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Yes, we bought our first home! We will start living tiny in our new RV later this year! Some of you may be wondering how we got to this point. Let me start from the beginning. For years Marissa and I have dreamed about living tiny. Starting around 2017 we started looking into tiny houses.
This was our dream for a few years, with the intent to find some land to purchase and park it on, and then take it with us through medical school, residency, fellowship, and beyond. When medical school was no longer the path ahead, this plan to buy a tiny home entered a state of purgatory.
We still wanted to be minimal, but the desire to travel trumped our desire to buy land and settle down. As you may know, we went to Belize for a few months to pursue diving (which you can read about here), and then came home not sure what our future held.
For a time, we went back to the standard 9-5 work life and sat in limbo for a bit ourselves. However, about a year ago Marissa started showing me renovated trailers and fifth wheels. They looked like tiny homes, but had the portability of travel trailers. There is a whole community of individuals, some retired and some younger like us, that live full-time out of their beautiful, home-like travel trailers. This became our new pursuit.
We began looking at fifth wheels on my birthday in February 2022. Over the next sixth months we visited all the major camper dealers in the Salt Lake City area. We thought we had found the trailer we wanted on about 3-4 different occasions. Each time we either decided against it, or that decision was made for us.
We purchased a massive truck (Dotty) in August 2022 in preparation. A few months later Marissa saw a trailer being renovated by RV’ing Dogs and Wine. It was just the style we had been looking at, and their other renovations are phenomenal. Check out their website to see some of their past work.
Marissa was very invested in their renovation of the 2011 Montana Bighorn, and messaged them frequently over the months of September to December. We were confident that we would be purchasing this trailer when it was finished. However, in December our lives changed for the better.
Marissa called me on a Friday night while I was out of town. She had just had a girls night at her coworkers, and fell in love with a dog. The coworker mentioned that she needed to rehome him, and Marissa told her we were very interested. She called me that night, I got home on Sunday, and we went over on Monday so that I could meet him.
One week later we brought him home. His name is Teddy, he is a Goldendoodle, and he is perfect.
However, Teddy presented a challenge with the Bighorn. We weren’t sure any longer if it would be big enough for all 3 of us. So, we went on the hunt again. We found a few layouts that we liked, but our confidence in doing a renovation ourselves was low, to say the least. However, we got lucky. RV’ing Dogs and Wine miraculously agreed to custom renovate a trailer for us. They had never done a custom renovation before, but agreed since Marissa had kept such good contact with them about the Bighorn.
After a few more months of searching, we found our Daisy. She is a 2017 Jayco Pinnacle 38FLSA, which means she is a biggun. Almost 43′ long… Plenty of room now for the 3 of us. So, on President’s Day weekend we started out at 3:00am to make the 8 hour drive to Denver to pick her up. We spent a few hours making the purchase and getting her ready to travel. Then made about another 6 hour drive back to Green River, UT where we spent the night at a Love’s Travel Center. **They now have dedicated RV parking with hookups and a dog park. Gotta love Love’s. Check out this article to learn more.
The next day we made the remainder of the trip to Los Angeles area to deliver her to Ann and Tom, the geniuses behind RV’ing Dogs and Wine. We were lucky enough to stay with my sister who lives close by, and spent a few days out there. We went over initial plans, and left her in their very talented and capable hands. She should be done around May 2023, and we could not be more excited!! =D
With over 35 hours driving in Dotty that weekend, it was the perfect opportunity to test out our new travel pants from Kuhl. They are a great brand that make high quality clothing and travel gear. We had both heard of them before, but decided to take the leap and try them out ourselves.
Marissa decided on the Freeflex Move in sage. She LOVES them. They are comfortable, lightweight, airy, and as the name suggests, super flexible. She recommends them to anyone, and you can easily convert them to cute capris by rolling up the bottoms, great for a shorty like Rissy 😉
I settled on the Kanvus Jean in the dark khaki color in the klassik fit. Overall, the idea to make jean-style pants out of canvas instead of denim is a wonderful idea. The pants are very soft, durable, and I agree with all the reviews that the hidden phone pocket on the leg is a game-changer.
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