What is Propane and Bourbon?

We accidentally became full-time RV-ing nomads. Propane and Bourbon is that story.

A series of unfortunate events

Our intent for the past several years was to build a home on our bare property in the high desert of Northern Nevada. That didn’t go as planned as you probably puzzled out.

We owned a house in Dayton, Nevada and put it on the market in anticipation of the building process and to maximize for the real estate market that was topping out in our area. Our house sold waaaay faster than we expected leaving us with nowhere to go. No problem, we thought. We’re very experienced travelers. We already own a toy hauler. We’ll just go on the road until we can get the house built.

Life decided to put that “simple” plan to the test as we set forth on that adventure. We’ll have more of that backstory to come, but for now, we’re moving forward, for better or worse.

What’s in a name?

Our name emerged out of a joke about what we go to town for most often.

Driving to town for supplies from our campsite, we were laughing about our situation and what we were trekking into civilization for—yet again. Within a few minutes, the inspiration for this site emerged in a flurry of pain-tinged laughter. Ideas came gushing forth with the force of a firehose. That little seed grew into a sapling, and beyond, at lightning speed.

When life hands you lemons, start another website

Obviously we didn’t set out as full-time RV-ers with the intention of becoming RV bloggers. We already had more than enough on our plates to handle. But when life on the road presents such rich content and you’re storytellers at heart, suddenly you realize you have a lot to share.

We thought we might do this nomad thing for awhile in the midst of building out the property. Since that hasn’t played out as we would have liked, we found ourselves on the road indefinitely, houseless, and with experiences and stories to share.

We’re no strangers to sharing our stories. We already have well-established presences on Val in Real Life and Sierra Mountain Passes. But we realized early on that our screwed up and utterly non-deliberate path is a story that deserves its own space.

Yes, this is different. This is in-the-raw experience and storytelling from a two-person perspective of life as nomads that doesn’t fit into those other outlets.

Not your average RV blog

We’ve done almost everything wrong. Even as experienced outdoor travelers in so many other contexts (motorcycle camping, backcountry camping and backpacking, road-schooling, front-country camping, family camping, etc.), life on the road as full-time nomads has been our nemesis.

We have no notions about being the how-to gurus. That’s not our gig. There are plenty of how-to sites out there run by folks who are way the hell savvier than we are. And clearly we’re not very good at this so far.

So we’ll be less “how-to” and more “why-to” here. We will share some of our triumphs as we’ve figured out solutions to our challenges. We’ll also share our campfire stories, struggles, mistakes, fumbles, recoveries, and grudging successes with honesty. Maybe you can benefit from our mistakes. Or at least laugh along with us—one happy hour at a time.

Cheers!

Update:

After 19-1/2 months, we called our full-time adventure done. We settled down in Silver City, New Mexico and re-embraced the travel adventures we’re actually good at—motorcycling, camping, exploring the outdoors.

We still have an endless supply of stories to write, full-timing foibles to confess, and now, a new set of adventures to navigate as we renovate our small fixer-upper house. 

Life on the road may be over, but the need for propane and bourbon is not.