AmboNomads: 2025
Our life as heat seekers
I started writing what I thought would be a quick round up on New Years’ Eve, and today, here it is January 18th and we are in Loreto, Baja Sur, Mexico. Let me back up and try again…
It’s New Years Eve, and we are mooch docking in our converted ambulance RV at our grandgirls’ parents’ house in Southern California. The wind is howling and the sky is spitting rain. We came here looking for heat. As usual, that did not work out the way we hoped.
I wanted to share all the miles we covered this past year as my husband Wayne and I, a couple of sailors, tried to adjust to life ashore. But it’s late, and midnight is approaching, so here’s a quick run-down, followed mostly by photos.
You may remember that after we sold our boat, in late 2023, we bought a cabin on an island in British Columbia. After 6 months of winter in Canada, we tropical birds started thinking about finding heat. First we rented a place in southern Oregon where Wayne worked on converting the ambulance to an RV and we adopted two new puppies.
It was colder than Canada when we moved there in spring of 2024, so we started looking further south.
At the end of 2024, we bought ten acres of off-grid desert property in Nevada, about 45 miles south of Las Vegas (near the town of Searchlight) which we christened Roadrunner Ranch. It already had two nearly new shipping containers that came with the property, as well as five UBC totes and a pump for a water system, and solar panels.
Wayne got us set up with a lithium battery home back-up system with inverter, and we moved into our 24-foot travel trailer which has served as our home for more than half this year. Hey, it’s bigger than my Caliber 33 sailboat which was my home for almost 10 years!
At the ranch, it’s just us and the coyotes and our neighbor who flies in from time to time in his black helicopter and brings clients to go to his shooting range. (insert scary emoji)
We left Klamath Falls, Oregon and moved down to the desert just in time to spend New Years Day, 2025 in a pontoon boat on the Colorado River. Man was it ever cold!
In Nevada, I continued to work on my book, and Wayne worked on Lance, the ambulance through the spring. It didn’t snow in Nevada - at least, not outdoors.
Then, we were invited to our niece’s wedding in Portland, Maine in June, so Wayne came up with the idea of taking a little trial trip in Lance. It turned into a 3-month, 10,000-mile test run through the US and Canada that landed us at Saturna Island in British Columbia.
When we left on our cross-country trip, we didn’t have 110V electricity, running water or a table to eat on, and rest stops were our go to campsites. But as we traveled across the country, Wayne continued to get projects done. We got 110V power in some state in the northeast, running water in the sink in Ontario, and later on, we got a plywood table inside truck.
When we got to the Canadian Maritimes, however, we started mooch-docking which is defined as “camping in your friends’ driveway.”
Our drive across Canada was both fun and gorgeous.
After spending August through October at our cabin in Saturna, BC we headed south to Nevada for a couple of months, and ended the year in that driveway in Southern California.
We finally found heat!
The real challenge for me looking forward into 2026 is how to get my writing done with this nomadic lifestyle. In the past several years, as we built and sailed on Mobius, and then tried to figure out life after Mobius, I let my writing career fall to the wayside. I missed it, though. Finally, I committed to finding a way to work in the time we are not moving. Even with all the traveling, in the last 12 months, I completed this new book. Now I am trying to embrace the digital nomad work ethos.
Whiskey Creek’s ebook version is available for presale on Amazon here, and the paperback will be available on publication day, January 27th. Check my website in a couple of weeks to see which online stores will carry the book. And an audiobook is on the way. One of my goals for 2026 is to create my own online store where I will sell all my own books.
Now, I’m ready to start the next book.
Fair winds!
Christine
So happy to have another of your books! Apparently I get it free as part of my Amazon membership, but I'm going to pay for it anyway. My wife and I gave my young cousin and his wife our Dodge camper named River Chaser II. She served us well while we did the research and photography for two river books. She now lives in Paradise Valley, Montana. We miss her, but our 80s bodies were ready for less stress. Power to you as digital nomads! Jim Kimmel
Impressive how the ambulance conversion kept evolving on-the-road rather than waiting for a perfect setup before departure. The shift from sailor to land nomad hunting warm spots shows adaptability beats perfection. That boondocking plan inBaja sounds like proper minimalist winter living, the kind that actually builds character instead of just talking about it.