Adjusting to a New Way of Living

Welcome to our First Blog Post, Bare with us as we try to figure it all out. This post will share our new "on the road" way of living. We hope you enjoy your read.

Hello Everyone, My name is Jessica, and my husbands name is Jesse. We are new to the blogging game, but we are very excited to become a part of the blogging community and share our experiences from our road trip, and hopefully inspire some of you reading to set out on an adventure of your own. Well, let's get started! This post will generally be taking you on a walk through our new "home", and how we put it all together, to feel prepared enough to venture out for several months.

Designing our New Home:

The first order of business was to find ourselves a cap for our Canyon. We were very fortunate to have found the perfect one for our truck, with a built in rack which almost seemed like it was made for our truck. Once we had that bolted into place and secured, we built a storage space for underneath our "bed". It was nothing fancy, and quite simple, But also super important space for all things overflow, such as extra food, warm clothing, backpacks, extra rope, survival gear, you name it! Storage is SUPER important, you've absolutely got to make the most of your space for! We were very fortunate to find a cap that was very space efficient. On the one side of the cap, there are two compartments which we have been able to make great use of, for the things that are not needed frequently, such as propane tanks, our camp stove, etc.

In addition to storage, we needed somewhere to sleep. Sleeping in our seats really didn't sound to appealing. So what we did was place a piece of plywood on top of our storage space, then laid down foam puzzle pieces. This gave us a nice flat surface but also some padding to start building our bedding with. We purchased two one and a half inch memory foam, giving us three inches of "mattress". Then we proceeded to make out bed, with plenty of extra sleeping bags and thicker comforters underneath for additional support and comfort. We also installed solar lights around the inside of the cap for a homey type of feel, and painted the metal storage bin white to help with provide a cleaner look. When we are not sleeping in the bed of the truck, we use the space for travel storage, with things like our clothing, hiking bags, hygiene bags, things we need on a daily basis, however we don't require them to be inside the front part of the truck with us. We save that space for food, books, cooking supplies, etc.

As a gift, we were given a Reese explorer cargo carrier. This has proven to be of great use again for accessible storage. The cargo carrier goes right into your trailer hitch and stays there permanently for the duration of the trip, however could easily be removed at any time if needed. We purchased two metal tool boxes and bolted them to the frame of the carrier for safe keeping. In the tool boxes we keep our swimming gear, extra shoes, tools, and things of that nature.This set us up quite well for starting out, of course along the way there are always newer and better solutions for things, and you discover things that can be purged or even used in better ways.

that can be purged or even used in better ways.

Adjusting to life living in a truck, actually comes much easier than I was expecting. Although the bed in the back is not quite as comfortable as you'd like, it does the trick and is quite cozy with the lights up, and all the pillows. We have been fortunate enough to find some beautiful places to park our truck to sleep overnight, including this beautiful space in Lunenberg right along the water. Waking up to the sun glistening over the water was quite amazing.

On the other hand, we have spent some nights crashed in a Walmart parking lot. While other nights were weren't quite as fortunate and have stayed at some highway pull offs where there's nothing but a big lot off the shoulder of the highway. When we need a break from the truck life, we have booked many campsites which seem to be such a luxury now. Its a learning process and will only continue to get easier along the way.

Be sure to stay tuned for the next blog, stay patient as finding time and WiFi together have been a bit of a challenge but we have plenty of great blog ideas already in mind. Hope you enjoyed the read.

Stay Wild,

Jesse & Jessica.