About Us

Hello! We are Dave, Carrie and Roodle the Labradoodle! Dave & I met in high school in 1989, married 4 years later and celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in June of 2023. We sold our traditional house, quit our jobs and began our journey in December of 2018. We converted out 2017 Ram Promaster into our tiny home on wheels and we have been exploring North America One adVANture at a time!

Carrie

Carrie was raised in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, California. Living off-grid was a normal way of life for her. No electricity, no indoor plumbing, no shower and a bucket toilet, she was living off grid before “off grid” was cool! I think this is where she learned to love the great outdoors: hiking, swimming in creeks, playing hot wheels in the dirt, and her love of animals. It took some convincing to get her to live off grid again, these days we have lots of cool off grid accessories!   Carrie has such a creative drive! Over the years her list of hobbies is long: rock painting, crocheting, raising chickens, gardening, sewing, woodworking and photography! AND SHE IS GOOD AT THEM ALL!!  When we married in 1993 we got a 35 mm film camera for a wedding gift, this ignited her love of photography! I cannot remember a time since then that she hasn’t had a camera in hand.  Over the years her photography has continued to grow, landscapes, wildlife, portraits, wedding and now videography….. all self-taught. Once I told her she could take pictures wherever we go….I think that sealed the deal. 

Dave

Dave is an outdoorsman, he loves to be outside, hiking, fishing, camping, foraging, off-roading……really anything that keeps him out of the city! THAT IS WHEN HE IS THE HAPPIEST! The great outdoors and boats! Dave is a veteran of the United States Coast Guard, he served in S. Portland, Maine on a Buoy Tender named “The Spar” and in Eureka, Ca at the Small Boat Duty Station “Humboldt Bay”. Dave was a boat Coxswain (Captain for us civilians) meaning he drove small boats. He won’t brag about his service so I will do it for him, he was trained in heavy weather surf….. the kind that destroys boats and could end in loss of life. He drove the first prototype of the 47ft boat….. the one that can flip over in heavy surf (waves) and is used at most small boat Coast Guard stations today.  Dave was a Federal Law Enforcement Officer boarding vessels and participated in search and rescue. Very dangerous work from a wife’s perspective! If I (Carrie) didn’t get seasick our YouTube channel might have been about boat life…specifically sailing. 

Dave

Dave is an outdoorsman, he loves to be outside, hiking, fishing, camping, foraging, off-roading……really anything that keeps him out of the city! THAT IS WHEN HE IS THE HAPPIEST! The great outdoors and boats! Dave is a veteran of the United States Coast Guard, he served in S. Portland, Maine on a Buoy Tender named “The Spar” and in Eureka, Ca at the Small Boat Duty Station “Humboldt Bay”. Dave was a boat Coxswain (Captain for us civilians) meaning he drove small boats. He won’t brag about his service so I will do it for him, he was trained in heavy weather surf….. the kind that destroys boats and could end in loss of life. He drove the first prototype of the 47ft boat….. the one that can flip over in heavy surf (waves) and is used at most small boat Coast Guard stations today.  Dave was a Federal Law Enforcement Officer boarding vessels and participated in search and rescue. Very dangerous work from a wife’s perspective! If I (Carrie) didn’t get seasick our YouTube channel might have been about boat life…specifically sailing. 

Roodle

Roodle is a first-generation Labradoodle born to Mom (a chocolate lab) & Dad (an apricot poodle).  He was born in Chico, California on Friday May 13th, 2016.  Mom gave birth to a litter of 8 puppies, 4 with straight hair (such as Roodle)  and 4 with standard curly poodle hair. Now for the fun stuff…. Roodle is a special boy, He has ALWAYS made people smile!! He is intuitive and sensitive.  We once met a lady in Canada who had recently had heart surgery, Roodle sat with her for about an hour with his head in her lap, never leaving her side! He is ABSOLUTELY obsessed with playing ball, he LOVES the snow, fishing and will go berserk if kids are throwing rocks into any body of water! He will play with them for hours!

Storm Trooper

In order to make this van-life journey possible, we had to make a few hard decisions. One of those decisions was trading in our Jeep Wrangler to buy Storm Trooper our Van.  We have off-roading in our blood and our Jeep Willy’s edition was heavily modified to take us anywhere we wanted to go. Once we decided that we were doing this we traveled 2.5 hours to Sacramento, CA to look at a van they had listed. This was early 2018 and van-life was extremely popular, by the time we arrived at the dealership the van listed had already sold. Our timing was perfect, however, as we were standing there Storm Trooper drove in and Dave asked, “What about that van”? The dealership said it hasn’t been cleaned or anything. Dave didn’t care and we went to look at this van that had just arrived on the lot.  Previously Storm Trooper was a delivery van, He was dirty, lots of dents and scrapes, with no bells or whistles. Dave knew we just might be able to afford this van….. and we could!!!  We bought Storm Trooper on the spot, and I (Carrie) cried as we drove by our beautiful jeep that we had just traded for this dirty, dented cargo van…..I asked Dave “Are you sure about this”? He replied, “YES”!
So why did we name him Storm Trooper? Well, we are Star Wars fans, but the name really came from Dave loving storms and this van is a trooper. You see, Storm Trooper does not know that he is not four-wheel drive. With Dave’s excellent driving ability we have taken Storm Trooper places that most would not dare! Granted we know there are limits such as sand…..Storm Trooper HATES sand!  However, after 5 years we are still amazed at the places we take him; he really is a trooper! We were gifted the Storm Trooper decals from our Patrons Rose & Michael and while we land on the rebellion side, Dave says “Some Storm Troopers are just misunderstood.”

Storm Trooper

In order to make this van-life journey possible, we had to make a few hard decisions. One of those decisions was trading in our Jeep Wrangler to buy Storm Trooper our Van.  We have off-roading in our blood and our Jeep Willy’s edition was heavily modified to take us anywhere we wanted to go. Once we decided that we were doing this we traveled 2.5 hours to Sacramento, CA to look at a van they had listed. This was early 2018 and van-life was extremely popular, by the time we arrived at the dealership the van listed had already sold. Our timing was perfect, however, as we were standing there Storm Trooper drove in and Dave asked, “What about that van”? The dealership said it hasn’t been cleaned or anything. Dave didn’t care and we went to look at this van that had just arrived on the lot.  Previously Storm Trooper was a delivery van, He was dirty, lots of dents and scrapes, with no bells or whistles. Dave knew we just might be able to afford this van….. and we could!!!  We bought Storm Trooper on the spot, and I (Carrie) cried as we drove by our beautiful jeep that we had just traded for this dirty, dented cargo van…..I asked Dave “Are you sure about this”? He replied, “YES”!
So why did we name him Storm Trooper? Well, we are Star Wars fans, but the name really came from Dave loving storms and this van is a trooper. You see, Storm Trooper does not know that he is not four-wheel drive. With Dave’s excellent driving ability we have taken Storm Trooper places that most would not dare! Granted we know there are limits such as sand…..Storm Trooper HATES sand!  However, after 5 years we are still amazed at the places we take him; he really is a trooper! We were gifted the Storm Trooper decals from our Patrons Rose & Michael and while we land on the rebellion side, Dave says “Some Storm Troopers are just misunderstood.”