Meet Rita (short for Chaparrita) - 2000 Ford E450 Skoolie
I (Jenn) adopted Rita from her creator, Craig, in June of 2024, in Sausalito, CA. She's been converted for full time off-grid living. Craig put a lot of love, thought, effort and countless hours into building her. She's 22 feet long, so she's considered a shorty - like me (5'1").
This blog will document our time together...for however long it is and wherever we roam. The good, the awesome, the bad, the ugly and the hysterical.
Rita and I were built for adventures, risk-taking, saying YES to the unknown and spreading smiles wherever we go.
That's just how we roll.
Latest News
Travels without Rita and Returning for La Canicula
Wow, time has flown, but I can’t say it’s been all fun. The past 3 months have been quite a whirlwind rollercoaster of nonstop chaos. More or less. The entire month of May I basically worked nonstop (quite literally, one night I actually pulled an all-nighter launching a website that was not behaving. I got it in line shortly after seeing the sun come up. That was a first.) Along with all the work, (which I was super grateful for, by the way), I also was playing around with the possibility of buying some land. What started out with an...
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Apartment Interlude
It has been almost 3 weeks now since I ‘moved in’ to this little 1 bedroom apartment at the far back side of town. The idea to get away from the beach during Semana Santa was a sound one and this sublet fell into my lap at a great price. I realized there were a full 5 weeks available left on the rental term my friends had agreed to. After a couple of days I decided ‘why not?!’ to taking the entire time. It’s a good opportunity to getting a lot of projects done in Rita and having an address...
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Settling in to an Unsettled Life
A ridiculous amount of time has passed (or maybe so many things have happened, it just seems longer?) and it seems impossible that I can catch up with my regular style blog here. Below are a lot of pictures with sometimes detailed captions - giving you an idea of what's been going on the past couple months. I am still living in and around San Carlos. I really like it! So much is going on all the time and I'm bopping around from beach to beach, depending on what part of town I want to be near and what social...
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9 Months with Rita
March 7 marks nine months since I agreed to buy Rita. Thought I would celebrate with an in-depth look at the more real-world, material aspects of this life so far. Sort of a pros and cons list (spoiler alert: the pros win!) Things I Love About Rita Her LENGTH – 22 ft is short enough to go just about anywhere and plenty roomy inside. Rita gets a bath! Her LAYOUT – she is designed perfectly for me and how I live. She feels like a Tardis – she looks small from the outside, but feels huge on the inside....
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