Beauty is a 2022 Grand Design Imagine 2600RB. We didn’t want to go HUGE, but she is still plenty big enough to make us occasionally question our life choices while backing into a campsite.

And Then It Became a Thing

All along, the Facebook posts continued.

Friends and family started mentioning them and telling us how much they enjoyed following our travels. The posts became “a thing,” as they say.

And we started having a lot of fun with them.

People kept saying, “You should start a blog!”

To which I generally replied, “That sounds like work.”

I never wanted to be an “influencer.” Still don’t. We don’t want documenting the journey to take over the journey itself. But today’s tools make this sort of thing much more manageable, so here we are.

My intention is to gradually dig through the archaeological layers of my old Facebook posts and backfill some of our earlier trips. Over time, this can become our cozy little record of the places we’ve gone, the people we’ve met, and the things that happened along the way—more or less as we remember them.

Last year we added a camper van to the fleet, mostly for traveling in Mexico, where the big rig is just too…well, big. So sometimes you’ll find us in Beauty and the Beast, and sometimes in the van.

We especially love the American Southwest and Mexico—both the mainland and Baja—but we’re also a little Disney-nerdish. Most of the time we’re wandering around real places. Occasionally we’re under castles or on other planets.

We like places off the beaten path and have been known to go where we probably shouldn’t. Every now and then we leave the rigs behind and head overseas.

There is a lot of world out there.