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
Driving Miss Rita
What’s It Like to Drive a Bus? A lot of people ask me this - is it hard to drive Rita? What is it like? I figured it would be good to get a bunch of stuff down now while it is all still fresh for me as a newbie. I have logged over 7,000 miles on Rita now, but definitely feels still very new to me in a lot of ways. Slowly, much of the anxiety about navigating unfamiliar roads and showing up somewhere new (how big will it be? Can I back out? What if I get stuck?...
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Indiana to NYC – Long Overdue Update
It has been well over 2 months since I posted an update. I am currently writing from Spencer, Tennessee at. Wanderlust Waypoints - a place to get bus projects done! But before I get into all that...what have I been doing the past 2+ months-that-feels-like-6 ? The time has been pretty action packed, a lot of doctor appointments (routine stuff, getting it all in while in my 'home state', I'm in tip top shape, it seems!), moving all my stuff into Rita, lots of projects, a prolonged stay with the mechanics, lots of family and friends visiting and maybe even...
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Salt Lake City – Colorado – Nebraska – Illinois
NOTE: SORRY If you got a new post notification and there is not, in fact, a new post after this one yet...working on it!! But now you know the post notifications are working finally 🙂 I got a not-too-early start out of Salt Lake. It was so great to visit with Art and Lisa – I’m already looking forward to visiting them in their AZ home this winter! I was able to fill up one tank with water before rolling on out of there. It was to be a fairly short drive to my overnight at Dinosaur National Monument....
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Santa Cruz to Salt Lake City
It was quite stressful waiting on Rita for the week. Kind of like having a friend in the hospital (with no insurance), waiting to hear the news of multiple surgeries. It looked like she was going to be done on Wednesday, but then it turned out to be Thursday night before I could pick her up. I was losing my mind a little with anticipation and anxiety and thinking about all the things I had to do to take off. The bill made me a little nauseous, but I keep reminding myself what my BFF Jen told me “Stop saying...
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