Hi!
I’m Jenna & welcome to my happy space. Have fun navigating my adventures and so much more! My goal is that you learn a little, laugh a little, and get a spark to find your Something More! See you inside.
I’m Jenna & welcome to my happy space. Have fun navigating my adventures and so much more! My goal is that you learn a little, laugh a little, and get a spark to find your Something More! See you inside.
“Oh darling, let’s be adventurers”
Resurrected
Moody
Classic
Promise me when I say this will make sense as you read on.
Ruby & her fam (Jake, me, and the dog) are currently traveling the US with Ruby full time. COVID got us going a bit later than we were anticipating, however, it is all working out :) Canada was taken out of the route as well due to borders being closed or questionable between the US and Canada. We left late July & plan to be on the road through November!
Like her owners, she’s also a tough Minnesota native (yes, we have determined she is female) who similarly has a passion for exploring all corners of this amazing world that wheels can take her. In her previous life, she delivered the kiddos to and from school. They left her a bit run down, rusted, and unwanted by the district. Luckily, WE stumbled upon her profile on Craigslist and just knew she was the perfect match. We jumped on the opportunity to take someone’s trash and make it our treasure.
We bought Ruby after a couple beers that led to poor decision-making with a non-refundable contract. JUST KIDDING. Real talk - I love camping and got Jake into camping early on in our relationship. Cleo (our puppers) also loves camping naturally as she is a dog, but the transportation piece gets a little tricky as she’s quite #DIVA and takes up loads of space in both cars and tents. We wanted something that would enable us to spontaneously pick up and go without all of the prep work tent camping can require. We ran across the skoolie community after some research and liked the price tag, spaciousness, and DIY challenge! Jake and his handy Paps were up for the challenge.
We love, love traveling and realized how much opportunity we have in our backyard and this country. Now RUBY enables us to travel the states and surrounding areas in a unique way that is *somewhat* budget friendly (*not yet proven*).
Since purchase date in March of 2019 to present day, we have made many strides to have the functional bus we have today. Pretty much everything aside from a some welding and engine maintenance we did ourselves or with the helpful hands of family! I’m not sure we’ll ever feel completely finished as we constantly have ideas on how to improve things! However, she is insured and has essential utilities and a cozy space - fully solar powered, running water (even hot water), cooking appliances, a bike rack, etc! (full utilities explained in this post) Easily 100+ hours of TLC soaked into her already; love us back Rubes.
To my fellow skoolie visionaries: be prepared to get dirty, problem solve often, be creative, and spend many hours watching “how to” YouTube vids. See our full conversion album here!
For a first trial long-ish trial trip prior to moving in full time, we trekked from MN —> MT and back. Our first 2-week trial run to MT was a test to see if long-term living in Ruby is something we wanted to seriously pursue. Of course, it went fabulously and we learned a lot, like having child locks on cabinets! Below are some views from our #RUBYcam, our first of hopefully many 900-mile excursions. Read about our adventure west HERE. As expected, “things” happened along the way… :)
Our long-term trip we are on now (2020) has taken us many places already, but so much exploring to go! See a high-level route plan below; for detail, see THIS post.
We love to inspire ya’ll to make your dreams become reality. We are just ordinary people choosing an a-typical path to life! We are taking chances, doing some trial runs, because how else do you find your passions?!? Follow our #somethingmore journey, Ruby included! The more, the merrier <3
