New year, new us! That’s bit corny, but I suppose it’s true. We’ve made some big changes in our lives, and this post is going to give a summary.
Stepping back in time to 2015, we had just moved to Colorado. After a few spectacular months of skiing on the weekends, we decided we wanted a little warmth, so we headed west to Utah for a long weekend where I proposed to Andrea. I can remember that trip, thinking, “Yeah, this is the life”. How do we do this more?
Fast forward to early 2021, we were in the depths of the pandemic winter with the promise of vaccines on the way. I had been working remotely for nearly a full year, and Andrea was on her third year. We decided to “pull the trigger” and start making moves to finally live a life that was a little more our style – on the road.
In April, we started by booking our first campsite in Arizona – for February 2022. We started researching different options for on-the-road living, settling on a travel trailer/truck combo – but which one?
By August, we had already booked a handful of campsites for 2022, and mapped out our year for the most part. Some folks like to fly by the seat of their pants, but we are planners, and we knew what we wanted to do in general. See the country, and bike good trails. And if you know me, you know I love a good spreadsheet!
We also sold our beloved van in August, and made some decisions on next year’s digs. Thanks to my parents for letting us borrow (an ongoing trend…) a truck to go and get our Grand Design Imagine 2600RB travel trailer. We also placed an order for a Ram 2500 at the same time.
In September, we took our first trip in the camper to Bentonville, Arkansas for some mountain biking – a good shake-down trip to see what we wanted to do with our camper. It was an absolute blast and great proof-of-concept. Andrea and I both worked remotely during this trip, at a part-time pace. We felt like we finally found our happiness.
After our first trip, we were pretty excited for the new path. We started big plans for the camper. We ended up adding 560ah of lithium batteries (Kyle DIY’d these batteries), 760w of solar, a complete redo of the wiring for the camper so we could run everything on the Victron Multiplus inverter (off the batteries/solar).
We also replaced some various odds and ends to improve comfort – two new vent fans (quieter, more efficient, remote-controlled, can be open in the rain, better in every way), new mattress, tank heaters for cold weather, etc. This work spanned from summer 2021 to when we hit the road in early 2022 (planning, ordering, waiting, executing). Here’s a mash-up of some of the various upgrades.
So, another piece of the puzzle, our truck. 2021/2022 made for an “exciting” time to purchase a truck. Due to “shortages”, our basic truck that was ordered in August didn’t show up until the end of December. The timing worked out, but it sure had us worried while waiting.
We ended up finding just about the only honest Ram dealer left in the country in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and ordered from them. From the time we ordered through to receiving the truck, various other dealers were adding “market adjustments” to their trucks. A $50k MSRP truck could sell for $60k+. Madness. A little research and an extra dose of patience landed us a “deal” at pre-covid dealer discounts.
We ended up getting a Ram 2500 with the 6.4L hemi. Thanks again to my dad for steering us to the 3/4-ton truck, the 3000+lbs of payload are very welcome for our adventure gear! We promptly installed an ARE MX cap and put some MORryde slides in.
Now, if you made it this far, you get the final piece of the puzzle. After working with Ball for 5 years, the last 22 months fully remote, I asked to make my position fully remote. They said no. So that leaves Andrea working remote. She will be working about 25 hours/wk. That leaves us in a great position to enjoy life on the road. With a single (very flexible) schedule that only requires 25 hrs/wk, we should be able to get in all the outdoor activities. Hooray!
So, we moved out of our apartment in Broomfield, CO, donating or selling almost everything we own, then packing the rest in a tiny U-Haul trailer. Goodbye front range, hello rest of the country!
See you on the road.
-Kyle