Who are we, and why are we doing this?
In April 2022, we sold our house, left our jobs, packed up a tiny subset of our belongings into a Dodge RAM pickup and a 22’ R-Pod travel trailer named Ayla and hit the road at the end of June. We must have had a pretty good reason for doing something so audacious. You’d like to think so anyway…
Carrie-Ann
Carrie grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, and lived in many places until the birth of her daughter, Coranna, grounded her in Portland, Oregon in 2002. And lucky for her because that is where she met Dwayne in 2013 and they were married in 2015 bringing her a husband and her two step-kids, Madison, and Xander. She is so excited to be in motion again living life to her rhythm.
For over 30 years, she worked as a teacher and an instructional coach. She is using this year to launch her new career as a mindfulness based executive coach at PDX Coaching. Her hope is that on the road she finds stories of belonging and connection.
Learn more from her post Want to Come Along?
Dwayne
Dwayne grew up in a small town in Washington called Rochester, and escaped to Portland to attend college, stuck around to work at Intel, and finally retired from there in 2018 to pursue work in the non-profit world. His priorities changed when his twin brother, Darrin, passed away unexpectedly in 2020, and his father passed away after a long illness in 2021. It became clear to him and Carrie, who also lost both of her parents in 2022, that if they wanted to explore it should be now.
He also wants to do something to affect change for the climate crisis, and will be telling stories from the road about what we find. Life is fleeting and wonderful and there’s no time like Now for taking a leap.
Learn more from his post Zen and the Art of Dwayne Maintenance
Neo
Neo was born in Mexico circa October 2019, rescued by Street Dog Hero in Bend, OR and found his way to us in 2020. He is an intrepid traveler, but loves his comforts. He likes treats, walks, counter-surfing, and any human attention. He’s not fond of being told no, motorcycles, chipmunks, and super-hot weather. You’d think being from Cabo san Lucas, he’d be fine with it, but he’d just rather not talk about it. Since traveling we’ve also discovered that Neo has a strong affinity for skunks.
Neo wants everyone to know that if you see him, treats are always appreciated—a good scratch on his tummy too.
Ray
Our Eco-diesel RAM truck, Ray has great fuel economy and with its larger tank 30-gallon tank we can drive for a long time with nary a care in the world. We love our truck!
Inaugural Voyage - Dec. 17, 2021
Driving Ayla for our first camping trip, Kurt and Patti Cleveland took this video outside our campsite in Oregon.
Ayla: December 2021-December 5, 2022
Here’s Ayla, and Ray, our Ram 1500 truck. Compressing what you thought you needed from a 3000 square foot house into a 22’ trailer and the back of a truck you learn what is really important. And then you cull some more. The demands of home ownership don’t go away, it just means you’re working in a smaller space.
Neo especially loves our truck and Ayla, and because they have soft and cool places to nap—we might too.
Someone said to us that change is inevitable in this life and, boy is that true! We thought we’d live in Ayla until the end of this journey but Dwayne was spending more time tinkering than enjoying our time.
And then when we realized that we’d need a four-season trailer in Flagstaff, we decided to leap. We are thankful for all we learned towing and living in Ayla and so happy to be settled in our new 2022 Cougar, Arroyo.
Arroyo: December 5, 2022 - Present
Arroyo was bought in the desert so we call him Arroyo, the ubiquitous water-carved desert gullies also called “washes.” We appreciate the extra footage to work in separate indoors spaces, the incredible construction that will help us be comfortable in all weather, and the functional kitchen so we don’t need to use the bed as counter space any longer.
Neo loves lounging in even greater comfort in Arroyo than in Ayla.
Arroyo enables us to be off-grid for two weeks or more!
We can carry more, so we’ve been able to add things like these cacti.
