Living Small

Back in 2013, Kurt and I moved out of our apartment and into a beautiful 1967 Dodge Travco Motorhome, the same kind of motor home Johnny Cash used to tour in :) 

It might have been a 46-year old motor home but it surpassed a lot of current RVs in quality and craftsmanship. We took our Travco on a cross-country road trip to Florida and lived in it for a total of 11 months. 

Sadly, we encountered mechanical issues that would have required thousands of dollars to fix so we sold our beloved Travco to a friend who added it to his collection of vintage travel trailers.

We replaced the Travco with a 6-person REI Kingdom tent and lived out of the tent and our van for 5 months while we volunteered in the Southwest. In Joshua Tree National Park, our REI Kingdom 6 tent was set up so we could work, cook and get dressed. The low temperatures at night, occasional downpours and frequent high winds made it difficult to sleep in the tent, so we made the van our bedroom. We loved the entire tent experience and wanted to improve on it so when we returned to Minnesota, we purchased a sturdier straight-wall tent made by Barebones Living.

The Barebones tent has been used throughout the world to house victims of natural disasters so we were confident it would be durable enough to serve our needs. We set the tent up on pallets to keep ourselves and our gear dry in rain storms. We went through half a dozen severe thunderstorms with 50 mph wind gusts and we barely felt it. We have been cooking, sleeping and working out of our Barebones tent for the last 4 months. We outfitted the interior of our tent to be like a small cabin with small book shelf, full size air mattress, toaster oven, blender, small electric space heater and lamps.

It's liberating to live small. We have more time to focus on the things that matter to us, like photographing miniatures :)