Let me quickly introduce ourselves for those of you that don’t know us! I’m Christine (the writer behind this blog). My husband (Mark) and I are “Martini”. We live in CO with our son-dog Benny who I like to call a “cow-chow”. He is 12 years old and is a mix of a chow and Australian cattle dog… hence the “cow-chow” ;). We both work 9-5 jobs and with the stresses of everyday life, every chance we get we try to adventure out into the great outdoors to escape the madness.

Mark and I have been together since Benny was a baby pupper (you do the math) and when we decided to get married we had this great idea that we wanted to take two weeks and camp for our honeymoon. After much deliberation about renting a Cruise America or something similar, we decided to buy a little travel trailer so we could do the same thing on our anniversary every year. We had no money and we had no plans, but we had an idea of what we wanted to do and that’s where it started. We chose a 17′ Casita (Spirit Deluxe model) travel trailer which we later named “Martini”.

Martini then..

Let’s back up a little bit here.,.. Our story of Martini starts back in 2011. Mark and I began planning our big idea to buy a trailer about 5 months before our wedding. When Mark and I decided to buy the Casita we didn’t realize that there was a 6 month waiting list. Long story short, our luck struck gold when we found out that someone backed out of the exact model we were looking for. We knew for sure this was a sign we were doing the right thing so we jumped on the opportunity to buy it. We took that leap of faith, signed the papers and she was delivered to CO from Texas just in time for the big trip.

When we first bought the trailer we had a 1988 GMC long bed truck. Let’s just say were were amateurs and didn’t realize that this truck was not going to be ideal.

The truck was too long and was a single cab so Benny either had to ride on your lap or, well…ride on your lap! LOL. Like I said from the beginning we didn’t have any ideas we just dove in on a leap of faith. The truck was not ideal for towing, nor was it comfortable for long trips. One day when I was headed to work I saw an FJ Cruiser pulling a Casita and I thought, that’s what we need! It’s not too big and it’s not too small and we can fit all of our crap in it! So yet again, in early 2012 we still had no money and now EVEN MORE ideas so we took another leap of faith and we bought a new Toyota FJ Cruiser.

Then the adventures really started to happen!

Martini now...

Martini is now 8 years old with many trips under her belt and still going strong. She is a small but mighty little trailer. We’ve done some improvements so she is not your average Casita. She is tough on the outside and simple on the inside. She has a flipped axle with 6 inches of lift so we can take her just about anywhere. She also has 30″ BFG truck tires on her so she is ready to roll on any ground we cover. She’s a total badass and we love her.

In 2018 we decided to retire the FJ Cruiser and upgrade to something with a little more oomph. We now tow her with a 2018 Chevy Colorado ZR2 that has a Duramax diesel. She’s small but mighty. Mark chose this truck because it has great towing power and is great on gas mileage. It’s also a beast on the back roads and is built for rough trail riding. In the year that we have had the truck we have taken it on some pretty gnarly terrain (which you’ll get to see later).

So…that’s our story, and we couldn’t be happier in our decision that we took 8 years ago. We’ve only just begun our journeys and we’ve already been to so many places and seen so many things. We want you all to know that you shouldn’t wait to do the things that you wish to do. We hope that anyone wanting to take a leap of faith and follow their dreams will do just that. Don’t wait until you retire or until you have money, or for our sake until you have the right vehicle…if you want to do something, have faith and JUST DO IT!

Adventure on my friends.