Ann had been working as a massage therapist since moving out to California from Boston around 2005. I’d been swept up in the DotCom craze in the mid 90’s and, while never holding the same job for more than 6 months, was somehow paid hyper-inflated salaries and invested well until things fizzled around the turn of the century/millennium. Afterwards, I did some contract work for a tech company here and there and taught music while playing in a bluegrass band in San Francisco, but mostly focused on developing investments that could support me between gainful employment. Ann continued to grow her massage practice, and things were going well for both of us. Or were they?
We both felt like we’d arrived to one degree or another but weren’t quite sure where. Just around then, the pesky Internet started bombarding us with stories of fun sounding people traveling the world (or had we gone looking for them?). There was Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman riding motorcycles around the world, and Pat and Ali from Bumfuzzle sailing around the world. Then came blogs (many listed on our Overland Respources page) about young couples who sounded just like us, packing up an SUV and pointing it south on something called the Pan American Highway. They sounded alive, solving problems creatively every day and living out in the world. We became obsessed with their stories and adventures, and before long, were actually batting ideas around for one of our own.
Yup, we bought a farm. Well, a farmlet really. A homestead. A gentleman’s hobby holding, perhaps. Any way you want to say it, we moved to a house on 4 acres an hour north of San Francisco in a small town with deep agricultural roots and a growing local food and sustainable farming movement. In April of 2011, we started learning about chickens and sheep and pigs (as well as foxes, coyotes, racoons, skunks, hawks, owls and all the other things that eat them - and llamas who try to prevent it). We planted a substantial garden, tended to neglected grape vines, blackberry bushes, apple trees, plum trees, a peach tree and a fig tree and learned new things every day. And lucky you, you get to hear not only about the things that go right, but the things that go wrong.
In the past, we'd been making HUGE moves like packing up an SUV and heading south on the Pan American Highway and then swinging wildly back the other way and buying a 4 acre Farmlet and pretending to be farmy homesteading types. This time, we had a vision for a more balanced approach, one that would blend restful time at home and connection to friends, family and community with our curiosity about pretty much everywhere else in the world and the desire to get out and experience it for ourselves and for our kids. I suppose a "home/roadschooling" post should be forthcoming... standby.
Some of those experiences might not take us more than a couple hundred miles from home, like the weeks we've been spending this winter up in Tahoe teaching the kids to ski (and reminding ourselves), but others will take us farther abroad; This Fall, we'll meet up with two other like-minded familys (BackroadBennetts and Tiny Ass Camper!) for a 10 day drive around the Loop Road in Iceland in campervans. From there, our family will continue on to Amsterdam and Paris and then for a drive down the coasts of Britanny and Bordeaux, across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostella, and down the coast of Portugal for 10 weeks.
This time, we'll return home for the holidays with family and another season of skiing, but wouldn't it be fun to spend a month skiing in Switzerland? Or buy a camper in Europe and explore Italy and Croatia? Or take it up for a tour of the UK? Or Scandinavia? Or fly to Guanajuato for a Spanish immersion? Or build an adventure trailer and camp the Baja Peninsula? Yeah, so, we've got ideas... and of course, we also still look forward to impromptu BBQ's and family movie nights back home and, yes, the Airstream will still figure prominently. In fact, we already spent the month of April in the Airstream out in Utah to meeting up with nomadic friends and taking in the spectacular landscape.
For now, we'll be updating this blog and our primary Instagram accounts at @advodna_dave and @advodna_ann mostly only when we're traveling, and have created a second Instagram account for more of our personal day-to-day at home, @smallhousedna. If you're interested in following along on the home front or just want to say hi, drop us an email or message us on IG and introduce yourself.
We hope you find something on this blog that you’re interested in. If so, drop us a line from the contact page to let us know or leave a comment. If not, thanks for a brief visit to our self-indulgent little way of processing our lives as they’re coming at us.
Dave and Ann
