Our Evolution
“Sunshine” the Sunrader parked alongside the Yachats River in Oregon Summer of 2007
The process of living as nomads informed us in so many ways and has fostered the evolution that got us to where we are now.
Way back in 2005, as two crazy kids with a dream to become touring performers, we moved into our car and hit the road. This adventure took us all the way to Florida from Oregon and back again.
(For our origin story, check our blog about it here)
On that journey, traveling across Oregon, Idaho, and into Montana, we were pretty cramped in the Honda station wagon. When we got to Missoula, Montana, we traded the Honda for a Mazda MPV Van.
Tamara cooking up some grub with our van in the background
Living full-time on the road in our van taught us so much.
We quickly came to the realization that if we wanted to live this way long term, we were going to need a rig that provided us with our basic needs for shelter; a good sleeping situation, a kitchen for preparing food, and a bathroom. We needed an RV.
In 2006, we returned to Oregon from our cross-country journey and found a 1983 Nissan Sunrader for sale for $1400. It was gutted and beat-up. It was a mess and a total dream come true for us! It had no insulation, but it still had a bathroom with a functioning toilet, a kitchen with a stove and a refrigerator, a bed above the cab, and a wrap-around couch in the back that could convert into another bed.
Terry brewing coffee Inside Sunshine the Sunrader
We lived in this Sunrader, which we affectionately called “Sunshine,” for two years while traveling and performing at festivals and events all over Oregon and Northern California. Sunshine served as our home base and our command center and we loved it!
One day, on our way back to the coast after performing at a wedding in Bend, her engine blew. Fortunately, even as just a shell, Sunshine sold for $800.
That $800 was just enough to purchase an old Honda Accord for $500 and the remaining $300 bought us gas and groceries to get us to Northern California in time to work for the season on a farm. The farm was our home for a month and there we earned enough money to invest in another RV.
That’s when we found Lucy, the Safety Pod.
She was everything that Sunshine wasn’t – Lucy was a 1986 Toyota Sunrader, that still had all her parts and pieces, and had been well cared for. Living in Lucy was a huge upgrade for us at the time – she was luxurious in comparison to Sunshine and she served us well for another two years.
In 2010, due to health reasons, we moved into a house and sadly, had to let Lucy go. We enjoyed our time as householders, but the two years paying rent again were a stark reminder of why we had chosen to become nomads way back in 2005. Paying rent and bills, and commuting to and from work, sucked up all of our resources and we felt like we were getting nowhere.
In 2012, we found more seasonal work on a farm in Southern Oregon and used the funds we generated to purchase The Dream Machine. She was a 32’ 1994 Class A Holiday Rambler, Luxury Edition. She was super plush, and we called her ‘The Dream Machine’ and she was like a ‘rolling suite’.
As long as she was parked, The Dream Machine was all that and more. But, being nomads, we tried driving her all the places that we wanted to go.
That’s when we discovered that Class A RVs are crazy expensive to operate. In 2013 we drove her to Arizona for the winter and it broke the bank, especially trying to get back to Oregon.
On our return trip, it was hot outside of Phoenix – a scorching 104°! The RV started billowing smoke. It appeared that something under the front end was on fire, every RVers worst nightmare.
We pulled over and Terry quickly grabbed the fire extinguisher (which he was unsure would even function). The fire extinguisher was as old as the RV, but it still managed to sputter and spit out enough to put out the flames.
The exhaust caught fire because the transmission was leaking fluid onto the red-hot exhaust pipe.
We were very lucky! 5 minutes later, the fire department pulled up next to where we were parked on the side of the Interstate. They confirmed that the fire was out and that we were safe. According to the firefighters, this happens often but hardly anyone is able to stop the fire in time!
Upon investigating the situation further, we discovered that the transmission was getting so overheated due to the extreme heat, that the seals would expand and leak transmission fluid.
So, due to limitations in our budget combined with time constraints, we hatched a plan to only drive at night when temperatures were much cooler.
We managed to drive the RV all the way back to Oregon from Arizona only driving at night, wondering if at any moment it could catch fire again. It was quite a harrowing journey.
After we had returned to Oregon, and earned enough funds to have the RV fixed, we brought it to a mechanic to have the transmission resealed. Since the RV was our full-time home, we had to live in it parked at the mechanic shop while it was being worked on. This was less-than-ideal.
Living through this situation made the truck + trailer RV option for Rv-ers look very attractive because if you need engine work done, you just park the RV trailer at a park and bring the truck to the mechanic and continue living your life.
Also, Class A RVs are extremely expensive to tow. If a truck pulling an RV breaks down, almost any truck with towing capacity can move the RV to a safe place. The one time we had to have our Class A towed, it required a tractor-trailer tow truck which would have been insanely expensive had we not had AAA roadside assistance.
After having The Dream Machine’s engine seals repaired, we briefly moved into a house and put our ‘rolling suite’ up for sale. We used the money from the sale to make our transition to a truck and trailer setup.
After researching all of the options, we chose to get a Toyhauler RV Trailer because of the open floor plan.
Toyhaulers are great for event production. The back wall comes down and can either be a ramp (so convenient for loading all of our equipment into for events) or suspended level as a deck!
We found our 28’ Thor Wanderer just outside of Mt. Shasta in Northern California. We’d already purchased our 2004 Dodge Ram Diesel Truck and brought the Toyhauler home in April of 2015.
Thanks to some good advice from a friend, we decided on a Dodge Ram as our towing vehicle and it was one of the best investments we have yet made. The Dodge Ram Diesel Trucks are 30% more fuel-efficient and have a lot more torque which is crucial for towing, especially uphill.
We found a nice, used, fully-loaded, quad cab with heated leather seats and a full 8’ bed. Our truck is multi-purpose, and we use it for so many things. It serves us well for Events. We can fit all of our Tents and our full sound system on board as well as stage pieces.
Though we had learned a lot through all of our experiences, we still had some very tough lessons ahead. As it turned out, we had purchased a trailer that needed a lot of renovations. It had an extreme amount of water damage that we didn’t know about when we bought it.
We’ll save that story for another day.
Thanks for following along on our evolution! Do you have any great adventure stories to share? We’d love to hear them!
