I often say things to Josh that catch him off guard or seem out of the blue. But there was a spring day in 2020 when I just blurted out, “We should buy a Truck” Josh had a truck in high school, and he loved his little truck, but we had never really talked about buying such a large vehicle. Also, why buy a truck when you are building a house? 

1. We knew we would be moving. Ask anyone with a truck how often they have been asked to help someone move. Trips to storage units, buying home remodeling supplies, towing a U-Haul from South Carolina to Indiana. 

2. We needed a camper. We would live with my parents, but we knew we would need space. My parents live in an old farmhouse that Fred renovated in the 1960s. It is a beautiful home, but it was never designed to have two households. 1.5 bathrooms. So we knew we would be getting a camper to have a space for just the 2 of us. 

3. We would be living in the country. People in the country drive trucks for a reason. We would be transporting large items to maintain the property. Having a vehicle with higher clearance is helpful during snowstorms. Being a nurse, no matter how tall the drifts are, I have to get to work. 

The most daunting aspect of this was all of the questions that would keep coming up that we didn’t know how to answer. Which truck? What could we afford? What kind of truck could reasonably (and safely) tow a trailer? 

Before we answer all those essential and fascinating questions about the truck, let’s first look at where the crazy idea that we could buy a truck and live full-time in a trailer started to take shape.

Rewind to Spring 2018. Joshua and I had a plan that during his next business trip to British Columbia, Canada, I would come along, and we would make it a vacation and visit Victoria Island and see some of the BC sights via rental car. While investigating possible destinations, I discovered this fantastic family YouTube channel called “Keep Your Daydream.” Weekly, this family of five was traveling all over the world in a camper with a truck, and they were posting videos of their adventures. I quickly convinced Joshua that this lifestyle would be quite an exciting adventure.

Pictured above is Joshua and I looking at trucks and campers in June 2018. The prices! The “big decision” seemed to be a whole lifetime away. It would be two more years of planning and dreaming before I blurted out, “Let’s buy a truck.” It sounded as crazy then as it did to us dreaming about the idea years before. Below are some pictures from our adventure later that year, in 2018, when we visited BC. We should go back.